Well it's great to be here tonight and it's a privilege, it's an honor to preach here
and I'm glad I got to finally meet some of my Facebook friends I've been friends with
for a long time.
But hey, you know, if you're a Christian you can fit in anywhere, amen.
So I just want to say thank you to Pastor Shelley for having me come preach here
and I know it's your guys' five year anniversary, that's a great milestone, amen.
And I'm just, you know, me and Pastor Shelley have a lot of things in common.
We both have four churches, you know, we've both been a pastor for a little over a year,
we both have four children, and that's about the end of the similarities.
So anyway, but the title of my sermon tonight is Seeing Things How God Sees Them,
Seeing Things How God Sees Them.
Let's have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you Lord so much for this great church.
Lord, I pray that you just continue to help this church to be a powerhouse in this
area, Lord.
There's so many people that need to be reached here, and Lord I just pray that you would
help their hearts to continue, Lord, to walk daily after you and pick up their cross.
And I pray, Lord, that you just bless this five year anniversary, Lord, to pray
out for all the people that are going sowing tomorrow, pray for all the souls to be
saved tomorrow, Lord.
Let's pray that we'd have a great harvest tomorrow, and pray for the services this
weekend.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
All right, so looking at seeing things how God sees them, well, a lot of times,
we look at things and we don't see them the way God does.
And you know why?
It's because we're sinful, you know, honestly.
And you know, we should look at things the way God does, and I think that this
is a great chapter to just show a few things that, you know, Jesus is looking
at something one way, but, you know, we might not look at it the same way that
he does.
So, you know, God looks at things a certain way.
He sees all, he knows all, and, you know, he doesn't see the way we do.
And he doesn't operate the way we do all the time.
You know, we're supposed to operate, we're supposed to follow Jesus, we're supposed
to try to see things the way God does, try to live our lives the way God would
want us to, try to follow after the footsteps of Christ, but we don't always do that.
And you know, tonight I just wanted to help you to kind of maybe regather your thoughts
after five years.
And I know some of you haven't been coming here for five years, who's been coming here
for five years?
Raise your hand.
All right, so just a few, all right, so there's a lot of people that haven't been
here for that long, and, you know, obviously, but it's been here for five years.
This church has been a powerhouse, and I know you guys have gone through some things
that have been hard, and, you know, I just, I'm glad that you guys are over that
hump and you're just going to keep on cruising, right?
So anyway, but turn to Isaiah chapter 55, I just want to kind of set the tone of
the sermon a little bit here.
Isaiah 55 verse 8, Isaiah 55 verse 8, the Bible says, give you a second to turn there,
Isaiah 55 verse 8 says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways
my ways, saith the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are
my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
See God operates completely differently than we do, he's above us in all ways, his thoughts
are above our thoughts, his ways are above our ways, but, you know, does he want us
to fall after him?
Of course he does.
And so, first Samuel chapter 16, turn over there real quick, I'm just going to kind
of shoot through some verses here real quick and kind of just show you how God's
a little bit different, how he looks at things differently than we do.
First Samuel chapter 16 verse 7, this is speaking about, so Samuel goes to anoint the next
king after he's rejected Saul, and, you know, he goes through all the sons and, you
know, he's like, where's the right one, you know, and they find David and call him in
from the field, and it says in verse 7, but the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his
countenance or on the height of his stature, because I've refused him, for the Lord seeth
not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh
on the heart.
See, we look on the outward appearance a lot of times and we'll look at things and we'll
make our own judgment calls, but God looks on the heart, and God wants to look on
our heart and see that it's right with him.
Psalm chapter 33 verse 12, turn over there real quickly, but see, God, see, we're not
able to see people's hearts, you know, because if we did, there would be a lot of people
smoked out of churches all the time, right?
So I said we need to try to see things, try to see things the way God does, but
obviously we're not God, so we can't see people's hearts.
It'd be nice, it'd be a nice attribute to have, but we don't have that one, but
look at verse number 12 in Psalm chapter 33, it says,
Blesseth the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his
own inheritance.
The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men.
From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
He fashioneth their hearts alike, he considereth all their ways.
See, and God also can look from a long ways away, right?
We can't see up into the heaven where God lives at, but he can look down and behold
all the sons of men.
He looks at everybody and everything, and he can see our hearts, he knows the thoughts
and intents of our hearts, and he just is different than we are.
But don't you want to be more like Jesus?
Don't you want to see things like Jesus does?
One more verse I'll have you turn to before I get into the main part of the text, but
Hebrews 4.13, turn over there, Hebrews 4.13, Hebrews 4.13, the Bible says this,
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are
naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
So all things are naked and opened unto his eyes, he sees everything, and we just
need to try to see like God does, right?
So number one tonight, I just want to show you how God sees individual souls.
We need to see individual souls as God sees them.
Let's look back in our text in Luke chapter 19, and most of my sermon is going to be
out of Luke 19 because it's a great chapter, first of all, and there's a lot of great
things in this chapter that I'm going to show you, but look at Luke 19.1, it says,
And Jesus entered in Pastor Jericho, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which
was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.
And he sought to see Jesus who he was, and could not for the press, because he was little
of stature.
And he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that
way.
And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him.
See, he looked up and saw him.
Nobody else probably saw Zacchaeus, even though he was in a tree, right?
But God, the Lord Jesus Christ looked up and saw Zacchaeus, and it says,
And it saw him and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today
I must abide at thy house.
And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully.
And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying that he was gone to be a guest with
a man that is a sinner.
And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give
to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore
him fourfold.
That's how, you know, he really got saved, because, you know, he started doing the
works.
I'm just kidding.
And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, for as much as he also
is the son of Abraham, for the son of man is come to seek and save that which
was lost.
So Jesus saw Zacchaeus as a soul that needed to be saved, and, you know, we need
to be the same way.
You know, sometimes we'll just pass by someone when we're out soloing, and that's an opportunity
right there that you have for an individual person.
And just out in your daily lives, I mean, how many times do you interact with people
a day?
But how many times are you, like, actually trying to get them saved?
Or at least, you know, like we had a waiter at our table yesterday, and he, you know,
I just gave him a YouTube card, because I didn't want to get him in trouble, but,
you know, because if he was sitting there talking to us for a long time, I was thinking,
man, this guy's gonna get fired for me, you know, trying to talk to him about the Lord.
But, you know, in our daily life, we're gonna walk across people's paths all the time, but how, you know, after being saved, after
being in a church like this for a while, sometimes you can get a little glazed, you know, and
we need to remember that we need to see the individual the way God sees them as a
person that's on their way to hell, and that we're the one that can throw the lifeline
out to them, right?
We need to be a soul winner for Jesus, amen?
And you know, we need to look at people the way God looks at them.
We need to see that soul that needs to be saved and not just look at their outward
appearance.
Because some things about Zacchaeus, you know, Zacchaeus was a small guy, and a lot of times, small people get passed over, right?
You know, and they get teased a lot.
See, I get teased a lot, but because I'm tall.
But, you know, a lot of people get teased because they're short, too.
So I identify with short people a lot because we both get teased, right?
So, but, you know, we tend to look on the outward appearance, but what did Jesus do?
He looked up at Zacchaeus, and he's like, that's a guy that needs to be saved.
That's a guy that's going to be saved.
He said, get down here, Zacchaeus.
How many people are going to climb a tree to see Jesus?
Well, in this story, there's only one.
You know, so he wanted to be saved.
You know, he might not even have known he wanted to be saved, but he wanted to see Jesus.
And Jesus took note of that and looked at him and said, come down here.
And Zacchaeus got saved, amen?
And, you know, Zacchaeus might, you know, might have been a guy that had a chip on his shoulder.
Because, you know, when you're short and you're getting teased all the time, you tend to get a chip on your shoulder.
You know, people get teased for all kinds of different things.
And sometimes we try to show that it doesn't hurt me, I'm tough, you know, whatever.
But sometimes it does get old.
You know, and people always ask me how tall I am.
It doesn't bother me.
Really, it doesn't.
But, you know, when people are, sometimes people are rude about it.
You know what I mean?
Like, they're trying to go a little further, and they're trying to, you know, get you mad.
And I always, you know, they always say, you play basketball.
And I said, no, but do you play miniature golf, you know?
Or they'll say, I bet you played football, right?
And I was like, you know, you race horses, you know?
Little, the little guys, you know?
Or they'll ask me how the weather is up there, have you ever heard of that one?
When you're tall, you get all kinds of stuff like that.
And I was like, I just spit on them and tell them it's raining.
So, I don't really do that.
My cousin's seven foot tall, so he's the one that came up with those jokes for me.
Cuz he actually does say that to people.
But anyway, so, you know, he was probably teased a lot.
Why? Cuz he was a wee little man, right?
Zacchaeus, a wee little man.
And it's funny, I was just talking about this before the service.
But, you know, Samson, we got Samson here, right?
Samson, you know, he's a big guy, right?
But his name fits him, doesn't it?
I mean, if he was like, you know, this tall, it'd be like, hey Samson, what's going on?
You know, it's not a fitting name.
When I think of Samson in the Bible, I think I'm a big, strong guy.
But he might not have been, but I don't know.
I mean, he was strong, but maybe not big.
But I have a guy at my church, and he's gonna name his son Zacchaeus,
and he is a short guy.
And so he's just betting on the fact that his kid's gonna be short.
But wouldn't it be funny if he was tall like Samson?
He's like, hey Zacchaeus, how's it going?
So, and maybe Zacchaeus had, you know, what I call Napoleon syndrome.
Who's ever heard of Napoleon syndrome?
You know, the hum hum hum, you know, they think they're short,
but they have that short man syndrome,
where they like always trying to prove themselves and whatever.
Maybe he was like that.
But he's humble enough to get saved, I'll tell you that.
And the other thing is that he was a tax collector.
And people, who likes the IRS?
I mean, if there's an IRS agent at this church, he might get kicked out.
Just for principle's sake, right?
But you know, God loves individuals.
And you know, we should too, and we should see them how God sees them.
He cares for the little guys that climb up in the trees, right?
He cares about little, he cares about tall people.
You know, I mean, he cared about me.
And I was a piece of trash before I got saved.
I mean, literally.
I was not a very good person.
I mean, I'm not that I'm a good person now,
but I'm just saying, I'm better than I was.
So, I'm saved, amen?
So, I never pictured that I'd be a preacher, I can tell you that.
Anyway, so, but when's the last time you tried to reach someone that was unlovable?
When's the last time?
Because some people are just unlovable.
You know, those people that, you know, you knock on their door and you're blown away by the smell of their house.
Or, you know, they're just weird.
You know what I'm talking about? There's some people that are just weird.
Or really quiet, and you sit there and you'll give them a gospel presentation
and it seems like they don't care at all.
Like, but some of those people are just quiet people and they get saved, right?
But just because they're not exactly what we think they should be,
or maybe they're so bad you think, well, that person can't possibly get saved.
Because, you know what, Christians do get that attitude sometimes.
Well, you know, that guy's a wicked whoremonger and he's just this and that,
or she's a stripper or whatever, you know, just anything.
But, you know, Jesus saved a lot of people that had a lot of problems in the Bible.
A lot of whores got saved in the New Testament.
Despite what Adam Fanon thinks, but anyway.
So that's just the first strike on Adam Fanon, but anyway.
But, you know, people will do that. They'll look at people and say,
God won't save that person.
But I'll tell you what, people are going to get saved
and we need to not be respecters of person when it comes to how short or how tall you are,
or, you know, what their clothes look like or anything like that.
In James 2-3 it says,
And you have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing,
that's not that kind of gay,
and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place,
and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool.
Are you not then partial in yourselves and become judges of evil thoughts?
You know, some people will look at someone in Vile Rhema and go,
That person's evil.
That person's got, you know, and God's saying here,
Hey, are you become judges of evil thoughts?
You know, can they see their thoughts? Can they read their mind?
No, they can't.
But that's what people do when it comes to that situation.
It says,
Harken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world,
rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom,
which he hath promised to them that love him.
Now obviously we go to the poor people first,
and that's the most receptive people,
because God, that's, you know, that's the easiest and most receptive people.
I'm pretty sure tomorrow we're not going to the richest parts of Dallas or Fort Worth
or wherever we're going, right?
Where are we going? Are we going to the ghetto tomorrow?
Amen, all right.
And why? Because people are receptive there.
But you know, we should also preach the gospel to rich people when we have a chance.
Hey, they will get saved.
Was Zacchaeus saved?
The Bible says he was rich.
He was rich and nobody liked him.
But you know what, he still got saved.
And we need to remember to see the individual as God sees them,
a precious soul.
Number two tonight,
see your city as God sees it.
See your city as God sees it.
Look at verse number 41 in Luke chapter 19.
Verse number 41 says,
And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it,
saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least, in this thy day,
the things which belong unto thy peace,
but now they are hid from thy eyes.
For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemy shall cast a trench about thee,
and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,
and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee,
and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another,
because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.
So what did Jesus do?
How many times do you think Jesus went to Jerusalem in the gospels?
I mean, I didn't take time to count it,
but it's a lot of times that he goes back and forth to Jerusalem, isn't it?
And this time that he comes up, he beholds, he looks at the city,
and he weeps over it.
Why? Because he knows what's coming to him.
You know, is it the buildings that he's weeping about?
Is it the temple that he's weeping about?
You know, how does God see a city?
Well, God sees a city by who's in it, not what the buildings look like.
The twin towers are not what God thinks about when he looks at New York City.
What is he thinking about? He's thinking about the people that live there.
And you know what? God loves the whole world, right?
He loved the whole world so much that he gave his only begotten son,
and he sees cities as people, as souls, a big collective of people to be saved.
He's not worried about what buildings get knocked down.
And so, you know, he's sad. He's weeping over the city.
And, you know, as much of a hard time as they gave him,
as much grief as they gave him,
as much as they were always trying to kill him and all this other stuff,
he still loved that city even though it was wicked.
And he wept over Jerusalem.
Let me ask you this. When's the last time you wept over Fort Worth?
When's the last time you thought about the people of this city?
And obviously you guys go sowing all the time,
and sometimes it becomes complacency.
You're just like, you know, you're just going through the motions,
and everybody gets there sometimes.
But when's the last time you actually thought about this city,
or you thought about Dallas, or you thought about Arlington,
or you thought about Denton, or you thought about all these places around here,
and actually wept over it, and actually cared?
And it's not for the buildings.
It's not for, what is it called?
I don't even know what the stadium is called now.
Texas A&M? Huh? AT&T, I was saying A&M.
I don't know what I'm thinking.
I'm not from Texas, obviously.
But do you think God cares about AT&T Stadium?
No, he doesn't care about AT&T Stadium.
He cares about the people in these houses all over this city,
and all over Fort Worth, and all over Dallas, and all over Arlington.
He wants them to be saved, and when he looks at them,
he doesn't look at it like they're buildings.
He looks at it like the people that live in the buildings.
And he wants us to see the cities the way he sees them,
not the way we want to see them.
So, do you ever weep over your city?
Do you pray for your city? For God to turn it around?
And, you know, I like Fort Worth. I do. It's nice.
And I haven't really got to do a lot of things around here.
Everybody was downtown today.
Got to see college game day, took a couple pictures.
But, you know, I'm not down here to see the game.
You know, I like the Ducks. Okay, whatever.
I don't really watch sports anymore, but when I like the Ducks, I guess.
But, you know, once a fan, always a fan, right?
Just kidding.
Hopefully they whoop Auburn.
But anyway, I don't really care.
You know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow?
I'm going to be in this city somewhere preaching the gospel
because, you know what, I care more about souls being saved
than I care about some stupid football game.
Jesus in Matthew chapter 23 verse 37 says,
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets
and stonest them which are sent unto thee,
how often would I have gathered thy children together,
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not.
You know, Jerusalem had Jesus
and all these places that Jesus went and preached,
and, you know, he went to preach the gospel and to get people saved.
But you know what?
Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington and all this whole area
has a place that will preach the gospel to them too.
And, you know, that's a small group of people
in comparison to 6.8 million,
I almost said billion,
in this area, 6.8 million in the whole Dallas-Fort Worth area.
That's the number I got, I just googled it, okay?
So if I'm wrong, don't write me an email,
don't come see me after this service, alright?
But, look, Jesus might not be able to come knock the doors,
but you know what?
Steadfast Baptist Church can come knock the doors.
Steadfast Baptist Church can come reach this area
and, you know, do big things for God
and continue to do big things for God
like you have done for the last five years.
And this is a big area to reach.
Are we going to be able to reach them all here?
Amen, we are.
We're going to try.
Look at that map right there, it's getting filled in, isn't it?
Yeah.
So it's not just going to stop here at Fort Worth,
it's going to trickle off into the other areas too.
It's a big area.
And it's going to take a lot of years probably
to get to all the spots, but, you know,
Lord willing, you know, they're not going to be able to,
you know, say, you know, nobody came to their door.
They're not going to be able to say,
hey, nobody came and cared about me.
Nobody came, you know.
Jesus said, if thou hadst known,
if thou hadst known.
Now, did he give Jerusalem an opportunity to know?
Yeah, but they just didn't know because they didn't want to know.
And we're going to run into that too.
But I'll tell you what, if this church fails to see
this area like Jesus did,
it will become a failure.
And you don't ever want to get to that point
where you stop caring about the people outside of these rooms
as much as you care.
You've got to care about the people inside these rooms, obviously.
But, you know, you can't lose your love.
You know, when you lose your first love,
that's when you lose the first works.
You don't want to get to that point.
Do you still love the lost?
I hope so.
Have you forgotten why you came here in the first place?
You know, it's not a club.
You know, this is a group of soldiers,
you know, that God wants to be out there fighting the war.
And the war is not a physical war.
It's a spiritual battle that we're partaking in here.
But have you come complacent?
In fire drills and airplane safety,
people get complacent, don't they?
I mean, how many times have you been on an airplane
and it's like, as soon as they say,
we're going to go over the safety rules,
and you're like, wah wah, wah wah.
You know, I just, I'm just in my phone.
I don't care.
Because they do it so much that it just seems ridiculous.
Or when people do fire drills over and over again,
it's like, come on, man.
But you should do those types of things
to keep people in remembrance, but you know what?
Soul winning needs to be preached a lot.
And you can't get, don't get calloused to soul winning.
Don't get calloused to the preaching about soul winning.
It's important.
Don't let your heart get hardened and say,
oh, he's talking about soul winning again.
It needs to be preached.
It's a major topic in the Bible.
It needs to be preached.
So, but you know, how does God look at cities and towns?
How does he look at them?
Well, turn to Jonah chapter four, verse nine.
I'll give you a little more insight here.
Jonah four, nine.
Bible says in Jonah four, nine,
and God said to Jonah,
doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?
And he said, I do well to be angry
even unto death.
Jonah was, you know, it's really interesting.
People say, well, if you're not living your Christian life right
and you're not doing this,
you're not going to win anybody to the Christ.
I mean, I think that you're definitely going to be hindered,
but Jonah got practically a whole city saved
and he didn't even like them.
So, consider that.
Like he ran.
He's like, he sat out on the side of the city
waiting for God to torch them.
You know, so don't, I mean, it preaches good,
but in reality, you could be backslid
and still get people saved.
I'm not saying you should be,
I'm just saying you still can, okay?
So Jonah was about as backslid as you can get.
He hated those people and still preached and got them saved.
Look at verse 10, it says,
Then said the Lord,
Thou hast had pity on the gourd,
for which thou hast not labored,
neither made it stick grow,
which came up in a night and perished in a night,
and should not I spare Nineveh,
that great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons,
that cannot discern between their right hand
and their left hand, and also much cattle?
How does God, how did God see Nineveh?
Should I not spare that great city?
You know, he told Jonah to go and preach the bidding that I bid thee.
He wanted those people to be saved.
He looked at Nineveh as a city full of souls.
He didn't look at them as buildings, did he?
He said there's 120,000 people.
How many are here?
6.8 billion, I did say it.
Billion, I meant million, okay?
So a lot more people than 120,000.
You think God cares for everybody that's in this area?
Of course he does.
He cares for all the places, the small towns.
That's why we do the small town soul wanting things
and those are great things to do.
Why?
Because Jesus is our example, right?
He's the one that showed us.
He went to every town.
He went to every village, right?
So, let's look at that.
Matthew chapter 9 verse 35.
This is definitely my longest point.
I only got a couple hours worth of notes here, so.
Amen.
Just two hours.
It's like going to the movies on a Friday night, right?
Except for those are wicked.
Matthew 9 verse 35 says,
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages.
See that, all?
All the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues
and preaching the gospel of the kingdom
and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
But when he saw the multitudes,
see that, he saw the multitudes,
he was moved with compassion on them
because they fainted
and were scattered abroad as sheep, having no shepherd.
See, Jesus saw them differently, didn't he?
He saw them and was moved with compassion.
And that's the way we need to be
when we're out preaching the gospel
and it's 95 degrees outside with,
what's the humidity around here?
It's heavy.
It was a little warm this morning.
It's a little warm.
I was like, going outside, interesting.
But we had breakfast all this morning
and it was pretty warm out there.
I was trying to act like it wasn't bothering me.
Went back to my hotel and fainted.
But, no, I didn't really.
But Jesus had compassion on people.
He looked on the multitudes.
He saw the multitudes.
Then he said this.
In verse 37,
Then saith he unto his disciples,
The harvest truly is plenteous,
but the laborers are few.
Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest,
they will send forth laborers into his harvest.
And that is a prayer that we should have, too.
Hey, do you have the vision that Jesus had
to pray for more laborers?
It's a small group in comparison, like I said,
to, you know, and I was talking to somebody before the service
and they said that they'd drive over an hour to get here.
Why do you have to drive over an hour in a city this big
to go soul-winding?
Or to go to a good church?
Why?
Because there's very few that are doing the work.
That's why.
The laborers are few.
And he didn't stutter when he said that, did he?
Because the laborers truly are few.
And we need to pray for more laborers.
We need to pray for more harvest.
Look at Luke chapter 8, verse 1.
Luke chapter 8, verse number 1.
It says, and it came to pass afterwards,
I'll let you get there.
Luke 8, 1 says, and it came to pass afterwards
that he went throughout every city and village
preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God
and the twelve were with him.
Well, so it's stressed at this point
that he went to every single place.
You know why he went to every single place?
Because he cared about every single place.
He cares about every single town.
He cares about every single village.
And he cares about every single city.
But we're few.
So we have a lot of work to make up
for what other people are slacking and not doing.
But how did Nineveh end up the way it did?
Because, you know, Nineveh was destroyed, right?
You know that Nineveh was destroyed
150 years after Jonah went and preached there?
Nineveh was destroyed.
Why?
Because that, somewhere down the line,
someone forgot to reach that next generation.
We can't drop the ball.
Not only do we have a lot of work to do here,
but we also have to train another generation
to go on and do the same things
that we're trying to do here.
We can't let this die.
We can't let the soul-wanting,
the great soul-wanting movement that's going on right now
die with this generation.
We have to reach the next generation.
But how did Nineveh end up and why?
Nahum chapter 3, you don't have to turn there
if you don't want to, I'll just read it for you.
Nahum chapter 3 verse 18 says,
if you want to, you can though,
These shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria.
Thy nobles shall dwell in the dust.
Thy people is scattered upon the mountains,
and no man gathereth them.
There is no healing of thy bruise.
Thy wound is grievous.
All that hear the bruet of thee
shall clap the hands over thee,
for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually.
So how did Nineveh become this place that, you know,
got saved basically, almost the whole city gets saved,
and then 150 years later,
God's saying there's no healing of thy bruise.
They're done. Their wound is grievous.
And it's a fatal wound, basically is what it's saying.
It's because they didn't pass it on to their children,
to their children's children.
You know, that's what happens.
Whole cities can die.
Whole cities can just be given over to the devil.
I mean, look at the city where I'm from, Portland, Oregon.
It's a hellhole.
It's a liberal hellhole full of bicyclists.
And a bunch of liberals, a bunch of queers.
It's disgusting.
But you know, someone was saying, is Portland receptive?
Well, there's areas of Portland that are receptive,
but the inner city area, no.
No.
If you go down to the queer areas,
obviously they're not going to be receptive.
So what does God do to cities, towns, and villages
when they get like Nineveh?
He destroys them.
What did he do to Sodom and Gomorrah?
Destroyed it.
Matthew 11, verse 21 says,
Woe unto thee, Corazon!
Woe unto thee, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty works which were done in you
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you,
and thou, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven
shall be brought down to hell.
For if the mighty works which had been done in thee
had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day.
And see, this is the thing.
Steadfast Baptist Church has a chance
to at least give the people around here a chance.
These people in all these areas,
to give them a chance to not be brought down to hell.
To be, you know, it says Capernaum was exalted,
you know, which are exalted unto heaven
shall be brought down to hell.
It's not talking about the buildings.
It's talking about the people.
And so whole places can go to hell in a handbasket
because there's nobody to reach them
or because they just reject the gospel.
And that's when it's time to move on.
Isaiah chapter 17, verse 1 says,
The burden of Damascus, behold,
Damascus is taken away from being a city,
and it shall be a ruinous heap.
So if we fail to see cities the way God does,
it can have massive repercussions
for the people in that area
and, you know, obviously for the churches.
God's not just going to sit by
and let churches just continue to be
Country Club Baptist Church.
You know, God can't afford to have this weakness
on the front lines.
We've got to have powerhouse churches
that are knocking the doors
and getting people saved on the front lines.
And, you know, we can't fail.
We've got to keep going.
So, again, he's not looking at the buildings.
He's looking on the souls that are inside those buildings.
So I'm going to skip a couple things here.
I think I've made that point.
So I just cut a half hour off the time.
Okay.
Let's see here.
I'll turn to one more verse here.
Let's go to Acts chapter 5.
Acts chapter 5.
While you're turning there,
I'm going to read for you some verses out of Luke 9.
This is a famous story in Luke 9.
I'm just going to read a few verses here.
So this is when Jesus is going,
as he would go to Jerusalem,
and basically the Samaritans did not want to receive him.
It says in verse 53,
And they did not receive him,
because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
And when his disciples, James and John, saw this,
they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire
to come down from heaven and consume them,
even as Elias did.
But he turned and rebuked them and said,
You know not what manner of spirit you are,
for the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives,
but to save them.
And they went to another village.
So this is really interesting,
because sometimes we can get into
where we're like bashing on the city,
like I just bash Portland.
But I do love the people there.
But sometimes we can get really down on things
and forget that Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
He's not trying to destroy people.
And their attitude of wanting to call fire down from heaven
to destroy these people is wrong,
because in Acts 8, where I had you turn,
this is several years later,
but look, Philip goes to Samaria.
It says in verse number 5,
It says,
Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria
and preached Christ unto them.
So they rejected him as he walked up to Jerusalem.
But look, now Philip is there,
Philip the evangelist,
and he went down to Samaria and preached Christ unto them.
And the people with one accord gave heed unto the things which Philip spake,
hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
For unclean spirits crying with a loud voice came out,
and many that were possessed with them,
and many taken with palsies that were lame were healed.
And there was great joy in that city.
So say Jesus did listen to the disciples and said,
Oh great, yeah, we'll smoke these guys right now and burn them all up.
But see, Jesus sees things different than we do, doesn't he?
And he sees a bunch of souls that later on were going to get saved,
and that they were going to receive it.
You know, just because someone doesn't receive it the first time you say it to them
doesn't mean we need to burn them up with fireballs, right?
We've got to be patient with people,
and hey, someone that rejects you the first time,
they might get saved the next time you come through.
So we've got to keep that in mind that, you know,
there's great joy in the city later on because they weren't destroyed, right?
So they didn't get to the point where God had to destroy them.
They just had rejected them at that point.
Let's see, a few years later, they end up getting saved.
So, another point tonight is that you need to see your pastor like God sees them.
You need to see your pastor like God sees them.
Let's look back at Luke 19, verse 47.
I'm really stretching for material on this one,
Luke 19, verse 47, it says that he taught daily in the temple,
but the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him.
So, here we have Jesus, he's teaching, he's doing a great job, he's leading the people,
and the chief priests and scribes obviously are always trying to destroy him,
they're always trying to kill him,
and we need to understand something that people from the outside
and these wicked people are always going to be trying to destroy your pastor, too.
And they're going to be trying to destroy every pastor that's following God,
and there's just wicked people that creep into these churches,
and you know why they creep into churches like these?
Because we're doing the most stuff, we're doing the most work.
Brother Sampson is not back there believing Calvinism,
and brother, it's Tony, right?
Tony's not here believing lordship salvation,
Pastor Shelley's not here repenting of his sins.
You know, this church is all in one accord on what salvation is,
except he'd be reprobate, right?
So, you know, the thing is that there's going to be people that are going to be going after your pastor,
and it says that, you know, and they could not find what they might do
for all the people were very attentive to hear him.
And so, look, you know what God thinks about your pastor?
He thinks he's the man of God. That's what he thinks.
And so when you look at your pastor, do you see him how God sees him?
As the man of God that's here to teach the people,
and are you attentive to hear him?
Are you seeing him the way that God sees him?
Are you respecting him?
You know, hopefully you're not talking bad behind his back,
because I know people like to do that about the man of God,
just because they don't do everything exactly the way that they think that he should, right?
So, but God sees your pastor here as the man of God of this church,
and hopefully you guys are all following him.
Because, you know, and I'll show, I'll prove it to you that God sees him that way.
Look at Deuteronomy chapter 33, verse number 1.
Deuteronomy chapter 33, verse number 1, I'll give you a second to turn there.
Deuteronomy 33, verse 1, the Bible says,
And this is the blessing wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.
So how did God view Moses?
How did God view Moses?
As the man of God, right?
Okay, well that's the Old Testament, Pastor Thompson, what are you talking about?
I'll turn over to 1 Timothy chapter 6, and I'll show you that he still feels the same way.
Who's 1 Timothy written to?
To the pastor of the church, right?
1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 11 says,
So God still, in the Old Testament he called the man of God, the man of God.
He called Moses the man of God.
In the New Testament he calls Timothy the pastor, what's he calling him?
Old man of God.
Are you not satisfied with that? Let's turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3, 16.
2 Timothy 3, 16.
And what happened to people that crossed Moses?
You know, hell opened up and they were dropped into hell alive, right?
So, you know, hey, you've got to be careful the way you do treat the man of God.
When Samuel came to town, people were shaking in their boots.
Why? Because he was bad to the bone.
I don't know. They were scared though.
So, but look at 2 Timothy 3, 16 says,
16 says,
Hey, you know, God looks at your pastor as the man of God
and, again, there's going to be phonies that try to creep in.
There's going to be people that are going to be saying bad things about your pastor
and always trying to get him to fall.
Look, the attacks are coming from every direction.
You know, and he's got four churches.
You've got to pray for this guy and lift him up in prayer.
Right? I've got four churches. Pray for me.
And you don't need a passport to go to Hawaii. I'm just saying.
I'm just kidding.
That's a joke. Anyway, it's true though.
But, you know, because people are attentive to hear Pastor Shelley,
because people are attentive to hear pastors like the pastors that preach.
They're our friends.
There's always going to be someone that's going to try to destroy him.
There's always going to be some loser that falls out of church
and, you know, tries to heap, you know, people into themselves,
teachers having itching ears, you know, these weird, you know,
oneness goofballs and flat earthers and all these guys that, you know,
they get mad, they go to church for a little while,
they realize they can't, you know, hide their wolf ears for very much longer
and they get kicked out or whatever happens,
they get disgruntled for whatever reason.
The Bible already says that this was going to happen.
2 Timothy 3.13 says,
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse.
Doesn't say get better and better.
It says wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Not only are they deceiving people, they're also being deceived
because they can't learn anything.
They're ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Why? Because they're reprobate concerning the faith.
And look, not everybody that disagrees with us on things is a reprobate.
I'm not trying to say that, but a lot of them are.
And look, you know, speaking about people that are just, you know, clowns,
I want to talk about Adam Fan.
We're just going to take an Adam Fan commercial break right now.
Because you know, some of you are glazed over right now.
I'm just going to give you a little commercial here.
So look, here's the truth about this guy, okay?
He was self-ordained just recently, right?
You know, I know that the congregation laid hands on him,
but look, it's a different situation.
People always try to compare everything to different situations.
Alright?
Look, the guy was fired from Steadfast Baptist Church.
Fired!
What was it? He was an evangelist.
He was sent to do a specific thing there, and he got fired!
Why?
Because he was just, you know,
first of all, he was trying to self-ordain right off the bat.
I'm like, well, I need to be self-ordained in six months.
Or ordained in six months.
Like, he's just going to rubber stamp him like that.
Say, oh yeah, you're just fine.
I trust your judgment.
After he's asking for a raise right off the bat.
Look, and I know people are tired of hearing about this,
but you know what?
If you don't like it, then just unsubscribe.
Whatever you got to do.
I don't give a crap.
You know, I'm sick of it.
People are acting like he's just some innocent little bystander.
He's not.
He lied about a lot of things,
and he was dishonest with the books
and all kinds of different stuff like that.
And you know what?
He split Steadfast Jacksonville,
which was not a local New Testament independent church, by the way.
Was it still attached?
Was the umbilical cord cut?
And you guys know better than anybody,
you're the ones that voted the pastor in right now.
This pastor was voted in by you.
You guys asked for him.
And so, over in Jacksonville,
they think that they get a vote in this situation.
But I'll tell you what, that's not how it works.
There weren't an independent Baptist church,
so how does their vote work?
It doesn't.
You guys already know this,
but you know, he split that church.
Why? Because he's evil?
And here's the other thing,
he had no biblical basis to start another one.
Okay, so once you're fired,
the cord's cut for you,
you fall into perdition or whatever.
But what did he do?
He started his own little trash can
next to Tyler Scooby-Doo or Shaggy or whatever.
And so now we got the triple,
the Trinity trash can over there in Jacksonville.
But you know, Adam Fannin had no biblical basis
to start that church,
and he had no biblical basis
to steal your intellectual property,
which was the YouTube channel that he hijacked.
But he'll say, well, I built that.
But still, it was steadfast Baptist church's YouTube page,
not his.
And you know, I was watching a video.
The reason why I bring this up,
because it just kind of got me mad,
and I just wanted to just kind of preach to people
that are going to like it.
But so J. Frank Norris was a pastor here,
and like I think he died.
What year did he die?
Do you remember?
I didn't quite catch that.
It was like in the early 50s, I think.
And he had a great powerhouse church.
He's basically the real father of fundamentalism.
And he was here in Fort Worth, Texas.
And you know, he, in this video,
first of all, he puts a video of a Ku Klux Klan,
and then he puts a video of mega church pastors,
J. Frank Norris.
Well, I went and studied into J. Frank Norris,
and you know, there's some things that he did
that I probably wouldn't do,
but there's some things that I do
he probably wouldn't do either.
But you know, the guy's dead.
I'm not trying to lift him up on some kind of,
you know, I'm not trying to lift the guy up,
but the more I studied into it,
the more I started to like him.
And so he accuses J. Frank Norris
of being a bad person, an angry man.
Who's heard the angry man sermon that Fanon did?
And he accused him, you know,
after being dead, of course,
of burning down his own church and home several times.
He mentions how man,
he shot a man to death in his office, which is true.
And Fanon report,
he basically has taken media reports
from a hundred years ago almost,
and media accusations and stories as truth
that were never proven.
Raylene, yeah, Rayler, that's right.
And so he always accuses us of being a Rayler,
but who's the real Rayler?
The one that's sitting there taking,
the newspapers always tell the truth about us, don't they?
Have you seen the LA Times story
that that lady did in Sacramento?
Have you ever seen any of the pastors
in our movement get a fair shake
when it comes to the media?
So what makes you think it was any different back then?
You know, they accused him
of burning his own church down
while he's two hours away somewhere preaching a Bible study.
I mean, so people accused him of doing things.
Don't people accuse the pastors in this movement
of things all the time that are totally not true?
All the time.
But Fanon is reporting it like, you know,
what he's saying is the absolute truth, right?
In the meantime, he's saying things like,
well, you know, he wasn't qualified
to lead the churches that he led.
He wasn't qualified.
Because he was a railer.
Because, you know, he was mishandling the money.
Okay.
Well, you know, I just wanted to tell you
that I brought evidence today.
I have the ledger from Steadfast Jacksonville.
Surprise.
You guys want to see what's in it?
Nothing!
There's nothing in it!
I thought I had like this big evidence to show you guys,
but all it is is an empty ledger.
You know, I'm 44 years old,
and when I started the church that I pastor now,
you know what, I've never counted the money by myself.
I've never, I don't take the money home,
and, you know, I don't have people
watch as I put the money in a bank envelope,
and that's all.
They don't count it.
Look, you know, if someone's 44 years old,
and they don't know any better than to do that,
I don't believe them.
I just don't believe that.
Look, this cost me 50 cents in a garage sale!
And I didn't buy it for this sermon,
I just bought it because I thought,
hey, this is a good, nice little record keeper.
50 cents!
That's all it takes.
And you're covered.
So where's the records?
Oh, Pastor Romero has them.
Does he?
Where are they?
You know, look, you guys,
he's a lying, stinking thief.
All right?
And if he's not a thief, he's an idiot.
Which is...
Sorry, kids are learning, yeah,
now the kids are repeating it.
He's a buffoon.
Let me tell you some things about J. Frank Norris
that I learned, though.
It's pretty interesting.
And then tell me if you like him, all right?
In March 1919,
when Norris preached against alcohol in the church,
when Norris preached against alcohol
in the Chamber of Commerce auditorium,
he brought 50 bottles of moonshine whiskey
in the auditorium and smashed them.
He preached sermons like Trinity of Sins.
Okay?
Do you think he was preaching on sin?
And in 1922,
when Norris preached against the theory of evolution,
he had a delegation of monkeys in full dress,
hair, legs, tail and all,
imported from the zoo.
So, I mean, he's preaching a service
and he's got monkeys in suits
up in front of the congregation.
On another occasion,
when Norris baptized a former rodeo cowboy,
Norris had the cowboy's horse
brought into the church auditorium to bear witness.
Frank Norris was soon in the middle of everything,
the middle of controversy,
the middle of court cases,
the middle of headlines,
pulpits, microphones,
other people's faces.
For example,
he took on the vice district
Hell's Half Acre, as he called it,
criticizing those who ran its bars and brothels,
who frequented them,
those in city government
who allowed such businesses to flourish.
Sounds like he preached against wicked people
and politicians and things like that.
And it sounds like he was in the middle
of all kinds of controversy and things like that.
Hey, is there any pastors that you know
that are kind of like that, that you know?
Yeah.
In his sermons,
Norris was not afraid to name names,
big names.
He named names of those who profited
from the wages of sin,
spent in the acre.
When Winfield Scott,
Fort Worth's biggest taxpayer,
died in 1911,
while others eulogized the dead millionaire,
Norris criticized Scott for owning property
in the acre and supporting liquor and gambling.
A man who names big names
makes big enemies.
The following chronology
is not typical of a church and its pastor.
But you know what?
It is typical of some churches and some pastors.
And you know why he stood out?
Because of what he was preaching.
So, you know, Adam Fannin makes this little thing
saying mega church pastors.
Well, you know what?
Is being a mega church always wrong?
You know, we think of mega churches,
we think of Joel Osteen,
Ed Young,
and all these other guys, right?
And, you know,
Cleffalo Dollar,
and who else?
John Hagee.
We think of these,
yeah, T.D. Jakes.
We think of all these guys,
but you know what?
Moses had a pretty big church, too.
So is he wrong for having a mega church
in the wilderness?
No.
So is having a big church always a bad thing?
It's not always a bad thing.
But he was acting like
because he had these two different,
you know, places that he was pastor
and he only visited one church
like 10 times a year.
And so that makes him unqualified.
And Adam Fannin goes on in his video to say,
well, the Bible's against that.
The Bible doesn't say that.
Then he never supports it with a backup scripture.
That's how you know that he's lying.
And that's how weasels
like try to get disgruntled people on their side
by saying stupid stuff like that.
You know, in that sermon,
you know, he's definitely,
you know, he doesn't have the guts
to just go right out and say
Pastor Shelley or Pastor Thompson,
but that's exactly who he's talking about.
Just because, you know,
we're doing big things for God,
he's going to hate.
Hey, he was sent out of this church
with the intention of being a satellite leader
and an evangelist.
And just because he failed
doesn't mean we have to.
Anyway, back to J. Frank Norris.
So basically, this is just a sequence of events
that happened to him.
And, you know, he basically made a lot of enemies
because of what he preached.
So January 11, 1912,
fire breaks out at First Baptist Church,
burns the church to the ground.
January 14, 1912,
as Norris sits in his study at the church,
someone fires two shots through the stained glass windows.
February 4, 1912,
fire again breaks out in First Baptist Church.
The church building is destroyed.
Five blocks away,
fire also breaks out at Norris's parsonage.
And, you know, so then Adam Fannin's saying,
oh, he did it, you know,
he did it because the city wouldn't do this and that.
You ever think that they might be lying about that?
But, you know,
he says that J. Frank Norris was a railer
and that he wasn't qualified to be a pastor
and because he mishandled money too.
You know, isn't that like statement analysis 101 right there?
Right?
I mean, he's basically saying that he's a railer
and he's mishandled some money too.
That's the way I look at it.
February 5, 1912,
Norris says he has received threatening notes.
February 27,
Norris and a First Baptist deacon are attacked
while walking down town about 10 p.m.
the assailant escapes.
March 1, 1912,
Norris is indicted for perjury
after a grand jury hears testimony
from handwriting experts
and indicates that Norris himself
might have written the threatening notes.
Another fire breaks out in March 2
out of Norris's parsonage.
Norris receives another threatening note March 3.
Does it sound like people just hate him
and want to destroy him?
I mean, people, you know,
yeah, I'm sure he's just burning his own house down
over and over again.
But you know, the funny thing is that
all the things that J. Frank Norris was accused of
he was acquitted of.
It took two hours for the jury to say
that when he shot that guy
that, you know, he was acquitted for it.
The guy's going for his gun
or, you know, he was pretending like he was going for his gun.
What are you going to do?
You know, the guy's a Catholic.
He just smoked him right there.
So the other thing he said was that
he was affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan.
Now, there is truth to the fact that
Ku Klux Klan people did come by
and give him roses and stuff like that.
But, you know, they, you know,
me and Pastor Shelley were talking about this earlier
and I'm not excusing.
If he was involved with them at all,
I'm not excusing that.
But here's the thing, you know,
the Masons claim to be a charitable organization, don't they?
They claim to do good works.
You know what, the Ku Klux Klan was the same way.
They claim to be something, you know,
and maybe he just didn't know how evil they were.
I don't know.
I wasn't there in 1946 or 1922 or 1912
or any of those times.
But I'll tell you what I did here.
I heard a sermon where he was preaching
and this is what he said.
All are welcome, race, color, or creed
are welcomed at this church.
So how is he some racist Ku Klux Klan guy
when he's inviting people of all color
and all races, as they would say,
to come and be welcomed at the church?
That doesn't make sense.
And so, you know, I just went to Adam Fanning's video
and I just clicked on the link
and found out all this stuff.
Maybe he needs to read a little more carefully
because I'll tell you what, Dakota Fanning just made me
like J. Frank Norris a little bit more.
And, you know, it really drove me into the history of everything
and obviously I'm not an expert on the situation,
but, you know, he seemed like a great man of God to me.
He was a soul winner.
And yeah, he did have mega churches.
He did have some big churches,
but you know what?
They were independent Baptist powerhouse churches.
They weren't soft, lily-livered, Joel Osteen churches.
The guy brought a washtub full of rattlesnakes
into his church to prove a point.
He brought a coffin full of liquor bottles in
to prove a point.
He brought the monkeys in.
He asked them questions while they're dressed in suits.
You know what this tells me?
I need to step my game up a little bit.
All I brought is the record.
So, you know, I hope that this area has
Pastor Jonathan Shelley as the pastor of it for a long time.
I hope this church backs him up
on everything, as long as he's doing right,
which I think that he will.
He's a good guy. He's a good friend of mine.
And I'm very blessed to be here preaching tonight.
I really appreciate it.
And I just want to stick up for him a little bit.
I'm tired of these little fanon lovers,
you know, just secretly like,
oh, they didn't have any evidence.
I see your comments, losers.
You know, your secret little accounts.
Like, hopefully there's no little fanonites in here.
Why would you hide in a church
and pretend to be following a pastor
and secretly, you know, being contrarian?
It's weird.
Just go to another church.
You know, why do you got to be a weasel on top of it?
Anyway, number four, I'm going to,
this will be my last point.
Number four, we need to see sin like God sees it.
We need to see sin like God sees it.
And it'll be a short point.
I know it's kind of getting late.
How long have I been preaching for?
Two hours?
Not long enough.
Not long enough, all right.
Hey, these guys are saying I need to preach longer,
so all right.
So look, you know, before I move on, though,
I just want to make sure that you understand
the fanon is not what he says he is.
He's not a real pastor.
He was never qualified and never properly ordained.
Because look, his ordination ended the moment he was fired.
That's it.
It's over.
So quit feeling sorry for him.
He can go and operate his trash
and operate his trash can over there
and preach all of his weird masonic Disney doctrines
that he wants.
He's a one-trick pony, you know.
He's a hobby-horser, hair-splitter, right.
He's just a loser.
And look, it doesn't take much common sense
to just say if you're a pastor of a church
or if you're an evangelist,
hey look, if you ever started a church somewhere,
look, it's real simple.
Just get a record book and write everything down.
Get some people to count, okay.
It's not that difficult.
If you've got 120 people going to your church,
don't you think you can find a couple people
that do the count for you?
I mean, does that make it seem a little,
does that put it in perspective a little bit more for you?
That it's just, what he's doing is wrong, okay.
Anyway, they'll say, well you don't have the evidence.
Where's the evidence?
It's right here.
Here's the evidence.
This blank record book.
The record book that he never kept.
That's the evidence.
That's enough, all right.
That's enough in my mind.
Anyway, moving on.
See sin like God sees it.
This is my last point.
D.L. Moody, he was a preacher,
and I know people might,
was he saved or not saved?
I don't know.
I like the story, so I'm going with it.
Anyway, D.L. Moody has a little old lady
come up to him after he gets done preaching.
He was a famous preacher.
I think he was in Chicago, right.
But a woman walked up to D.L. Moody after a sermon
and said, brother Moody, I have a problem with fibbing
and telling little white lies.
Can you help me to quit doing this?
And D.L. Moody said to this woman, he said,
pray to God that he'll forgive you for your filthy, dirty,
stinking, putrid, devilish lies,
and that he'll give you the victory over it.
She said, Mr. Moody, I'm not telling filthy, dirty,
stinking, rotten, putrid, devilish lies,
just little white lies.
And as you see them that way, they'll never get the victory
because lion lips are an abomination unto the Lord.
And see, sometimes we look at the sins we do
and we don't think they're as big of a deal
as God might think they are.
Because he looks at the little white lie
as a stinking lie.
It's filthy.
When he looks down at our works,
our righteousness, they're like filthy rags.
You know, the only righteousness we really have
is the righteousness of Christ that's imputed to us
the day we believe on him.
When he sees that, he sees the blood of Christ.
But our works are filthy rags.
And so, when he looks at our sin,
when he does look at the sins that we commit,
he looks at those as a big deal.
Because any sin can put you to hell,
including the little white lie.
The Bible says, whosoever maketh a lie.
Amen?
So, Luke 19, look at verse 45,
it's our last, second to last place,
I'll have you go, we're already started out here, so.
Luke 19, verse 45.
The Bible says in Luke 19, 45, it says,
And he went into the temple and began to cast out them
that sold therein, and them that bought,
saying unto them, It is written,
My house is the house of prayer,
that ye have made it a den of thieves.
See, some people don't think it's a big deal
to sell things in church either.
Or to make their little businesses on the side.
Hey, come outside, brother.
Let's talk about working on your car
or whatever it is.
You know, but God looks at those things.
Look, people probably didn't think
that they were doing anything that was that bad.
Hey, we're just exchanging some money for some doves.
We're just trying to facilitate them
so they can serve the Lord.
But how did Jesus see it?
He saw it as, you need to be cast out.
He made a cord of whips and whipped those people
and got them out there like a little cattle drive.
And he thought it was a big deal.
Because he said, it is written,
My house is the house of prayer,
but ye have made it a den of thieves.
They're stealing from God.
Well, how are they stealing from God?
Because they never should have been buying
or selling in that place in the first place, right?
Matthew 5, 28 says,
But I say unto you,
That whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust
after her hath committed adultery
with her already in his heart.
See, we don't think that way.
We don't think the way God thinks.
But we need to start looking at things the way God does.
We need to start looking at the sin that we commit
like God does.
It is filthy, and it's wrong.
Whosoever, he said, whosoever looketh upon,
you know, people were probably flabbergasted upon that idea.
Because adultery, the literal act of adultery,
is obviously the worst form of adultery,
but this is a form of it.
It's adultery of the heart.
God looks at our hearts and he sees that adultery.
And obviously we can't look on people's hearts like that,
but we know that he looks at it that way
because we have the Bible to tell us that, right?
Turn to Acts chapter 17, this will be the last
verse I'll have you look at.
And see, Paul got this.
Paul got what God wanted him to get.
He looked at things the way God wanted him to look at things.
A lot of the times, I mean, Paul wasn't perfect either,
but he was a pretty good guy, right?
He was a pretty good missionary.
You know, probably the best of all time.
The goat, greatest of all time, right?
So, Acts 17, verse 16 says,
Now while Paul waited for them at Athens,
his spirit was stirred in him,
when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
So Paul saw the city the way God wanted him to see it.
The city that's given over to idolatry.
He saw the city.
And what did he see?
He literally saw the idols,
but he also saw the need to get those people saved
and get them off that idol program, right?
Because idols were a big deal, you know?
And any idolatry is wickedness.
And anything can become an idol to you.
You know, I mentioned that Ducks game,
you know, that's going to go on tomorrow,
but there's people that literally worship sports as a god.
There's literally people that worship football,
and, you know, why do they have it on Sunday?
Why do you think they have it on Sunday?
They can't have it on Saturday?
You know, then they put it on Saturday and Sunday,
you know, then they put it on Saturday and Sunday,
so you miss soul winning and going to church, right?
And then Thursday night, right?
So, look, the way we need to look at sin
is the way God looks at sin.
And God looks at, you know,
he looks at things like that,
like being the biggest cowboy fan in the world.
He looks at that.
I mean, if you're a bigger cowboy fan than you are of God,
then you got a problem.
That's idolatry.
If you're a bigger Dallas Mavericks fan
than you are of God,
then you got a problem, my friend,
and that's called idolatry.
You got an idol in your heart that you need to give up.
Look, I grew up loving sports.
I played sports.
Yes, I did play basketball.
Yes, I did play football.
But I'll tell you what, when I became a man,
I put away childish things.
I'm talking about a spiritual man.
You know, obviously I still like football
when I was unsaved and still older,
but I'm saying, you know, look,
I'm not going to stay home and, you know, say,
can you preach for me?
I really got to watch this game tonight.
That's ignorant.
I would never do that.
But, you know, people do it all the time.
And look, don't get your eyes off the things
that God wants you to have your eyes on.
He wants you looking at things.
What's he want you looking at?
The individual that needs to be saved.
You know, he wants you looking for that.
He wants you looking at those things, not idols.
Not idolatry.
He wants you looking for that, you know,
the souls of this city to be saved.
And, you know, he wants you looking after your pastor
and lifting him up in prayer
and seeing things the way he wants you to see them
and not the way that we want to see them.
So, you know, and again, I talked earlier about
soul winning beginning to lose its luster.
Sometimes it does.
Sometimes when it's 95 degrees outside or whatever,
it's hot and you don't feel like going.
And you know the neighborhood and you're like,
but you know what, God's always going to get,
you're always going to get someone saved.
Or your group is going to go out and get saved.
Or you're going to go out and knock all the bad doors
and other people are going to get the good doors.
You know, sometimes you've got to take one for the team.
Or 100 doors or whatever it is.
But, you know, after soul winning for a couple of years,
a few years, it does start to lose its luster
and sometimes you don't feel like doing it.
But you know what?
Then just take over and do it for duty.
You know, because we are soldiers.
We're supposed to endure hardness as a soldier.
Right?
And you know, you guys have been doing this for five years.
This church has been here for five years.
I want to see another five years.
I hope I come back for the tenth year.
Pastor Shelley will let me.
Anyway, but I'll preach about your next enemy at that point.
But, you know, some things to ask you before I close.
You know, are you going to continue to pray for this area for the gospel?
Are you going to continue to love lost people?
Are you going to continue your first love for Jesus?
Are you going to start to see, try to see things the way God sees them?
This area is depending on you.
Fort Worth is depending on you.
And hey, don't forget to stand with your pastor.
He's the man of God here.
And you should follow him as long as he's doing right.
Amen?
And I think he plans on, you just plan on doing right, right pastor?
Okay.
And hey, continue to hate sin.
And if you don't hate sin, pray for a hatred for it.
Alright, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you Lord for this wonderful night.
And just pray that you would continue to bless Steadfast Baptist Church.
And hope, I pray Lord, that you bless Pastor Shelley
and Lord all the staff Lord here
and all the folks that go here.
Pray that you would just continue to raise up this army
so that this area can be reached with the gospel.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.