And then hang your leg.
You sit at the edge of the window.
Sit at the edge of the window, just don't fall out.
We don't have fall, there are five units.
Am I good to start, Pastor?
10-30.
You didn't like it?
Before you get started, just make an announcement.
Yeah, let me know when you're ready.
Come unto me, shall we gather at the river.
This is my Father's world.
Can you back it up a little bit?
Well, I'm standing here, you know what I mean?
That's pretty close.
Tim, can you hear me?
We're good.
All right, everyone, can I get your attention?
We're going to start church here.
Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
You can find your seats and grab your song books.
Should have one in the chairs by you.
Also, if you have any young children that you feel comfortable with placing up here,
we'd really appreciate that just to make more room for everyone to sit down.
There's plenty of room for the kids up here,
as long as you think that they're old enough to behave and sit here.
But if you'll turn in your hymnals to song 274,
come unto me.
274, come unto me.
Song 274, come unto me.
Hear the blessed Savior on the first.
Hear the blessed Savior calling the oppressed.
O ye heavy laden, come to me and rest.
Come no longer tarry, I your load will bear.
Bring me every burden, bring me every care.
Come unto me.
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you.
Hear me and be blessed.
I am meek and lowly.
Come and trust my might.
Come, my yoke is easy.
And my burden's light.
Are you disappointed wandering here and there?
Dragging chains of doubt and loaded down with care.
Do unholy feelings struggle in your breast?
Bring your cares to Jesus.
He will give you rest.
Come unto me.
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you.
Hear me and be blessed.
I am meek and lowly.
Come and trust my might.
Come, my yoke is easy.
And my burden's light.
Stumbling on the mountain, dark with sin and shame.
Stumbling toward the pit of hell's consuming flame.
I love powers of sin, deluded and oppressed.
Hear the tender shepherd come to me and rest.
Come unto me.
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you.
Hear me and be blessed.
I am meek and lowly.
Come and trust my might.
Come, my yoke is easy.
And my burden's light.
Have you by temptation, often conquered, been?
Has a sense of weakness brought distress within?
Christ will sanctify you if your claim is best.
In the Holy Spirit he will give you rest.
Come unto me.
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you.
Hear me and be blessed.
I am meek and lowly.
Come and trust my might.
Come, my yoke is easy.
And my burden's light.
Great singing. Let's have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day.
Thank you for our church.
Thank you for a place that we're able to be gathered.
I pray that you just bless our church.
Help us to continue to be steadfast.
Help us to continue to not hold back on preaching the truth of the word of God.
And I pray that you just help everyone prepare our hearts to hear the message this morning.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, for our second song is song 64, Shall We Gather at the River.
Song number 64, Shall We Gather at the River.
Shall we gather at the river Where bright angel feet have trod
With its crystal time forever Flowing by the throne of God
Yes, we'll gather at the river The beautiful, the beautiful river
Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God
On the bosom of the river Where the Savior King we own
We shall meet in sorrow never Meet the glory of the throne
Yes, we'll gather at the river The beautiful, the beautiful river
Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God
Ere we reach the shining river Lay we every burden down
Grace our spirits will deliver And provide a robe and crown
Yes, we'll gather at the river The beautiful, the beautiful river
Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God
Soon we'll reach the shining river Soon our pilgrimage will cease
Soon our happy hearts will quiver With the melody of peace
Yes, we'll gather at the river The beautiful, the beautiful river
Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God
This morning, and there's still a few seats here and there, so if you would like to kind
of scoot in or whatever, if you see somebody that needs to get a seat, and one of our ushers
will help you get in there. On the front, we have our Bible memory passage,
and then on the inside we have our service and soul winning times.
All the soul winning times should still be meeting at the same time.
Regional soul winning times are going to be meeting in different parts of the city.
As far as the church wide soul winning time, our Sunday time will just be at the location
that we have our services, so we'll be meeting in the same place that we have our services
on Sunday, and then the ladies time, you can just get in touch with my wife,
and she'll let you know the location that y'all will be meeting, and then Wednesdays,
the exact same thing, wherever we're having services, we'll just meet there at 5.15,
and then we'll go out soul winning. As far as Saturday goes, just see brother West,
and he'll let you know where they'll be meeting for the Saturday time,
and make sure to still report all of your soul winning totals to your captain,
so that way your soul winning captain, that way, or lieutenant, however they have that configured,
but just make sure to report those totals so we can get our spreadsheets updated,
and give them your maps, that way we can get that. On the right, we have our list of expecting ladies,
and we'll continue to pray for all of them. We also have our prayer list.
The baby shower for the Brooks is on Saturday, March 12th, and if you're planning on attending,
it is nursing's only due to limited space. As far as location, again, just see my wife,
and she's going to email everybody that information that's planning on attending.
On the back, we have the note about our upcoming events. It's still my goal to have
the winning seminar March 24th, 25th, and 26th, the location to be determined.
So you just need to worry about the dates on that one. Also, our soul winning marathon in April 2nd,
College Station. We also have the home school field trip, the 29th, and then the 21st,
we have the Austin, Texas soul winning marathon. Down below, we have the list about our soul winning
tribe competition, and it's still going on. Now you not only have to have a convert,
we just see here's water, and then we'll get it. Jason told me he saw some water, so all right.
So if we need to get it done, we'll get it done.
The best announcement, congratulations to Brent and Cassandra Southard on the birth of their daughter, Audrey Kay.
She was born the 4th at 11.21 a.m., weighing 7 pounds, 11 ounces, and measuring 21 inches long.
Congratulations again.
I do believe there is a meal train, if you would like to help them with that.
You can see my wife on the Facebook group. I think she can give you that information,
or I believe Mrs. Milstead usually has that information as well.
So as far as just our church services, I just plan on emailing those out to everybody
before we have our services, and then you can just show up, all right?
Looks like we have a packed house this morning. Thanks so much for being here,
and I'm really excited to preach this morning. We'll go ahead and go to our third song.
Brother Oz is going to lead for us.
All right, let's turn to 472. This is My Father's World.
472.
Song 472, This is My Father's World.
This is my father's world, and to my listening ears,
All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my father's world, and to my listening ears,
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, his hand the wonders wrought.
This is my father's world, the birds their carols raise.
The morning light, the lily white, declare their maker's praise.
This is my father's world, he shines in all that's fair.
In the rustling grass I hear him pass, he speaks to me everywhere.
This is my father's world, oh let me ne'er forget,
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler again.
This is my father's world, the battle is not done,
Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be won.
Are the offering plates being passed around?
As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 3.
Philippians chapter 3, we'll read the full chapter before the sermon.
Follow along silently in your Bible, starting at verse 1.
Philippians chapter 3, the Bible reads,
Finally my brethren, rejoice in the Lord, to write the same things to you.
To me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.
Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.
For we are the circumcision, which worship God of the Spirit,
and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh,
if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more.
Circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
and Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee,
concerning zeal, persecuting the church,
touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless.
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings,
being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect,
but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded,
and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us foreign and sampled.
For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction,
whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame,
who mind earthly things, for our conversation is in heaven,
from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body,
according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity that we have to come here and listen to the word of God being preached.
I just pray, Lord, that you would help us to pay attention to the message of this morning,
that you would fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit, and, Lord, that we would apply the message to our Christian lives.
And in Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Amen.
Well, we're here in Philippians, chapter number 3, the Bible reads in verse number 1,
Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord, to write the same things to you.
To me, indeed, is not grievous, but for you it is safe.
Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.
And we have a passage here that kind of outlines three different enemies.
And this is, I don't know if you realize, the New Testament.
And so the title of my sermon this morning is this, New Testament Enemies.
New Testament Enemies.
And really, I'm just going to get from this text, our points are outlined for this morning.
We've got three enemies that are very clearly lined out in the New Testament.
You have dogs, you have evil workers, and you have the concision.
And these are enemies in the New Testament, they're enemies in the Bible, they're enemies in reality.
And unfortunately, there's this brand of Christianity out there that does not believe there's such thing as an enemy in the New Testament.
That actually everybody's on our team, and on our side, and we just love everybody, and everybody's good-hearted, and everybody does good.
And that's just completely false. The Bible makes it abundantly clear there's going to be enemies, and not just like in the Old Testament, also in the New Testament.
Now, go if you would to Matthew chapter number 13, go to Matthew chapter number 13 this morning.
And I want to make it clear who these enemies are.
And then I want to kind of at the end just give you a little bit of an admonition of how do we address these enemies that we have to face.
But in Matthew chapter 13, this is Jesus Christ speaking. He says in Matthew chapter 13, look at verse 25.
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
So, he's giving a parable, and he's talking about there being tares sown amongst the wheat.
And this is very clearly explained as being the devil. Now, skip forward a little bit in this chapter.
It says in verse number 38, the field is the world. So, this parable, and I'm just quickly going over it,
there's a wheat field, and then tares are in the wheat field, and the servants are like, where did all these tares come from?
And Jesus is going to explain that this is just simply a parable of reality.
And the field, the harvest field, or the wheat field, is not just talking about crops here, it's talking about people.
When it says the field is the world, it's talking about all the people in the world.
And it says the good seed are the children of the kingdom.
So, all the wheat crop, that is saved, born again, Bible believing Christians.
And then it goes on a little bit further, and it says, but the tares are the children of the wicked one.
The enemy that sowed them is the devil.
So, there is a bad seed, there is a bad fruit crop that's in this world, and they are tares in the wheat.
They are sown by the devil himself. They are children of the devil.
And for you to deny that there's children of the devil walking among us is to deny the clear, red letters of your Bible.
Because Jesus Christ made it abundantly clear that the world was going to have saved believers,
and it was going to have children of the devil.
Now, obviously, this does not encompass every person on the planet, okay?
Because then there's also going to be people that haven't been pushed into either of those camps yet.
There's other people that are just in the wings, and this is the majority of people in the world.
Probably just, this is my personal opinion, but just my personal opinion is that about 5% of the world is saved,
and about 5% of the world is a reprobate, okay, is the children of the devil.
And then about the 90% that's left over, we're all fighting for, okay?
And I'm just throwing out numbers out there. If you disagree, you can disagree with me all day long.
But I do believe that the majority of people are not in either of these camps.
The vast majority of people are not either just completely damned to hell already.
They're not a child of the devil yet, and there's other people that are not saved yet.
We're fighting for that large crop that's out there, for that 90 plus percent that's available.
And, you know, when those people are a personal enemy, we're supposed to love them.
That's what the Bible teaches.
You know, and it makes sense that Jesus would say, love your enemy when 90 plus percent of the population that's your enemy you're supposed to love.
But then he clearly outlines places in the Bible where there's a handful of people,
there's a small group of people that are the enemies of the Lord, that are the tares amongst the wheat that we do not love.
Now, go over to 2 Chronicles chapter 19. Go to 2 Chronicles chapter 19.
Now, I'm wanting to focus mostly in the New Testament.
But here's the thing. In the Bible, it says that the Old Testament was written for our admonition.
And I think some people, they're really confused about the timeline of the Bible with reality.
The timeline of the Bible with reality.
Whenever people were living through any of the books of the Bible, they didn't already have that book of the Bible to look at.
They weren't looking at the Bible and saying like, oh, Daniel chapter 4, you know, you're Daniel chapter 5, I'm about to be thrown in the lion's den.
But praise God, I'm going to be rescued out of it.
He didn't have that book of the Bible to just go ahead and read.
We're reading about it after the fact.
All the kings in the Chronicles, they're written as historical facts and recorded in scripture after all the events took place with the kings.
Moses didn't have a manual to say like, oh, these people aren't going to listen and we're going to be stuck in this wilderness? That sucks.
Now obviously at times, God would deliver a prophetic word to his messengers and they would be able to kind of forecast or tell what was going to happen in the future.
But they didn't have just a complete full King James Bible in their hand that they're just looking at and reading.
So you have to ask this question, why do we have the Old Testament then?
If it wasn't for them at the present, then who was it really for?
Well, the Bible tells us very clearly that it was written for our admonition.
So if there's a ton of enemies in the Old Testament, let me tell you why it's recorded.
Because there's going to be a ton of enemies in the New Testament that are the exact same kind of people.
There's going to be a Pharaoh in the New Testament.
There's going to be a Cain in the New Testament.
There's going to be Sodomites in the New Testament.
There's going to be everything that you can imagine.
There's going to be Hophni and Phinehas and there's going to be a Korah and there's going to be an Absalom.
And I mean, we're just going to have Hamans, we're just going to have Judas.
And we're going to have all of it.
It's not like, oh, well, that's Old Testament.
Yeah, he's trying to tell you what the New Testament is going to be like.
He's trying to tell you what the world and the reality is like.
So when we read an Old Testament story that's about an enemy, we can apply that to ourselves because it's applicable for us.
2 Corinthians, or I'm sorry, 2 Chronicles 19, the Bible says in verse 2,
And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat,
Shouldst thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.
So notice, according to the Bible, and we don't even need the context because it's self-explanatory,
he's saying, should you help ungodly people? And the answer is rhetorical because the answer is clearly no.
Why would I want to help someone that's being ungodly?
And why would I love someone that hates God?
Why would I want to do good under those that are hating God?
That means that I don't love God because you can't love everything, my friend.
The Bible says that God is love. No one is more loving than God, but even God himself hates.
Why? Because you can't love everything.
You can't love good and evil. You can't love righteousness and wickedness.
You can't love the child-molesting predator and children. You can't.
And what kind of sick and insane world do we live in? Oh, love is love.
That's a meaningless platitude, my friend. God is love.
But you know what? Love hates sometimes.
Because if God is love, then you know what? He's going to hate things that are not pure, that are not righteous,
that are not godly, that are not expedient. God doesn't love filth. God doesn't love abomination.
God doesn't love evil. God loves that which is right.
And when someone is of the devil, when someone is wicked, when someone hates the Lord,
the Bible makes it abundantly clear you're not to love that person.
You're not supposed to go and help them. You're not supposed to go and hand them water bottles.
You're not supposed to feed these people. You're not supposed to encourage these people.
You're not supposed to do anything good under those people. You should hope for their destruction.
You say, ah, I can't believe you'd hope for their destruction. Just read Psalms, okay?
I mean, you just let any Psalm fall open, and it's just he's praying for the wicked to die.
He's praying for the destruction of the workers. How in the world can you literally tell me
that there's no one to hate, there's no one to pray for the destruction when the Bible is full of it?
I mean, I'm just thinking, like, what Bible do you even read? What book are you even looking at?
But here's the reality. Our country doesn't know the Bible. They are Christian in name only.
And they're losing that name anyways. I don't even know if it's considered Christian anymore.
But, you know, in the state of Texas, in this area, they would claim to be Christian.
In fact, when you go and knock on doors, doesn't almost every single person tell you they go to church?
I mean, I would say 90 plus percent of people tell me they go to some kind of a church, don't they?
And they probably have a Bible in their home. And let me tell you something, they don't know jack squat in the Bible.
They don't know any of the verses. They don't know any of the context. They've just heard a couple Bible stories,
and they've been so twisted and perverted, they would be horrified and shocked if they actually read the words of the Bible.
They would be horrified and shocked if Jesus Christ or the Apostle Paul or any of the men of God got up and started preaching what they just said in this.
If David just got up and started singing his imprecatory songs, they'd be thinking, like, what is this guy singing?
And you know how I know that? Because when we sing Psalms 139 and we have visitors, they're kind of like...
Why? Because they've been so brainwashed. You know, other countries and other nations in this world are not confused about the word hate.
I mean, do you really think that the Muslims are like, we don't hate Christians or we don't hate America?
China doesn't hate anybody. I mean, every nation hates someone. Every country hates someone.
And let me tell you what, virtually every country hates America. Why?
Because America goes around and tries to pretend like it's so godly and it's so Christian and it loves the Lord, all at the same time promoting the worst filth and abomination in this world.
I mean, show me the nations that are just praising and celebrating filth more than America and shipping it out across the entire world.
Hollywood's just propaganda and all kinds of evil and just satanic music. I mean, you go to other countries and we got their...
It's American restaurants, American music, American just... Every film. I mean, virtually every... Our TV stations, our sports, you know, our athletes.
I mean, they celebrate and praise all of our athletes. Why? Because we are just mass shipping ungodliness and it causes people to hate America because you know why?
Sin is our approach to any nation. Even the unsaved Muslim can see sin for what it is.
And he still has the law of God written on his heart and he still looks at America and says like, man, you guys are disgusting and you make Christianity have a bad name.
Catholics make Christianity look bad. And you know what? Unfortunately, Christians are making Christ look horrible in this nation.
And we need to rebrand Christianity with people that actually believe the Bible. Show them what real Christianity actually looks like and sounds like.
Because you know what? You go into a courtroom and people hear real Christianity coming through the loudspeaker and they're horrified.
Whereas in this country, in this nation, it was screened from all the pulpits. Not that long ago. Not that far in the past.
But you know what? It's changing because we're seeing a great falling away from truth, my friend.
And I don't know how far it's going to go, but when I read in my Bible, I'm scared that it could get a lot worse.
Go to Matthew chapter number seven. Go to Matthew chapter number seven. And here's one of the worst ones, is the enemy called dogs.
You realize in Sodom, it was like 99.9% of the men. That's scary. I mean, I don't even know how you live in a society like that.
You know how you survive in a society like that? You have to be like Lot where you never talk to anybody, apparently. And you never judge anybody.
He was the last Christian standing because he wouldn't open his mouth. Because any godly person would have been thrown out of there and killed way earlier.
I mean, you just have to hold it all in. But you know what? That's a stupid way to live. What did it profit anything?
What is the fruit of Lot's ministry? Incestual bastard children. I mean, what is this crap?
Oh, and those nations turned out real good. Feminism. Lot brings in feminism and he brings in all kinds of abortion later through his generations.
I mean, hit the children of Lot. They are some of the most wicked people on the planet and they are passing their children through the fire and just murdering their babies.
I mean, this is the fruit of modern day Christianity. And you know what? There's a plenty of Lot Christians out here to just let their whole congregation just to commit all kinds of fornication and abortion and everything else.
I've seen all kinds of Christian ministries. They say, hey, we're not pro-life. We're in the gray. Like, what does that even mean?
You know, and it's hard to find Christian ministries, honestly, that are all the way pro-life. Like, they pretty much, they all have like kind of a line.
You know, it's like six months, three months, you know, one month, six weeks. Here's my question. How about one day?
But you know what? How many churches do the majority of the congregation use birth control?
I mean, it's using birth control. I mean, it's killing at least six-day-old babies all the time. I guess it's, you know, how pro-life are you when you're fine with flushing down a six-day-old baby?
I mean, what? It's sad, the condition in the world that we live in today. And everybody wants to think that they have standards, but then you actually apply real-world examples and they realize they don't actually have any standards. They're just hypocrites.
Now, when we talk about New Testament enemies, there's one that's just always been an enemy and always will be an enemy. It's dogs.
Now, I think that people get confused about this because I heard somebody tell me, it's like, when did Jesus ever call someone a dog?
And I'm like, in the Bible, you know? Let's look at Matthew chapter 7, look at verse 6.
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs. Oops.
Now, here, this is what I want to know. You know, there's so many questions I would love to ask liberal Christians, but this is definitely up there.
I would just like to be, who are the dogs? And who let the dogs out? You know?
I mean, they were in the pound. People didn't want them out. You know who let them out? Christians did. Baptist did.
The weak, cowardly men just let a bunch of dogs out, and you know what? Jesus is saying, hey, I guess since the dogs are out, make sure to not give that which is holy unto the dogs.
How dare you not preach the gospel to them? Well, what did Jesus say? What am I not supposed to give to who?
What does he say next? Neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.
Now, here's the thing. There is a place in the Bible where dogs could simply be referring to the heathen, the Gentiles, okay?
We have a woman coming unto Jesus and saying even the breadcrumbs are, you know, fall off the table, the dogs get some of those.
She's talking about just being a non-Jew. Well, let's think about this logic for half a second.
Let's say that Jesus here is saying Gentiles, so really the gospel wasn't supposed to go to the Gentiles?
I think you have the wrong application on your dog here. I know what dog you're talking about.
Go to Deuteronomy 23. Let me explain to you what breed of dog we're talking about here. What kind of canine.
Deuteronomy chapter number 23. And again, you know, these verses are not verses that people like, but they're in the Bible.
And I thought that Matthew 7 is the New Testament. It's Jesus. Why can't we try to figure out what Jesus meant?
Oh, maybe we need to get a commentary. That's what we should do, right? Let's go get a commentary to tell us what Matthew chapter number 7 says.
Or let's let the Bible tell us what Matthew chapter number 7 is telling us. How about Deuteronomy 23 verse 17?
There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow, for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God.
Now you want to know something? This is exactly what God wants in the New Testament. Did you realize that? Because you know what?
Fornicators aren't welcome in the church. So if there's a whore, she's supposed to be thrown out until she repents and gets back in.
And then on top of that, the sodomites never allowed in for any vow. Oh, I promise I'm saved. Nope, get away. I love the Lord. No, you don't.
Get away from me. Love is love. No, there's no promise you could make. There's nothing you can say. You're never welcome. Go away.
I just can't wait until you just go to hell. Because there's no place for them. They're just a ranging, roaming dog that's good for nothing.
Go to 1 Kings 15. Now let me explain this because people say, ah, you just cherry pick verses out of the Bible. We're all sinners, Pastor Shelley.
Okay, we're all sinners. Yep. If that's true, then nobody can serve God. Let's make that stupid application.
Why would he say, hey, here's a group of people, they can't even come worship me, period. Well, we're all sinners.
Well, I guess then we'll just all be like the children of Israel when Moses came and they're like, you go talk to God. No, no, no, no.
You don't have to be perfect to serve God. But you know what? There's certain people that are described as dogs that are not allowed to worship God.
They should have nothing to do with serving and worshiping God. Now, let me make a couple of points about this passage that we're going to read here
because it really helps you understand there's a huge difference between these people in the eyes of all generations.
Obviously, back then there was a huge difference, right? He's saying they're not welcome, period. Okay?
Let's fast forward into the King's timeline and let's see how they view it. 1 Kings 15, let's look at verse number 11.
And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father. So not only did Asa do this, David did this.
Okay? Verse 12, and he took away the Sodomites out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
And also Maacah's mother, even her he removed from being queen because she had made an idol in a grove.
And Asa destroyed her idol and burned it by the brook Kidron.
Now, this is what I hadn't thought about this before, but I was thinking about this verse or these verses.
And when a righteous king would come in, he's trying to clean up the mess from the previous people, okay?
Everybody's in sin. And some of these sins are really horrible, okay? Like graven images.
Now, when a king would clean up the sin of graven images, what did he do?
He destroyed the graven images and he would kill all the priests of that particular false religion.
But you know what he did not do? He did not kill the idolaters themselves.
He didn't kill all the people that worshiped the idol.
He broke the idol and destroyed the idol and destroyed the priests of that idol.
But all the people that went a whoring after it in sin, you know what?
He wasn't gonna just kill all the people for that.
They basically are still gonna have a chance to turn back the Lord and serve God and get right with God.
And praise the Lord that God doesn't just kill idolaters.
Because then all the Gentiles would have been wiped out at some point.
But you know what? He let the Gentiles turn from idols to the living God and they got saved in the New Testament, didn't they?
But then when it came to sodomites, he didn't say, oh, let's just get you saved.
No, he just got them out of the land.
Just, oh, all sinners are equal.
Then why is he getting rid of the sodomites and keeping the idolaters?
And in fact, idolaters in your Bible are also not welcome in the church.
But you know what? When they repent, they can come back.
But guess what happens to the sodomites? They're not on that plan.
And you know, some people, they're like, oh, when did Jesus bring this up, bring that up.
It's like, look, he already dealt with it.
Why does he have to keep bringing it up?
It's like, hey, just put these people to death and have nothing to do with them.
What more do you have to say?
Well, he didn't bring up how to deal with those people.
Yeah, because they're not supposed to be alive.
Why would I have to worry about it?
You know, it's kind of like this with the divorce and remarriage.
There's not all these weird places in the Bible where it's trying to describe what to do
when your spouse is in adultery and you're not,
and if you stay married to them or not or whatever, how that works.
Because the adulterer was put to death.
So it's like, how do we explain all the other scenarios?
There shouldn't be other scenarios.
We've already dealt with that.
So then when it brings up the other scenarios, it's like the caveat's like an annulment
or something else that's kind of an unusual situation.
And they're trying to fit all of their agenda into those.
But it's like, God already explained that. Move on.
Once he's already explained how to deal with all those people, you just move on.
I don't need a hundred verses saying the same thing.
He already told me.
And then we see the example.
They're not saying like, well, I don't know if that's how he felt.
No, just get them out.
Because the Bible says he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.
Go to 2 Kings chapter 23.
Let me prove this one more time, okay?
2 Kings chapter number 23.
And you say, well, why would God do such a thing?
Look, if you're a hater of God and you want nothing to do with him,
why would God want anything to do with you?
Isn't that weird when people hate you and then they just follow you around
and obsess about you and want to hear everything that you have to say?
It's like people I hate, I'm like, get away from me.
I don't care about you. I'm not interested in you.
Stay away from me.
Who's the real harassment?
Who's the real bully?
Who's the real predator?
The one that's hunting you down and trying to seek you out.
2 Kings chapter 23, look at verse 5.
And he put down the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the city of Judah,
and the places round about Jerusalem.
Them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun and to the moon and the planets and all the hosts of heaven.
And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord without Jerusalem under the brook Kidron,
and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder,
and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
So, again, the king's cleaning up the place.
He kills the idolatrous priests.
But if you remember in the previous story, when his mom had made an idol and worshipped her or whatever,
he didn't kill her. He just said, you can't be queen anymore.
You know, you removed her from positions of leadership.
But then, look what he says in verse 7.
And he break down the house of the Sodomites that were by the house of the Lord,
where the women wove graves for the grove.
So it's like, hey, we're going to get rid of the Sodomites and their houses.
Why? Because they don't want to get HIV.
They're not interested in getting AIDS.
Because what happened there was so gross and disgusting,
it's like, we didn't want to repurpose the space.
Just break it down. Just destroy it.
Have nothing to do with it. It's wicked. It's evil.
Go to Job chapter 31. Go to Job chapter 31.
Point one is this. There are enemies in the New Testament and their dogs.
Why would Philippians say beware of dogs?
And again, further evidence of the fact that we're not talking about Gentiles.
Because if the apostle Paul is just saying carte blanche, beware of all Gentiles.
Like, what's the point of that?
They're supposed to go and preach to the Gentiles.
They're supposed to try and get the Gentiles saved.
Now, obviously the Bible does say things like beware of men.
But it's just saying, like, you should just, in general, be on alert that there's bad people out there.
It's not just saying, like, every guy's a bad guy.
Because Jesus is making fun of the clear.
You go to some places and they love the word of God.
They receive you into their house. Then you go to other places and man, do they love the devil.
Man, do they love that which is wicked and holy.
And you're supposed to just shake off the dust of your feet and move on.
And have nothing to do with that person ever again.
But there was a second group. The second group was evil workers.
Now, that exact phrasing, evil workers, is only found one time in your Bible.
But I believe there's a very similar phrase that explains this particular passage.
And that would be workers of iniquity. Workers of iniquity.
And this is a very special class of people in your Bible.
They're described as being, you know, not just a regular sinner here.
These are sinners exceedingly.
These are people that are doing just the worst kinds of abominations and evil in this world.
And the Bible says there are just people. Their whole goal in life is just to be evil.
You know, and to me, some people that kind of really encapsulate this would be like your drug lords and rapists.
And just, you know, even sometimes white collar people.
Some of these politicians that they won't get their hands dirty.
But boy, will they hire all the murderers and all the evil and drag people into wars.
And they don't care about just selling drugs on the side.
Just anything and everything. Killing people. No problem.
Those are your evil workers. Those are your workers of iniquity.
And the Bible says in Job 31 verse 3,
Is not destruction to the wicked and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?
So according to the Bible, there's a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity.
Also signifying that this group of people are not normal sinners.
Why would the Bible say there's a strange punishment to all sinners?
Because then it wouldn't be strange. Then it would be common.
So for an order to be strange punishment, it means it's not common.
This is an unusual thing that's happening.
And it's happening to an unusual group of people.
Workers of iniquity, which is a specific group of people.
Go up into Psalms chapter 5. Go to Psalms chapter 5.
Now, some people would think, oh, the New Testament says love your enemy.
Well, so does the Old Testament.
And the Bible even says you're not supposed to rejoice when your enemy stumbleth.
Now, that would be really strange to take that proverb
and then apply it to a lot of the Psalms that David's written.
Because David's getting real excited about the destruction of his enemies.
So that's why a parable in the mouth of fools,
it's like as a thorn goes in the hand of a drunkard,
so is a parable in the mouth of fools what the Bible says.
So, of course, people want to twist the Bible and throw verses out there.
And let me tell you something. If you don't read the Bible,
you can get confused very quickly.
Because people just throw verses at you and throw little cute quotes
and cute little sayings. And because you haven't read the Bible,
because you don't know the context,
because you haven't looked at the entire scripture,
you go like, that's confusing. Why?
Because you're just letting evil people twist things in your mind.
You know who loves to do that? The devil.
The devil loves to twist the Bible.
The devil loves to use the Bible out of context.
The devil loves to look at Jesus and say, hey, cast yourself down from the temple.
The angels will bear thee up.
You know, and you're like, oh, cool. Let's start trying that.
No, no, no. That's out of context, my friend.
And you know how Jesus defeated him? With more scripture.
But you know what? If you don't know the scripture,
how can you defeat the lies of the devil?
And guess what the lies are coming from the devil?
The twisting of the Bible.
The devil does not just come around necessarily and just give you flat lies.
He'll try to take a lot of truth and twist it.
Look at Elihu.
You know, and even really Job's friends,
while they might have not been the worst guys ever,
they're kind of doing the same thing that the devil does,
where they take verses from the Bible and they twist them out of context,
out of their proper role, and they confuse people.
So it's important to notice, quote, unquote, contradictions in your Bible
so that you can realize there's a balance to the scriptures.
If it's saying on one hand, hey, don't rejoice when your enemy stumbleth,
and on the other hand, you see David getting all excited about his enemy stumbling,
then you have to say, what's going on?
We're talking about two different kinds of enemies here.
Yeah, your personal enemy.
You know, the guy that rips you off, cuts you off in traffic,
that lies about you, steals from you, whatever.
That guy you're still supposed to love,
and if something bad happens to him, you should be sad about it.
You know, if somebody, let's say there's a guy at your work,
and he lies, he just flat lies to the boss, and your boss fires you.
But then later you find out he got fired.
What would be your natural temptation? Sweet.
Man, did he do, he got what he deserved.
But you know what? The Bible's saying you're not supposed to rejoice when that happens.
You're supposed to say, well that sucks, you know.
I mean, yeah, he shouldn't have been a lying scumbag,
but you know what? I mean, he's still got a family to feed,
he's still got to do things, that's not going to help him in any way.
You know, love cover the multitude of sins,
so he shouldn't want to rejoice when that person stumbles.
Okay, so we get that, and we believe that,
and we practice that to the best of our ability,
and we have to, you know, have a lot of self-constraint
to realize like, man, that's tough, because it is tough
when someone does you wrong, does you dirty, does you evil,
to just turn the other cheek, right?
He asks for your cloak, give him your cloak also, right?
I mean, resist not evil is what the Bible just says, over and over and over.
But you know what? There's a different group of enemy
that, let me tell you something, I do rejoice when they die.
I do rejoice when they stumble.
I do rejoice when bad things happen to them.
In fact, David is praying in the Psalms for his enemy to literally stumble.
And for their table to be a snare and a trap,
and to be a widow and all this, you know, it's not like when Judas died,
the apostles are like, that's real sad.
Like, that guy went to his own place. Hell!
You know, like, finally, we got rid of the stupid loser Judas.
Let's get another guy in here, you know?
Now, Psalms chapter five, let's give you a little bit of context here
before we start reading.
When it's bringing up these enemies, we're not talking about your personal enemy.
We're talking people that hate God, okay?
Psalms chapter five, look at verse number four.
Now, match that up with John 3.16.
You know, the liberal mind would just explode.
It's like John 3.16 and then Psalms five, verse number five.
He hates all workers of iniquity. How does that match up?
Let me tell you how that matches up.
The workers of iniquity reject John 3.16 and hate God, and God hates them.
Notice John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world.
You know what? He loved the hate of iniquity, but then it got to a point where it was just too late,
and then now he just hates them.
He says, oh, you want to reject my love? You want to reject the gospel?
You want to reject that which is holy and righteous, and you want to murder the innocent?
And you want to just rape and pillage and steal and do everything that's wicked?
Guess what? I hate you.
That's what God said. I didn't, you know, I'm just reading you what the Bible says here.
Verse number six. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing.
The Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
Sounds like God hates leases, too.
Leasing there means something deceitful or fraud, okay?
Man, the bloody and deceitful man.
Like saying, hey, you can use this in Baptist church, but don't preach the Bible.
Okay.
Go to chapter six. You don't even have to turn. You're just right there.
Look at chapter six, verse seven.
Mine eye is consumed because of grief.
It waxeth old because of all mine enemies.
Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.
For the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
Now, isn't it interesting that David has the same problem
where all these stupid losers just falling around?
He's like, get away from me.
I'm sick of you. Depart from me.
And he said, look, God's hearing my weeping at night.
Of all these workers of iniquity, these disgusting, filthy, abominable people.
These people that are just wicked and evil and doing wrong.
He's just like, get away from me.
But you know what? They're just attracted to godly people.
Go to Psalms 92.
Go to Psalms 92. Why? Because they like to murder the innocent.
They don't take as much pleasure in murdering wicked people.
Because they're wicked.
They want to find someone good.
You know, Cain doesn't want to kill himself or to kill some other wicked person.
He wants to kill Abel. Why? Because Abel's righteous.
And it just bothers him.
Because you know what? When they look at a righteous person,
it just reminds them how wicked they are.
And how evil they are.
And how much God detests them and hates them.
And you know, it's so funny to me, these people act like they don't care what God thinks.
But oh yes they do.
Because that's why they hate us so much.
They hate us because God loves us.
They hate us because they're filthy and abominable in His sight.
And it just bothers them and it irks them and they just can't stand it.
Why is it that Joseph's brethren didn't like him?
Because they're envious of how his father feels about Joseph.
And you know what? Everyone is envious of how God feels about you in this room right now.
Because God loves you. You are the apple of His eye.
God is pleased with you.
God wants to pour out favor and blessing unto you.
And you know what? He takes great joy in people that are willing to be suffering for His sake.
To take a stand for His sake.
Because there's so few people in this world that will stand up for the Bible,
stand up for the right doctrine, stand up for the Lord Jesus Christ.
So you know what? When there's a few people that say,
Here my Lord, you know what? He takes great joy and great pleasure to say,
Hey, there's people that will still believe the Bible today.
There's people that are still going to be steadfast today.
There's still people that know what is right and holy.
And it doesn't matter how dark this world gets, they're still going to believe the Bible.
You know what? God says, wow.
You know what? God takes great joy knowing there's still people on His side.
You know, it's like, I don't know, the Jacksonville Jaguars fan base.
I mean, even though there's not going to be a few people in the stands out there or something,
you know, it's like, man, they must really like us.
It doesn't matter how many games we lose and how bad we suck or whatever.
How much we're afflicted.
Sorry, Florida teams just are terrible. I don't know what to do with Florida.
There's something wrong with Florida.
Psalm 92, look at verse number 5.
The Bible says, oh Lord, how great are thy works, and thy thoughts are very deep.
A brutish man knoweth not, neither do the fool understand this,
when the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish,
it is that they shall be destroyed forever.
But thou, Lord, art most high forevermore, for lo, thine enemies, O Lord,
for lo, thine enemies shall perish, all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.
Now, you have to understand that the Bible speaks in eternal perspectives.
It doesn't necessarily speak in a in the moment, you know, the next five minutes.
It's kind of looking at it from an eternity's perspective.
And it's saying that the workers of iniquity are like grass when it flourishes.
Now, you know, pretty soon here in this area, the grass is going to really flourish.
I mean, it's going to look great.
You know, we get a lot of rain in this area, so it's usually very green,
and it looks wonderful, it looks great.
But here's the thing, very soon after, that grass is going to look terrible.
It's going to look yellow and dead and matted, and it's going to get cut,
and it's going to be thrown in the fire, and it's just going to all perish.
Okay, so you have to realize, though, that the grass had a moment when it was flourishing.
And this is what I have to tell you.
Right now is when that grass is flourishing for the workers of iniquity,
because there's no other point in time when they're going to be flourishing.
Okay, so you look at it and you say, why is this happening?
Why are they flourishing?
Why are they so thick?
Why is it so beautiful?
Why is it so green?
Why does it just seem like it's got all this favor and blessing?
And then you see the mower just...
You're like, oh, okay.
Then you see the snow come, and it's like, oh, okay.
Then you see the cold winter come, and it just perishes like that.
It just gets destroyed like that.
You just see someone stomp on it, and it just gets destroyed.
And look, from an eternity perspective, these people are like grass where it's going to be nothing.
Our lives are a vapor.
Their lives are the same way.
It's just like the grass that perishes.
It has real no purpose, no value.
But in the moment, we have to realize, yeah, of course you're going to have your day.
Because you know what? Even Jesus had to look at those that were leading him away, leading him astray, and said, this is your hour.
Enemies, evil workers will get their heyday.
They will get their moment to rejoice.
They'll get their moment to be excited.
But you know what? They will be destroyed, and they will be scattered.
Go to Psalms 94. Go to Psalms 94.
Really, it's only but a short space that we can even have setbacks, failures, and tribulation, because 99.9% of our lives are victory.
And being saved is 100% victory.
But at the same time, we're going to have to go through difficulty.
We're going to have to go through struggle.
But it's just a little bit of time.
It's now.
And this is when God gets to measure where he wants to put you, and his eternal landscape is how you do right now.
How do you handle setback?
How do you handle failure?
How do you handle pressure?
How do you handle people that don't like you?
How do you handle the fact that you have to go through a little evil?
And I was telling Dylan, I said, you know, it's been pretty easy for a church to endure what's going on right now,
just from the simple fact that y'all haven't had to really do that much until today.
And what I mean by that is you're still going to the same place and still, you know, rocking and rolling and everything's kind of normal.
Obviously, me and Dylan are running everywhere and trying to get bank accounts and trying to get things set up.
You know, it's been, like, insane.
My life is a complete train wreck.
But, you know, I'm just thinking, like, we show up on Sunday morning, it's kind of the same.
It's business, usual, whatever.
I said, this is when the pain starts, because you don't have that nice plush chair.
You don't have that gorgeous mother-baby room area.
You don't have that ice.
Man, ice.
You have to go to Sunny Act, Zach.
Okay.
You don't have that fresh roasted coffee that Dylan makes for everybody, you know.
We don't have an ice cream machine in the room, you know.
So it's like, so it's a little bit more uncomfortable, right?
You might have to drive further or whatever.
I mean, this is when you get to feel a little bit more pressure.
And, of course, I'm not trying to say that you don't have struggles.
You don't have problems, that it doesn't weigh on you, that it isn't frustrating.
I'm not saying that seeing a bunch of filthy, disgusting dogs when you come into church isn't vexing, okay?
Because it's real vexing, right?
I dream about it a lot.
And it always goes completely different than what we actually did, so.
Right.
Amen.
It's a lot different, okay.
But what I'm trying to say is that, you know what, it's just going to escalate a little bit.
And, you know what, what you should do is you should just kind of enjoy the uncomfortability.
Just enjoy the little bit of just like, this is, I don't know if I like this.
Just say, you know what, I like it.
Yeah.
Because I get to say, hey, you know what, God, I'm still willing to serve you.
Even if it hurts a little bit.
And this is a little bit, okay?
Right.
We're not even having to go out in the wilderness with Saul hunting us down, okay, with the whole army.
That would have been a little bit scarier.
I mean, you know, they couldn't have their church if they got evicted too.
If you think about it.
And they got evicted by a guy that's safe.
That's got to even be more frustrating and confusing, right?
And then they're even more confused because David's like loving Saul.
They're all like, kill him.
Here, get him.
I'll get him.
Can we get him?
I promise I won't miss.
I will smite him and he'll surely die.
We're in the wilderness.
You know, don't you think that was a little frustrating?
Don't you think it was a little vexing?
Don't you think it was a little rough to go sleep in a cave?
You still get to go home to your soft feather bed, okay?
What I'm telling you, though, is I guarantee that was like the coolest experience ever.
I mean, you get back from that, you're just thinking like, yeah.
Remember when we slept on those rocks?
Yeah, it sucked.
It's like your head still kind of looks like it, you know?
Maybe you're just born that way.
I don't know.
But just you have to relish in the uncomfortability a little bit.
Relish in the persecution a little bit.
Rejoice and be happy that you get to suffer a little bit for Jesus Christ's sake, okay?
And realize that in the perspective of eternity, these people will be destroyed.
They will be scattered, okay?
Look at Psalm 94 verse 1.
O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth.
O God, to whom vengeance belongeth.
Psalm 94 verse 1.
O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth.
O God, to whom vengeance belongeth.
Show thyself.
He's like, hey, I want to remind you, you're the God that avenged, you avenged, come on, show up.
Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth.
Render a reward to the proud.
Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?
Man, isn't that sometimes a question you think about.
You know why this is in the Bible?
Because that happens.
It happens where the wicked just triumph and they gloat and they're like, woo!
For a while.
And you're just kind of like, judge, judge.
I mean, think about this.
Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth.
O God, to whom vengeance belongeth.
He's like, do I have to remind you?
Like the vengeance, and it's kind of silly because of course God doesn't need a reminder.
Of course God's got it figured out.
Of course God could just cough and all these things would be fixed.
We get it.
But sometimes it's just kind of like he's showing the human response so that we realize this is normal.
You know, it's time for Christians to go to a new normal where they actually have to suffer a little bit.
Because in America, we've lived in this weird bubble where you can just basically do whatever you want
and no one hates you for it.
It's time that Christians get a little hated again.
It's time that Christians are seen for actually standing up for what the Bible says.
And you know what?
I've never seen it more than lately.
People just hating on the Bible.
They'll look at something that we say or whatever and they'll be like, well, that's the Bible then.
Or bleepity bleep Bible.
Or bleepity Jesus.
I've even seen some of these reprobates, they'll say like, well, I totally disagree with this preacher.
But it is what the Bible says.
And it's like at least they can recognize, hey, we're really kind of displacing our anger here.
We're displacing who we're truly mad at.
It's not really these people, it's just the Bible.
And they're trying to figure out that source.
And pretty soon, this is what you have to understand, pretty soon they'll figure it out.
Because right now they're thinking like, oh, it's just Pastor Shelley.
If we just shut down Pastor Shelley, then we'll cease the problem.
I sure hope not.
I sure hope there's other men that have a backbone, that have a spine today,
that are going to get up and preach the Word of God regardless of what happens.
But you know what, when they start seeing a lot more people rise up, then they start realizing,
oh, it's actually a different problem, it's a Bible problem.
And that's when it'll get real.
That's when we'll actually see how many tears are amongst the wheat.
And it's scary.
It's scary how many there are going to a church today, even in this area.
Texas, it seems like it has a name that has lived, but it seems dead.
I mean, why aren't there more people?
I mean, think about this.
Almost every other church in this area, they own a property and they're not preaching it.
They always say, hey, Pastor Shelley, why don't you buy a property, then you won't have these problems.
And I'm thinking, like, all the people that have one, they're not preaching.
Because you know what, it's not about where you're meeting.
It's about the boldness of the preacher to get up and just preach the Bible.
You know why he's not preaching that?
Because he doesn't want to lose his job.
Because most churches are run by a deacon board.
And one of those deacons has a faggot as a son.
And so he doesn't want to preach what the Bible says.
Look, I went to a fundamental Baptist church where the deacon had a literal faggot for a son and would bring him into the church.
And I think they do, like, rotating deacons.
I think at the moment he wasn't a deacon, but I was just like, previous deacon.
And I'm just thinking, like, what happens when you actually preach the Bible, you know?
Of course, the deacons are usually the guys that have the biggest tithers.
They bring the most money into the church, so you don't want to preach on covetousness.
They got a huge building payment.
They don't run the church.
So what do they do? They don't preach the Bible.
Oh, you can fix it real quick.
Let's get a board, Pastor Shelly, and let's get a building, and let's get all the...
No, no, no. Let's just get a Bible.
It's not a board. It's not a building. It's a Bible. That'll fix the problem.
Why don't we just get men to start reading the Bible again?
Instead of a commentary, instead of what's popular, instead of seeing what the internet has to say,
let's see what the Bible has to say.
And you know what? God makes it clear that these people will be destroyed.
But the question is, how long? Well, look at verse 4.
How long shall they utter and speak hard things?
That sucks. They just say all this stuff that's terrible.
And all the workers of iniquity boast themselves.
Doesn't the Bible seem to be painting a pretty clear picture?
It says in verse number 5, look at this, though.
They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage.
You know, I just have to be honest with you.
There is coming a time in America and in our world
where the enemies will not just verbally assault God's people.
They will physically assault God's people.
That's when you start thinking, like, when is this going to happen?
Like, when are we going to actually, you know, get delivered from these people?
It's going to ramp up, my friend.
And you know, the media is going to say it's justified.
Oh, he deserved it. He's a hate preacher.
Oh, he deserved it. He's a cult member.
Oh, he deserved it because we just don't like him.
Or they just won't cover it.
We'll become the new gangsters and prostitutes.
When they die, no one cares.
It's like, oh, a Baptist died? Who cares?
Did a Jew die?
You know.
What does it say in verse 6?
They slay the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless.
Yet they say the Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.
Look, they just kill people and just murder and steal and do wicked.
And it's like, I mean, look, you have to realize, you start the Bible real quick.
It's like Abel seems like such a good guy and then he just dies.
Isn't that, that was kind of rough.
You read about some great guys in the Bible and they just die.
You're just like, oh, wow.
You know, you're in the book of Acts and it's just like,
and James killed with a sword.
Like, you have to realize there are super evil, wicked people
that they won't just take your money, my friend.
They'll take your head.
John the Baptist. You want to be a Baptist?
He lost his head.
For what? For what he preached.
He's a hate preacher.
Well, you know what? Praise God for John the Baptist.
He wasn't John the Methodist or John the Church of Christ
or John the Catholic.
He was John the Baptist. Why?
Because he preached the Bible.
And you know what? Jesus said there's not a man born among women
that's greater than John the Baptist.
He didn't do a miracle. You know what he did?
He preached the Bible.
Oh, Pastor Shelley, show me the miracles, the signs, the wonders.
No, I'll just yell the Bible.
I don't even like your voice. Who cares?
Because you know what? It doesn't say that John the Baptist had the greatest sounding voice.
He was just loud.
And I know that I'm loud, all right? I know that.
So if you went to Luke chapter 13, go to Luke chapter number 13.
I don't even have a clock, so y'all are in trouble.
I'll wrap it up.
I know y'all are really comfortable, though, so...
Luke 13, look at verse 24.
Strive to enter into the straight gate, for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
When once the mass of the house has risen up and has shut to the door,
and he began to stand without and knock at the door, saying,
Lord, Lord, open unto us, and he shall answer and say unto you,
I know you not whence you are.
Then shall you begin to say,
We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught our streets.
But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence you are.
Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.
Notice, the workers of iniquity don't get into heaven.
Now, here's another clear-cut proof.
This is not talking about just sinners.
Because guess what? All of us are sinners!
And you know what? Sinners get into heaven by grace!
But let me tell you something. The workers of iniquity aren't getting in!
Jesus is saying, Depart from me!
Just like David said, Depart from me!
And you know what? They're going to be scattered,
and they're going to be tossed into hell and burned for all of eternity.
Go if you would to 2 Timothy 3.
So we have three enemies this morning.
Number one is dogs, which is sodomites.
Number two is evil workers.
Now again, evil workers is kind of a tough one for us to really identify.
We don't necessarily know all the evil workers that are out there,
but we sometimes see it come to fruition.
The Hillary Clintons of this world, my friend.
The George Soroses of this world.
And I have Christians tell me, they're just like,
Well, why don't you pray that Hillary gets saved?
And I'm just like, Well, you know, if she's not an evil worker, then none exists.
You know, why don't you pray for Joe Biden to get saved?
How about I pray for him to get sane first?
Because I don't even think you'll know what I'm saying.
And I don't want to wipe his butt, okay?
Look, there's got to be evil workers of iniquity out there, okay?
And I'm not saying that everybody that does bad things,
or is in the corporate scene, or every politician is an evil worker,
but let me tell you what, it's filled with them.
A lot of people in those positions.
And they exist, and you know what?
They're not my buddy. They're not my pal.
They're not someone I'm praying good for.
But you know what? There's probably other kings and leaders
and religious people that you might pray for,
you might hope that they get saved,
and you might give them the benefit of the doubt, you know?
Well, I probably wouldn't give Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe we'd give Putin the benefit of the doubt, you know? I don't know.
So, I know the whole world thinks he's reprobate, and it's fine to hate him,
but I'm like, if I met Putin, I would try to give him the gospel.
If I was around Hillary, I would say, depart from me.
You know? I don't want to be around that.
I don't want to talk to that, okay?
I don't want to talk to Pete Buttigieg, okay?
Get away from me, you freak.
Now, here's the third group, okay?
And these ones are also maybe on the surface.
You can't figure them out, but once you figure them out,
you've got to realize that these people you want nothing to do with,
and it's the concision.
Now, concision, I'm just going to give you my kind of take on this word.
If you have a little bit different take, then you can kind of look at that.
But I'm kind of lumping this in just false religion.
It's kind of a broad term of false religion.
But, concision, like, to be something to be concise,
it's kind of like exact, or it could be talking about, like,
making a cut, or some kind of a division.
So, you could look at concision in a couple ways.
Concision could be like a faction.
It could be like a sect.
It could be like a cult, okay?
But I also believe it could be referring to the Jews, in a sense,
because they're kind of trying to draw people away,
and they're trying to cut people away from the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we see a lot of Judaizing happening in the New Testament.
And when you think about, when he's talking about the concision,
he says, for we are the circumcision, is kind of like the next statement,
kind of implying, like, you know, don't let these fake Jews draw you away,
stick with us, okay?
And so a modern application for us, because we don't have to have,
we don't have all these Jews and everything like that,
but we have fake Christians that are kind of trying to draw you away
from really serving God.
It's like, no, we're Christians.
You're a fake.
You're a phony.
You're an imposter Christian, okay?
But there's a lot of fake Christianity there that wants to take you away
from serving God.
And look, this could happen in forums where you have people creep in,
drawing factions out of the church,
or it could just be the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church,
the Church of Christ.
But you know what?
Fake religion is our enemy today.
And I'm not talking about every person.
I'm talking about the leadership.
Because just like in the Old Testament,
who do we put down?
The idolatrous priests.
But you know what?
Let's try to get the idolatrous saved.
Let's try to get the idolatrous repaired.
Let's love the Catholic and give him the gospel.
But you know what?
The Catholic priests, I want nothing to do with.
You know, and I'm not saying, you know, somebody will bring up this rare exception.
Well, I know this guy who's a Methodist, and then he finally got saved.
Well, praise God he got saved.
Because you know what?
I don't want anyone to go to hell.
But at the same time, let's just be real and honest
that these false prophets and false teachers
are pretty much almost never able to get saved.
Just carte blanche, okay?
And they are our enemies, whether you like it or not.
Now, 2 Timothy chapter 3, look at what it says in verse number 6.
For of this sort are they which creep into houses,
and leave captive silly women, lay with sins, led away with divers lust.
So notice what they're doing.
They're trying to draw people away concise, you know.
They're trying to do some kind of concision to the work of God,
to the body of Christ, drawing certain women away.
It says in verse number 7,
Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,
now as Janus and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth,
men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
And you know what I notice is a little bit of an interesting,
and again, I love women and I love men equally,
but we have our strengths and our weaknesses, okay?
And one of the weaknesses for women apparently is false prophets.
And I'll tell you, I see that.
When you go to these false prophet churches,
there is way more women than there is men.
I mean, especially if it's like Joyce Meyer out there preaching, okay?
But I'm telling you, the Kenneth Copeland followers,
it's a bunch of white-haired women in the congregation.
You don't see just a lot of guys, I mean really,
men don't really go to those kind of churches.
Not a lot of them.
Now I'm not saying you won't find men in those rooms,
I'm not saying you won't find, but it's a bunch of weak, effeminate men.
They're kind of like girls anyways,
so it makes sense that they're following some kind of a loser,
some kind of a freak, some kind of a sissy in skinny jeans up there,
Joel Osteen.
I mean, do you really think if you just took a bunch of men from Joel Osteen's church,
they could even play football?
Or they could even play, I mean, they could even use a hammer or something?
I mean, it's going to be a bunch of sissy-fied, weak men and women following these losers, okay?
And the real men, they just probably don't even pay attention, okay?
Even if you find one in there, he just doesn't, he's not paying attention,
he's just like watching football in the service or something, probably.
But you know, Janice and Jamboree's were real people that are real enemies,
and notice this is the New Testament we're talking about.
And notice they resist the truth.
They're men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
How can Paul say, hey, here's two guys that are reprobate concerning the faith.
Love everyone.
Pray for them.
Pray that they'll get saved.
You know, why didn't Paul do that?
When Paul's addressing these type of people, why didn't he say like, hey, you know,
Moses should have gotten Janice and Jamboree saved, and that's what we're going to do.
No, what did he say?
Hey, exactly like what Moses did with these people is what we're going to do with these people,
and we're going to pray for their destruction.
And you know what, Moses got up and he preached that the earth would just open itself,
and Korah and all his company just fell straight into hell.
They went down quick into the pit, okay?
I mean, so what do you want me to do?
Should I be like Moses and pray for the earth to open and for people to go quick into hell?
Or should I be like Joel Osteen?
I'm going to be like Moses.
You know, I'm not going to let some liberal philosophy, some liberal ideology,
some worldly philosophy tell me what the Bible says.
No, I'm just going to read the Bible and then believe it, no matter what culture says.
Because culture is unreliable.
Culture changes all the time.
Opinions change all the time.
And we have no idea what the past was even like, my friend.
I mean, you know how people decide what the past is like?
They have a handful, they have scraps of literature that are written of just personal accounts,
and then they just decide that's what the entire culture was.
I mean, imagine if we fast forward 200 years from now and we get a couple scraps.
We have Hillary Clinton's personal diary, we have Jeffrey Epstein's personal diary,
we have a couple CNN reports, and then we're supposed to guess what our culture's like.
You would have no idea what the culture's like.
You know why? Because the culture's virtually the same because there's no new thing under the sun.
So when I read about Moses, that's what it's like today.
When I read about David, that's what it's like today.
When I read about Haman, because people are people.
Hey, you know what? The names may have changed, sometimes they didn't.
You know, the places might have changed, but sometimes they didn't.
You know what? The same situations are the same situations.
It's the same adultery, it's the same fornication, it's the same lying, it's the same theft, it's the same murder.
Notice that there isn't any sin that we can even think of that the Bible doesn't tell us about.
There's no evil that the Bible didn't already prescribe because it already knew everything was going to ever happen.
I mean, what book has a complete list of all sin, of all evil that you could possibly think of?
It's the Bible.
Not these other fake religions and false religions.
And modern Christianity doesn't even believe in enemies.
It's weird, because it's all over the New Testament.
I mean, what am I supposed to do with every story when it's just like enemy of...
I mean, you think about the New Testament itself.
Jesus, most of his preaching is against people.
He's just ripping on the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Won't you be like, Jesus, well, who do you want to rip on next?
What about the lawyers? Let's rip on the lawyers.
Boy, am I getting a special love for them.
Lately.
Boy, do I love the judicial system.
Boy, do I just... I mean, who do you want to rip on next?
I mean, you get to Revelation, and Jesus is giving this instruction to John,
and he calls the synagogue of Satan.
Are you confused with who they are?
Oh, let's get them saved.
Let's pray for the synagogue of Satan.
I have so much notes, I don't even want to preach all this, okay?
Is this too much? I'll give you a couple highlights.
I want you to go to...
If I can ever get to my notes.
Let's just go to 2 Thessalonians, chapter number 3, and we'll finish there, okay?
I'll just remind you that the Apostle Paul, in the book of Acts, when traveling and preaching,
he ran into a guy named Elias, and he cursed him.
And caused blindness to come on him.
For being an enemy of the gospel.
I would love to ask these modern-day Christians, who's your Elias?
They're like, how dare you curse anybody?
I saw someone put this stupid comment like, whenever I shook the dust off my feet at our last place,
they're like, how dare you have a curse on anybody?
You don't believe the Bible.
And I'm like, I just read for you what Jesus said for me to do.
Like, you know, because you read something from Paul, they're like, well, that's Paul.
What did Jesus say?
And then you go to the New Testament, it's like, well, that wasn't the red letters.
So then you go to the red letters.
It's like, what do you want?
Okay, you just don't believe the Bible.
Because when you read Jesus' words, he didn't just say, hey, when they reject the Bible.
He said, when they don't receive you.
And let me ask you a question.
Why would you not receive a Bible-believing, born-again Christian for any reason?
I mean, maybe you have your 1 Corinthians 5 list, but if that's off the table,
if they're not in a church-discipline situation, why would you not receive?
If they're going to reject you on something that has nothing to do with what the Bible already prescribed,
you know what, that just shows you that they're wicked.
That shows you that they're evil.
And whether they're saved or unsaved, I don't really care,
because Jesus just said to shake off the dust anyways.
You know, at the end of the day, everyone that dies without Jesus is a reprobate.
Okay, it's not like, well, yeah, but there's the reprobates.
It's like, look, the sweet little lady who goes to a Catholic church and rejects Jesus her whole life,
she's a reprobate at that point.
And when they don't receive you, God is going to punish them.
God is going to pour out His wrath on them.
And He's saying, hey, I want to witness.
Because you know what, God is a good judge.
God doesn't let bad evidence into heaven.
God doesn't let hearsay into heaven.
God doesn't let lies come into heaven.
God doesn't let lawyers get up and twist the context of what people actually said.
No, God's going to let real evidence into the courtroom.
And guess what, He's going to let Bible-believing Christians be replayed in the courtroom heaven
and say, here's a Bible-believing Son of God who had to shake off the dust of His feet
because He just rejected my word.
That's what He's going to literally do.
And say, hey, hey, you come up here.
Hey, remember when you shook off the dust?
It's like, yep.
Because you know what, I'm not going to lie then.
Yeah, I remember that.
Let's get it on the big speakers.
You know, the Bible says that they're going to have to give an account of every idle word.
And why would He say, look, hey, I want you to do this as a witness against them for me.
Do it.
Because it's nice when someone does you wrong, when someone does the evil and you saw it,
that you get up and you say, hey, I saw that.
Hey, you have witness testimony on your side.
That's how the law even works.
You had to have out of the mouth of two or three witnesses for anybody to be punished,
for anybody to be condemned.
And you know what, there's going to be a lot of witnesses for these actions, for these works.
And if you don't believe there's enemies in the New Testament, it's because you didn't believe,
you don't read the Bible.
You just have, you know what you do?
You have a devotional book that cherry-picked all of the kind verses
and the weirdest translations and you just read that one little cute saying.
And some days they don't even have a Bible saying, they just have a cute quote from Gandhi,
from Mother Teresa, from Martin Luther King Jr.
That's what they have.
Why would the Bible say in Ephesians Chapter 6 that we're supposed to have armor and we're supposed to fight?
And the New Testament is like, but there's no one to fight.
I mean, who do you think we're fighting?
Like he's just fighting the wind, just like, you know, bad doctrine.
It's like either I'm wrestling a literal dog, either I'm supposed to go and to literally fight a Rottweiler
or there's actual people that are dogs.
And you know what, I am going to literally fight it when I go to that door, I'm just like, get off.
I'm going to preach the gospel.
Don't harm animals, okay, without it being necessary.
I'm sure that's going to be, I'll be sued for that too.
But you know, 2 Thessalonians Chapter 3, look at what it says in verse 1.
Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you
and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have not faith.
You know, I didn't invent this verse. There's some people that are just bad.
They're just bad people.
And the Apostle Paul told, hey, Philippians, maybe they were kind of getting liberal.
And he's like, hey guys, watch out for the dogs.
You know, watch out for the evil workers.
Watch out for the concisions.
There are real bad people out there and we need to warn, you know, the sheep.
We need to warn the ignorant.
We need to warn the widows and the fatherless and these people, these predators.
You know, when we go out soul winning this afternoon, we're going to run into all kinds of children and young adults
and young families that are going to churches where they're literally surrounded by wolves.
The preacher behind the pulpit is a wolf trying to destroy their life, trying to destroy their future, trying to confuse them.
And you know what? When people hear enough lies, they get so hardened to the gospel, they won't even hear it anymore.
It's sad when you knock on a door and they're like, no, I'm Catholic, I'm good.
I have plenty of religion.
No, I've heard what the Bible has to say and I'm not interested.
Are you sure you heard what the Bible had to say?
You ask them, what does the Bible say?
Oh, you got to go to church and you got to give money and these people are fake.
And you're like, yeah, they are.
Can I show you the Bible? No, I'm not interested.
They just run people's chance to get saved.
That's who we're fighting.
That's who we're warning about.
And that's who when we go out and we preach the gospel, we say, get away from Janus and Jamborees.
Get away from Imogenes.
Get out of the synagogue of Satan.
Stay away from dogs.
Oh, I can't believe you hid out the sodomite.
Well, I'm warning people about dogs.
Where else are they going to ever hear it?
Talk about one of those banned topics on the planet.
Oh, COVID is hard to get out there.
Sodomite deception.
Me and Ben uploaded that on a private YouTube channel that was brand new.
On private.
And in the middle of the night, five hours later, the entire channel was nuked.
I still have a sermon out called forced vaccination on YouTube.
That's thousands of views.
Okay.
You want to know how much sodomite stuff exists?
I think someone has a sodomite.
It's like tidal weird.
I don't even know.
But you know, that's slipping through the cracks.
Slipping through the cracks, my friend.
If you don't warn them, who will warn them?
Who will give them the truth?
Who will have the boldness and the courage to say, you know what?
I believe the Bible today.
And you say, well, I don't believe the Bible.
Okay.
Well, then don't hand it out.
But at the end of the day, you know what?
We need some people that are actually fired up for the word of God.
They believe Genesis to Revelation.
They're not ashamed of Jesus.
They're not ashamed of the Bible.
No matter how weird this world gets.
You know, God gets glory when we believe the Bible even if it's unpopular.
No matter what foes we face.
When we love the truths of the Bible.
Are we willing to take a stand?
We actually like it.
Amen.
We actually love it.
We're not fake about it.
You know, and I'm just telling you, it seems like there's been some fakes.
It seems like there's been some people that one day they're really against the sodomites
because they think it's cool and they want to be in the club.
But then as soon as they're out of the club, they're not against it anymore.
They won't take that stand anymore.
They won't be public about that anymore.
They don't preach on that issue anymore.
Why?
Because they didn't really believe it, I guess.
Yeah.
They didn't actually love the truth.
You know, I love the truth.
I love children.
And obviously, whenever you're exposing predators and freaks, they're going to fight back.
It's just evidence that you're actually doing something.
Yeah.
Because if I'm just getting up and saying, sin is bad.
God loves you no matter what.
Sin is bad.
Don't do sin.
And sin is whatever the world tells you.
Don't read your Bible.
Just come to church, you know, online.
But make sure you tithe.
And everything bad that's happening to you is just you're not tithing.
And tithing, you know, I got this revelation.
God spoke to me.
I think tithing is now 50% of your income.
So just make sure to give online.
And look, every way you can give online, we won't ever be shut down.
They're all set up.
We'll take every credit card.
In fact, if you don't even have a lot of money, we'll just take your house.
We'll reverse mortgage your house.
And on top of that, if you have any gold or silver, we'll pawn it for you.
If you've got a boat, we'll sell the title.
I mean, we don't care what it is.
We'll take the shirt off of your back.
Literally.
Okay.
I mean, is that what we're supposed to do?
Is that how we're supposed to live our lives?
Is that what kind of Christianity really looks like?
Is that really suffering for Christ's sake?
I'm telling you what is believing the Bible.
And it's people to preach it.
It's not just me, it's you.
You have to go out there in the highways and the hedges.
And you have to open your mouth to make known the mystery of the gospel.
You have to warn about these three groups.
And you have to realize there's real enemies out there that we're really fighting.
And the way we fight it was with the Bible.
Jesus fought his enemies with the word of God.
And we fight our enemies with the word of God.
We don't wage a physical war.
We don't use weapons of physical means.
No, this is our weapon. It's the sword of the Spirit.
Okay, which is the word of God.
When we get out there, we defeat the concision with true doctrine.
We fight the evil workers by preaching against sin.
And we warn against the dogs by preaching Leviticus 2013.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for our church.
I thank you that church is not a building.
So, no matter what, we can just all congregate and serve you and worship you.
I pray that you would just fill us all with your Holy Spirit.
That we'd have love and joy in our hearts for the word of God.
That you would help us to have boldness to preach the Bible no matter how unpopular it gets.
That we would still show ourselves to be steadfast and unmovable and always abounding the work of the Lord.
And we thank you that you're with us.
We thank you that you are paying attention and you're pleased with people that want to sing praises to you and want to preach the Bible.
I pray that you would deliver us from our enemies.
I pray that you would bring to fruition the verses that we've seen of you recompensing evil in this world.
That you would judge harshly these evil workers, these dogs, this concision.
That you would just bring a strong revival in this area.
That you would do miraculous wonders before our eyes.
And that people would fear the Lord once again.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Alright, for our last song, we'll go to song 409, the fight is on.
Song 409, the fight is on.
The triumph of the Christ will soon appear.
The fight is on, oh Christian soldier.
And face to face and stern array.
With armor gleaming and colors streaming.
The right and wrong engage today.
The fight is on but be not weary.
He's strong and in His might hold fast.
If God be for us, His better all rise.
We'll sing the victor's slogan at last.
The fight is on, oh rising soldier's brave and true.
Jehovah needs and victory will assure.
Go on, go on, the armor God has given you.
And in His strength forever will endure.
The fight is on, oh Christian soldier.
And face to face and stern array.
With armor gleaming and colors streaming.
The right and wrong engage today.
The fight is on but be not weary.
Be strong and in His might hold fast.
If God be for us, His better all rise.
We'll sing the victor's song at last.
The fight is leading on to certain victory.
The pearl of promise spans the eastern sky.
His glorious name in every land shall honor thee.
The morn will break, the dawn of peace is nigh.
The fight is on, oh Christian soldier.
And face to face and stern array.
With armor gleaming and colors streaming.
The right and wrong engage today.
The fight is on but be not weary.
Be strong and in His might hold fast.
If God be for us, His better all rise.
We'll sing the victor's song at last.
God bless you, you are dismissed. Thank you for coming.