Thank you.
Amen.
Anybody is tired of singing this morning.
Let's go ahead and welcome them to the first morning verses.
Dear Heavenly Father we thank you for allowing us to be in church on this Sunday morning.
We thank you for these songs that we are able to sing together as a church.
Please bless the song service in its entirety.
And I ask that you also fill Pastor Shelley
with your Holy Spirit to help him to come preach his word boldly to us
Christ, for it's in His name we pray, Amen.
Thy grace divine, we are on the Lord's side,
whose Savior we are Thine.
Not for weight of glory, not for crown and palm,
enter with the army, raise the order song.
But for love that lay bare, lies for room He dine,
He who Jesus made then must be on His side.
By Thy love constraining, by Thy grace divine,
we are on the Lord's side, Savior we are Thine.
Jesus, Thou hast brought us, not with gold or gem,
but with Thy own life blood, score Thy die again.
With Thy blessing filling, need You come to Thee.
Thou hast made us willing, Thou hast made us free.
By Thy grand redemption, by Thy grace divine,
we are on the Lord's side, Savior we are Thine.
Fierce may be the conflict, strong may be the foe,
but the King's own army, God can overthrow.
Round His standard raging, victory is secure,
for His truth the changing makes the triumph sure.
Joyfully and faithfully, by Thy grace divine,
we are on the Lord's side, Savior we are Thine.
All right, at this time we're going to go over to the bulletin.
So if you need a bulletin, please raise your hand.
Go ahead and raise your hand.
Go ahead and raise your hand if you need a bulletin
and the ushers will bring one to you.
Go ahead and open up your bulletin if you will.
And on the upper left hand corner is our church service times.
Below that is our soul winning times.
And at the very bottom is our salvation and baptisms for the year.
On the right side, happy birthday to those who have a birthday in July.
The donors this morning are in honor of those celebrating
a birthday in the month of July.
And at the very bottom of the page is our wedding anniversary list.
You know, happy wedding anniversary to those that are having
an anniversary in the month of July as well.
And on the back of your bulletin, thank you to those who participated
in the Hopi Reservation missions trip yesterday.
We had ten soul winners and five salvations.
And the mega conference is still going on.
Today will be Pastor Jonathan Shelley, in case you don't know.
Pastor Shelley, where are you hiding?
Where is he at?
Way over here. What in the world?
You never sat there when you were part of our church.
And just out of curiosity, raise your hand if you were not,
not here when Pastor Shelley was part of our church.
We're just interested. You are not here.
Wow, we've added a few since you left, my man.
Well, praise the Lord for that.
And on the bottom is our expectant ladies.
Please continue to pray for them.
And also at the bottom of our bulletin in the back is our upcoming events.
Please take a look at those when you get a chance.
And you're up, brother.
All right, we're going to sing the Psalm 126.
So you should find the answer there in your hymnal.
If you don't have one, please raise your hand.
Psalm 126.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
Let's sing it out together.
Psalm 126.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
Let's sing it out together.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
Let's sing it out together.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
Let's sing it out together.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
Let's sing it out together.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
Let's sing it out together.
O Lord, as the streams in the south,
made us, though in tears, shall reap in joy.
Made us, though in tears, shall reap in joy.
Let's admit, among the heathen, the Lord
have done great things for them.
The Lord have done great things for us,
whereof we are glad.
We have no one for thank thee, then, very precious he,
shall thou list come again.
Shall thou list come again, with rejoicing,
bringing his sheeps with him.
Let's admit, among the heathen, the Lord
have done great things for them.
The Lord have done great things for us,
whereof we are glad.
Amen.
Good singing, everybody.
Let's go to your song.
Put us down to hymn number 288.
288.
I am resolved no longer to live.
Let's sing it out for 288.
Let's sing it out.
On this verse together, hymn number 288.
Let's sing it out now.
I am resolved no longer to live,
drawn by the world's divine.
Things that are higher, things that are lower,
please have the Lord my sign.
I will sing to him.
He stands so glad and free.
Jesus, greatest highest, I will run to thee.
I am resolved to go to the Savior,
keeping my sin and strife.
He is the true one.
He is the just one.
He hath the words of life.
I will face him to him, face him so glad and free.
Jesus, greatest highest, I will run to thee.
I am resolved to follow the Savior,
faithful to the truth each day.
Keep what he's saying, do what he will,
and he is the living way.
I will face him to him, face him so glad and free.
Jesus, greatest highest, I will run to thee.
Please turn your Bibles to Mark chapter number eight.
Mark chapter number eight as brother Nick reads the scriptures.
Mark chapter number eight.
Mark chapter eight, the Bible reads,
In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat,
Jesus called his disciples unto him and saith unto them,
I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me
three days and have nothing to eat,
and if I send them away fasting to their own houses,
they will faint by the way, for divers of them came from far.
And his disciples answered him,
From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?
And he asked them, How many loaves have ye?
And they said, Seven.
And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground,
and he took the seven loaves and gave thanks and break,
and gave to his disciples to set before them,
and they did set them before the people.
And they had a few small fishes, and he blessed,
and commanded to set them also before them,
so they did eat and were filled.
And they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets,
and they that had eaten were about four thousand,
and he sent them away.
And straightway he entered into a ship with his disciples
and came into the parts of Dhammanutha,
and the Pharisees came forth and began to question with him,
seeking of him a sign from heaven tempting him.
And he sighed deeply in his spirit and saith,
Why doth this generation seek after a sign?
Verily I say unto you,
There shall no sign be given unto this generation.
And he left them.
And entering into the ship again departed to the other side.
Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread,
neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf.
And he charged them, saying,
Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees
and of the leaven of Herod.
And they reasoned among themselves, saying,
It is because we have no bread.
And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them,
Why reason ye because ye have no bread?
Perceive ye not yet, neither understand.
Have ye your heart yet hardened, having eyes, see ye not,
and having ears, hear ye not?
And do ye not remember?
When I break the five loaves among five thousand,
how many baskets full of fragments took ye up?
They say unto him, Twelve.
And when the seven among four thousand,
how many baskets full of fragments took ye up?
And they said, Seven.
And he said unto them,
How is it that ye do not understand?
And he cometh to Bethsaida,
and they bring a blind man unto him,
and besought him to touch him.
And he took the blind man by the hand
and led him out of the town,
and when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands upon him,
he asked him if he saw aught.
And he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking.
After that he put his hands again upon his eyes
and made him look up, and he was restored,
and saw every man clearly.
And he sent him away to his house, saying,
Neither go into the town nor tell it to any in the town.
And Jesus went out and his disciples
into the towns of Caesarea Philippi,
and by the way he asked his disciples,
saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am?
And they answered, John the Baptist,
but some, Elias, and others, one of the prophets.
And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
And Peter answereth and saith unto him,
Thou art the Christ.
He charged them that they should tell no man of him.
And he began to teach them that the Son of man
must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders
and of the chief priests and scribes and be killed,
and after three days rise again.
And he spake that saying openly,
and Peter took him and began to rebuke him.
But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples,
he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan,
for thou savourest not the things that be of God,
but the things that be of men.
And when he had called the people unto him
with his disciples also, he said unto them,
Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it,
but whosoever shall lose his life,
for my sake and the gospel's the same shall save it.
For what shall it profit a man
if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me
and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,
of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed
when he cometh in the glory of his Father
with the holy angels.
Let's pray.
Dear Lord, we want to thank you for another day,
another opportunity to gather here in your name
and worship you, Lord.
We pray that you would please fill Pastor Shelley
with your spirit, helping to preach your word boldly,
give us all ears to hear and hearts to understand.
We thank you so much for your son, Jesus Christ,
and it's in his name that we pray.
Amen.
Well, it's definitely a great honor to be back here
at Faith Ward Baptist Church and have an opportunity
to preach to you guys again.
And an even greater blessing is having Pastor Anderson
go and preach for me.
So I think he took his longest drive just recently.
He was driving from Boise, Idaho,
all the way to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
And I think he said it was like 21 hours
or something crazy like that.
And he was preaching for them there.
And then he's going to be preaching for us
in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,
the church that I'm at majority of the time.
And then on Wednesday night and then on Thursday,
he's going to be going down to Pure Words in Houston
and preaching for us down there.
And so it's definitely a great blessing
to have him go down there and preach to us.
And I'm sure you guys are missing him by now, okay?
I get it.
But you're stuck with me this morning,
and I'm going to preach you the Bible, all right?
And I'm not ashamed of being here,
so hopefully you're not ashamed of being here, all right?
And look what it said in verse 38.
The Bible says this.
Whosoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of me
and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,
of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed,
when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
Now, this verse is a pretty famous verse.
It's a pretty well-known verse.
But I think it's something that we need to constantly remind ourselves
of the fact that we should not be ashamed of Jesus Christ
and specifically, notice he says, of my words.
And I really always love the fact that the Bible elaborates
beyond just Jesus, but even his words.
And we realize that Jesus Christ is the Word of God,
and so we shouldn't be ashamed of anything about Jesus
or what he did or anything written in the Bible itself.
And so, you know, I like that stamp because some people,
they like the idea of Jesus, or in fact, they just love Jesus
in the sense that they love that he died on the cross,
maybe they're saved, but you know where they struggle?
They struggle with being ashamed with certain parts of the Bible.
It's like they love John 3.16, but then they struggle with, like, Romans 1.
But then they struggle, they love Romans 10, but they don't like Romans 1.
Or they like Leviticus 19, where it says that you should love your neighbor as yourself,
but then they struggle with the next chapter, chapter 20, verse 13.
So we, as God's people, though, should not be ashamed of any aspect of the Bible,
any aspect of the Word of God.
This is an unbiblical philosophy that's out there where people, Christians even today,
will not like parts of the Bible, where they'll be ashamed of it.
It's not that they don't realize it's true.
It's not that they don't even necessarily believe it.
It's just they're kind of embarrassed about it.
They're kind of ashamed to have to tell people,
yeah, the Bible does actually say that.
Well, I know there is some ugly stuff in the Bible.
As opposed to actually just liking all of the Bible and having pleasure in the Word of God,
they actually feel this embarrassed feeling.
Now, when you flip the tables on this particular verse for a moment and think about it,
it would be so much easier for Jesus Christ to be ashamed of us than for us to be ashamed of him.
But let's go to some verses in your Bible.
Keep your finger on Mark 8, but go to Hebrews, chapter number 2 for a moment.
Go to Hebrews, chapter number 2.
And this is what kind of just blew me away when I was thinking about this subject,
is how we sometimes, or as Christians, we can have an embarrassed feeling or attitude
or be a little bit ashamed of Christ or the things of Christ or things in the Bible.
That might be a temptation for us, whereas Jesus Christ himself is not ashamed of us.
And look what the Bible says in Hebrews, chapter number 2, verse 9.
But we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death,
crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man,
for it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things,
and bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one,
for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren.
In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.
Now I don't want you to hear me wrong.
When we sin, when we do wrong, of course God is upset with us, God is displeased with that act of sin.
But from a perspective of eternity, from a perspective of Jesus Christ's love towards us,
he has literally no shame in calling us brethren.
So not even just the fact that he saved us, he gave us an elevated position
where not only is he considered the son of God, we too are the sons of God.
And Jesus Christ is not ashamed to say, hey, you're my family member.
Jesus Christ is not ashamed to look at faith-forward Baptist church and say,
hey, that's a house filled with my brothers and sisters.
I mean, if Jesus Christ can look at the sorry bunch of us and not be ashamed,
how can we so much more not be ashamed of him?
I mean, we should have the same type of feeling even more so because Jesus has never even done anything wrong.
We've sinned. I don't deserve to be the son of God.
I don't deserve for God to show grace unto me.
That's why it's called grace.
I don't even know what the word grace means.
It means you don't deserve it, okay?
You know, if you were to look at my rap sheet, it would be embarrassing.
If you looked at my rap sheet just one week,
if you just said, hey, let's just list all of Pastor Shelley's sins for the last week,
you know what, I would be embarrassed.
I'd be ashamed.
But you know what, Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call me his brother,
despite all of my sins, despite all the things I did.
You know, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us is what the Bible says.
That's how God demonstrated his love.
You know, God looked down at a sinful world that was screwed up,
that was in rebellion to him.
And he said, I'm going to go down there and I'm going to die on the cross
and I'm going to redeem all of them from their sins.
I'm not going to send them to hell.
And beyond that, I'm going to make them equal unto me
in the sense that they're going to inherit with me.
They're going to be a son of God. They're going to be a daughter of God.
They're going to be a child of the Most High.
And it's like, what did we do to deserve any of that?
Nothing.
We deserved none of it. We got none of it.
And he looks at us with, you know, so much more respect,
so much more honor, and so much more glory than we could ever deserve.
Look at Hebrews chapter 11. Just flip the page a few pages.
Look at Hebrews chapter number 11 and look at verse number 13.
It says, These all died in faith.
Now, Hebrews chapter 11 is a famous chapter about faith.
It's like the Hall of Faith, and it's all these great Christians throughout history.
And we have to understand, though, about that list,
and many of the people on this list, the world did not like them.
The world did not appreciate them.
They weren't the favorites of the world.
These were actually rejected of the world, by and large.
The world hated these people, didn't like them,
and many of them were hoping, or at least striving for, a heavenly country,
in the sense that, of course, everybody would love to have a nice place to live,
and a nice house, and a nice country, and have all the blessings.
And we see different people like Abraham traveling and searching for this promised land.
You know, he just wasn't going to Texas. That was his problem.
You know, he was staying in the Middle East. No, I'm just kidding.
Sorry, that joke doesn't resonate well here, but I like it, okay.
Now, I actually love the Phoenix area, and I can see why people really gravitate to it.
I hear a lot of bad things about Phoenix, but I'm always defending Phoenix to people,
because I love it here. You know, I like the heat.
You know, even when I would come for services here, sometimes it would be 80 degrees in here,
but it feels cool, because outside it's like 150.
So, you know, you come in here, and it's like 80's kind of cooling off, or whatever.
But, you know, even though he couldn't find, you know, Phoenix, Arizona,
even though he couldn't find Texas, he couldn't find the promised land physically,
he was still striving for being pleasing unto God.
And the Lord was not displeased with him, even though the whole world may have rejected him,
even though he never really made it in this life, he never really had all the accolades,
he didn't have all the fame, he didn't have the notoriety,
he didn't have some great nation necessarily named after him or anything like that,
at least in his lifetime. We look at the Bible from a historical perspective,
but in his generation, his lifetime, he's just kind of out there by himself doing his own thing.
But, guess what? They still had faith in the Lord.
They were still striving to please the Lord, and the Lord was pleased with these people.
Well, look what it says. Verse 13, these all died in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them,
and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
So, notice, their confession is that, you know what, this life is not my real life.
This is not the real home that I'm striving for.
This is not what I'm really laying up treasure for, is this life.
I'm not seeking to be the most popular person in this life.
No, I'm confessing I'm a Christian. No, I'm confessing I'm a child of God.
No, I'm confessing I'm seeking a heavenly country.
I'm not going to be of this world.
And notice, by their confession, it says in verse number 14,
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country,
and truly, if they had been mindful of that country from which they came out,
they might have had opportunity to have returned.
But now they desire a better country, that is, and heavenly,
wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God,
for He hath prepared for them a city.
You know, even if the whole world rejects you,
even if the United States, even if Arizona, even if Phoenix,
even if Tempe specifically just says,
You know what, we don't like faithful word Baptist church.
We wish that it didn't exist here.
We wish you would just move on somewhere else.
You know, we have such a great city and a wonderful town,
except for this one little church over here, you know,
this one pastor or whatever.
Even if they all reject you, even if they don't like you,
they want nothing to do with you.
And to the world's perspective, you know, you're a cult.
Or to the world's perspective, you're weird.
Or to the world's perspective, you guys are nuts or cuckoo or whatever.
It doesn't matter because God's not ashamed of you.
Because God says, Hey, I'm not ashamed, and notice this,
to be called their God.
Hey, I love the fact that I'm those people's God.
I'm so proud that the men that actually look like men
are the ones that are worshiping me.
And not a bunch of dudes that chop off their privy member
and put on a dress and lipstick.
Why would you ever want that to be worshiping you?
You know, or the women that look like men,
you know, that doesn't make any sense.
I mean, I don't want to even be around these people.
Let alone the fact, I mean, what if you had
a giant group of sodomites that were like your fans?
Like you just had, you had the LGBT,
or as I call them, the AIDS community,
if you had a big fan club online of you personally.
They're just like, Man, we just really love you and you're so great.
Oh, you mean like Donald Trump?
Yeah, Donald Trump has a giant AIDS community
that just loves him and they promote him.
That tells you that he's doing something wrong.
And I would be embarrassed if I had a giant group like that
that said, We love Pastor Shelley.
You know, that's the embarrassment. That would be the shame.
But you know what? God's not embarrassed
of men and women who are separated,
fundamental Baptists, have a King James Bible in their hand.
They bring in their litter of children
to worship God on a Sunday morning.
And he doesn't really care about the building or whatever.
He doesn't care that it's not this fancy steeple or something like that.
He cares about your heart.
And you know what? He looks at the heart of men and women in this room
and you know what? God says he's not ashamed of you.
That should encourage you.
Because I feel sometimes I feel like, man, I'm not doing that great
or I could do better or I think about past mistakes I've made or whatever
and it feels embarrassing.
But you know what? God still just looks at me and is like,
I'm not ashamed that you worship me.
I'm not ashamed to be called your God.
And that's just a really encouraging thought.
Go to 1 John 2.
I mean, if God is not embarrassed of me,
how in the world could I then in turn be embarrassed of God?
Or be embarrassed of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Or be embarrassed of anything that the Bible says?
You know, my words are way insignificant in comparison to the words of God.
There's nothing I could say that would outdo any verse in the Bible.
I mean, there's no way I could form together a sentence or a phrase
or a thought or an idea that would ever usurp any verse in the Bible.
It's all vastly superior to anything I could ever think, comprehend,
any wisdom that any man has.
So then why would I want to put shade on the Bible, shade on the Word of God
when it's so vastly superior to anything that I could ever come up with?
And even when I fall short, even when I have a bad week,
even when I have a bad day, even when I have a bad moment,
no matter what happens, I still have an advocate, according to the Bible.
Look what it says in 1 John 2, verse 1.
My little children, these things write unto you that you sin not.
So that's, of course, what we're striving for.
But what happens when we do?
And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous.
Now think about this for just a moment.
When you sin and you do something wicked, you do something evil,
Jesus is still in heaven willing to advocate for you.
He's still not embarrassed of you. Isn't that incredible?
I mean, when you do something bad, it tends, like, all your friends
and your family members and your co-workers and your boss and everybody,
I mean, they're just so quick to just get away from you.
I mean, think about the cancel culture we live in today
where someone does something that the company or someone doesn't like,
they'll drop you like a bad habit.
I mean, they'll cancel you so hard and they won't have anything to do,
you go through problems, you go through struggles,
you have sickness, you have illness, just any kind of imperfection in your life
and the world is so quick to drop you like a bad habit.
But even on your worst day, Jesus is still in heaven and he's still willing to be your advocate.
That's pretty incredible, folks.
And it says he's the advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous
and he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Jesus Christ is still in heaven, he's still an advocate,
he's still right there ready to forgive you,
make propitiation on your behalf to the Father for any sins that you commit.
If you're saved, it doesn't matter what sin you commit,
Jesus Christ is still willing to make some kind of avocation or some kind of propitiation to the Father for you.
And of course he will in a final sense because even if you committed a sin and a death,
which the Lord could take your life physically,
still you will get to stand before God the Father and Jesus Christ's blood will still cover that sin
and you'll still get to go to heaven and you'll still be a son of God and you'll still be deemed righteous
and Jesus Christ won't even be ashamed to call you his brother.
I mean you are brothers and sisters with Jesus Christ the righteous,
the God of the universe, the one who made everything.
Why in the world would we ever decide to be ashamed of him?
Go back to Mark, chapter number 8, go back to Mark, chapter number 8.
When we think about how Jesus is not ashamed of us,
it should just overwhelmingly destroy any of the fear or any of the temptation for us to be ashamed of him.
But then we have to ask ourselves this question, why do people end up being ashamed of Christ?
Or why do people have embarrassing feelings towards the Lord or the Word of God?
Like what is it that really causes us to be ashamed?
Well in Mark, chapter 8, it says in verse 35,
So in verse 35-37 it gives us some hints as to why someone ends up being embarrassed of Christ
or ashamed of the Lord or not wanting to take a stand on the Word of God.
And really I believe there's three points I can draw out of this.
Number one is for money or for wealth.
Number two would be for your well-being.
And number three is for worship.
So these are three reasons why people would be ashamed of Christ.
It's because it's going to affect their wealth, it's going to affect their well-being, or it's going to affect their worship.
Now go to Proverbs, chapter 18.
Go to Proverbs, chapter 18.
I'm going to first start on wealth here.
And you know, we could spend forever on all these verses or these points.
I'm going to give you the first two kind of quickly, okay?
Because they could be a whole sermon in themselves.
But obviously the love of money is the root of all evil.
So we understand that of course money is always going to tug at the heartstrings of every single person
and try to cause you to be embarrassed of the Bible and be embarrassed of the Word of God.
Now it should be pretty obvious to people coming to this church
why money would be a temptation to be ashamed
because when you make a bold stand for the Word of God, it can affect your pocketbook.
You know, what if every business, or what if just one business really,
what if one business in the month of June, instead of flying a pride flag,
they flew a faith-forward Baptist church flag?
What do you think would happen to that business?
You and I both know it would get burnt to the ground.
You and I both know they would get so much harassment.
So many people would just flock them and just like,
you just do all kinds of evil unto them and hurt them.
I mean, even just putting out that you're a Christian can often cause you all kinds of persecution.
You know, one of the most popular, I think it's in fact the most popular fast food restaurant in America, Chick-fil-A.
I remember when I lived back in Texas before I came to Faith-Award Baptist Church,
there was a press release that went out that their president, Dan Cathy,
he just said he believes in traditional marriage.
That was pretty controversial. I don't know why you all just took it so easy.
He said he believes in traditional marriage.
But just by saying that, all these like AIDS members decided that they were going to,
you know, put pressure on all these corporations
and try to cause Chick-fil-A's to not be able to even exist in certain cities.
There was like all these different mall areas or shopping centers or places
where they're saying Chick-fil-A can't even exist in this area or be in this shopping center or whatever.
And then they have to go and apologize about it and be like,
well, we love them. They can work here and it's great. Please buy our chicken.
We just believe in traditional marriage. Please don't burn the building down.
You know, just that week of a stance causes so much controversy.
I mean, if a business today goes out in this public about what they really believe on the Bible,
they would get their pocketbook hurt.
I mean, it's just a fact. I mean, it's just reality that this world is going to attack you
and of course the devil loves to attack your pocketbook.
You know, I know people that have been personally fired for simply just going to our church.
There was a person recently came to me and they said, hey, they pulled me in the office
and they're like, do you go to this church?
And they had preached one time or something.
And they said, did you say this? And he's like, yeah, the Bible says that.
They're like, well, we're firing you for saying that.
He's like, this is religious discrimination.
They're like, yeah, but it doesn't match our culture.
So they just fire people for literally being a Christian.
Now, let me tell you something. When you get fired, that affects your pocketbook, doesn't it?
And I've had many other church members or other people,
they have their coworkers or bosses or whatever come and drag them in and tell them,
you know, hey, are you doing this? Are you part of this church?
It's a real threat out there.
And, you know, it's my personal philosophy that I use discretion in the workplace, in the work environment.
I don't necessarily need to wear a Leviticus 2013 shirt every day at work.
So, you know, I think it's like a need-to-know basis.
I mean, that's how our government and military work, right?
They only tell them, you know, don't worry about this bomb you're building or whatever.
You know, we won't tell you what we're using it for or anything like that.
Don't worry about this plane flying into a building.
Don't worry about what's happening, you know.
Don't check on the news what's really happening there.
You're just on a need-to-know basis.
But the same should be even with us that you should use discretion.
Of course, Jesus Christ used a lot of discretion.
He didn't necessarily go around saying everything that he believed.
He used parables and used dark sayings oftentimes.
And that was to basically stop him from dying.
But, you know, when it comes to monetary gain, you know, being a Christian is not going to give you lots of riches now.
It's not going to, I mean, people that come out and say, like, oh man, I love the new IFB.
It's not like they just instantly get all this money.
I don't know. Is anybody? No, I'm just kidding.
It's not like, oh man, I just became new IFB and then it's just loaded, you know, the next day.
I mean, everybody, just people just giving me money left and right.
It's like that's not really going to get you a lot of money.
That's not going to get you, you know, any kind of wealth typically.
In fact, sometimes people have the exact opposite story.
Now, of course, if you work hard and you're diligent, the Lord can still bless you
and the Lord is still going to allow you to succeed to the level that he wants.
You're never going to be Jeff Bezos and having, you know, a public new IFB ministry, okay?
It's not going to happen because those guys are wicked anyways.
But in Proverbs 18, the Bible says in verse 11,
the rich man's wealth is his strong city and as an high wall in his own conceit.
Now, here's the thing. People trust in their money.
They trust in their riches. We see this in the New Testament often being described.
And it's because money can buy you things. Money can buy you security.
Money can buy you a big wall.
Money can buy you all kinds of things that provide security or protection.
I mean, look, Joe Biden, you know, he has to pay for his security.
The only reason why that guy is as safe as he is,
is because of how much money the U.S. government is spending on his security
with the Secret Service and military and all kinds of government agencies
like the FBI and CIA and just the AIDS community, whatever, you know, else is there, government agencies.
They're all just dedicated to protecting that one man.
So money can buy you a level of security.
But here's the problem. When you're not right with God, he can kill you wherever you're at.
And no matter how dangerous of a scenario you're in, like in Psalms 23,
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
So when God's on your side, you could be literally in the fiery furnace, not a safe place,
and still be 100% safe.
And God could still be protecting you and providing for you.
And even if you have no money, I mean, Jesus Christ, his whole ministry,
he wasn't going around with any money.
I mean, Jesus Christ wasn't going around worried about making money or, you know, playing the stock market,
or worried about his 401k, or worried about inflation, or worried about Biden economics.
You know, he's just going, he doesn't even have a place to lay his head.
You know, those that are so concerned about their security coming from money,
they end up being ashamed of the word of God.
They become ashamed of the Bible because they think something bad might happen to them,
or they might lose out on their riches.
You know, the rich man went confronting Jesus Christ, Jesus told him to sell all that he has,
and to come and follow him, and he went away sorrowful because he had great riches.
You know, he didn't want to get rid of that kind of a lifestyle.
He didn't want to get rid of the nice house, or the boat, or all the things that money can buy.
And not just physical safety, it can buy you pleasure.
I mean, let's just be honest, if you have a ton of money, you can do all kinds of fun things.
You could fly to all kinds of exotic places.
You can eat the best meals that money can buy.
You could get a, you know, a boat.
You could get, I don't know if there's boats out here, probably not.
You could get really nice AC, you know, air conditioning in this area.
You could get a dune buggy, right? Is that what you guys do? I don't know.
You can do all kinds of fun stuff, though, if you have money.
You could travel somewhere where it's not an inferno, and you can enjoy nature.
You can enjoy, like, lakes, and rivers, and streams, and the snow.
You know, you can have, like, tons of people live here only half a part of the year.
They're called the snowbirds, right? Who knows what I'm talking about? The snowbirds.
If you ever drive at that part of the year, you know.
It's like, where did all this traffic come from?
It's like, because they all have a second home in Scottsdale, basically.
But there's all these rich people.
They live in, like, Colorado, or they live in these other areas in the summer.
And then they migrate here in the winter.
But they have all kinds of options where they have, you know, snowboarding,
and they have all kinds of fun activities they can do.
You can do all this kind of cool stuff if you have lots of money.
And so sometimes people, they don't want to miss out on all the fun that money's going to buy for you.
And they don't want to be stuck in a church where it's hot, and they're hearing the Bible,
and they're being rebuked for their sin.
They would rather just go and party and have fun, and the deceitfulness of riches, and just the party life.
You know, it's not what it's all cracked up to be.
Go to Proverbs 23, because you could have amass a ton of wealth,
and when you just say nuts to God, God could take it from you like this.
Because when you have no money, inflation's not that bad.
I mean, think about it. When Jesus Christ is walking around, I mean, it's like, okay, whatever, you know.
Oh, taxes went up? Man.
You know, all the people that live below the poverty line, they still don't pay any taxes.
Because it's like the federal income is just like, oh, okay.
Or if you have like 20 kids, it doesn't even matter, you know.
It's just like, when all these things go up, it doesn't affect you as much as it affects other people that have tons of money.
People that have lots of money are getting hammered through inflation,
or all kinds of financial schemes called the stock market,
where it goes up and down, and people's 401ks have been decimated recently,
and it's probably not going to get better any time soon.
People can get hit with all kinds of other issues.
How about this? This one's frustrating. A thief.
You could be the smartest person financially.
You could make all the right decisions.
You could just have it all perfectly laid out, and you make tons of money,
and then a thief comes in and just takes it all from you.
Why? Because you're not right with God.
And why would I want to trust in something that could be taken from me like that?
You know, it's going to be a lot harder to get rid of the King James Bible,
since there's literally like billions of them on the planet.
This can't be taken from me. And you know what?
All the verses I put in my heart, they can't be taken from me like that.
You know, my bank account could be taken from me like that.
And it has, okay? Several times.
It's really frustrating, okay? It's really annoying.
And you start realizing how fragile money is.
You start realizing how fragile this economic world system that we live in,
where they can just turn you off like that.
And you know, oftentimes they'll turn you off for being a Christian.
Boom! Just bam!
I mean, they'll turn you off on all kinds of things.
Look at Proverbs 23 verse 5.
Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings.
They fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
So then you amass all this wealth, and then it just flies away.
And just like a bird, I mean, if there was a little bird on the ground,
and you could kind of get close, maybe you're like, I'm going to catch it,
as soon as it starts flying, it's over.
You have no chance. You can't catch that thing.
White man can't jump anyways, right?
I mean, I can't catch that birdie.
It's just flying away, it's gone, and then it's just in the sunset.
That's what sometimes it's like with your money.
Or you store up all this money, and then just everything breaks.
And you just watch your money just fly away.
You're just like, oh man, what happened?
And, you know, I've had moments in my life where I've felt like, you know what,
I'm being diligent, I'm saving, and I'm trying to do the best I can with money,
and I'm making good decisions, and I'm stockpiling it.
And then just, bam, you just get hit with something, it's just all gone,
just eviscerated like that.
You're just like, what was that about?
You know, it doesn't matter, because no matter how much money I have,
I can't take any of it with me to heaven.
And, you know, no matter how much money I have,
it's not going to help me when I go and knock on someone's door
to try and get them saved.
You know, it's never been like, tell me about, you know,
are you sure you go to heaven or not?
And they're like, well, tell me about your net worth before I talk to you.
What's your portfolio like?
You know, it didn't really affect Jesus Christ's ministry walking around.
I mean, this guy's getting people saved constantly, and he has no money.
In fact, tons of people were financially poor and did great things for the Lord,
because money is inconsequential to serving God.
But then why do people get embarrassed about knowing Christ or the Bible
or the Word of God or serving God?
It's because they're afraid of losing money,
but you could lose that money tomorrow anyways.
It's a fool's errand to try and hang on to these things
that you can't even necessarily keep anyways.
Go to Titus chapter 1.
Go to Titus chapter number 1.
Why are people ashamed of Christ?
Because of wealth.
But here's the thing.
When you're not ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ,
he's going to give you the money necessary to take care of your needs.
And at the end of the day, you know, obviously money can get a lot of nice things,
but let's just be real.
If you live in America, you versus the richest people,
it's not even that big of a difference,
because there's only a king.
Like, I have a king bed.
They don't make them bigger.
It's not like the king of Og or, you know, or Bashan or something.
It's like, you know, I've never seen that bed.
It can only, no matter how big it gets, I'm only so big, you know.
Like, I get to sleep in a bed.
You can only, I mean, you can get the AC to the exact temperature you want.
There's not like this special temperature that's even better
than other people are getting.
You know, my wife likes to keep it about 40 degrees at night,
and she likes that temperature.
But, you know, it's not like, oh, well, I'm rich.
I can get an even better temperature.
It's like, you know, you get a house, you have a car.
I mean, how much does it benefit you when you have 20 cars?
Because you can only drive one at a time.
And, in fact, most of the people that have these really nice cars,
let me tell you a secret.
They don't even drive them.
You know why they don't drive them?
Because it will lose its value.
And so they're afraid to even drive it.
So they have this, like, beautiful car that they just look at,
and like, wouldn't it be cool to drive this?
Yeah.
It's like, I could look online and do the same thing.
Wouldn't it be cool to drive this?
Yeah.
Not going to, though.
And, I mean, even if I wanted to,
are you going to drive all 20 cars that same day?
No.
I mean, it doesn't matter what culture you go to.
It doesn't matter what part of the world.
I mean, you pretty much, it's like beef or chicken.
Rice or beans, mashed potatoes, whatever.
I mean, you can try to put fancy spices on it.
But when you go to a really, really, really fancy restaurant,
it's usually like trying too hard.
Have you ever noticed that?
It's like you get this steak and they put this weird sauce on it,
and you're just like, what is this?
It's like, why is this $150?
Well, it's the sauce, you know.
It's like we massage the cow's back, you know,
throughout its life or something.
It's like, it still tastes like steak, you know.
It's like, I mean, it can only get so good.
You know, you can only wear clothes so nice.
You can only have, I mean, it's like we all have a phone, you know.
I mean, what is it that these rich people really have
that we're really struggling to have in America today?
You know, it's kind of, it's really just a deceit.
It's a lie that they have all these amazing things
that you just really don't have access to.
You know, you can pretty much do all the same things that they do anyways.
If you really wanted to, you don't even have to have that much money,
and you don't have that buyer's remorse of paying, you know,
50 times the price of the normal good,
of the normal, of something even being better.
I don't even like the really fancy restaurants.
I usually think the food's worse, okay.
There's like, there's a tipping point.
And the fancy houses, every time I've ever looked at one of these
multi-million dollar mansions, I think it looks gross.
Who's with me, okay.
It's like marble everywhere, and like these marble columns
and like a gold-plated toilet.
It's like, I don't even want to sit on that.
That's like impractical.
Or their furniture, it's like all weird.
And they have all this art.
It's like, that's art?
Like, I don't even want to look at that.
You know, look at this $100,000 piece of art.
It looks like a kid threw up, you know.
Like, what is that?
Why do I have to live?
You know, there's all this lie out there
that if you had all this money, your life would be so much better,
but it's not even true.
And then you're afraid.
You're afraid.
Oh, man, I can't tell anybody that I'm a Christian.
I can't tell anybody that I know Christ.
I can't tell anybody where I go to church
because I don't want to lose all my money and lose what?
What are you really going to lose?
You know, it's just a lie out there
that the devil's trying to tempt you with as a façade.
Look what it says in Titus chapter 1, verse 9.
"...holding fast the faithful word,
as he had been taught, that he may be able
by sound doctrine, both to exhort
and to convince the gainsayers.
For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers,
especially they of the circumcision,
whose mouths must be stopped,
who subvert whole houses,
teaching things which they ought not,
for filthy lucre's sake."
Why is it that there's so much false doctrine
in churches today?
Because of money.
Because most fundamental Baptist churches
that are like the quote-unquote old IFB,
that are big, I mean, we're talking they got
500,000, 2,000 people
coming to their church on a Sunday morning.
If they got up and preached certain parts of the Bible,
their church would shrink in half over that,
like an hour.
Like in just one sermon.
It would just be like gone.
And then when they start preaching 1 Corinthians 5,
tons of people are going to be gone.
Because they're going to have to actually throw them out.
And then they preach Romans 1,
and they're going to get a few creepers out too.
And then they start preaching hard on dress standards.
They're going to start preaching hard on men and women
dressing and looking like men and women,
and they're going to lose the rest of that crowd.
And then pretty soon this 2,000 person church
has got like 20 people
that want to faithfully serve God.
And then there's all these churches in America
that have 20 people and they're thinking like,
what are we doing wrong?
We're preaching the Bible, nothing.
But you know what?
If you go from 2,000 people to 20,
you're going to probably lose the building.
You're going to lose that like 20 person staff
with all these women pastors on it.
You know, it's like, you didn't need those anyways, okay?
You might lose the Christian school or something.
You know, they might lose all these extra things
that they didn't even need that aren't even biblical,
and they're just so afraid of preaching
what the Bible actually says
because they'll start losing money.
They literally have a price tag on the head
of people in the church,
and they know how much money they give.
They know how much money they donate.
They know how much the bills are.
They know how much all these different things are,
and they're just so afraid.
They have so much debt up to their eyeballs.
And the pastor, he personally,
if he preaches something too hot,
the church will vote him out.
Most churches are not run like Faith Ward Baptist Church,
where if you don't like the preaching, you have to go, okay?
Most churches, if you don't like the preaching,
you get a new preacher.
You say, hey, we don't like that kind of sermon.
We don't like that kind of language.
We don't like, you know, what you're saying up there.
And it's like, you know, so the pastor has to toe the line
so he doesn't get fired.
And of course, if he got fired from this big church,
what's the next church that's going to hire him?
Probably none, because they all have their little circle.
They have their little network, as it were.
And he's not going to be able to go
and just build another church anymore,
because America is so godless,
it's virtually impossible to build a church
from scratch these days.
I mean, it takes so much effort and labor and work
and just toil and prayer and fasting
and just all kinds of stuff.
It takes all kinds of, you know, content
and just all these different things necessary.
It even takes a large area, because you have to draw
from tons and tons of different people.
You know, building a church in the United States of America
is not a cakewalk.
And so these pastors, they're not preaching the Bible
because of money.
They're afraid to preach what the Bible says
because they know it'll affect their pocketbook.
You know what?
That's why you don't build a church on a pocketbook.
You build a church on the Bible so then it can withstand
the pressures of this world,
so that people aren't showing up
to usurp the authority over the pastor,
overthrow the pastor.
That way, it actually, you know, is a real church.
You're holding fast the faithful word.
You're not holding fast your bank account,
holding fast your 401K,
holding fast your house,
holding fast, you know, your kids' college education,
where they can get a gender studies degree.
I mean, what kind of nonsense is that?
But notice, people will preach things for money.
You find the richest church,
I guarantee they're preaching all kinds of lies.
The ones that are just filled...
I mean, there's a church where I'm at
in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
It's called Gateway.
And the pastor there is called Robert Morris.
And they, since they're so big and everything,
they put all their finances out publicly
so you can just look it up.
Their annual budget is like $60 million.
My whole church had a corporate office.
$60 million a year.
Think about how many soul winners
we could have full-time at $60 million a budget here.
We could employ the whole church.
And, you know, they have celebrities.
Because it's in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,
they have celebrities.
They have, like, Dallas Cowboys
and stuff like that coming to their church.
And they have whatever kind of nonsense
and all these people giving all this kind of money.
And it's like, well, what if that pastor
got up and started preaching the Bible?
They wouldn't have $60 million annually.
They would be destroyed quickly.
They can't even afford these buildings
and stuff like that sometimes.
I was at another church back home
where I used to live in the Amarillo area.
Kind of started Gateway.
It's called Trinity Fellowship Church.
They had, uh...
I can't remember the exact amount on their loan,
but it was like several million dollar building
with a loan payment.
They had to bring in $250,000 a month
just to pay their loan payment.
And so, you know, during the summer,
since no one comes to church in the summer,
I don't know why,
but people just don't come to church in the summer,
they would have Hollywood movies for the service.
Like, and back when I was going there,
what just came out, I was like,
Iron Man, Captain Phillips, Despicable Me.
So you come to church and you watch Iron Man.
Why?
Money!
There is only one explanation as to why
a preacher would not preach anything from the Bible
and would get up and literally just show
a Hollywood movie for the Sunday morning service.
It's money, my friend.
It's money because they bring you in.
And of course this church preaches on tithing
like every single service virtually.
You know, that's the message.
You know, tithe and tithe some more
and raise your hand if you want to be in team Jesus.
That was their salvation message, so.
You know, it can happen to good people
because even Eli, his sons were wicked
and then he ends up kind of raising Samuel
and the Bible says about his sons,
they walked not in his ways
but turned aside after Lucre and took bribes.
And it's a real threat out there
that people will let money creep into their heart
and decide not to preach the Bible
or be ashamed of the Bible for money.
Go ahead to Matthew 26.
And of course related to this is just your well-being
because if you don't have any money,
what's the threat?
Well, what am I going to eat?
Where am I going to live?
You know, just your overall well-being,
your health, as it were,
and even not even just dying from attrition,
being beaten or thrown in prison or even killed,
that's a pretty big deterrent to want to preach the Bible,
to preach the Word of God.
I mean, you know, there's certain countries,
there's certain areas where you get up
and you preach the Bible straight to jail.
I mean, you get up and you declare
what the Bible says on certain issues,
I mean, off with his head.
I mean, they'll just tear you apart.
You can't go proselytizing in every part of this world.
The Gospel's not accepted every single place.
And so, you know, in America we have this great liberty,
we have this great freedom,
and we shouldn't take it for granted
that we can literally just go to any house in this area
and preach them the Gospel,
and we have almost zero threat of being physically injured.
It's really not much different than just going anywhere.
Obviously there's always a level
or there's always a threat of physical injury
wherever you go,
but you know what?
When you have God standing next to you,
it kind of eases that tension.
And isn't it pretty cool that virtually
over decades of soul winning,
I haven't even heard of anybody
getting seriously injured going soul winning.
Maybe it's out there.
I'm just saying, me personally,
I've never even heard about it.
I think I heard one story of one guy,
wicked guy that maybe died when he was soul winning,
but it was a shady story.
So, but I mean, just, you know, only one?
I mean, come on.
That's not that bad.
I mean, because people die all the time,
just in a car accident, choking, brain aneurysm.
So just by, you would think by just the law of averages,
somebody could have, I mean,
you've got soul winning 120 degree heat.
I mean, that's going to put a toll on your body.
You could just, you could fall over
if you're not hydrating yourself properly.
And that's why it's important to take a lot of water
when you go soul winning here, okay?
But at the end of the day, I mean,
it's pretty much one of the safest activities
you could possibly do in America,
and yet so many people are ashamed to do it, aren't they?
Whereas in other parts of the country, you're not.
And we see even some of the greatest men of God
afraid to say that they know Jesus Christ.
Look at Matthew 26, verse 69.
Now Peter sat without in the palace,
and a damsel came unto him,
saying, Thou also was with Jesus of Galilee.
But he denied before them all,
saying, I know not what Thou sayest.
Now why is it that Peter is just denying Christ openly?
I mean, just a few minutes ago, in the Bible,
Peter's saying, I'm going to die with you.
Peter, Peter was so bold,
he attacked Roman soldiers with a sword.
That's a lot of courage,
because the Roman soldiers,
these are skilled military men
who are not going to back down,
and they've got just an army,
a litter of soldiers standing behind them.
I mean, if you kill all of them,
there's a hundred more where that came from,
and then a thousand more from there.
I mean, to go against the Roman soldiers,
that's intense.
So just moments later,
all of a sudden, a little girl's like,
hey, do you go to Faithful Word?
Faithful what?
What are you talking about?
You know, do you know who Pastor Anderson is?
Pastor what?
You know, it's like, do you know who Jesus Christ is?
I know not the man.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Why? Because he's afraid of what?
Getting imprisoned.
He's afraid of them saying,
oh yeah, that guy we arrested?
Here's another one of them.
Here's another one of those Christians.
Here's another one of those Christ followers.
Right here.
Verse 71.
Saying, I know not the man.
And immediately the cock crew.
So Peter, he's basically saying,
I swear I don't know the man.
I promise I've never seen him.
You know, cursed be me if I was with Jesus.
That's what it means to put a curse or a swear on yourself.
Sorry, some people think it's four letter words,
but you know, the only four letter word in here is no.
And I don't think that's a cuss word or whatever.
But what he's saying here is he's saying,
I don't know Jesus.
I don't know the man.
The guy that's been with him for three and a half years.
He's seen Jesus Christ raise people from the dead.
He's seen Jesus went in and healed his mother-in-law.
Maybe he's bitter about that one.
I don't know.
He's like, he's gotten fed with, you know,
a miracle with Jesus Christ.
He was on the Mount Transfiguration.
Think about that.
Peter didn't just see Jesus.
He saw Jesus in the most glorified state imaginable.
And then it's like, do you know the guy?
No.
I promise I've never seen him.
I know not the man.
I mean, that is a crazy transition.
Why?
Because he's afraid of his well-being.
You know, this was a thing that Peter regretted
and he wept bitterly after he did it.
What was the little girl really going to do?
I mean, was she going to get him?
He didn't even know what was going to happen to him.
But, you know, fortunately later he finally got it right.
And then when the Pharisees and the chief rulers,
they bring him out and they're saying,
you can't preach in this guy's name.
He's like, we're going to obey man.
We're going to obey God.
And they were thrown in prison.
And then when they got out, they were glad
that they had suffered shame.
So they were thinking like, man,
if I had known that was going to be the outcome,
I would have done it the first time.
You know, when he went into prison,
the angel came and, you know, kicked him or whatever
and then helped him go out.
It wouldn't have been cool to just be in prison
and just watch doors just like open.
I mean, that would be pretty cool.
I mean, it's just like every door you just walk up
and it's just like, you know, he's just walking straight out
and then he's knocking on the door and they're like,
what, where did you come from?
He just walked right out of jail.
And then not only did he walk out of jail,
then he just walks back in the public square the next day
and they're thinking like, how did you get here?
And then they didn't know what to do because they're like,
this guy can just walk through walls or something.
Like, what's happening here?
Isn't it cool?
Now all of a sudden he has all this respect.
Now all of a sudden people are afraid of him,
whereas before he was afraid.
And let me tell you something.
When you're afraid of saying that you know Christ,
he might be a little more timid to protect you.
You know, I'd rather be in the most dangerous situation
saying I'm with Christ, saying I know the man,
than to be in the safest place saying I know not the man.
And sometimes we have it backwards where we think like,
oh, oh, you know, I'll be safer if I don't tell people
that I'm a Christian.
You know, that's like the worst thing you can do
if you're a Christian.
Go to 1 Peter chapter number 4.
Go to 1 Peter chapter 4.
You know, when it comes to my well-being,
I don't go to sleep at night
thinking about how strong I am physically
or how many guns I have loaded, which I have a lot,
or my security system.
You know, I think like,
Lord, please preserve me this evening.
You know, I think about the angels,
the guardian angels that are out there ready to defend me,
and I rest more assured in that
than I do my own physical ability to defend myself,
because I'm one man.
I mean, at the end of the day, we realize that an army of men,
you know, you're not going to take that out
on your own strength and your own might.
I don't have military-grade weaponry.
I don't have, like, ballistics and, you know,
a shield and smoke bombs and all this.
I mean, I don't have all these kind of,
this kind of equipment to defend myself physically
from an intruder or some kind of evil.
But you know what I do? I have the Lord.
And I'd rather be right with God and not be embarrassed.
I go to sleep knowing that I know the Lord better
than I would if I was like,
well, I don't really like that part of the Bible.
I'm going to go to bed terrified that night
to be embarrassed to say that you know Christ
or be embarrassed to know,
to say that you are a Christian or that you know Christ
or that you know one of his,
you even know one of his brothers and sisters in Christ.
Because, you know, Jesus Christ takes that personally.
You know, if you give a cup of cold water
to, you know, some child or something,
he says he did it unto me.
You do it unto the least of these, my brethren,
you've done it unto me.
So you know what?
When you're embarrassed of a Christian,
you're embarrassed of Christ.
You're supposed to love the brethren.
We're supposed to do good unto the brethren.
We shouldn't be embarrassed
of other fellow Christians in Christ.
Look what it says in verse 16.
Get if any man suffer as a Christian,
let him not be ashamed,
but let him glorify God on this behalf.
So point one in my sermon is this.
Why do people feel ashamed or embarrassed?
Well, they don't want to lose money.
They don't want to lose their wealth.
Number two, they don't want to lose their well-being.
But number three is they don't want to lose worship.
Go to John chapter number 12.
Go to John chapter 12.
And when you think about worship,
typically we think of it in kind of a religious perspective.
A religious scenario.
But you have to understand that this world craves worship.
The celebrities and the Hollywood athletes,
or sorry, Hollywood and just athletes and just politicians,
all these people, they crave worship.
Think about just even foreign countries.
I mean, you've got like North Korea.
They have to worship their leader as God.
Obviously, and throughout history.
Look at the Bible.
They're worshiping the Pharaoh as God.
They're worshiping, you know, Herod desires to be worshiped and adored.
Nebuchadnezzar wants everyone to do what?
Bow down.
And do what?
Worship.
The word worship is really just synonymous with kneeling.
Like just getting on your knees, essentially.
Kings throughout history, what do they want?
They want everybody to just kneel down in his presence.
To literally worship them.
And today, you know, our worship isn't so much about a knee physically.
It's more about the knee metaphorically.
And you notice the Democrats, they'll take a knee for anyone.
But just online, what do people want?
They want to go viral.
They want all the hearts and they want all the thumbs up
and they want all the likes and they want all the, you know, the praise online
and they want everybody to tell them how wonderful they are.
And we just live in a culture where everybody's just so obsessed with self-worship.
I mean, it's on such a microscopic level now because with social media,
you can have your own social media account and you can post whatever you want
and you can see how many people are going to like it.
And some people, their posts are generated solely around worship of themselves.
What do they, they just, they're like, look at me this week.
And then they see how many people thumb up that post.
It's like, what was that post really about?
Worship, isn't it?
It's just like, look at what I did.
Look how, look how strong I am or look how beautiful I am or whatever.
And look, there's nothing wrong with posting a picture of yourself,
but what I'm saying is there's lots of people that are doing it solely for the point of just being worshiped.
Solely for just saying, look how awesome I am.
Look how great I am.
Tell me how wonderful I am.
And you know what?
That is really going to be deterred when you're getting up there and saying,
hey, look what the Bible says.
When you start putting up Bible verses, you know what happens?
Your account's restricted.
This goes against our community guidelines.
You just get canceled and censored and just, you're not going to get all that worship.
Your YouTube channel, gone.
Just like that.
I mean, you lose Twitter.
You lose all of the social media.
They'll harass you.
If you say what the Bible says, I mean, you could preach the most elegant sermon,
but if you use this, just destroy it.
Whereas you preach like a junkie sermon full of lies,
they'll recommend it as the next video.
John MacArthur.
Joel Osteen.
Victoria Osteen.
I mean, the women preachers are having millions of views on their video.
Not because anybody's watching it,
but because they inorganically put it as the next video for every single person on YouTube,
so they just get all these views and nobody wants to watch it.
The bounce rate's like 100%.
But look at John chapter 12, verse 42.
The Bible says,
Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also many believed on him,
but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him,
lest they should be put out of the synagogue,
for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
Let me tell you something.
If you love God, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ,
if you're not ashamed of his word,
people will not praise you for that.
The world will not praise you for that.
They will hate you for it.
And they, it wasn't any different back then.
These people were so terrified,
they were so afraid to say that they were a Christian
because they know it would ruin them socially.
And look, most people going to the synagogue at this time,
it wasn't so much about worshiping God,
it was a social thing.
It was social status.
You go and you talk.
I mean, they don't have Facebook.
They don't have social media.
They don't have all these other things.
So they go to the synagogue to hang out,
see people, make deals.
This is where everything's,
everything's like running through the church, quote, unquote.
You got all the, all the politicians.
You got all the money changing going on down there.
I mean, it's literally just the world down at the synagogue.
So if you get kicked out, you know what you're getting doing?
You're getting kicked out of the world, basically.
You're just being censored from normal life.
People will basically reject you and put you out as an outcast.
And you know what?
Instead of being a social outcast right with God,
they would rather be ashamed of Jesus.
Jesus came here and became the biggest social outcast ever for you.
And then they're afraid of being a social outcast
just in Jerusalem.
Being a social outcast when it comes to the synagogue.
Why do you want the synagogue to like you anyways?
The synagogue of Satan?
I mean, you really want those people to be proud of you and to like you?
The Weinsteins and the Goldbergs and the Greenbacks?
I mean, what, why do I want them to like me?
That's foolish.
And they don't even like you anyways.
Because that whole group, the whole world only loves itself anyways.
The only reason they give you attention is so they can get something out of it.
Go if you would to James chapter number 4 for a moment.
Go to James chapter number 4.
And I'll tell you something.
God's people today are no different.
That there is so many Christians in this nation
that are afraid, embarrassed, and ashamed of the Bible.
They're ashamed of Christianity.
They're ashamed of the real preachers of God's Word.
They're ashamed of faithful word Baptist church.
You know, there was an article put out about our church recently.
And it's like, all the North Texas pastors are ashamed of, you know, steadfast Baptist church.
They all came together and they want to denounce it and say how horrible it is.
And now, none of us are like them and whatever.
Now, of course, when you read the article, it's like Rabbi, and Rabbi this, and Rabbi that,
and Pastor, you know, like, Joni, and Pastor Susie, and Pastor Aids.
And it's like, well, of course, they didn't like me.
You know, I'm not super shocked that that crowd wasn't, you know,
the United Methodists weren't my biggest fans or something like that.
But you know what?
There's just no opinion from any of the independent fundamental Baptist churches in our area.
There's just like no opinion from any of the Bible churches in our area.
And you know what? I guarantee there's tons of people that are saved in those churches.
And you know, our church, and this church, and Pastor Jimenez, and some of our friends,
you know, you can get a smorgasbord of all these friends.
A lot of us have gone mega viral at times.
And we're talking about super viral.
I was looking up, and I don't have this app, but you can still just get, like, limited information online.
There's an app called TikTok, and I've never had it. I don't want anything to do with it, really.
But for some reason, it just, like, hates my church, that app.
But you can type in, like, Steadfast Baptist, and then it'll tell you, like,
how many views that particular search result has had in some of the videos they've recently done.
It's hundreds of millions of views.
And I'm just thinking, like, what in the world? No wonder my voicemail box is full of reprobate trash.
You know, Pastor Jimenez, I mean, when he went mega viral several years ago,
I mean, he was, like, on all kinds of media.
He had, like, hundreds of protesters come to his church specifically.
Faith Lord Baptist Church has been in, like, virtually every news thing ever times ten.
And any time any of us ever, like, me or my friends, we ever go viral,
they always be, like, they always say this,
Oh, he's also friends with Pastor Anderson.
They also like Faith Lord Baptist Church.
You know, they always have to throw that in there.
And I'm thinking, like, yeah, I am friends with them.
Yeah, I do like them.
I was sent out of Faith Lord Baptist Church. That's right.
I put it on the website.
I didn't like, I wasn't like Tyler Baker where I'm like,
Well, I came out of some church somewhere in Phoenix.
He doesn't say, like, I was thrown out of some church in Phoenix.
I was thrown out of Faith Lord Baptist Church.
And he doesn't actually put that.
He's like, I served faithfully at a church in Phoenix or something.
Liar.
You know, but the point that I'm making is this.
We've gone so viral in so many different ways.
So many people have heard us.
But you know what?
In all these churches, I've seen so many churches make opinions, public videos.
I mean, I've had pastors just making all these videos
and preaching sermons against us and about us.
And, you know, the news media and just all the businesses.
I mean, just everyone just can't stop talking about it.
But you know who's deathly quiet?
All the fundamental Baptist churches and Bible churches
and conservatives and Republicans.
You know, isn't it interesting?
I mean, it's like literally almost every liberal media station
puts a hit piece out on Faith Lord Baptist Church,
on Step Fast Baptist Church, on Verity Baptist Church,
on all these churches, First Works Baptist Church.
On all these churches, they put all these hit pieces out.
But you know who gives them zero coverage?
Any conservative news media.
I mean, when has Fox News ever covered the new IFB?
And, you know, there's all these like, I see them,
there's all these like conservative talking people like podcasters
and stuff like that.
You know, people like Mark Dice or people like Steven Crowder
or there's all kinds of other people out there, Alex Jones and stuff like that.
And Alex, while he did put, you know, Pastor Anderson on there one time
and I think Mark Dice even mentioned him one time,
it's like they're really afraid though when we go mega-viral to say anything about it.
And you know why?
Because they don't want to lose their wealth, their well-being,
or they don't want to lose their worship.
And let me tell you something.
When you go out there and you say,
hey, I love Faith Lord Baptist Church.
Hey, when you say, hey, I'm going to put Pastor Anderson on my YouTube channel,
you know what happens?
It's gone.
I have these old clips of Pastor Anderson that I made that I really liked.
I was preaching.
And I just put it on my channel and it was just like gone.
I was just like, what in the world?
I mean, he's like been unpersoned on social media.
And how about the fact Pastor Anderson has been banned from what, like 32 countries?
Forgive me, is that the number right?
Can I get a witness?
This is like 30 plus.
He's counting, he's trying to catch them all, you know, 200 and whatever.
Think about this.
He got banned from all these countries for one reason.
Like his purpose was to go and preach a gospel,
have like a soul winning marathon preaching the gospel.
He got banned.
When did any conservative leader, when did any Baptist,
when did any fundamental leader stand up and say,
you know what, that's wrong that that country banned this preacher
for wanting to go and preach the gospel.
You know what, they didn't do it.
You know why?
Because they're embarrassed of his doctrine on Zionism.
They're embarrassed of his doctrine on Romans 1.
They're embarrassed of the heat that he's gotten from those messages.
So they won't stick their neck out there.
But isn't it interesting that Jesus Christ the righteous sitting up in heaven,
he sticks his neck out for me every single time I need it.
But then these fundamental Baptists,
they can't even act like they're your friend or even know that you exist.
Where are all the Christians today to say,
hey, I'm not ashamed of Bible believing Christians.
Even if you disagree on doctrine.
Isn't it interesting that, you know,
if there was some pre-Tribber that was getting harassed by Sodomites,
you know what I would do?
I would make a video saying I'm standing with you guys.
Praise the Lord.
I wouldn't be like, oh, I can't be friends with this guy.
He's pre-Trib.
Or, you know, he doesn't do this one thing right.
He has Sunday school or something.
Good night.
Who cares?
Who cares about those trivial things?
Who cares that they're wrong about certain things?
You know, we should still love the brethren.
And why do they not want to do it?
Because they're embarrassed of the Bible.
They're embarrassed of God's words.
They're embarrassed of Jesus Christ.
Because Jesus Christ is the entire Bible.
It's not just the red letters you like.
It's every single utterance in the Scripture.
And we need more Christians to stand up
and not be embarrassed about where they go to church.
They're not embarrassed about what they believe.
They're not embarrassed of the new IFB.
You know, we need Christians all over this country right now.
Isn't it interesting that Muslim women
can literally wear a head covering
in Phoenix, in public,
and they're not embarrassed,
but then we have women that come to this church
that are embarrassed to wear a skirt or a dress in public.
They're embarrassed to wear a skirt and dress in front of their family.
It's like, how does that work?
I mean, look what a Muslim woman is doing.
I mean, we have people that are walking up and down the street.
We have men who have chopped off their nuts,
put on a dress and lipstick,
and are walking up and down the street,
saying, look at me,
and you're afraid to say I'm from Faith Ward Baptist Church?
Like, I'm thinking, like, what?
These people are the most shameful people on the planet.
You know, we should be the biggest champions
for what we believe,
because you know what?
Nothing we believe,
nothing about this church is shameful.
This world is shameful.
This is one of the greatest churches on the planet.
This is one of the greatest churches to ever exist.
And you know what makes a church?
The people.
You know, nobody understands
Faith Ward Baptist Church from afar,
because a big component of Faith Ward Baptist Church
is the people sitting in the chairs.
I remember coming here and I'm like, man,
how could anybody hate this church
when they come here and it's like the most loving people,
it's the most normal people I've ever met in my entire life.
Why would I be embarrassed about this group of people?
Why would I be embarrassed about, you know,
the pastor that I have
who loves me enough to scream at me what the Bible says,
who loves me enough to tell me things that I don't want to hear,
who loves me enough to basically ruin his money,
ruin his well-being,
ruin his worship and everything like that,
for the sake of Christ,
who's willing to put it all on the line,
I mean, he's willing to drive 21 hours
just to go preach for me at a church in Oklahoma.
You know how many people would sign up for that?
No one.
You think these old,
look, these old IFB preachers,
if you have them come preach for you,
you have to like pamper them.
You have to like pick them up in a limo
with like 67 degree, you know, temperature,
with a, you know, Perrier water,
Perrier, you know,
and I need, I need a, I need an allowance,
you know, or I need some kind of a special gift offering,
like I don't come and preach for less than $5,000.
Isn't that pretentious?
I've never had any of my friends when I say we come preach for you,
they're like, well, I need $5,000, hmm.
They would do it for free.
And they do do it free.
Because they don't charge me anything.
And if I never paid them,
you know what they would do?
They would come back the next time I asked them to probably.
Because they don't really care about that.
And I, I don't know,
I pray, I try to like actually still give them a gift or something,
but even if I forgot,
I've never even had them remind me.
Like, hey, I just want to let you know I preached for you
and then you forgot to give me anything.
I don't know if you realize that or not.
And I wouldn't even be offended by that.
I'd be like, oh, man, I'm so sorry.
I'm glad you told me because I did want to give you something.
But I'm just saying they don't even do that.
I've never even had that happen.
I don't think it would ever happen
because they don't care about money.
That's the kind of friends I want to have
is ones that care more about what the Bible says than money.
And some people, they just don't get this.
You know, the protesters,
they're so obnoxious and loud expressing their opinions,
but we're afraid to peacefully and rationally
explain our positions with logic.
Feminists go out naked with blood on them
and scream in public,
whereas women in this church are afraid
to say yes, sir, to their husband in front of their parents
or in front of their family.
Like, they go back home with their feminist home,
like their feminist, you know, family reunion,
where all the women there are telling their husbands what to do,
carry my purse, and you're embarrassed to, like, say,
honey, can I get you another sandwich, please?
But feminists are walking around naked with blood on them
and public screaming.
Think about that.
Think about that kind of logic.
In fact, at our church,
we've been having protests for, like, forever.
And I kid you not,
the women at the protest at our church,
they go completely topless.
It's so disgusting and depraved,
and it's technically not illegal,
so we can't even do anything about it.
I mean, we just have literal people out there screaming,
you know, every profanity word you could think of,
every curse, every threatening,
women are completely topless,
men are wearing ball gowns,
and just, like, all kinds of just disgusting,
obscene, vile things you could ever imagine.
I mean, the worst things imaginable.
And it sounds like hell
because they're all screaming at the same time,
and you can't really discern anything.
It's just like...
It's like, I'm sure it'll sound the same in hell.
They'll still be saying the same things.
It's so hot out there, at least Texas is hot, too, okay?
It's like, how can they do that?
How can they show their public face?
I mean, how embarrassed would you be
if your wife was standing topless
in the parking lot this morning?
These people are literally doing it,
and then they're going to go to work tomorrow.
Well, I don't know if they work, but...
They'll collect their George Soros paycheck or whatever, you know?
They'll collect their welfare paycheck or something.
But they go out in public.
I mean, they'll be seen at the...
They'll do that, and then they'll go to the city council meeting
and be like, yeah, it's me, and I'm proud or whatever.
They're loud and proud.
But then we have Christians who are embarrassed and ashamed
to say that they know...
Faithful word.
They're ashamed to say they know Pastor Steven Anderson.
Hey, you know what?
There's been even just some bozos,
Fundamental Baptists, that were like friends of ours,
and now they're so ashamed
and embarrassed to say that they know.
Faithful word.
It's like bozo Michael Johnson.
He recently preached a sermon where he said...
He was like preaching against me specifically,
but he said this about just our movement.
He said, this is the group known as the New IFB.
I'm ashamed.
At one point, I was associated with them,
but that's a long time ago.
I'm just so embarrassed.
Who would want to be known with all these churches
where I've changed all of my doctrine to match them,
and before I had all this false doctrine I was preaching,
like the preacher rapture and Zionism,
but I'm just so embarrassed that now I cleaned up all my doctrine.
I'm so embarrassed that our church wasn't soul-winning
I'm so embarrassed that our church wasn't soul-winning,
and now it's soul-winning.
I'm so embarrassed.
That guy's a loser.
Probably not even saved,
because he's such a wicked, evil person
constantly attacking godly pastors.
He's so embarrassed.
That would be the same as saying you're embarrassed
of any of the apostles in the Bible, too,
or any brother or sister in Christ.
You know, and even if there was people in the Bible
that did shameful things at times, I wouldn't be embarrassed.
If someone said, hey, are you friends with David?
It's like, yeah.
Well, you know he committed adultery.
It's like, yeah, but I'm still friends with David.
I wouldn't be like, well, I can't be friends with you now, David.
You know, I can't be friends with you, Noah.
I can't be friends with you, you know,
any of the men of the god of the Bible,
Joseph, because of your mistakes.
I can't be friends with you, Abraham.
I can't be friends with you, Peter.
You denied Christ.
I mean, that's pretty bad.
You denied Christ openly?
He failed pretty hard.
But I would be like, Peter's my best friend.
John's my best friend.
You know, John was exiled to the Isle of Patmos.
The whole world rejected him and hated him.
But you know what?
I would love to have been like, I'm John's best friend.
I love John.
He tells me about heaven.
I mean, who was Jesus' best friend?
John.
He wasn't embarrassed.
The whole world is embarrassed of John.
But Jesus said he was the beloved.
He was the one that leaned on Jesus' breast.
And you know, those that are the most unpopular for the cause of Christ
are the ones that Jesus loves the most,
that he's the least embarrassed of.
And you know, we too should have the same mentality
where we don't have this embarrassed attitude about who we're friends with.
Look at 2 Timothy 1, the last place I'm going to return.
Look, we should not be ashamed of Christ.
Don't be ashamed of the Bible.
Be ashamed of this world.
This world thinks that men are women.
This world literally says that men can get pregnant.
And then you're embarrassed to say Leviticus 20, 13?
You're embarrassed to say Romans, chapter number 1?
It's less embarrassing to say men can get pregnant?
It's less embarrassing to have a sodomite flag?
Which, of course, the sodomite flag is a rainbow,
which is like a giant middle finger to the Lord,
because he gave the rainbow saying he wasn't going to destroy them with a flood,
and they're basically trying to mock him and spit in his face every single day
with their six-color flag,
just trying to parade it up and down the street
and with all their filth and abomination.
I mean, if there was one symbol
that you could possibly have to try and mock God the most, it's that.
And then every business virtually in the month of Jude
is trying to fly that and put it out and say,
Look at us!
And they're just basically blaspheming God and mocking God
and spitting in the face of our Savior,
just like all the Jews did when he walked up to Calvary.
It's not any different.
They just mocked him and spit on him and yelled at him.
But you know what?
If someone said, Hey, are you with Christ?
I'd say, Yes, I am!
Hey, do you know Peter?
Yes, I do.
Do you know John?
Absolutely.
Do you know Paul?
Sure.
And you know what?
Paul had moments in his life where no one liked him.
Everyone turned away from him.
At my first answer, no man stood with me, is what he said.
You know, all kinds of people, like demons, have forsaken me.
Having loved this present world.
Just all these different people just ashamed and embarrassed.
But you know what?
You should never have that feeling towards God's people.
Towards the man of God.
Look at what it says in 2 Timothy, chapter 1, verse 15.
This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me,
of whom are by jealous and homogeneous.
The Lord give mercy in the house of Onesiphorus,
for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain.
He said, Hey, when I got arrested for preaching the Bible,
these bozos, homogenies, and by jealous, they were ashamed of me.
They got up and made a YouTube video with three views that said,
I'm so embarrassed that I knew Paul.
Me and my mom and I watched this video.
Isn't it funny that as soon as these people, you know,
leave the movement or not friends with us anymore,
they just die in obscurity because no one cares about them anymore.
The media doesn't care.
No one watches their videos.
They're not doing these great works.
They're not riling anybody up.
I mean, how can you, in 2022 America, not get anyone mad at you
when you're putting your preaching online?
I mean, can you imagine?
I put every sermon and every video and everything online
and no one's ever mad at me.
It's like, why?
Because it's so boring no one would ever watch it.
Because there's no spirit of the Lord there.
You know, and when you forsake God's people,
and when you want nothing to do with God's people,
you know, he might depart from you too.
Just give you an evil spirit like he gave Saul.
You know, I don't want an evil spirit like Saul got.
I would rather just stay with the man of God
and be excited about the man of God.
You know, Saul, he was embarrassed of David
because he didn't want to lose his power.
He didn't want to lose his wealth and his fame and everything else.
But why couldn't he have just been excited that he was better than him?
You know, why do you have to be the best?
Just be excited that other people...
You know, that's why I think all these pastors just hate Pastor Anderson,
is because they just know he's so much better than them.
But I'm like, you know, and I never get this,
because I'm thinking like, why would I want every pastor to be worse than me?
The only reason I would want that is for the worship.
You know what, John the Baptist didn't have that philosophy.
I must decrease, but he must increase.
You know, we should want... I want every pastor to be better than me.
That sounds great.
I want everybody in my church to be better than me.
I'm not trying to sit here like,
hey, you know, you're getting a little too good at preaching over here, buddy.
That was a pretty good soul-winning method.
You need to tone it down a little bit.
You're going slowly a little too much, buddy.
You got that many people saved? Slow it down.
You know, what kind of a silly attitude is that?
But there's so many people, they're ashamed of the Word of God,
they're ashamed of the Bible,
and it's because they don't want to lose any kind of worship,
because they know if they sided with Pastor...
I mean, most of these old IV churches, if they come out and say,
hey, I like Faithful Word Baptist Church,
even if they said the most mild thing,
they said, I disagree with Faithful Word on a lot of things, but I like them anyways,
and they're brothers in Christ, and it's not right
that Pastor was banned from all these countries for preaching the Gospels.
You know what happened? They lose all their friends.
They wouldn't get all the speaking engagements.
They wouldn't get to preach at the Sword of the Lord conference.
And because they just love worship, they love the praise of men,
they love all the attention that they're going to get from this world,
they're afraid to say they like a great man of God.
And I'll tell you something.
I'm not afraid to say that I love Faithful Word Baptist Church.
I'm not embarrassed.
When people ask me, they're like, hey, where did you get sent out from?
Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Why is this church in Phoenix? Don't look it up.
Who is your sitting pastor? Pastor Anderson.
I love that man.
He's one of my best friends at this point in my life.
And just by accident is the fact that he's helped me with so many problems.
I have so many problems.
And if he's not ashamed of me and all my problems,
how could I turn around and get ashamed of him?
And why would I want to be embarrassed of any guy that's going out there
and preaching the Gospel and getting people saved
and calling it like it is and preaching the Bible
just because you don't like something about their personality
or you don't like one thing they preach or something like that.
That's silly.
We as God's people, if we're going to change this culture,
if we're going to change America, we need Christians to stand up and say,
I'm not ashamed to be a Christian.
Why do you think it is that the sodomites have changed our culture so much?
It's because they all stood up and said, I'm not ashamed of being a sodomite,
and they go and parade it up and down the street,
and they tell everybody about it,
and they put all this pressure on everybody about what they believe,
and what they think, and what they do.
And let me tell you something.
If you want to change America, you can't be quiet about it.
You have to get out there and say, hey, I love the Bible.
I love the King James Bible.
I love every verse of the Bible.
We need to get back to the Word of God.
Here's a great preacher.
Here's a great church.
You know, don't be embarrassed about inviting somebody to this church.
Say, come to the greatest church in this area.
Come hear some of the greatest singing.
Come hear some of the greatest music.
Come sing some of the psalms.
I mean, nobody's singing the psalms anymore.
Come hear some of the most dynamic preaching you've ever heard in your entire life.
Don't be ashamed of faith or a Baptist church.
Don't be embarrassed when you have to tell your family or your friends, your coworker, whatever.
Obviously use discretion, but you know what?
I would rather be more public and not use discretion than be too private.
I would rather veer on the side of everybody knowing what I believe, who I stand with, than the opposite.
And you know what?
We need some Christians to get some boldness and some courage today to say that they know the Lord.
We need to inspire other Christians.
You know what?
Every fundamental Baptist church stood up and said they stand with us on the Sodomite issue.
They wouldn't get protested.
Because there's not enough protesters to share.
Look, I have literally, I've had like the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area, 8 million people, all mad at me virtually,
especially in that, you know, AIDS community, and they still only round together like 40 or 50 people.
It's like our church has a couple hundred, you know, in the morning.
It's like, how, this is all you got?
This is all you can round you up?
Out of 8 million people, this is what we're afraid of?
This is what we're terrified of?
I mean, there is 1600 Southern Baptist churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Now, of course, they're not saving everything, but not all of them.
But I'm just saying, if they were, if they all said it, there's not enough protesters to share.
40 divided by 1600, who's got that number?
I mean, they're going to have to cut off more body parts to share.
Oh, I'm so embarrassed to know a pastor's there, because he made a documentary with a Calvinist one time.
And he's going, so Calvinist.
Who in here is a five-point Calvinist?
Four.
Three-point.
Two-point.
One?
Oh, I can't be friends with him!
You know, these people are just bozos and losers.
And we shouldn't care if the whole world hates us.
Marvel not if the world hate you.
You know what?
I love Jesus, and I love the King James Bible, and I love Faith Ward Baptist Church, and I love Pastor Steven Anderson, and I love all of you, too.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for the word of God.
Thank you for not being ashamed of us, but willing to come down and die.
Send your son to die on the cross for us.
Thank you for the fact that not only your son died for us, but you gave us the opportunity to be sons and daughters of God.
Not only are we going to be sons and daughters of God, but even while we live on this earth, even with our weakest moment, our worst moment, our biggest sin,
Jesus Christ is still seated next to the Father, making propitiation for us, advocating for us.
And if you're not going to be ashamed of us, we should not be ashamed of you.
And I pray that you would give your strength and courage to every man, woman, boy, child in this room, that they wouldn't be ashamed of Christ or of his words,
but they'd be ashamed of this sinful and adulterous generation. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Take your hymnals, please. Let's go to hymn number three.
Number three, Jesus paid it all. Hymn number three.
And we'll sing it on that verse together. I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small. Number three, let's sing it out. Hymn number three.
I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small.
I'll wash my garments wide in the blood of Calvary's lamb.
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
Sin had left the crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
And when before the flood, I spent Him complete, Jesus died my soul to stay.
My life shall still repeat. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
Sin had left the crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
I'll wash my garments wide in the blood of Calvary's lamb.