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Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Good evening everyone. Welcome to Verity Baptist Church Manila's Wednesday Night Service. For our first song, let us grab our hymnals and third the number, song number 2. Song number 2, Glory to His Name. Down at the cross where my Savior died, on the first ready sing. Down at the cross where my Savior died, on the first ready sing. There to my heart was the blood of my glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. There to my heart was the blood of my glory to His name. I am so heartfully sinned from sin. Jesus is sweetly abides within. There at the cross where He took me in. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. There to my heart was the blood of my glory to His name. Oh precious fountain that saves from sin. I am so glad I have entered in. There He sustains me and keeps me clean. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. There to my heart was the blood of my glory to His name. Come to this fountain so rich and sweet. Cast thy soul at the Savior's feet. Plunge into day and be made complete. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. There to my heart was the blood of my glory to His name. Let's open up in the word of prayer. Lord, we thank you for this day that you've given us. Thank you for all the soul seed a while ago. May you bless our future and featuring our word. Give us knowledge and understanding your word and you see me pray. Amen. For our next song, let's turn to song number 118. Song number 118, Near to the Heart of God. There is a place of quiet rest. On the first, ready, sing. There is a place of quiet rest. Near to the heart of God. A place where sin cannot last. Near to the heart of God. O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, sent from the heart of God. Hold us, who wait before Thee, near to the heart of God. There is a place of comfort sweet. Near to the heart of God. A place where sin and our Savior's feet. Near to the heart of God. O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, sent from the heart of God. Hold us, who wait before Thee, near to the heart of God. There is a place of full release. Near to the heart of God. A place where all is joy and peace. Near to the heart of God. O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, sent from the heart of God. Hold us, who wait before Thee, near to the heart of God. And there was a man of Mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels silver that were taken from thee, about which thou curstest and spechest of oils in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me. I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the Lord my son. And when he had restored eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had fully dedicated the silver unto the Lord from my hand for my son to make a graven image and a molten image. Now therefore I will restore it unto thee. Yet he restored the money unto his mother, and his mother took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to the founder who made it of a graven image and a molten image. And they were in the house of Micah. And the man Micah had in a house of gods, and made an effort until a female consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man in that which was light in his own eyes. And there was a young man out of Bethlehem, Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite and his sojourn there. And the man departed out of the city from Bethlehem, Judah, to sojourn where he could find a place. And he came to Mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, as he journeyed. And Micah said unto him, whens comest thou? And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Bethlehem, Judah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place. And Micah said unto him, dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of a paddle, and thy victuals. So the Levite went in. And the Levite was content to dwell with the man, and the young man was unto him as one of his sons. And Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah. Then said Micah, Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest. Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for the Bible and for your word. Help us to love your word more and more, to read more in the Bible. And also please, today, please bless the sermon, and anoint the preacher, and help us really to be concentrated and learn a lot out of this. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. We are in Judges chapter 17. And the name of the sermon is There Are Two Sides. Now, I'm preaching a sermon, and whenever you preach a sermon like this with the content, people might start wondering in their heads, like, do we have a big situation going on in our church? And let me just say up front, I don't know of a big situation going on. If we do, I hope you'll let me know so it doesn't get to the point of being a major, major situation. But as far as I know, we don't have a major situation. But this is just kind of a good topic to preach from time to time, because this is an expression you'll hear people say, there are two sides to every story. There is some truth to that statement, but that statement alone can be taken a lot of different ways. So what does the Bible say about this, and what do people mean by this, there are two sides to every story. Now, point number one we have is this, when it comes to there being two sides to every story, you know, yes, to a degree that's true, there's two sides if you have a situation, if you have a problem, if you have a fight, and they have two different opinions on what took place, or they'll say two very different things. But I want you to realize, number one, both sides have a biased outlook on the situation. Both sides in a situation are going to be biased towards themselves with the situation that took place. Notice what it says in Judges 17 verse 6, In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And look, we as people, we look at certain situations and we do what seems right to us, what we think is correct. Now, in Judges 17, toward the end of the book of Judges, you're looking at a group of people that don't have the word of God, they don't have the law of God, they have no laws governing them, and they just kind of do whatever seems right to them. And when you have situations, people look at things very differently. Unless you have set rules to govern you and tell what to do, people will look at certain things and they think this is okay, somebody else would say, no, I think this is okay. Turn to Judges 15. Judges 15. And look, when I'm saying there's two sides to every story, I'm not saying both sides are equal. Rarely is that the case. I'm not saying both sides are correct. I'm not saying both sides are equally being fair in how they look at situations. I'm just saying when you have a problem, the two sides are going to say something different. Okay? You're turning to Judges 15. Let me just read to you where the Bible says, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Oftentimes, a way seems right to somebody doesn't mean it is right. Okay? Now, notice what it says in Judges 15, verse 3. And this is the story of Samson where he's fighting back and forth with the Philistines. And notice what he says in Judges 15, verse 3. And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines. Now, what does he mean by I shall be more blameless? He's saying I am less at fault than the Philistines. This situation, this fight, they are more at fault or more to blame with what's taking place than me. Okay? Now, he's not saying I'm 100% blameless. He's saying they're 65% wrong. I'm 35% wrong. Because notice what he says. I shall be more, shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. He's saying here's the thing. I'm going to do something wrong. I don't think this is correct. However, I'm less to blame. I'm only doing this because they did something worse to me. Right? Anyway, this is how fights work. Right? You know, growing up, I have one sibling. I have one older sister. Anyway, I just remember sometimes my sister and I would get in a fight. And I would think to myself, I should say I'm sorry, but I'm only 40% to blame. Right? She's 60% to blame. I'm 40%. Therefore, after she apologizes, I will also apologize. Right? And, you know, if you grow up having brothers and sisters, you probably can relate to that. Right? You get into arguments. Here's the thing, though. Just because you think you're 40% to blame doesn't mean you are 40%. I mean, if you're 40%, you might be actually 70% at fault. And Samson looks at this situation and he says, you know what? I'm going to do them a displeasure. I'm going to do something that's wrong, but I'm still more blameless. I'm less at fault than the Philistines. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter who's more at fault. You just got to fix the situation because the situation gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And oftentimes when there's a fight, this is the way people feel. Yeah, you know what? I'm partially to blame, but I'm more blameless. I'm not as at fault for the situation as the other person. So even though I did things that are wrong, I can justify the things that I did because here's the situation that I was in. Okay? Now turn in your Bible to Matthew 18. Matthew 18. Matthew chapter 18. There's something that's known in psychology as a self-serving bias, a self-serving bias. I'll give you a definition and give you some examples of what it is. A self-serving bias is the common habit of a person taking credit for positive events or outcomes, but blaming outside factors for negative events. This can be affected by age, culture, clinical diagnosis, and more. It tends to occur widely across populations. Basically, you know, when you have any situation, we tend to look at situations for our own personal benefits. We look at a situation and we make the best possibility out of it to make ourselves look good in situations. Let me give you some examples and I think it's going to make more sense. A student gets a good grade on a test and tells herself that she studied harder, is good at the material. So if you get a good grade on a test, your automatic reaction is, yeah, I knew the material. You know, I'm intelligent. I knew the material. I studied for it. It makes sense. I got a good grade. She gets a bad grade on another test and says the teacher doesn't like her or the test was unfair. Right? And isn't that just kind of common? Right? You're in school. You take a test. If you do well, it's like, yeah, you know what? I deserve that A. I put in the time and effort. You don't do well. Those questions weren't fair. Right? And look, this is all of us. This is our natural reaction. When I can think back to tests I didn't do well in college, I don't think the tests were fair. Right? I don't think they were indicative of what the assignment was about and, you know, that's the way we generally react. Another example is this. Athletes win a game and attribute their win to hard work and practice. When they lose, the following week, they blame the loss on bad calls by the referees. Right? Now, that's certainly true. You know, a basketball team wins a game, they shoot 18 for 30 from the three-point line. If you shoot 18 for 30, you're going to win a game from the three-point line. Right? No doubt about it. If you shoot 18 for 30 from downtown, now look, if you shoot 18 for 30, it means you had a really good shooting night. Right? Sixty percent is pretty good from downtown, even for, like, Steph Curry or the best of the best. Right? And then the next week you shoot, like, five for 30. It's like, wow, it was bad calls. No, you just had a bad shooting night. Right? It's like you just shot the ball poorly and deserved to lose because you got to put it in the basket. But you know what? When I played sports, this is the way you think. When you win a game, we deserved to win. When you lost, hey, we were the better team, we just got unlucky. Right? If we played that game again, we would have won that game. That's just our normal reaction as people. Right? And this is an important thing to understand in the concept of this sermon. Whether you're person A, person B, or an outsider from the situation, realize this, that people have a self-serving bias. Last example, a job applicant believes he's been hired because of his achievements, qualifications, and excellent interviews. So if you get a job, you say, I worked hard, I have good grades, I deserved it, I did a good job at the interview. And for a previous opening, he didn't receive an offer. He says the interviewer didn't like him. So you get a job, it's because you deserve it. You didn't get the job while the interviewer was biased. He didn't like me for whatever reason. Right? This is the way we normally react in situations. And you need to realize this because if you ever get in a fight or a problem or a situation with someone, you need to just be honest with yourself and realize that you're probably going to be a bit biased toward your perspective. It might not actually be exactly the way you see it. Okay? Point number one, both sides have a biased outlook. Both sides have a biased outlook. Now let me say this. You could have a situation where two people get into a problem and one side is completely honest with what took place. That is a possibility. But they're still biased for the side being towards themselves. Right? For whatever, how they look at it. Okay? Number one, both sides have a biased outlook generally in an argument. Point two, because of that, what makes sense if there's a problem is a third party is logical to fix the problem. See, if you've got a problem between two people, they don't see eye to eye about it. What's logical is a third party to look on the outside and say, you know what? I'm on the outside. Let me look at the evidence. Let me see the situation and I'll give you my judgment on this situation. Okay? So this is basically a person C. Person A and person B have a problem for whatever reason. Person C looks on the outside and looks at the situation. And you know what? This is not just my opinion of it being logical. It's actually a biblical thing. Matthew 18 verse 15. So person A and person B have a problem. And look, if it's possible, just go to that person, tell them the problem and try to fix the situation. Right? This is the best possible situation to deal with a problem. Because I'll tell you what, I mean, I'll help with problems we have, which I have before. But if every single week I'm hearing about a problem, it's just like, man, that would be pretty frustrating. It's like, what am I doing wrong preaching these sermons if we have fights every single week between our church members? Right? And so the Bible says if you have a problem with someone, go to him alone. Notice what it does not say is tell your best friends at church about the situation and get people on your side. It's not what it says. If you want to fix the problem, you go one on one with that person because you don't want other people to know about the situation. Verse 16, but if you will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And what verse 16 is talking about is a third party, a person C or person C and D to look at the situation and give an accurate judgment. Now, when it comes to a church, because we believe in authority system in church, if there's a problem, you don't want it to spring out of control, you should let me know that there's something going on. Okay? And I might just decide to let two people try to deal with the situation, but sometimes I might have to step in if the situation gets out of control, which it has happened at our church before. And look, I wish I could tell you it'd never happen again, but I doubt that's the case. I'm sure we're going to have, I hope not as bad as the last time, right? But I'm sure we're going to have a situation in the future at our church with someone, whether it's new people that come to our church, because this happens at church. There are problems at church, and we are a church that will deal with problems if they come up. We don't like the problems, but we will deal with them if necessary. So if it comes to this point, you need to let me know about a situation, and that way it's not everybody at church knows about a situation, and I have no idea. I heard the story of this independent Baptist pastor, and he showed up for church on a Sunday morning, and half the congregation was gone. And then people told him, yeah, actually so-and-so split the church, and everybody knew except the pastor, right? Well, that's a big problem, okay? Verse 17, and if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church, but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. This is a situation where person A is wrong, and person B is correct in a situation, and person A refuses what person C says about the situation. They refuse to admit their fault. They won't admit their guilt, and so basically it ends up becoming a big situation that's told unto the entire church. Now go to 1 Corinthians 6, and to a degree I'm talking about church discipline here tonight, and we'll talk about this as we develop this, but I've heard people say before like, why, you know what, where I come from, we don't believe that the pastor or the preacher should get involved in judging other people's situations. It's just a one-on-one deal with us at church and everything. Look, I would like to not have to deal with situations at church, but when it's something major and extreme, right? It's like, yeah, I don't want to have to deal with stuff if it's something very minor I'm not going to. It's like you borrow 70 pesos. I'm not getting involved in that. That's not a big deal. I don't really care. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but you add a bunch of zeros on the end, that's a different situation, right? And so when it comes to dealing with situations, you know, I don't like being a third party. It's not fun to be a third party. It's not fun to get involved in situations, but sometimes it is necessary, right? 1 Corinthians 6 verse 1, dare any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Anyway, Paul's saying, and realize with the Church of Corinth, this is a church Paul was very involved in. He got a lot of people saved at the church, but he's not actually there physically in person to operate the church, and he expects it's going to run smoothly and decently in his absence, and it's not happening. And he's saying, is there nobody to judge a situation? Look, yes, we are to judge situations, because if we don't judge it, what the Bible's saying is it's going to go to an actual court. Doesn't it make sense if there's a major problem at our church that we try to deal with it before it goes to like a court of law, if it's possible to deal with the situation? Of course you should try to judge and deal with that situation, and as in the Church of Corinth, what was necessary is people getting kicked out of church to deal with the situation. Verse 3, know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? Know not one that should be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now go to Exodus chapter 18 in your Old Testament. Exodus 18 in your Old Testament. Exodus chapter 18. And this is not just a New Testament concept of judging problems that come at church. This is something that even the Old Testament mentions, okay? Exodus chapter 18. Exodus 18 verse 13. When they have a matter, they come unto me, and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws. Now I want you to realize that Moses is not doing the wrong thing by judging the people. That's not what's being said. He's doing it in the wrong way. It's an unwise way. And basically what's taking place, Moses is one man with a massive congregation. We're not talking about we have like a big day, we have like 70 people. We're talking about a huge congregation, okay? There's no way one person could deal with every problem. Even if you have a bunch of godly people, we're all sinners. There's going to be problems that come up in a church of thousands of people, right? And so what Moses needed to do was actually set up people in a system of kind of organization. In our modern day with the church, if we ran thousands of people, we'd have lots of people on staff, deacons. We'd have a lot of stuff, right? But we're not at that point as a church of being that big. But that's basically what Moses has. And what he would have is various people judge those cases. Now we're not in that situation because we're not a megachurch. So how would we deal with it as a church? Well look, if there's a situation that you hear about and someone tries to bring you into the situation and it's between person A and person B, and either person B is dragging you in or person A is dragging you in, what you should do is let me know that there's a situation, right? Let me know that there's a big situation because they've already progressed to the point of Matthew 18. And one of the sides has decided they're right in this situation. I need to know about that, right? Because it's becoming a bit of an issue already. Now this is not our natural tendency because people don't want to bug the preacher with various little problems and stuff like that. But you know, honestly, sometimes these situations springboard into major things and I don't really have any idea about those situations. Now turn in your Bible to 1 Samuel 15, 1 Samuel 15. As I said, as far as I know, we don't have problems. You know, I hope we don't end this sermon and like everyone's going to line up and say, Brother Stuckey, there's this situation. Brother Stuckey, there's this situation. I hope that's not the case. As far as I know, we've had great unity for what? Six months or something like that, right? Point number one, when you have a disagreement, in general, both sides are going to have a biased outlook on a situation. Point two, because there's a biased outlook, it makes sense to have a third party to look at the situation. That just makes logical sense. If two people don't agree about something, you're going to have to have a third party look at that situation. Point three, if you are one of the sides, if you are person A or person B involved in the situation, you should trust person C that's judging the situation. Now realize, when you're looking at a third party, the third party has to be unbiased, right? I mean, if it's person A versus person B and person B brings their twin brother to be the judge, well, that's probably not going to be unbiased, right? Or person A says, you know what, I'm going to have my wife judge this situation for us. It's like, that doesn't make sense. The idea is that you're going to have someone that would be unbiased that both sides would look at and say, they're not going to side against me, they're not going to side, you know, and he's going to say they're not going to side against me. That's someone I trust to just look at the situation. Here's the thing. If you're right, the truth bears no investigation. You should be happy to have a third party that's unbiased to look at it if you're right. I mean, it makes sense. I mean, if you're right in a situation and you've done nothing wrong, you would want to have an unbiased person look and review the situation because you know you're right. So here's the thing. Understanding that you're going to be a bit biased in a situation or potentially, if you're one of the people involved, you should trust an unbiased person that looks at the situation. 1 Samuel 15 verse 17, let me give you an example. And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed thee king over Israel. And the Lord sent thee on a journey and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord? Here is Samuel rebuking Saul, okay? And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. He says, I did obey the voice of the Lord. Now in this situation, you've basically got King Saul, person A, and God is basically person B, right? Because God is saying, I got a problem with King Saul. Those are basically the two parties involved, and Samuel's the one who's coming to deal with the situation. He's just a prophet of God that's going to preach God's message, right? Look, Saul should look at this situation and realize, God is never wrong, and this is his prophet proclaiming the message. I am a sinner. I'm going to be biased. I'm going to look at my situation. And look, you know, you can look at this situation with Saul, and you can understand where Saul comes from in his attitude. Because you could see Saul saying, you know what? Because of the situation I was in, what else was I going to do? I tried to do a good thing, but you know what? You're wrong, Saul. You're biased. You side with yourself. It seems right in your own eyes, but you're wrong in this situation. He should have trusted Samuel, who comes to judge the situation. I mean, Samuel literally is a judge in the Bible, right? Samuel's coming to be a judge of this situation, and he comes in, and he says, you know what? You're wrong, and Saul does not trust the third-party judge in this situation. He says, yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me and have brought Agag the king of Amalek and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. Now, here's the thing. The king was supposed to be killed, right? God specifically said, kill the king. Make sure you kill them. Leave nothing, and he didn't listen to that. Then he says, but the people took of the spoils, sheep, and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice on the Lord thy God in Gilgal. So there is Saul giving his justification for why he did what he did, and here's the thing. Saul is biased towards his side. He didn't expect to get rebuked. He thought I did a good thing. I'm not going to be rebuked. I've done nothing wrong. Then he gets rebuked by a judge, and he refuses to listen to the third party. Go to 1 Samuel 24. 1 Samuel 24. Let me show you the comparison between King Saul and King David. Now, in this next situation, you've actually got King Saul as person A and King David as person B in a situation, okay? Obviously, if you're familiar with the story, King Saul becomes very envious of David before he's the king because he knows he's going to be promoted as the king, so he goes to try to kill him over and over and over again, and notice what David says in 1 Samuel 24, verse 12. The Lord judge between me and thee. What's he saying? David's saying, we've got a situation. We've got a problem. You've got person A is King Saul. Person B is King David. And you know what David says? You know what? I haven't done anything wrong, so you know what? I want a third party. I want the Lord to judge this situation. And look, if you've done nothing wrong, that should be the way you feel. Right? If you have a major situation with someone at church and you are innocent in the situation and you've done nothing wrong, then of course, if there's a third party that is unbiased, then they're going to side with you if they're unbiased. Once again, the third party needs to be unbiased, okay? We've got to be logical here, okay? But here's the thing. But here's the thing. If you've done nothing wrong, they're going to side with you in that situation. And David's saying, you know what? I've done nothing wrong. The Lord judge between me and thee. And he has the attitude, you know what? If I'm wrong, I want the Lord to tell me. And that should be the attitude you have that, you know what? If you're wrong in a situation, you ought to want to know that. And David says, I'm innocent in this situation. The Lord judge between me and thee and the Lord avenge me. The Lord judge between me and thee and the Lord avenge me of thee, but mine hand shall not be upon thee. As sayeth the proverb of the ancients, wickedness proceedeth from the wicked, but mine hand shall not be upon thee. After whom is the king of Israel come out, after whom dost thou pursue, after a dead dog, after a flea? The Lord therefore be judged, and judged between me and thee, and see and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand. And it came to pass when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said, is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. Anyway, when Saul basically gets rebuked by David, I mean, he's aware of the fact I'm the one who's guilty in this situation. He doesn't want the Lord to judge the situation because obviously he's wrong, right? Go to 2 Samuel chapter 12, 2 Samuel 12, 2 Samuel 12. Now, this is an attitude that honestly David keeps with him his whole life. David was a man with many flaws. You know, we see him making a lot of mistakes in the Bible, but one thing you always see is that he is willing to admit that he's wrong when he gets rebuked. I mean, when there's a third party that judges him and says, you've done wrong, he admits he's wrong. And we see an example here in 2 Samuel 12, verse 7. Of course, this is the chapter after David committed adultery with Bathsheba, and about a year has gone by because his son is born. And it says in 2 Samuel 12, verse 7, And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Now, look, Nathan is not person A. Nathan doesn't have an issue with David personally. Obviously, he's angry for his sin, but this is not David versus Nathan, right? Nathan is an outsider. He's the judge in the situation. The problem was David and Uriah, right? The problem is David and his actions. Nathan's not involved in this situation, and God actually sends Nathan to be the third party judge in the situation. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed the king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul. So basically, Nathan rebukes David as the third party judge. Here is the reaction. Here is the reaction of David to this situation. Verse 13, And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. And what you see is that David has a situation. He's the one who's at fault. A third party judge is the situation. Nathan says, You're wrong, David. What you did is not acceptable. It's not a small sin. It's a major sin. He rebukes him. He says, You deserve to die for this. And you know what? David said, You know what? I'm wrong. And David trusts the third party in this situation. Now, here's the thing. Obviously, David was biased toward himself because a year goes by, and he doesn't even seem to have much guilt about it. He just kind of goes on and thinks he's justified. I mean, he even made the statement, The sword devoureth as one as well as the another, or something like that. I might be misquoting it. But he basically made the statement, Well, many people die in battle, so Uriah's just another person who died in battle, right? A really callous statement to make. He sided with himself in a situation. He thought he was okay in the situation. He gets rebuked by a third party. He accepts that judgment, okay? Now, turn in your Bible to Matthew 18. Matthew 18. And look, obviously, because in situations, we're naturally going to be biased towards ourself, we don't want to be wrong in a situation. Nobody wants to have a situation where you're in a disagreement with someone, and somebody looks at the situation and says, You know what? I side against you. I think you're wrong. Nobody wants to hear that, right? Nobody wants to be told that they're wrong and have to humble themselves. But if that's what happens, you know what? You should trust the unbiased person judging. You say, Why? Because they're not intentionally siding against you. They're just looking at the information and making the judgment and saying, This is what I see. I think you're at fault for this situation. I think you need to apologize for this situation, right? He's saying, You know what? I think that you're mostly at fault for this situation. You've got to accept that judgment if they're unbiased. The only way that you could reject that judgment is if the person was completely biased, but the idea is the third party that's coming in is going to be unbiased in a situation. Number one, in a situation, in an argument, both sides have a biased outlook. Point number two, a third party is logical to deal with a situation of problems. Point three, if you are person A or person B, you should trust the person C or the outsider judging that situation. Point four, if you are not person A and you are not person B, you should trust person C judging the situation, okay? If you're involved in the situation, you should trust the judgment, realizing that you could be biased. But if you're not involved in the situation and you don't know anything about it, you should trust the judgment of person C because they're just judging a case, okay? And I'll give you a secular example before I show you what it says in Matthew 18. I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what's going on with Johnny Depp right now. I just see it like everywhere on social media, right? Where either his wife or his girlfriend, they got into a fight and either she beat him or he beat her or whatever. I have absolutely no idea. I don't know much about the situation. Here's the thing, since I don't know anything about it, if one of you knows a lot about it and you tell me this side's wrong, I'm going to trust what you say because I know nothing about it. I just know that apparently Johnny Depp's still alive, which I just learned the last couple of weeks and he's all over social media because of his girlfriend or wife or whatever that took place. I know nothing about the situation. So hey, you know what? If you tell me, hey, this is the situation, this is why he's at fault, I'm going to assume you're right because I know nothing about it. And if you tell me that he's right, whatever you say, I'm probably going to trust your opinion because I don't know anything about it. What I'm saying is if you don't know anything about a situation, doesn't it just make logical sense you're going to trust someone that does know and that judge the situation? It's common sense. Matthew 18, verse 17. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. So the situation becomes out of control. One side is clearly wrong. Whether they're saved or not, treat them as if they're an unbeliever. Let them be unto thee as an heathen man. This is talking about someone basically being kicked out of a church. Verse 18. Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And what the Bible says here in Matthew 18, verse 18, is that if you bind something on earth, if a decision is made, think of binding something, tying it up, it's bound, it's going to be bound in heaven. What is the Bible saying? What is Jesus saying? He's saying if you have a big situation at church, you got a big problem, and then you have a third party judge that situation, and the spiritual leadership judges that situation, and they make a decision based on the fact... I honor that decision. Do you see that? When an unbiased person judges the situation, God says, I accept the judgment. Now, realistically, is a judge always going to be 100% perfect in their judgment? No. You say, why? Because they're getting information and just doing the best they can with the situation. But God says, you know what? I'm going to honor that decision. I'm going to stand by that decision that they made. Now, I do think that God is going to help you make the right decision in those situations, but what we see very clearly is God says, it's bound in heaven. I honor the decision that they made, okay? Let me say this. I've had to deal with situations at our church before, and let me just be honest with you. It's not easy to do. I didn't go to school to be a judge. I got a math degree. With math, it's kind of simple. Two plus four equals six. There's no other option, right? It's pretty easy. When it comes to judging a situation, it's not easy to figure out what's the proper solution. I mean, look, taking someone out of church is not a fun thing to do. You don't want to do it. Sometimes you wonder, am I going a little bit too much? Am I being too harsh? Am I not being harsh enough? I mean, it's really hard to try to figure out the balance. Should I give them one last warning? You know, what exactly should I do? It's not an easy thing to do, dealing with situations like this, and it's not a fun thing to do either, right? So it's very easy to look at someone and say, well, I would have judged it differently. Well, you know what? Go for it, you know, because it's not fun dealing with situations like these, right? But, you know, what I do appreciate from God is that God says, you know what? I'll honor the decision you made. Now, here's the thing. If God honors the decision that a church makes, that spiritual leadership makes in a decision, doesn't it just make common sense that we ought to honor the decision that's made and say we're going to trust the judgment that was made in the situation? Anyway, I'll be honest with you. When it comes to our church, I feel like our church has done a pretty good job of this. When we've had situations, you know, people have stood by the decisions and supported the church in the decisions they made, but this is something you need to preach from time to time, so we're kind of aware of this, that when situations take place, you should side with the unbiased person judging. And here's the thing. You know, when it comes to this room, people in this room have stood by our church in the decisions we've made, but what if it ends up being your close friend at church that's involved in a situation? That could happen. Person A might be your best friend. Person B might be your best friend. Right? And look, our tendency is if we're close friends with person A, whose side are we going to take? Person A. Why? They're our friends. I've had friends before in other churches that were involved in situations, and I saw things their way. You say, why? They're my friend. Right? You tend to see things like their perspective. If you're close friends with person B, you know what? You're going to generally side with person B. Now, the worst thing at church is when the spiritual leadership doesn't know about it and you've got 10 people on the side of person A and 10 people on the side of person B. Right? That's a disaster sort of situation, but that's something that can actually come up at church. Right? Now, the last time we had a situation at our church, we had zero people on this side and everybody on this side, so it was pretty easy. Right? Not a big deal, but that's not always the case. Okay? And what the Bible says is, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now, what does that mean? Well, let's say a judgment is made at the church that so-and-so is not welcome at our church, and then later on the church says, you know what? We're going to give them a second chance now. Time has gone by. They've said they're sorry. We're going to give them a second chance. Now, look, as I said, this is not relating to anything that we're talking about. No second chance is coming, okay? But I'm just saying, if the church ever decided to kind of loose a situation and say, hey, we're going to unbind it, let it loose, give them a second chance, well, then you should honor that decision as well. Right? The idea is that you trust the church to make the judgment on situations, and the reality is, look, if you're person A or person B, you're probably going to be a little bit biased toward your side or if you're close friends with one of the people, but if you're not on anybody's side and you know nothing about it, you know nothing about it. So if you hear one person give you information, that's not the whole story because there's two sides to every story, and you don't know all the information. You're just hearing a little bit, and then you're like, man, I can't believe that Brother Succy did that. I'm going to side with so-and-so. It's like you don't know about the situation because you're not involved in the situation. You don't know all the facts. You don't know all the information. So doesn't it just make common sense to just trust someone who does? Look, and I stand by the same thing. I will trust your Johnny Depp opinion after the sermon. You tell me who's right. You know, I'm kind of curious. I'm not curious enough to spend the time to look into it myself, but let me know after the service who's right. I will trust your opinion. But trust my opinion if we have a situation at church and we have to judge a situation, right? And I want you to realize something. Nobody wants to kick people out of their church. It takes away members from your church. Charity believeth all things. You want to give people a second chance. You want to look at maybe, you know, maybe they just, you know, whatever reason, maybe they're not bad, maybe they just made a bad decision, maybe I should give them another chance. You don't want to kick people out of church, and it never benefits you because when it, at least it never benefits you in the immediate, because when you kick people out of church, some people are going to think you're too harsh. That will always happen. It doesn't matter how bad the sins are. Some people will think you're too harsh. You could have done it differently. It doesn't matter how you handle it. And then others will think you should have kicked them out a long time ago, and it's like, you know what? It's not fun to judge situations, right? I'll be honest with you. This is true, and I've talked to other pastors who have said this, and you know, sometimes you realize there's a major situation, but if other people aren't aware and you kick somebody out and you don't have all this evidence gathered, it's actually going to just make you look really bad. And people are going to naturally side against you because they're not aware of everything. And sometimes you have to just wait until there's enough evidence where it's basically like beyond a shadow of a doubt, here's all the evidence, and you know, by faith, you go out and just deal with the situation, and then what happens, at least from my experience, more information surfaces up if there's already a lot of things on the surface that are known, okay? Notice what it says in verse 19. Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them my Father which is in heaven. For where two and three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. And what God is saying is, you know what? I am in the midst of you helping judge that situation. And so if there's two or three, there's a situation, person A, person B, a third party, God says I will help you with the situation and I will stand by the judgment that you made. Look, in a normal courtroom, when you have the prosecution and you have the defense, you got to stand by what the judge says, right? I mean it just makes sense. And here's the thing, when it comes to a normal courtroom, the normal court case, we don't know either person, right? If there's a murder trial in the Philippines, I'm not going to know who those people are involved in the situation. And if the judge makes a decision or the jury makes a decision, I'm going to assume they're right in the situation because I'm not aware of the situation. The same thing is true in a church. The only difference is we know the people involved in a church and sometimes we kind of like somebody so we want to kind of side with them, okay? Now turn your mind to Jude 1, Jude 1, Jude 1. Jude 1. Jude chapter 1. Now unfortunately what can sometimes happen is if you have person A and you have person B and one side is clearly wrong, let's say that person A is clearly wrong and person B is the innocent one in the situation. Generally that means person B has some integrity, they love God, they're trying to do what's right and they're trying to deal with the situation in the proper way so they're not necessarily telling other people about the situation. But person A who is clearly wrong has no integrity, they have no character, so what are they doing? They're trying to gather together people on their side. Person B is not doing that because they're trying to settle the matter quietly and deal with it, they're trying to give the person a chance or whatever, let the third party make a judgment. Person B is having character and doing things correctly, person A on the other hand, they're basically gossiping about it and gathering people together on their side. This is what takes place in situations. Now here's the thing, if somebody is secretly trying to get you on their side in a situation, that should actually be a red flag to you about that person and I'll show you this in the Bible. Jude 1 verse 17. I've spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. And the Bible speaks about bad people who separate themselves. Now one application or one way to look at this would be, let's say there's a new person at our church and they're kind of quietly talking to people apart from the main group and showing them verses about salvation and Calvinism and saying, well, you know, it kind of seems like it's all been preordained and stuff like that and they're not doing it to everybody because they don't want everybody to know. They're secretly gathering together people on their side with their false doctrine of Calvinism and this always takes place with Calvinism. Calvinists come in, they creep in and they secretly get people on their side with their damnable doctrine, right? But another way to look at this is if there's a fight or a situation in church between person A and person B, what will take place is the person who's clearly at fault and doesn't want to take the blame and has no integrity, especially if they're a bad person, they will secretly go to people and subtly try to get people on their side in a situation. You say, why? Because they don't have any character. Because they're a bad person. Because they want people to side on their side. So look, if somebody comes to you and is trying to get you on their side in a problem involving them and somebody else, it should actually put up a red flag to you. Because here's the thing, you don't know if what they're saying is true. You don't know if they're being honest. For number one, that person's going to be biased toward their own side. Now what you should do is say, okay, well you got this problem with this other person, let's go to that other person and talk about it. Because you don't know if what person A is saying is true. Right? I mean if somebody comes to you and says, hey, this happened, person B did this, blah, blah, blah, how do you know if it's true or not? You don't know if it's true. Right? Unless both sides are there to talk about it, you really don't know what the information is. And look, one way to look at there are two sides to every story, don't just listen to one side and just assume that they're correct. You don't know what person B says. All you know is what person A says. Okay? Now turn in your Bible to 1 Kings 3. This was all introduction. Okay? All of it introduction is all about the last point. And this is something so basic, but it's a situation not really with our church, but just outside of our church that I had to deal with recently or a couple months ago, and it's just common sense, but I'm going to explain it here with 1 Kings 3. But I want you to realize there's truth to this statement, that there are two sides to every story. Now when we're saying there's two sides to every story, what are we saying? We're saying person B or side B has a story, person A has a story. There are two sides to every story. That means not just one side, it also means not three sides. Do you understand this? I mean, this is very basic. If there's a fight between A and B, there's two sides to the story. Here's the thing. The third party that's judging the case, they don't have a dog in the fight. They don't have a side to the story. Do you understand what I'm saying? The problem is not person A versus person C. The problem is not person B versus person C. It's person A versus person B. So if there's a third party that looks at the situation, it's not their side versus person A. It's not their side versus person B. The two sides are person A versus person B. Doesn't that just make common sense? I'll explain why that's important or how people just don't seem to get this. Like I said, I'm not saying at our church, but just how I've had to deal with it outside of our church. Let me give you an example with Solomon here in 1 Kings 3. Notice what it says in 1 Kings 3 verse 16. Then came there two women that were harlots unto the king and stood before him. And the one woman said, O my Lord, I and this woman dwell in one house, and I was delivered of a child with her in the house. And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered that this woman was delivered also, and we were together, there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house. And this woman's child died in the night because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. Verse 21, And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead. But when I had considered in the morning, behold, it was not my son which I did bear. And the other woman said, Nay, but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No, but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king. So you gotta choose a situation of two women who the Bible says are harlots, which is another word for prostitutes. And basically these two women had young children. Two women had young babies. And apparently one of the babies was crushed by the mom during the night. Like she rolled over on the baby and the baby, which is a rare thing that can happen from time to time. But one of the children died during the night. And basically as they wake up, there's one baby and they both want that baby, right? Both of them want to be the mom to that baby. And they're arguing about who the mom is. Now, of course, when Solomon hears this, it's like, I have no idea, right? Now, look, Solomon was a wise man, so he could probably perceive lying from one of the women perhaps, you know? Sometimes there can be subtle clues with, you know, statement analysis and nonverbal communications. And obviously Solomon was wiser than us, so maybe he had a general idea. I'm not really sure. But in general, if two people come to you on a situation and you don't have knowledge about it, it's kind of hard to judge, right? Obviously God gave Solomon a lot of wisdom and he judges this situation. Verse 23. Then said the king, The one sayeth, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead. And the other sayeth, Nay, but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living. And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other. Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son. And she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. So Solomon says, Okay, two women, one baby, I don't have an idea, just cut it in half and both women will get a half. And Solomon knew exactly what was going to take place. The actual mom's reaction was, give the other woman the child. And here's the thing, he knew the woman who was lying about this was just envious and mad that her child died, so she just wanted neither one of them to have a child. That's what she actually wanted. Now, this is not the judgment I would have given. You know, I think I would have been afraid, but Solomon gave the right judgment. It worked, because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth spake it. That other woman just wanted both children dead, because the attitude, I lost my child, then I don't want you to have your child. Right, that's what takes place. Then he says this in verse 27, Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. She is the mother thereof. And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged, and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do judgment. So basically, you've got woman A, and you've got woman B. Woman A has a side to the story. Woman B has a side to the story. Solomon does not have a side to the story. He's the judge. He's person C. He's the outsider. He's the third-party person. He doesn't have a side to the story. You understand? You know, let's say, for example, woman A is the one that Solomon sides with, and woman B is the one he sides against. If woman B came up to you and said, It's not fair what Solomon said, and then you say, Well, you know what? You know, I heard your side of the story. Now I'm going to listen to Solomon's side of the story. That doesn't make any sense. Solomon's not the one who has a side to the story. Now, here's the thing. You should just trust the third party that already heard both sides of the story. Doesn't that make sense? If somebody's unbiased, and they judge a situation, and they make a decision, and God stands by it, you should just accept that judgment. It just makes common sense. I mean, in this situation, it doesn't give us the names of these women, right? Woman A, woman B. You know what? I trust Solomon's judgment. He judged the situation. I mean, the Bible says he's correct on it, but you know what? If I was in that day, I would say, Hey, I trust Solomon's judgment because he's the unbiased person that's making the decision. You say, why are you preaching this? What are you talking about? Well, here's the thing. I don't think that we've had a problem at our church with people getting on board with the decisions of our church, but we've had other churches that don't seem to understand this, and it's like, I'll be honest with you. When people ask me about someone that I got kicked out of my church, it's just like, that we kicked out, it's like, I made my decision. My decision was made. I don't need to revisit it every six months like, should I give this person a chance? Should I give this person a chance or whatever? It's just like the decision was made, right? You know, and recently someone had asked me, it's like, well, you know, I'm thinking about accepting this person, and then they say, can you give me more details? It's like, well, I've already told you about this, you know, six months ago. I'll tell you again, right? But I was just like, you know, and they're just like, okay, well, you know, I heard their side of the story and I heard your side of the story. Well, here's the thing. That doesn't make any sense. It's not my side versus their side. I'm the outsider. It wasn't my personal issue. This situation, it was person A versus person B and person A versus person C and person A versus person D. I'm person Z. I'm the judge, and when I look at it, 24 cases against one person, it's just like, here's my judgment. Not that hard, right? But here's the thing. I don't have a side to the story because I wasn't involved in it. It had nothing to do with me. Generally, people are smart enough not to cause a problem with me because I'm going to end up judging the case, and they don't want me to be person B and person C in a situation. So it had nothing to do with me. I don't have a side to the story, but here's the thing. I made a judgment on the case. Doesn't it just make sense to just trust the judgment of the non-biased person looking at the situation? It's just common sense. And by the way, it's not just my opinion. The Bible says God stands by the decision. Here's the thing. If there was somebody who was coming to our church from another Baptist church, and they got kicked out with an accusation of pedophilia, let's say, or something major, or they stole a lot of money from the church, even if I didn't like that pastor, it's like, that's a pretty big accusation. I'm going to assume that they didn't just make up that accusation. I'm going to say, I'm going to stand by that decision. We don't want someone like that in our church. You're going to stand by that decision because common sense would say, I'm not involved in the situation. I'm going to trust what they said in that situation. That's a big accusation for somebody to make. The thing is, it's like if I don't know about a situation, I would stand by the fact I'm going to trust those in a judge's situation. It just makes common sense when we're talking about church discipline. This is something that churches used to do. It's not something so common anymore. Look, there's kind of this attitude, especially in the Philippines, it's also true in the U.S., but even more so here, where everybody deserves a 50th chance. Show me that in the Bible. I'm sorry, but we're not just going to give somebody chance after chance after chance. We need to be too forgiving. Foolish. To say, I got to keep forgiving and forgiving no matter what they do, we'll give them another chance. Just accept the fact that they said, oh, I'm sorry. You're a fool to just believe what somebody says. It's like, let's see the actions to see whether they're actually sorry. Because what the Bible says about true repentance and godly repentance is there's actually going to be a change that's permanent. Right? Not just boo-hoo, I'm sorry, because look, everybody's sorry when they get caught. Everybody. One of the most famous serial killers of all time was Jeffrey Dahmer. He was a serial killer in the U.S. He was famous because he was like a cannibal and he did a lot of weird and gross things and everything. He was in the psychopath reprobates for those that probably a lot of people have seen that. And when he got caught, he immediately said, I'm so sorry, I can't believe I did this. Look, he immediately said he was sorry. Do you think he really meant that, or was he just trying to get out of being in trouble? It's called a changed character when necessary because how he got beat to death in prison is he was bragging about being a pedophile and they beat him to death, one of the other inmates, for bragging about being a pedophile. He was never sorry. He said that because he was trying to get out of being in trouble. So look, when a third party judges a situation, you ought to trust and stand by that judgment. You say, why? Because they already heard both sides to the story and they're making a decision. Look, I don't think it's a problem that we've had at our church, but I'm just trying to use common sense here that if there's a situation and it's like, well, Brother Stuckey, what's your side to the story? It's not about my side because I'm the one who judged the situation. Look, when it comes to a courtroom and you got the prosecution and the defense, there's two sides. The judge is judging between two sides. There's not one side. There's not three sides. The judge is judging between the two sides and making a decision on the situation. Anyway, in general, I'm just going to trust what the judge says because they already judged the situation. It's just kind of common sense. Now, here's the thing. As someone who has to deal with situations from time to time, I appreciate the fact that God says I will honor your decision. And here's the thing. Maybe I don't always make the perfect decisions, but God either way says it's bound in heaven, even if I don't handle it perfectly, right? And look, I hope this sort of situation doesn't come up at our church again, but I'm just being realistic that situations like this happen in church where you've got to deal with things. And there's kind of a difference between churches. Some churches deal with situations. Other churches have situations, but they don't deal with them. You say, Brother Stuckey, why is it better to deal with the situation? Well, number one, because the Bible tells you what to do and to deal with the situation. Number two, a common sense thing, if you've got person A that's the problem and person B is the innocent person and you do not deal with the situation, the innocent side is going to end up leaving the church eventually probably, right? If the innocent side is getting, you know, ripped off by this person A all the time, the innocent side, there's a good chance they might end up leaving the church. And here's the thing. I don't want person A to stick around. If it's clear person B is innocent and person A is the problem, it's like, well, if one side has to go, it's not really hard to make a decision on that. If you don't deal with situations, what you're going to have is bad people stay that cause the problems and good people go. And look, this takes place at churches all the time where they have this attitude, no matter what takes place, you've got to just, you know, forgive your brother, give them another chance. And there's even churches that when they deal with situations of actual pedophilia that has occurred at church, they say, we're not going to go to a courtroom. It just stays in church only. That's ridiculous. That would go straight to a courtroom if you have that sort of situation, right? The idea, well, we'll just give them another chance, forgive them the 100th time. I'm sorry, but that's not the God of the Bible. Look, God is long suffering, but at the same time, the Bible speaks about people being kicked out of church. It tells us how to deal with situations. And look, as a church leader, I don't like it when these situations come up. I'm not happy to hear about them, but when I do and there's enough evidence, there's situations that I will deal with. But realize this, if this ever happens in the future at a church, if you're involved in the situation, you have to realize you're going to be a bit biased toward yourself. If you're not involved in the situation, even if your friend is involved in the situation, if you're not actually directly involved in that situation, it just makes common sense to side with someone who's unbiasedly judging between those people. It's not my side versus their side. It's side A versus side B. I'm just judging what is taking place. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and getting to see your word on this topic. And we ask you to continue to bless our church, help us to have great unity and peace, help us not to have these problems at our church, God, but help us to be willing to deal with these problems if we ever do have them in the future, God. And I ask you to help people at our church if we do deal with these things to be able to appropriately take the side of the church and stand by the decision that has been bound in heaven, God. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.