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See, before, if any stranger
or anybody else from another tribe came in and tried
to do any of that priestly work,
they were put to death.
They were killed for it.
They were not allowed to do that, but now we can draw
near with a true heart
and full assurance of faith, having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience
and our bodies washed with
pure water. Because didn't the priests have to
set themselves apart?
They had to wash, do all these washings
and wash their body and
wash their flesh and wash their clothes, and there was
all these kind of rituals
that they had to do
in order to be priests.
But our hearts have been sprinkled
by the blood of Christ and our
bodies washed with pure water.
That means we're saved, and now
we can draw near to God
in a way that we could not do in the Old Testament.
I hope that makes sense to you.
Look at Ephesians 2, verse 18.
Ephesians 2, verse 18.
So I'm going to just continue to
make this doctrine
make sense to you, hopefully,
by explaining it, but
look at Ephesians 2,
verse 18.
The Bible reads,
For through him
we both have access
by one Spirit
unto the Father.
So we all have the same Spirit of God
living in us.
If we're saved today, the Holy Spirit
resides within us,
God in you,
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We have God residing in us
and the Holy Spirit resides
in us as a down payment,
but he's never going to leave us.
We're always going to have the Holy Spirit,
but we all have access
by that one Spirit.
So in the Old Testament, the model of hierarchy
of spiritual positions is not mandated
for the New Testament church.
While church leaders may function in offices
like pastor, deacon,
or evangelist,
their offices do not mean that they have
any inherent spiritual ability
greater than anybody else in the church.
And this is a problem
because people will lift pastors
up onto a pedestal that they shouldn't be
left on. Because here's the thing,
when you put all your trust
in a man, they're going to fail you
at some point.
I might not fail you today,
maybe it's going to be tomorrow, but
I will fail to probably
say right things.
I will fail in my life somehow.
I'm just saying that everybody fails,
everybody's human, pastors are human,
they're not some superhuman
holy... I mean, we're anointed by God
obviously to preach the Gospel,
we're ordained by God to preach
and to lead and be pastors,
but we don't have
a spiritual ability. You can read your Bible
just as much as I do.
You can pray just as much as I do.
You can do work just as much as I do.
And in a lot of ways, a lot of people in this room
do more work than me in certain areas.
It's just the way it is.
So, don't put pastors on a
pedestal. I'm not a better
priest than any of you.
I'm just qualified to be the pastor here,
called to be the pastor here,
and ordained to be the pastor here.
Because somebody has to
rule over the things in the church.
I'm not
telling you what car to buy.
I noticed a brother Sean got a new Yukon.
Guess what? He didn't come to me and say,
hey pastor, do you think I should get
a Yukon?
But pastors do that these days.
People do that with their pastors.
That's weird. Don't do
weird stuff like that. I don't care
what kind of car you get. Just get the car you like.
Look up the reviews
on Google or something,
and find the car that you like and the car that you
want. You have
that choice to make. It's not my choice to make.
So all believers in Christ
have direct access
to God. You don't need me to
get to God. I'm not your priest
to, you know, obviously I
can pray for you, I can help you, I can
counsel you, but God can do
those things too. God can help
you. The Holy Spirit utters
things that we need
when we won't even pray for the things that we need.
God is the one that
really is the one that helps us. He just puts us
people in authority
over the church because there has to be some kind
of order. There has to be some kind
of ruling, and that's just the way
it is. That's the way God set it up, but
I'm not better than anybody else.
So, now
turn to 1 Timothy 2, verse 5.
1 Timothy 2, verse 5.
1 Timothy 2, verse 5
says, For there is one God
and one mediator
between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus.
So, who's the mediator between God
and men? The man Christ Jesus.
Jesus Christ is, you know,
when we pray to the Father,
who do we pray through?
We pray through Jesus the Son.
When we end our prayers, why do we say,
in Jesus' name? Because we're going
to the throne,
we're going to God the Father,
and we're making our request
known unto Jesus,
and He is the one that
intercedes for us. He is the
mediator. Mary's not the mediator.
She's not the mediatrix, or whatever the Catholic
Church says. They're just worshiping
some false goddess from thousands
of years ago, and the Catholic
Church is, you know, they're like, well,
you know, we're going to call ourselves
Christian, but then they take all these pagan
beliefs and insert them into
the Catholic Church, and people think that that's right
and true. But the Orthodox
Church is the same way. They're
just like Catholic
light. They don't have a pope, I guess,
but they still are equally
bad in a lot of different ways. I mean,
the Orthodox, you know,
religion will kiss pictures
of saints, and how do you know what those saints
look like? I mean, well, the pictures
right there, I mean, do you think that they had Kodak
back then or something? You know, they have all these
pictures of saints, but those are just like
the gods that they used to believe
in in pagan times, the Roman gods.
You know, Saint Christopher,
you know, let Saint Christopher, you know,
we don't pray to saints. We don't pray
to any other people. We just
pray to God through Jesus
because we don't need to pray through saints.
We don't need to pray through
Mary. We can just pray right
to God through Jesus the Son.
Isn't that what the Bible says right there?
But here's the thing. Believers do differ
in gifts and abilities,
but are equally
indwelt by the same Spirit.
We're equally indwelt.
We all have the Spirit of God if you're saved
this morning. Look at 1 Corinthians,
chapter 12.
The Bible outlines this for us
really easily. 1 Corinthians
chapter 12, verse number 4, the Bible
says,
Now there are diversities of gifts,
but the same Spirit.
See, we have different gifts. Each one of you
has a different gift, and
I'm sure you're all, you know, the discerners
of spirits in here or whatever, but
people like to have the cool gifts, but
whatever your gift is, that's just what God gave you.
That's your gift. But it
says, And there are differences of
administrations, but the same
Lord. And there are diversities of
operations, but it is the same
God which worketh all
in all. But the manifestation
of the Spirit is given to every
man to profit
with all. You see that?
The manifestation of the Spirit,
the spiritual gifts that we get,
we might differ in those gifts.
We might differ in what position we are
in the church, whatever
our administration is,
or how those operations
are carried out, but we're all
given the same manifestation of the Spirit
for every man to profit
with all. We all have the ability
to serve God with our lives
because of the Holy Spirit.
So,
what is the actual purpose
of us being priests unto God?
What is the purpose?
Well, let's turn to Numbers chapter
18, verse 6.
And don't be worried, I'm not going to go
through the whole Baptist acronym today.
It's only two letters, basically.
So,
Numbers chapter 18, verse 6.
And I just want to
show you, in the Old Testament, when they
were called priests, this is what they were to do.
It says, And I behold,
I have taken you, brethren,
the Levites from among the children of
Israel, to you
they are given as a gift
for the Lord, to do
what's it say there?
The service of the tabernacle
of the congregation.
So, what were the priests supposed to do?
They were called out by the
Levites, the Levitical priesthood,
to do the service of
the tabernacle of the congregation.
So, they were the ones that were serving,
chopping up the animals,
cleaning, cooking.
I mean, they had to cook, too, right?
And the priests ate from
those offerings that were brought, and all that stuff.
But, that was the system that God
used. Look at what it says in verse 7.
Therefore, thou and thy sons,
with thee shall keep
your priest's office, for
every thing of the altar,
and within the veil, and
ye shall serve.
So, what are priests supposed to do?
Serve. Isn't that what it says?
And ye shall serve.
I have given your priest's office
unto you as a service
of gift.
And the stranger that cometh nigh
shall be put to death.
So, there it is in black and white for you right there.
If anybody tried to be a priest
that was not allowed to be a priest,
they were killed for it.
They were put to death.
So, the priest's office,
that office, that position,
was a service of gift.
So, what were they supposed to do?
Serve the people.
Serve the tabernacle.
Who were they ultimately serving?
They're serving God.
Because who are the sacrifices for? God.
Who are the gifts for? God.
What are they doing?
They're being an in-between
between God and man.
That's what they were doing.
So, look at Hebrews chapter 8.
Hebrews chapter 8.
Now you're like, well, you've kind of proved your point, pastor.
Yeah, I know, but I just like to over-prove it.
But Hebrews chapter 8,
verse number 1,
I just kind of want to show you some of the New Testament
applications of the priesthood here.
So, in the Old Testament,
what were the priests supposed to do?
Everybody say it with me.
Serve.
Come on, guys.
What were the priests supposed to do that they were supposed to do?
Thank you. Alright.
Now I've got your attention.
Hebrews chapter 8, verse 1.
Now of all things which ye have spoken, this is the sum.
We have such an high priest who is set
on the right hand of the throne
in the heavens. That's Jesus.
A minister of the sanctuary
and the true tabernacle which the
Lord pitched and not man.
So, Jesus Christ is the
high priest of that true tabernacle
that's in heaven and
he's ministering and interceding
for us day and night.
He's at the right hand of the Father
and his job is to be the high
priest up there. That's what he does
now. So, why did Jesus have to
leave? He had to leave because
he's the high priest and he's ministering
up in heaven and
preparing a place for us, right?
So, it says,
the Lord,
he's the one that pitched the true
tabernacle, the one that's up in heaven.
For every high priest is ordained to offer
gifts and sacrifices
whereof it is of necessity
that this man
has somewhat also to offer.
For if he were on earth
he should not be a priest
seeing that there are priests that
offer gifts according to the law.
So, if he was
just like a regular priest
he'd be down here. So, he's saying
there's priests that offer gifts according to the law
who serve unto
the example and shadow
of heavenly things. You see that?
Who serve as the
example. So, what were the priests?
They were, as an example for us,
a shadow fulfillment
of the heavenly things that are going to be
in the future. We are going to be
priests in heaven also.
It says,
For see, saith he, that thou make all things
according to the pattern showed to thee
in the mount. So, when Moses
had the tabernacle built in the Old Testament
God showed him the pattern
and that pattern was patterned
after what was already in heaven.
So, the temple
itself was not what God first
designed. He designed the tabernacle
and it says in heaven
God has a tabernacle. You see that?
Up in the previous verses there.
Now, turn one page over
to Hebrews chapter 9.
Hebrews chapter 9. So, I'm just showing you
that there's differences between the priesthood
obviously and
the priests in the Old Testament were supposed
to serve God.
And they were in-betweens for God
and men, right? But it says in Hebrews
9-6, Now when these
things were thus ordained
the priests went always
into the first tabernacle
accomplishing what? The
service of God.
So, I mean, really the Bible is defining
for us what a priest is.
A priest is a servant of
God. Isn't that what it's saying?
Now, let's look at
Hebrews chapter 7.
I love this portion of scripture here.
We'll begin in verse number 13,
the last book of the Bible there.
Revelation chapter 7, verse
number 13, the Bible says,
The elders answered, saying unto me,
What are these which are arrayed in
white robes? And whence
came they? This is talking, this is
after Jesus has come back. This is
Revelation 7. This is before
the wrath of God is poured out. But all
these people appear in heaven, this multitude
that no man can number of all tribes
and tongues
and different people of the earth
because that's the rapture.
When all these people just suddenly appear
into heaven, the rapture has happened, okay?
And it says in verse 13,
One of the elders answered, saying unto me,
What are these which are arrayed in white robes?
And whence came they? Where did they come from?
And I said unto him, Sir,
thou knowest. And he said unto me,
These are they which came out of great tribulation
and have washed their robes
and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb.
Which seems like counter-productive,
like blood on a white robe
wouldn't seem to clean things, but this blood
is different. This blood is the blood
of Christ, and it's like a symbol
about those white garments
being holy there. So,
anyway, it says, Therefore are they
before the throne of God,
and what's it say there? And
serve him day
and night in the temple.
And he that sitteth on the
throne shall dwell among them.
And this is obviously
what the shadow fulfillment
was alluding to, is that
in heaven, in the temple,
there's going to come a day when
we are serving God
in this temple, and it says,
he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
So God is,
when everything is all said and done,
when the devil's finally
annihilated and destroyed and thrown back into hell
for all eternity,
no more people are getting saved
than we have eternity future.
Okay?
And the tabernacle
of God will be with men.
When New Jerusalem comes
down from heaven, this is the
tabernacle of God is with men. So we will live
with God and be with
him, and we will serve him.
It says,
And they shall hunger no more, verse 16,
neither thirst any more, neither
shall the sunlight on them
nor any heat. For the lamb
which is in the midst of the throne shall
feed them and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters, and God
shall wipe away all the tears
from their eyes. That'll be a great day, won't it?
When we get to actually just
focus on serving God
and, you know,
live, and I don't know how,
I'm sure heaven is going to be way better
than this world. Way
better. And it's hard
for us to imagine what it's going to be like because the
Bible doesn't really say a lot about it.
But one thing I do know is that we'll
be serving God. We're always
going to serve God. So, hey, if
our future is to serve God,
why aren't you serving him right now?
Let's make application to this now.
Why don't you serve God now with
the life that you have now
because you're still kings and priests
right now. It's just we're living
in a time that's different, but
see, we have, when you think about eternity
as a scope,
we in this room that are saved are going to live
for all eternity.
So, the things that we do on this earth
as Christians, they matter
now. They matter for the future.
They matter for people that
need to be saved in this world.
Look, when you go out in
the hot sun and go sowing and people
get saved, that is
a priestly duty that
you're doing. Because weren't the
Levites supposed to go and teach people also?
Weren't they supposed to go and
reach the other nations around them? Why did God
reject Israel?
Why, when he came upon the fig tree and there was no
fruit on the fig tree, why did he curse it?
It's a picture of Israel
not bringing forth fruit, and God says
you'll bring no fruit henceforth
forever. He took
the kingdom
from the nation
of Israel and gave it forth
to the spiritual nation,
which are people that are saved in the
New Testament. And people, you know, they get mad about that
with, I still believe the Jews are God's chosen people.
Well, I'm a Jew.
So, yeah, I am
God's chosen people. You're a Jew,
not on the outward appearance.
You know, I don't wear a funny hat
and wear these little things that come down the side,
you know, these little long signbirds
or whatever, I don't even know what they call them.
I don't put, like, some leather
strap with, like, a frontlet on my head
at dawn
and pray in front. I mean,
I was on an airplane flying to Manila
and when I was flying, I
couldn't sleep. I was awake.
The sun was coming up
and these Jewish rabbis
or whatever they were started putting all
their gear on, they had their wizard outfits
on, they were, like, putting
these leather straps around their arms
and why were they doing that?
For a show, for a pretense.
That's why they do it. Look at me,
look at my wizard outfit. Aren't I holy?
Aren't I a great priest?
No, the true priests of
God are people that are saved. And, yeah,
one day we will have a robe, but
you know, I'm thinking our robes are going to be
like this.
This length. Maybe a little
bit longer. But Jesus
warned us against wearing
these long, flowing outfits
and enlarging the
borders of our garments.
And so if Jesus warned against that, why would
we wear that? I mean, isn't
any priest or any
pastor that wears these weird robes,
isn't that, like, an
abomination in the sight of God?
It is. You don't
have to look like the Friar Tuck
to be holy, okay?
We don't have to wear a gunny sack
with a rope around our waist
and walk around whipping ourselves with a whip
to be holy. You know, we're
holy because Jesus made us holy
because He's put that
on us. That blood is applied
to our life once you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, our priesthood
now is for us to serve God
in this life and in this
body right now
and all eternity. You're like, well, when are we going to stop
serving? Never.
You're like, well, that sounds like hard work.
Well, I don't know. I mean, we could
probably fly and have,
you know, you talk about, people are so interested
in superheroes nowadays, but
do you think God
can lift the building up and throw it?
Do you think Jesus could do that?
So if we're going to be like Him,
I mean, we're going to be powerful beings,
you know? We're
still going to be ourselves,
but, you know, Thor
is a false god, folks.
And all these other
avengers, they don't have, you know,
there's no real power in that.
It's all made up. And a lot of it's
stolen from the Bible.
I mean, Superman
is basically a concept stolen from the
Bible. You know, his name is Kal-El.
El means God, right?
And what's
his dad's name? Jor-El. So he's
the father of Superman, right?
And he goes and meets with him in this
fortress of solitude or whatever,
this ice palace or something that
he can go and talk to his dead relatives
through these weird ice crystals or something.
I don't know. I've seen this Superman movie a long time ago.
But that's
the concept, in that he's more powerful
than anything else, and
he's righteous. I mean, they
just totally stole,
you know,
obviously Jesus doesn't fly around with a funny
cape and a weird outfit,
but he's going to
have a robe dipped in blood when he
comes back. It's going to be a red robe.
So he's going to come back in anger
when he comes back, but anyway,
I'm kind of dabbling into other things
here, but look at Romans chapter 12
verse 1. So
how do I know that God wants us to
serve right now? Well, I mean,
if we're, he's talking about us being
kings and priests, obviously
there's future fulfillments of that, but what
about right now? Well, look at Romans chapter 12 verse 1.
It says,
I beseech you therefore, brethren,
save people, right? By the mercies
of God that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice.
So we don't sacrifice
animals as
priests now, we do
spiritual sacrifices.
So what is that? Well, sacrificing
your body as a living sacrifice,
not a dead one, a living one.
Holy, he wants
us to be holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable,
what's it say there at the end?
Service. What do priests do again?
Serve. Okay, so
he expects us to serve,
doesn't he? According to that verse.
And we're supposed to be acceptable,
present our bodies as a living sacrifice, so that
means in our bodies, we serve
God. That's what it means.
You know, we're not giving
animal sacrifice anymore. Look at what it says in verse
2, it says, and be not conformed
to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God.
Now, in the Old Testament, they were supposed to
examine the animals,
right? And they had to be perfect
without blemish and all these things
and I think that Paul's kind of
throwing back to that
concept a little bit, he's playing a little play on words
here, but he wants
us to renew our mind, he wants us to serve us,
serve him in our body
and how do we prove what's good?
Well, it's by
renewing our mind through the word of God
and the Bible's teachings.
So, we're supposed to,
is there any doubt right there that
we're supposed to have a reasonable service to God?
Isn't it reasonable if God
saved us that we would serve him?
I mean, I think it's reasonable. The Bible says it's
reasonable, so it's right.
And turn to Hebrews 13.
So, 1 Peter chapter 2, 5,
I already kind of read this verse,
but I kind
of want to emphasize the back portion
of that scripture real quick. It says,
ye also as lively stones are built up
a spiritual house.
So,
and holy priesthood
to offer up,
so what do priests do? They offered things, right?
To offer up spiritual
sacrifices. So, yes,
we serve God in our body, but those sacrifices
that we sacrifice
are spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ.
They had to be acceptable by standards
in the Old Testament of what they looked like,
but Jesus Christ is the
acceptable
substitution for us.
He is perfect without blemish and all
those things, and so any
spiritual sacrifice that we offer up
to God is acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ.
He's the high priest.
We are the priests that serve
God.
Hebrews 13, 15 says,
Let us offer the sacrifice
of praise to God continually.
So, here it is. Again, let us offer,
that's what priests do,
the sacrifice of praise to
God. And you know what? It's not just about
doing all these things, but you know, don't
forget that we actually serve God.
Don't forget to actually thank him
and praise him for the things that we
accomplish. You know, when we go out and get
people saved and all this stuff, do you
glorify God that he allowed
you to be used as a vessel
to bring someone to the knowledge
of him? I mean, sometimes
I don't want us to get so
busy serving that we forget
God in that service.
Because we're ultimately serving
him, and it says, Let us
offer up the sacrifice of praise
to God continually.
That is
the fruit of our lips giving
thanks to
his name. But to
do good and to communicate
forget not. God wants
to hear from us. Our
lips should be giving thanks to him.
Don't just say good bread, good
meat, good God, let's eat.
That's blasphemous, isn't it?
But yet, people do that as a
mockery of God
at dinner tables all across
America, probably on every
holiday.
And, you know, it's just
that's not acceptable, is it?
Because they're mocking, it is
blasphemy to
say things like that. But
people think it's funny. It's not funny.
You know, we should be offering up
real praise to God continually.
The fruit of our lips
giving thanks to his name. But to do
good and to communicate forget not.
Don't forget to communicate to God. He's the
one that gives us the power. He's the one that made
us a priest. You're not a priest of your
own. You're a priest of God. And what
are the priests supposed to do?
Yes, you
got it. Alright, so
don't forget to communicate
to the one that actually gave us the power and the one
that wants us to
serve him. It says, for with
such sacrifices, see how it
says sacrifices there? God
is well pleased.
So you want to please God? Serve him now.
Serve him in your body.
Serve him in your spirit.
And don't forget
to give the praise to the one that actually
has it coming.
So the tea in the Baptist.
So I'm done with that. The priesthood of the believer.
Hopefully that makes sense to you. But
don't forget to serve God now. Don't forget
to worship God now.
These things are, there's greater things
that are going to happen for us in the future.
But now is the time to get your
rewards. Because the rewards
are going to be great. The more work you
do here, the better
your rewards are going to be in heaven. So
there's nothing wrong with that. You
have loyalty reward programs
that you're probably a part of right now.
Every time you go to some store, you're like
did you type in your reward? Did you type in your
reward? You know, we'll type
in our reward over something we bought
and then we get something
back for it. But when we serve God
in our lives, he's got the best reward
program. He's got the best health plan.
He's got the best pay.
So why not store up treasures
in heaven where moth and
rust doth not corrupt?
Those things will always
be, the bank of heaven
is unable to be broken
into. No thief
can break through and rob.
No thief can steal what we have
up there, but we earn it here
and we get it up there.
And you know what? God rewards us even here
for the things that we do.
I mean, I was just thinking about this. How different
is your life now that you're saved than it
was before you were saved? Some of
you hardened sinners in here. Some of you
that lived a really bad life. Not everybody has done
that. But
think of how different your life is now.
How much more responsible
are you? How much more of a hard worker are you?
How much better is your life as a
Christian? You're like, well, it's not really that great.
Look, we're going to go through hard times as Christians.
But we also get a lot of blessings.
Don't forget that. And you're
priests and kings unto God. We're a
royal priesthood in here.
And we should show forth our praises
unto him. The tea,
like I said, I already preached a sermon about
that, so you can go back and look at that. The tea
in Baptist stands for three offices,
pastor, deacon, evangelist.
And that evangelist part
is my opinion, but evangelists are
ordained in the Bible. So, I mean,
I don't know why people
would challenge that, but obviously
there's no clear scripture that says what the
qualifications are for evangelists
and things like that. But I would say they're similar
to what the pastor and deacon is, except
for they don't have to have wives and children.
Paul didn't have a wife.
Paul didn't have children. And he was
an evangelist. He was an apostle.
So on and so forth. So I already covered that in a stand
alone sermon in this topic.
But the I in
Baptist stands for individual soul
liberty. And it kind of plays
off of the priesthood in a way.
So, but
let me explain it to you. Individual soul
liberty is a subject that is difficult
to treat due to several factors.
So it somewhat overlaps
this concept, like I said, of the priesthood
of the believer. It can easily
be misunderstood and
misapplied. And it is often.
So, and it's a concept
that is universally held in
theory, but generally rejected
in practice among independent
fundamental Baptists, meaning that
they don't hold to it and they don't
apply its practice.
So, a lot of Baptists will say
individual soul liberty, but then they don't really mean
that. They don't, the pastors don't
teach that. They don't allow people
to have differences
in opinion on things. It's either my
way or the highway. And you know, there are
black and white things in the Bible. There's things
that are super-queer.
Salvation by belief alone,
super-queer. In the
book of John, it's mentioned over a hundred times.
And in the book of John,
it says, these things have I written unto you that believe
on the name of the Son of God that you may know you
have eternal life. Right?
John says that and he also
says these things have I, you know, were written
so that you would believe. That you would believe
that Jesus is the Son of God. You know, why
believe? Well, because belief is all it takes to get
to heaven. All
it takes to be saved is to believe
on Jesus Christ. That's what the Bible clearly
teaches. We're supposed to
call upon His name,
not some other weird, if you
speak English, it's Jesus.
Alright, that's the name that you call upon
to be saved. But
individual soul liberty, let's look at
John chapter 21. Let's
go ahead and look at John chapter 21
and verse 21.
So, it's kind of a
mind your own business concept
a little bit. It really
is. Because there's certain
things that you might hold to that I
don't necessarily have a
strong opinion on. And we're
allowed to have differences.
God made us different.
Now, but don't confuse
this and think, well, I can just
believe all the weirdest stuff and
don't ever try to correct
me about that. This is
where it goes haywire. This is where it goes weird
when people go to
really extreme measures
in individual soul liberty. And
like in our church, we believe
in the post-Trib pre-wrath
rapture. You can come to this church
if you don't believe that. You can come to this church
if you're pre-Trib. You think that Jesus
could come back at any moment.
But that's your individual soul
liberty to believe those things.
That's what you see in the Scripture.
Whatever, even though there's no verse that says it.
You can believe that all you want.
I mean, it's stupid, but you can believe it if you want.
But here's what you don't
do, is you don't take that doctrine
and you come in and spread that in our
church because you already know what this
church believes. And
when you join yourself to this church,
you're choosing to do it.
Did I force anybody to come here today?
Did I come to your house, hold
a gun to your head and say, we're going to church right now.
Come on, let's go.
We don't force people to be saved. We don't force
people to get baptized. That's your
individual soul liberty.
Even unsaved people have
an individual soul liberty.
They have the right to choose to
believe, or not. Because you know what?
We're Baptists, but we're not Calvinists.
The Calvinist
of God is a retarded
God. You know why?
Because it's not true.
It's another Jesus.
Because He gave us free will.
We're like, well, you know,
God saves people whether they like to
or not. No.
All people are called to be saved,
but not everybody is chosen because not
everybody gets saved.
And it's not because He said,
you're called, but I'm not really going to
save you. I mean, wouldn't that be weird
if all are called to be saved
and then you go, well, I
want to be saved. It's like, not you.
I don't like you.
That's not how God is, folks.
He's not retarded,
like that.
And God doesn't use sexual
perverts and predators
to fulfill His glory.
That's wicked to even think
that. It's blasphemy to say it
about God.
So anyway, John 21, 21 says,
Peter seeing him say it to Jesus,
Lord, what shall this man do?
And he's talking about how,
you know,
Peter was told his end, basically,
that he was going to get carried to a place
that he didn't want to go.
And he didn't like not being
in the same boat with John, and John was
close to the Lord, too.
And he said, what shall this man do?
He's like, not minding his business,
like, well, I know that's going to happen to me,
but what's going to happen to him, though?
He's not minding his business, is he?
It says, Jesus saith unto him,
if I will,
that he tarry till I come,
what is that to thee?
Follow thou me.
What is that to you?
How's that your business?
Isn't that what he's saying?
Mind your business,
Peter. You know, Peter, he's a great
man of God, but he does a lot, he says
a lot of dumb things. You know, but he says
a lot of great things, too. But anyway,
says, then went this scene
abroad among the brethren that this
disciple should not die.
Of course, that's not what he was saying.
Jesus said not unto him, he shall
not die, but if I will,
that he tarry till I come,
what is that to thee? So what's it
emphasizing that Peter was
not minding his own business
and it wasn't his business
what was going to happen to John?
See, and Christians get into this thing
where we want to mind everybody else's business
when it comes to little nuances
of the Bible and what we believe.
And it's like, you can't
stop until they believe
exactly like you.
And that's not what God
wants us, God does not want that.
They have the right to believe something
different than we do.
Now, the definition
of individual soul liberty
is every individual,
whether a believer or an
unbeliever, has the freedom to
choose what his
conscience or soul
dictates is right in the
religious realm. Soul liberty
asks the believer to accept responsibility
for his own actions,
Peter, and
not try to force anyone
else to do or believe
anything contrary
to his own conscience.
However, this liberty is not a
justification for disobeying God.
You're like, well my individual soul liberty
is that I don't go to church.
That's not what it's talking about.
You're supposed to go to church because God
said that you need to go to church.
We're not supposed to forsake the
assembling of ourselves.
Don't take it too far here.
Well, I got the right to believe the earth is flat.
Well, I mean you do.
You can be a bozo if you want to,
and believe something dumb like that.
You can go to this church and believe it,
but just don't spread that junk around because
it's not true.
You can have nuances and things that you
believe differently, but once you start
spreading that different
thing and trying to get people to believe like
you on that
thing, that's when you're going too far.
You're going past your
liberty and you're
infringing on someone else's freedom.
See? You want them
to be where you're at.
And people do this with health things.
They do this with, you know,
McDonald's is the most maligned
company of
food in this world.
Because everybody saw Super Size Me or whatever,
and so automatically when people think of
McDonald's they think, bad,
evil, wicked.
And so if somebody goes to McDonald's from our church
and they don't think that,
then it's not your responsibility
to let them know every time that
McDonald's is bad.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Now is it the most healthy choice? If you ate
McDonald's every day, yeah, you'd probably be bad.
Right?
Depending on what you get.
I mean if you get a salad, a chicken salad
every day, I mean that's healthy isn't it?
I mean maybe it's GMO lettuce or something,
I don't know. But
the point I'm making is that it's not our job
to give everybody our
health advice.
If you believe that garlic drops
are going to cure your ear aches or whatever,
then by all means drop garlic in your ears
till the sun,
till the end of time
or whatever.
But just because you believe that doesn't mean
the other person has to believe what you believe.
Does that make sense? I hope that
makes sense to you.
The believer must still act
according to the principles of Scripture
and honor the
doctrinal position
of the Bible-believing Baptist Church
to which he belongs.
That's why when someone's
in an old
IFB church or an independent
fundamental Baptist church that doesn't believe
some of the things that we believe about prophecy and about
Israel, we shouldn't go to those
churches and try to change them on those things
because you already knew what they were
when you got there.
So to try to, now obviously if you want to try to
get soul wanting started, and maybe you want
to have a friendly conversation with the pastor,
that's fine.
But to try to force what
you believe on that whole congregation,
you already knew what it was walking into
it, so just shut up
and keep your opinion to yourself.
And you're right, but
you can be right and be wrong
at the same time.
You can actually hold the right view
but the way you apply it,
the way you go at other people
with it, can make you wrong.
So you can be 100%
right and absolutely wrong.
Which, you know,
is kind of weird, but it's true.
Now 2 Peter 120, let's look at
2 Peter 1 verse 20,
the Bible says,
knowing this first that no prophecy
of the Scriptures of any private interpretation.
Now people will go, well
you're not supposed to have a private interpretation.
Well, but that's
talking about that
it didn't come from man.
It came by the will of God.
Look at verse 21, for the privacy came
not in old time by the will of man,
but holy men of God
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
So the authorship
of the Bible is not your
private interpretation. It wasn't something that some
man came up with
to tell us what to do, like people always try
to say. That's not what that's talking
about. So it's talking about the fact that
it's not a man-made
book. Now God
used men to write it. God used men
to preach it, but
the words are God's.
The Holy Ghost
moved men
to speak the
word of God and to write it down.
So Scripture didn't come by man
and you don't get to make
it say what you want.
So now the Bible says what
it says and obviously there are
differences in what people believe about certain things.
How about Hebrews 6? Some people
believe it's talking about reprobates and some
people believe it's talking about a
person that's getting punished. So
which one's right? Well
you have the ability to
believe what you want about that.
Because it's not a super clear
Scripture. And some people say, well yeah
it is. But it is a
hard passage. There are hard passages
in the Bible that some people differ on and that's
okay. But
to just be dogmatic
on things that are not really
specifically clear, we shouldn't
do that to people. And you shouldn't just
say, well you're not even saved if you believe that.
I mean, you're going too far.
Let's look at Romans chapter 14.
Romans chapter 14 verse 1.
And Paul
kind of brings up this subject a little bit here.
And I know I've got to hurry and be done here, but
I want to show you this. And this
I think clearly teaches
this concept.
Romans chapter 14 says,
him that is weak in the faith receive
ye. So maybe they're weak
in certain areas. They're not
super strong in the faith, right?
It says we're supposed to receive them though.
Right? But not to
doubtful disputations.
So things that are, if they're
just coming in and they just want to lay
all their doctrine on us and
change what I believe and
all this stuff, then that's not,
we don't receive that. We're not supposed to receive that, right?
It says, for one, believeth
that he may eat all things.
And you know what? I
think that that's true. I think God has
gotten rid of the, that all
beasts are able to be eaten,
every single one, dog
chow mein, whatever.
You can eat whatever you want.
Well, not in Western culture. Yeah,
Western culture, they'll probably throw you in jail for it because
people worship their animals here.
I mean, they walk around and
clean their poop up.
They walk their dogs every day.
Their dogs control them. Well, I can't go anywhere
on vacation because I've got this dog.
I mean, our culture
is backwards, but anyway, I'm going off on something
I shouldn't. I still like dogs.
You know, the
pets, anyway.
But I don't like
certain things about them.
Yeah. So
anyway, let's get off the dogs here.
So there's
other examples in Scripture where
I'm sorry, verse 2.
And one believeth that he may eat all things. Another
who is weak eateth herbs. So who's the
weak one? The one that only believes
he can eat herbs.
But does that mean if that person believes that
that we shouldn't receive them?
No, he just got done saying
that we are supposed to receive
that person that's weak in the faith.
They think that they can only eat, that
they should only eat vegetables. Well,
they can believe that. That's what individual
soul liberty is all about.
But God still loves that
person whether they're wrong or not.
Whether they're weak or not.
And yeah, you're not going to build muscles eating
vegetables. It's just a fact of science.
But once they
delve into the realm
of saying that you
shouldn't eat meat either
because that is wicked or that is
wrong to kill animals or something,
then they're jumping off the deep end into
doctrines of devils.
Because doesn't
certain religions say not to
command, not to abstain from meats
and not to
marry? That's what the pope does, right?
The pope can't get married even when the Bible says
bishops and people
in church leadership are supposed to be married.
Right? And there's no pope in the Bible
by the way.
So, I mean,
we can't jump off the deep end
and just start policing what
other people believe in things like this.
Is this a big deal?
Is meat and drink really what it's all
about? No, it's not.
Whether someone eats McDonald's or not,
that's not your business.
Quit puking out your opinion
on everybody else about stuff.
I'm not defending McDonald's
by the way. But aren't all the
other fast food restaurants bad too?
You just don't want to admit it because
you just want to hang McDonald's
out to dry
on everything.
Burger King's actually more
unhealthy than McDonald's.
It's a fact.
Look it up.
You got smart phones? When did Burger
King become the king? They're the king of
bad fast food now.
So just leave McDonald's out of this now.
I'm just trying to prove a point here
that it's not your, you know,
one of the people prefer, it's not your business to tell.
It's their individual soul
liberty. If they want to eat McDonald's until the day they die
then that's what they're going to do.
It's not your business. God will still receive that person
whether they like it or not.
They prayed over that quarter pounder.
Right? If you receive
it with Thanksgiving
it might not be healthy for you.
I'm not saying it's healthy. I'm just saying
that God didn't say,
don't eat McDonald's.
Don't eat beef. Don't eat
lamb. Don't eat pig.
That's Old Testament.
We don't have to abide by that anymore.
We can all, Peter
had the dream, right, where all these different
animals that the Jews weren't allowed to eat
came down and that's a picture of
that all things can be, you know,
all people can be saved,
all things can be eaten.
That's the picture that he gave Peter, right?
Now it says, let not him
that eateth despise him that eateth
not and let not
him which eateth not judge
him that eateth for God
hath received
him. Now this is just an
example that Paul is using, but he also uses
another example
in verse
number, let's
look at verse number four. It says, who art thou
that judges another man's servant?
To his own master he standeth or
falleth. You're not another
Christian's master,
you know, unless they work for you
outside of church. Then they
are. When I used
to work with, I used to work with some of the guys that went
to our church and, you know,
I'd say I've gone from pastor
to master now. Now,
you know, if I was in charge of them that day.
But, you know, it's just a joke. But anyway,
but we're
not the ones that they have to stand
or fall to, it's God that they have to answer
to. It says, to his own
master he standeth or falleth,
yea, he shall be
holding up for God is able to
make him stand. One man
esteemeth one day above another, another
esteemeth every day alike. Let
every man be fully
persuaded in his own mind.
You like keeping holidays?
You like having Christmas and Thanksgiving?
You like Mother's Day and Father's Day?
Great. But maybe
somebody else doesn't. But just because
they don't hold those days in high
regard, it doesn't mean that they're less
of a Christian than you are. You
understand? That's individual
soul liberty. Let every
man be fully persuaded in his
own mind. Because on those things,
like, and here again,
we don't have to do those things. Those
things, those ordinances were nailed
to the cross. We
don't have to worry about that kind of stuff anymore.
We don't have to keep the Sabbath day. We don't have to keep
the new moon. We don't have to blow trumpets
halfway through the calendar year. We don't have to
do all these things. But if you
want to do those things, you can.
But those things are kind of done away
in Christ anyway, so it'd be weird.
Don't come in here with a trumpet next week, because I will
kick you out. But
do it at home. If you want to blow
a shofar at home, then blow
it to your heart's desire. But we don't do that here.
Because we're not keeping those things. But
when it's your individual preference,
then that
is your choice of whether you want to
keep holidays or not. Because some people celebrate
Christmas, some people don't.
Some people celebrate birthdays, some people
don't. You know, I like holidays.
But like it's not,
like some people get weird, it's like you have to
celebrate the birthday on the actual birthday
that it is, or it's not legitimate or something.
It's just like, why?
You know, it's not on a weekend. It's inconvenient.
Like, just do it on Friday.
Do it on Saturday or something.
I mean, let's be convenient. But you know,
again, you can believe whatever you
want on that. So,
we don't have any dictates of what we can
and can't eat. If you want to eat,
what are those things in
the Philippines, those eggs?
Balut.
I won't ever eat that.
It's like a little chick
partially formed inside
of an egg, and you crack it open
and they eat it like it's a delicacy.
You know what I mean? I'm sure you've eaten hard-boiled eggs,
but this type of egg has a
bird with feathers in it still.
And people are like,
when I was over there, like, are you going to eat balut? No!
I'm not. Because my
individual sole liberty says, that's disgusting.
Look at verse 6.
He that regardeth the day,
regardeth unto the Lord,
and he that regardeth not the day,
to the Lord he doth not regard.
He that eateth, eateth to the Lord,
for he giveth God thanks,
and he that eateth not,
to the Lord he eateth not,
and giveth God thanks.
So, it's contrasting
two different people.
People that think you can eat whatever you want,
people that don't, but
they love God.
Both people love God.
So give people their sole liberty.
Don't try to infringe upon other people's
freedom and
your freedom of religion.
That's what it is.
You have freedom of religion,
but obviously within the framework of God's word.
But don't go off the deep end with it.
So, it says in verse 10,
but why doth
thou judge thy brother,
or why dost thou set thy brother
at not thy brother?
For we shall all stand before the
judgment seat of Christ.
For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord,
every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess
to God. So then, every
one of us shall
give account of himself.
So, we are responsible
for ourselves, and the things
of God, and the things of religion,
and those types of things.
And you're going to have to give an account why
you believe that way.
I might have to give an account for you, except for as
a pastor, I might have to give an account as the way
I pastored this church.
But, as an
individual,
are you guys following this?
Because this is what the Bible teaches, right?
About individual soul liberty.
So, we have liberty within
the body of Christ
and the kingdom of God
to make
certain choices that aren't necessarily inherently
evil one way or the other.
When you impose your dumb
opinion, or even if it's
a right opinion.
Whatever opinion you're imposing on someone, and then
they won't come your way.
I had this happen to me in a church over this issue.
This guy only ate
raw fruits, raw
vegetables, raw nuts.
He ate no meat.
He said meat was bad.
And he said that's how
you can beat cancer, and how you can be
healthy. And this is like one of those fad
diets that's really extreme.
But it's within churches now.
People call it the
Daniel Diet or whatever. See, Daniel
was fairer and fatter than flesh than all of his friends.
It was a miracle.
If you eat vegetables, you're going to get skinny. You're not going to get fat.
I mean, I guess you could
get fat from eating vegetables if you eat too many
of them, or you cook them a certain way.
But generally,
if you're just eating raw fruits and vegetables,
you're going to get thin. But the point
is that he was imposing this on other people
and trying to teach this to other people.
And like, you know, I even tried it for like
a day.
And I was like, uh-uh.
I like meat.
I like cooked food.
They'll say
the cooked food cooks all the nutrients out of it.
That's not true. Chicken noodle soup.
Case closed.
Chicken noodle soup makes you feel better, right?
So, I mean, hopefully you
understand my point. And you know, if you just
think about a great example in the Bible, and I'm
going to close with this. I don't want to go through
this whole thing, but
you see the concept. Acts 15, we'll close
here in Acts chapter 15.
Well, Paul was supposed to take,
you know, Paul said, hey, let's go and
see how the other churches are doing.
And, you know,
they got in a fight over John Mark.
And
John Mark left them. Paul's like, my
opinion is that we can't trust
him. He's going to leave us again.
Blah, blah, blah. And Barnabas
is his family member, and he's like, no,
I want to give him another chance. Well,
is it okay to give someone another chance?
Yes, it is.
Is it okay to say, that person failed
me. I can't use them. I'm not
going to use them again until they prove themselves.
Two different opinions.
Two different men of God. Was Barnabas
a man of God? Yes, he was. Was Paul
a man of God? Absolutely.
So, look at it. It says in verse 39,
and the contention was so sharp between them that they
departed asunder one from another.
And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus,
and Paul chose Silas and departed being
recommended by the brethren unto the
grace of God. So, they're both
still serving God. They're both still
doing different things. They just had a difference of opinion
on how to do those things.
See, that's individual soul liberty
in a nutshell right there for
you. A really great example of it.
And, you know, they both still
served God. They both were still...
God still loved all those people.
He still loved John Mark. He wrote the book of Mark.
Paul later on asked for him back.
So, obviously, they were
both right, but they were both wrong.
In the end,
it was good to give Mark another chance
because he got right
apparently.
But at the time, was Paul wrong?
I mean, he wasn't wrong for thinking that.
But ultimately, he was wrong
in the end, but not
wrong at that moment. So, that's
individual soul liberty.
And here's the last thing I just want to say.
The pastor isn't always
right, and you don't always have to agree with everything
I say. Every nuance
of the Bible. And look, if
I believe something different than you on something,
well, I just can't come to this church because the pastor
thinks the two witnesses are Enoch
and Elijah. And I know it's Moses and
Elijah. It's just like, that's a dumb
thing to fight about.
It really is.
Because it doesn't say who their names are.
So,
I believe it's them
for my own reasons, and you can believe
it's Moses and Elijah all you want, but
at the end of the day, is that going to make or break
whether we're children of God or not?
Is that going to make or break
whether we both still love God and
serve God or not? It doesn't make a difference.
So, that's what I'm
talking about. So, I'm going to
close because I know I need to. So,
let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much
for the doctrine of Baptist
and Lord, that it comes from the Bible.
It's not just, even though it's a
you know, just a
a way to teach with this
acronym. It's not necessarily
set in stone in the Bible.
But the concepts here are, Lord,
I just pray that you'd help us,
Lord, when it comes to these concepts because these things
apply to our daily lives, Lord.
And Lord, let us not
judge each other over
trivial things and things that don't
matter, but let us serve you with our
whole heart and as
priests and kings, Lord, I pray you just
bless this church and Lord,
I pray that you just bless the rest of our day.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. We'll sing our last song.
Turn to page 44 in your green
hymnals. We'll sing
We'll Work Till Jesus Comes
Page 44
We'll Work Till
Jesus Comes
Page 44, sing it out loud
on the first.
We'll work till
Jesus comes
We'll work till
Jesus comes
We'll work till
Jesus comes
We'll work till
Jesus comes
And we'll be gathered
home
To Jesus
Christ I pledge
for rest he
may be ceased
to roam
And lean for
succor on his
breast till he
can dock me home
We'll
work till
Jesus comes
We'll work
till Jesus
comes
We'll work till
Jesus comes
And we'll be gathered
home on the last
I sought out once
my Savior's
side no more
my staff shall
roam
With him I'll brave
death's chilling tide
and reach my
heavenly home
We'll work
till Jesus
comes
We'll work till
Jesus comes
We'll work till
Jesus comes
And we'll be
gathered home
Looks like we have a little bit
more time until our
baptism gets up to the pool so
let's turn to page 121
We'll sing another
song, Like a River
Glorious, page
121
Like a River
Glorious
Sing it out on the first
Like a
river
glorious
Is God's perfect
peace
Over
all victorious
In
its bright and
bright and
breeze
Perfect yet
it floweth
polar
every day
Perfect
yet it
groweth
deeper
all the way
State
upon
Jehovah
Hearts are fully blessed
Binding
as He
promised
Perfect
peace and rest
Amen. Gracie.
you