(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

The title of my sermon tonight is Being Goalable. The verse that I want to emphasize is verse number 15, the simple believeth every word but the prudent man looketh well to his going. The simple believeth every word. This is someone who's goalable, right? They believe anything. So I looked up goalable in the dictionary on dictionary.com and it said that goalable is someone who is easily deceived or cheated or easily taken in, easily tricked, right? So that's what it means to be goalable. Anybody can fool you or trick you. Where this word comes from is for the word for swallowing. You hear about something going down the gullet and so the goalable person is the person who will swallow anything, right? Anything that they're told. Goalable people are not necessarily bad people. This isn't a bad thing where you're just a horrible, stupid fool. No, rather the goalable person is called the simple one. And if you study the book of Proverbs, you'll notice that there are different classes of people. There are fools who've just gone all the way into stupidity and wickedness and you have the wise man on the other end of the spectrum. The simple one is one that can go either way. It's often a young person, they just don't have the experience, they don't have the knowledge, they don't have the wisdom yet. It's not that they're a bad person and it's not that they're not going to become wise in the future. It's just that they're at a stage of life where they're not very sharp yet, okay? So the Bible says the simple believeth every word. So this person still has the potential to become a wise person and so let's say you tend to be a goalable person, then what you need to do is gain some knowledge, wisdom and understanding so that you can graduate from being a simple person who believes everything that they hear to being a wise person who is discerning about what they're going to swallow, right? So I'm going to give you three important things tonight about how not to be a goalable person. I'm going to give you three steps to not be goalable. Number one, beware of flattery. Now this is one of the number one deceptive things that is out there. This is something that I observe almost every day but certainly every single week. I mean you just constantly see this, the flattering tongue, flattery. What is flattery? It's insincere praise or insincere gratitude, people pretending to like you when they don't. This is what flattery is. Now I'm going to show you a bunch of scriptures on flattery. If you want, turn over to Proverbs 28, Proverbs chapter 28. While you're turning there, let me give you some scriptures from flattery on the strange woman. So one of the things that God constantly brings up when he's warning us about flattery is he brings up the strange woman and how the strange woman is going to flatter you with her words. Now what is the strange woman? The strange woman simply means the woman that is not your wife, just a woman that you are not intimate with. So a stranger in the Bible is like a foreigner but in this context, it's just someone that you don't know, a stranger. The strange woman is just some random woman basically. It's someone other than your wife. So the strange woman is often some loose woman that's trying to commit fornication with you or a loose woman who wants to entice you into adultery or defraud you in some way. So listen to these warnings. You don't have to turn to these but the Bible says in Proverbs 2, to deliver thee from the strange woman, even the stranger which flattereth with her words. Proverbs 6, 24, to keep thee from the evil woman from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Proverbs 7, 5, that they may keep thee from the strange woman from the stranger which flattereth with her words. Verse 21, with her much fair speeches, she caused him to yield. With the flattering of her lips, she forced him. So over and over again, God brings this up about the strange woman trying to seduce you using flattery, pretending that you're handsome, pretending that she likes you, pretending that you're special and just trying to really ruin your life, destroy you, get something from you, manipulate you, abuse you, whatever. So that's a big theme and that kind of helps you see what flattery is. Because if you look at that flattering of her lips causing him to yield, if you actually read the context there, basically what she does is she said to him that she'd been diligently looking for him all the time and found him. Oh man, I've been looking so hard and I finally found you. When in reality, the Bible's telling us she's just on a street corner just looking for anybody and she just, there you are, you know, it's just basically just whoever happened to be going by. Okay. Now look at chapter 28 verse 23. The Bible says, he that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor than he that flattereth with the tongue. So here we have two things in contrast. The one who rebukes a man and the one who flatters with his tongue. Now let me explain further what flattery is. Because giving someone a compliment that's sincere, that's legitimate is not flattery. If I actually like what someone does and I compliment them, that's not flattery. If I actually think someone's good looking and I say, you're good looking, that's not flattery because it's true, it's sincere. Or if I were to act like I like someone because I actually like them, because they actually are my friend, that's not flattery. Flattery is when it's not sincere, when it's inappropriate, when it's over the top or when it's towards someone that you actually don't like. So what this is referring to is when someone does something wrong, okay, there are two options when someone does something wrong. I could either rebuke that person and tell them what you did is wrong, you need to change this, you need to fix this, or I could tell them, boy, you did a good job. Well done, right? So those are the two alternatives that are presented in this verse. There's the guy who rebukes the person who did wrong and the person who just pats him on the back and tells him he's doing great. Well, afterward the Bible says the man who rebukes him is going to find more favor in the long run than the guy who flatters him with his lips and encourages him in his mistake. Look at chapter 29 verse 5 just on the next page, a man that flattereth his neighbor spreadeth a net for his feet. So when you get the feeling that you're being flattered by someone, realize that person is setting a trap for you, they're trying to catch you and they're trying to hurt you in one way or another. Look at Proverbs 23, while you're turning there, I'll read for you from Psalm 55 verse 20. He had put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him. He had broken his covenant. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. So here's a guy who's speaking so kindly and he's so loving and he's so gentle with his words, but in his heart, it's all war. He wants to hurt you. He wants to slay you. He wants to destroy you. That's flattery, right? When you speak these fair speeches, but on the inside, you have rancor toward that person. Look if you would at Proverbs 23 verse 6, eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee. The more so which thou hast eaten, shalt thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words. So what he's saying here is that what you think in your heart is the real you, and this guy doesn't like you, doesn't care about you, doesn't love you. He says to you, eat and drink, but his heart's not with you, okay? So the Bible's warning us about disingenuous people, fake people who put on a friendly facade, but inwardly, they hate us, they despise us, they want to hurt us, etc. Go to Mark Chapter 12. Let's look at this in the life of Christ. Mark Chapter Number 12, while you're turning there, I'll read for you from Proverbs. The words of a tale bearer are as wounds. They go down into the innermost parts of the belly. Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross. Now a potsherd is a scrap of pottery, so just a dirty old worthless scrap of broken pottery covered with a super thin layer of silver put forth as, hey, this is a piece of silver. You know, this is something expensive, when in reality, that super thin layer of actually not even silver, but silver dross, right? That's what flattery is. That's the person who dissembles with their lips. It says in verse 24, he that hateth, dissembles with his lips and layeth up deceit within him. This is the person who has hatred in their heart, but out of their mouth just comes love, love, love, right? It's fake. When he speaketh fair, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation. That's happened a few times, hasn't it? Whose wickedness is covered by deceit, whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation. Whoso digget the pit shall fall therein, and he that rolleth the stone, it will return upon him. A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it, and a flattering mouth worketh ruin. Look at Mark, and we'll see this in the life of Christ. Verse number 13 of chapter 12, and they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians to catch him in his words. So what's the motive? To trip him up, catch him in his words, make him look stupid, find something that they can use to accuse him. Verse 14, and when they were come, they say unto him, all right, we're here to trick you. No, that's not what they said. When they were come to him, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true and carest for no man, for thou regardest not the person of men, but teacheth the way of God and truth. What is that? Flattery, right? They show up. Man, we know what a great Bible teacher you are. We know that you're not afraid of anybody. We know you're going to tell us the truth. You're going to give us the straight dope. You're not going to sugarcoat anything. Man, you are speaking the word of God. You're going to tell us the way of God. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? They're trying to get him in trouble with the tax man, right? Verse 15, shall we give or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, what is hypocrisy? It's being an actor. It's when you put yourself forth as one thing and on the inside you're something different. You pretend to like someone that you don't like. You pretend to respect someone that you don't respect. He, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny that I may see it. So number one, beware of flattery. This is one of the most important things about not being gullible. Let me give you an example of this that I saw recently just to give you an illustration of this. So this bozo got up and preached behind the pulpit at a preaching night or a preaching class at Fanon's new renegade church. And this guy gets up and preaches a sermon and he turns to Revelation 13.8. If you want to go ahead and turn there, you can see what it says. He turns to Revelation 13.8 in the sermon and he reads this verse that's about the Antichrist, in Revelation chapter 13 verse 8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. You don't really have to be that deep into the Bible to know that this is a reference to the Antichrist, everybody in the world is worshiping the Antichrist. Well he gets up and says, hey, see right there, you know, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Everybody's going to worship Jesus someday. And of course when you, you know, get to that point you're going to all worship Jesus. So he's basically praising this as good and talking about how it's all about worshiping Jesus when in reality it's a verse about worshiping the Antichrist, okay. Now look, things like that are going to happen when somebody is a beginner or a novice or they're nervous or they get confused, I get that, okay. I've run a preaching class many scores of times and I've had guys get up in the preaching class and misspeak, mess up, say weird things. I mean I've had guys get up and say things that were just outright heresy but they didn't mean to. They got discombobulated, they were confused or maybe they were just a new believer and so they hadn't read other parts of the Bible that would have just completely blasted their idea out of the water. So they get up and they preach and you know what I do every single time? I get up and say, what you preached is completely wrong, that's false, okay. And I tell them, you know, this is the danger of just searching verses on Google or searching verses on Esort or Bible Gateway without actually reading the chapter. You know, you're just looking for a word search, just grab the verse, don't read the chapter. I said this is the danger of that, don't do that. You know, I explained it, who's been in a preaching class where I said those kind of things? Yeah, all over the building because I get up and tell them that's right. And then often I've said this and those of you that were there can remember me saying this multiple times where I'd say, hey listen, you know, if you're going to be a pastor someday, you can't make mistakes like that because you're going to say that and it's going to be on the internet and then you're never going to live it down because it's just going to be quoted and quoted and quoted, this flub that you made, this ridiculous teaching that you gave, this heresy that came out of your mouth. And so I've given warnings. Now look, I was speaking the truth in love. It's not that I didn't love the student. It's actually the reverse. I actually did love the student which is why I'm warning them about the danger of getting up and preaching stupid things, making bizarre statements from the pulpit and telling them, hey, you've got to be careful. You can't say stuff like that. You need to read the whole chapter. You can't just cherry pick a verse without even reading the context. You need to do better. I'm rebuking, not flattering with my tongue, right? So anyway, this bozo gets up and, and, and makes the, the, the bizarre statements about revelation 13 eight. What is his leader do? Can't say pastor because they don't have a pastor, but what is leader do? He uploads the sermon to youtube of this guy teaching this and then there, and then just comments on it. Oh, you did such a good job. This was such a good sermon. Oh man, it's so good. Right? You say, well, maybe they just didn't realize what the guy had said. Okay. Well then how about the fact that when people right away pointed it out to him, they didn't take it down. They didn't admit that it was wrong. They just dug in. It's a good sermon. It was a great sermon. I liked the sermon. Hey, but what about when he told people that worshiping the anti-Christ is good and that's worshiping Jesus? No, no. It was a great sermon. They dug in on it. Right? So then I, you know, I saw this. I took the 60 second clip where he preaches this thing and I uploaded it to a youtube channel and I, and I just titled the video worst exposition of revelation 13 eight in the history of Bible preaching. You know, these people want to just upload this and just act like it's great and oh, you did such a good job. It's your first time preaching. What a good baby. Yes, you did so good. Here's your participation trophy. Yeah, it was good that you, that you taught that Jesus and the anti-Christ, you know, you conflated them. That's good. You're doing good. At least you're trying serving God's just all about trying, you know, it's okay to preach lies, stupidity, heresy, you know, so I, you know, I put up this, this, uh, video and the guy who preached the, the error, listen to what he wrote and I'm going to show you a perfect example of flattery. Okay? Here's his comment that he left on my video. The guy who actually preached this about revelation 13 eight. Listen carefully. I'm, what's the purpose of the sermon folks? I'm teaching you how not to be gullible folks. I don't want you to be gullible. I want to help you graduate from simple one to wise one. All right? I'm helping you get there. Three step program tonight. Okay? We're on step one. We're almost done. Flattery. Watch out for it. Listen to this. I appreciate you pointing out the mistake that I made in my sermon. The point of the sermon was to show the difference between the false ways of the world and the only true way of salvation. John 14 six. My intent in going to revelation 13 eight was to compare it to Romans 14, 10 and 11 and show how that the antichrist is trying to be a facsimile of Christ because all of us saved and unsaved, we'll have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ one day. I'm sorry for the confusion. This was my first sermon and needless to say, I was nervous. I should have clarified my point, but I'm glad that you diligently caught my mistake. Now here's the thing to the simple one, to the sim, the simple one reads this and they're like, Oh man, this guy's so sincere. I mean, did you hear that sincere apology? This was an honest mistake. I'm not going to ask for a raise of hand. Who thinks that that was a sincere apology, but I think if people were honest, a bunch of people would raise their hand. We've got, we've got, I bet you we've got some simple ones here tonight. I'll bet you we do. And look, if you're one of the simple ones, I'm not mad at you. I don't even dislike you. I don't think you're a bad person. I want to help you. I'm this sermon's for you. If everyone here were not susceptible to flattery, then this kind of a sermon wouldn't be necessary. Okay. We need to hear, let's stop and back up and read this again. The first statement, what's the first thing out of his mouth. I appreciate you pointing out the mistake that I've made in my sermon. Who believes that that's true? That he actually is like, Oh, thank God, pastor Anderson uploaded a video of my preaching called the worst exposition of revolution 13, eight in the history of Bible preaching. What a blessing, man. I appreciate pastor Anderson doing that. Who thinks that he actually appreciate, you know what that means? It means it's a lie. Hello people. Is anybody home? When you say things that aren't true, you're lying. That's the definition of lying. I appreciate you doing this. You don't appreciate it. That makes you a liar. Makes you a lot. No. Well, no, it's a lie. Don't sugar coat it. A lie is a lie is a lie. You knowingly make untrue statements. You are lying, but it goes beyond just lying. It's flattery telling someone, Oh, I appreciate what you've done. That's flattery. Okay. So, Oh, I appreciate you. Now look, let's say, you know, I showed this to my son and he said, well, dad, maybe that statement could have been appropriate if you would have sent a private message to him saying, you know, excuse me, you made a serious mistake. And then he wrote back and said, man, I appreciate you pointing that out, deleted the video. Let's get rid of that. Let's throw that down the memory hole and hopefully just everybody will forget that it ever happened. Then it would be appropriate. Okay. But these people had already been given a chance. They'd already been shown the error and dug in. Then I make this video thousand some people watch it and then, Oh man, I appreciate you pointing out the mistake I made myself. Is anyone here? Look, at this point, now that I've explained that to you, now you've, if you still believe this is sincere, now you've gone from being a simple one to being a fool at this point. Is everybody listening tonight? Okay. So let's keep going. That's just the first sentence. Okay. I appreciate you pointing out the mistake that I made in my sermon. That's a bold faced lie and that is flattery. The point of the sermon was to show the difference between the false ways of the world and the only true way of salvation. John 14, six, my intent and going to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now he's just trying to snow us with just a whole bunch of information of what he was planning on saying, what he thought about saying, what the whole sermon's about, just hitting us with a bunch of information, right? Making excuses for himself. He says, I'm sorry for the confusion. This was my first sermon and needless to say, I was nervous. I should have clarified my point. Stop and think about this. You said that everybody worshiping the Antichrist is a verse about Jesus. You don't need to clarify your point. You need to find a different point. Folks, that's not, oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry about the concern. Sorry what I said was a little confusing. No, what you said wasn't confusing at all. What you said was crystal clear. It was just wrong and it didn't need to be clarified. It was just wrong. See, a real apology goes like this. Let me give you a sincere real apology. You got me. I copied and pasted this. I didn't read the whole chapter. I'm new at preaching and I screwed up. Sorry. I'm going to not make this mistake again. That's a real apology, right? You got me. And look, if he would have done that, I wouldn't be criticizing the guy and attacking the guy because, look, the guy's actually sorry. The guy's actually repentant. Look, anybody who throws something in somebody's face after they're sorry and have repented is a bad Christian because a major Christian virtue is forgiveness. So if somebody says, hey, I screwed up, I messed up, I did something dumb, then you know what? Forgive and forget. This is not a real apology, folks, of, hey, I was wrong, I should have read the chapter, I was out of context, I goofed, forgive me. That's a real apology. No, no, no. It's just, oh, sorry for the confusion. I should have clarified my point. No, you should have just not made that point because what you said was wrong. So he tries to convince you that there was this other point that he meant to, should have, could have, would have said, okay. And then listen to the last statement. I should have clarified my point but I'm glad that you diligently caught my mistake. So again, he lies and says he's glad that I caught it and lambasted him in this video, right? He's glad about that, right? Who believes that he's glad about that? That's a lie. That's flattery. And not only that, he lays on a little bit more flattery by saying I'm glad that you diligently caught my mistake. Oh, you're diligent. That's a case. He's complimenting me for my diligence. Why thank you. I like to think of myself as quite diligent. Okay. So anyway, I, you know, I'm just throwing that example out there because one of the biggest things that gullible people do is they accept fake apologies and people that are guilty, they accept fake evidence that they're innocent. OJ Simpson. If you think OJ did not murder Nicole and Ron Goldman, you're gullible, all right? I'm just saying. I don't care if the glove don't fit, all right? Anyway, number two, fact check things that you hear. So number one, beware of flattery. And look, I can't emphasize that point enough. That's the main. If you only take one thing away from the sermon, watch out, be aware of, be on guard for people flattering you. And look, when I was young, I was susceptible to this and, you know, I had to learn the hard way over time that when people are complimenting me and praising me, they don't mean it. Now sometimes there are people sincere that mean it and you say, well, how am I going to know the difference? Here's how you know the difference. You look at their words and you look at their actions and you see if they match. You look at their words and you look at the situation and you see if they match. You look at their words and you look at reality and see if they match. You understand what I'm saying? It's how you detect fire because there are a lot of people who will come up to you and say, oh boy, I'm so thankful for what you did for me and they're just really thankful. Oh man, thank you so much for that. Or man, you preached a great sermon or man, you're looking great. That what a beautiful dress you're wearing and they're just sincere. They just mean it. And I don't want people to be afraid of giving compliments or like, oh, I don't want to be considered a flatterer. Look, let true statements come from your heart. If you have nice things to say to other people, say them, say nice things, but mean them. Say, well, how am I going to know the difference? You know what? You got to graduate from being simple to wise and you start looking for inconsistencies where people are just praise, praise, praise ya, stab you in the back as much as they can. Praise you. Praise you more. It's like, wait a minute, if somebody stabbed me in the back, I want them to say negative things about me because it's better the devil that you know than the devil that you don't know. Okay? So number one is beware of flattery. Number two, you got to fact check the things that you hear. The Bible said in Proverbs 14, the simple believeth every word, but the prudent man, look as well to his going. Go to Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy chapter 13. You must fact check things, all right? Now while you're turning there, let's talk about some hoaxes that are out there that you fact check and you find out that they're not true. And in the day of the internet, this sermon is more timely than ever because the hoaxes are happening on a daily basis now. The hoaxes are just coming up everywhere, Facebook hoaxes everywhere. Let me give you some examples. How about pictures of archeologists digging up giant skulls this big and femurs, human femurs that are like taller than a person? Here's the thing, you just take 30 seconds to fact check that, you can see here's the original photo and here's where it's been photoshopped, right? So before you just start, share this, tweet this, dig this, like this, favorite this, you know, why don't you just do a little research and see if that's really true because guess what? They didn't find any skulls that were that size and they didn't find any femurs that were that tall. Or how about this? I heard this one in Sunday school when I was growing up that men have one less rib than women because Adam gave it to Eve that first time and so now all men have one less rib. It's not true. It's a hoax, right? But it would only take a minute to research that and not just repeat that and spread that hoax, right? So you don't want to be gullible. What does a gullible person dictionary said? It's someone who's easily deceived, easily taken in, easily tricked. They're a victim is what they are. Like I said, they're not necessarily a bad person, they're a victim, okay? They're somebody who doesn't, like for example, that comment that I just went through earlier, there was a lady on there saying, oh, he apologized. I made some comments like, did you look at his apology? Let me point out a few things and then she's like, oh yeah, wow, I see what you're saying. So it's not that she was bad, it's just that she just hadn't thought about it and that's normal and here's the thing, people who are good and sincere, you know what they think? They think everybody else is good and sincere. We judge others by our own heart so we go through life thinking that everybody loves us and is nice and kind and real but then over time we keep finding out, oh, turns out the world's a wicked place. Turns out everybody's lying. Not everybody but anyway, that's how it feels sometimes but anyway, you got to fact check these things. What about this? I've heard this one from the pulpit, how NASA's computers found a missing day and it turns out is when Joshua made the sun stand still and proved the Bible is true because NASA's computers when tracking the heavenly bodies found this missing day. I've heard that from the pulpit in church a few times. Folks fact check these things before sharing them, okay? Let me give you some other famous hoaxes. Bananadine is a fictional psychoactive substance which is supposedly extracted from banana peels, okay? So there was this song called Mellow Yellow in the 60s, we call it Mellow Yellow and people thought that the song was telling you that you'll get high by smoking banana peels. So then this newspaper, this libtard hippie newspaper in Berkeley published a whole article giving you a recipe for how to extract this substance bananadine from the banana peels so you can get high with it. You can use this to get high. Turns out banana peels don't get you high, all right? Another famous hoax is the Microsoft acquisition hoax. This is the first time a hoax was ever perpetrated on the internet in a large scale. It was this press release from the Associated Press that the corporation Microsoft had basically bought the Roman Catholic Church, had acquired the Roman Catholic Church as one of its corporate holdings, okay? And people were spreading that everywhere, emailing that, sharing that and thinking that it was real, okay? Another famous hoax that a lot of people believed in was called Piltdown Man, okay? Who's ever heard of Piltdown Man? This is where this guy claimed that he discovered the missing link between ape and man in 1912 and what he did is he took a skull from a human, he took a jawbone from an orangutan and he took teeth from a chimpanzee, put it all together, did some stuff on it to make it look really old and presented it to the scientific community and they all bought it hook, line and sinker because it was what they wanted to believe. They wanted to believe it so it took 41 years for it to be debunked because they wanted to believe it and it confirmed all these theories that they had about the kind of diet that, you know, ancient ape men would have eaten and look at their teeth, you know, it's exactly what we predicted. This was amazing and it turned out the teeth had been filed down and shaped to be exactly what they wanted to find, okay? That people wanted to believe it. Okay, here's another hoax that people blindly believe in, the gay gene. I remember them talking about this when I was a kid. This goes all the way back to like probably around 1990 they started talking about this because I remember hearing about this as a young child, early 90s and here's the thing, they kept talking about it in the media, we're searching for the gay gene, searching for the gay gene. Well, here's the thing, they never found it. There is no such gene if you read, it doesn't matter what scientific paper you read, it doesn't matter what book you read, in 2019 they will all say that there is nothing genetic that predisposes people to homosexuality, period. But what do we hear all the time? Oh, they're born that way. So now the scientists are like, well, it's not genetic but they're still born that way and they just come up with theories about, hey, they didn't get hit with enough testosterone in the womb or hey, it must be epigenetics or something. They try to come up with other things but folks, there's no gay gene but if I had a nickel for every time somebody said to me, oh, scientists have proven that they're born that way. What about the gay gene? I would be a wealthy man. Who's happy to bring that out to you, oh, the gay gene, they're born that way. I mean, it's all the time. Folks, it doesn't exist. No one believes in it except for gullible people but no scientist will point to it and give, okay, give us the genetic marker. Which gene is it? In fact, they did a study of 700 sets of identical twins and found that there was no correlation that was significant of whether or not if one of them was a homo, the other one only had a 7% chance of being a homo. So that's only a very slim connection especially because of things like environment and etc. So the whole thing is bogus, okay? I mean, look at the stupid things that people believe in. The flat earth, the Mandela effect. Folks, people are gullible and we don't want to be that guy or gal that gets sucked in and carried about with every wind of doctrine or carried about with every internet hoax and internet rumor, okay? So what we want to do is we want to make diligent inquiry. Before we get up and repeat things, before we just say that things are a fact or especially not get behind the pulpit and just start spouting things, then, you know, we need to do a fact check, okay? You know, we've done a lot of research for our films and a lot of it's fact checking. You know, we'll interview people and they'll say cool stuff but sometimes we've taken certain things from certain people's interviews and then we fact check them and it's not there. It doesn't get included in the movie. Other times, an interview will say something so fantastical that we think there's no way that's true. Then you fact check it. It's true. You got to do research, diligent inquiry. Okay, look what the Bible says in Deuteronomy 13-13. Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city saying, let us go and serve other gods which ye have not known. Then shalt thou inquire and make search and ask diligently and behold if it be truth and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought among you, thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly and all that is therein and the cattle thereof with the edge of the sword. So he's saying look, before you just start condemning people, make diligent inquiry and get some certainty about what you are alleging. Now look, in our legal system, in order to convict someone, you don't have to be 100% certain of their guilt. You have to be certain beyond a reasonable doubt. Does everybody understand that? A reasonable doubt. Meaning that you can't say, what if there was this other guy that just looked exactly like him and that happened to rob the bank that day and then he happened to be driving down the road fast away from the bank a little bit later and he was just in the wrong place. You know, that's not reasonable, right? Crazy wild-eyed theories. People are convicted when they're proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning a reasonable person would say, you know what, I'm sure that this person is guilty. That's the burden of proof, okay? And that makes sense. The Bible says that no one should be convicted of death except at the mouth of two or three witnesses, okay? Now look, could two or three witnesses testify to something and the person still be not guilty? Yeah. But guilty people are going to go free sometimes. Not guilty people are going to be condemned because no justice system is going to be perfect and no consequence run by human beings, right? So there are always going to be errors and mistakes made. There's no question about that. But God says you've got to do diligence. Now look, you might do diligence and fact check and still make a mistake, but you investigate, you get witnesses, you get evidence, and then you make a decision based upon the evidence. But you don't want to be one of these people that will just never condemn anyone. Unless I watched OJ slay Nicole and Ron, then I'm not going to believe it. At that point, you're just being ridiculous. The guy wrote a whole book about how he did it called If I Did It, and the if is like faded out. So it's just like, I did it. And the whole book is like, well, if I would have done it, here's how I would have done it. And he explains exactly, I mean, come on people, wake up. But I remember when I was in high school, everybody with the free OJ on their backpack and everything like that. If you were living in those days, yeah, it's crazy, right? But anyway, how do you identify fake news? And here's what's funny. God says inquire diligently. You want to know what the biggest fake news paper has been historically called? The Enquirer. The National Enquirer. Okay, it is filled with fake news. Now, does it sometimes have real news? Yeah. Even a broken clock twice a day shows the correct time, okay? But by and large, everybody knows or at least should know or we all grew up knowing that the National Enquirer is fake news, okay? We've always known that. Another one that was a little more obviously fake news is the Weekly World News. Who knows about the Weekly World News? It's in the supermarket checkout. It must not still be around since nobody knows about it. It's all the older people that are putting their hands up. But when I was a kid, this thing was in the checkout at every grocery store, the Weekly World News, 500-pound baby, bat boy found in cave, you know, just all this, you know, bizarre crazy claims. And I mean, this thing was on newsstands all across America, National Enquirer, Weekly World News, and it was just fake news. Some people thought it was real. They would read it and take it as gospel. But it was actually just filled with hoaxes and just messing with you. So let me just give you a practical tip on point two, how to identify fake news. Let's say something pops up in your newsfeed and you're tempted to just get all excited about it and start sharing it without actually checking it. If you click, if you think that a news article is fake news, here's what you do. You click on the article, right, brings up the article. Fake home, home. If you go home, you're going to go to that website's homepage and if everything on the homepage sounds really wild and crazy, then it's a fake news website. Who knows what I'm talking about? You know, so you find some article, you know, ancient document proves, you know, tells another account of Jesus' life. It's the first time we've ever found a document from the first century while Jesus was alive describing Jesus from a perspective outside the Bible and you're reading it and it sounds legit, click home and then when you find that the article is right between, you know, Elvis is Still Alive and, you know, Tupac Shakur is going to come out with a new album and everything like that, then you realize, like, okay, this is a fake news website. Because, look, there have been some times when I saw an article that looked pretty believable but I clicked home and it was like, okay, this is a fake news website. Because not all of them are that obvious and there are websites that all they do all day is churn out fake news, okay? You say, I don't know what you're talking about, Pastor Anderson. I don't know what fake news is. Okay. People make fictional news articles for fun as a joke, okay? And here's the thing. You know, you say CNN and, you know, haha, you know, CNN's fake news, Fox News fake news, but that's not what I'm talking about, folks. I know that stuff in the mainstream media is often fake and lies but I'm talking about a deeper level of fake here. I'm not just talking about, hey, they're talking about stuff that doesn't agree with my politics or hey, they're talking about stuff that's questionable or they're spinning the truth, putting a little spin on it. And, look, I know CNN lies and Fox News lies and they put a little spin on things and they slant things and everything, but there is some basis in reality, folks. I'm talking about websites that fabricate stories with no basis in reality. They're not twisting the truth. They're just making up a story. Yeah, it's like a satire site or a, but that's what fake news is. That's what it originally meant. Now it's just like, now it's just something that's just, hey, you're fake news, Pastor Anderson's fake news, you know. Everything's fake news. Trump is fake news. Yeah, it's just like, and then words kind of tend to lose their meaning at some point. And then we can't even say fake news because nobody even knows what we're even really actually talking about. They just think any news story that isn't telling the truth is fake news. What I actually am talking about is weekly world news, the Onion, the Babylon Bee, you know, that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. But, and some of those are pretty obvious, but some are a little more subtle. Some of them are actually trying to trick you. Some of them are just trying to get a laugh, okay. But even the ones that are trying to get a laugh, some people are so gullible, they're sharing this, can you believe this? Can you believe that they just legalized, you know, whatever the debauchery is just like, that's not a real article, you know. So number three, so, so let me back up and review real quick. Number one, beware of. All right, number two is make diligent inquiry, fact check the things you hear. Number one, beware of flattery. Number two, fact check, okay. And don't just fact check by reading all the same websites by the same people. Sometimes going to the library and like pulling a book off the shelf is a good way to fact check something, right. Really going to some more reputable sources. And that kind of brings me to my third point, okay, for not being gullible. Identify, and if you would turn to Romans chapter 16. My third point is this, this is an important point. Identify bad sources, known liars, and false prophets so you can avoid them. You need to identify bad sources, known liars, and false prophets so that you can avoid them, right. Because what's our goal with this sermon? I don't want you to be deceived. I don't want you to be tricked. I don't want you to be simple or gullible. I want you to be sharp and I don't want somebody to be able to put one over on you. So I'm alerting you to the number one tool, flattery. I'm telling you, hey, number two, fact check before you just repeat and share and make a fool of yourself, right. Fact check. Number three, identify known sources that are bad, liars, false prophets, and say, hey, I can't trust these people. So anything they say needs to be heavily fact checked. I'm going to take everything with a grain of salt or better yet, I'm just going to avoid that source altogether. When somebody just shows a proven track record of error, error, error, lie, lie, lie, false, it's time to just stop listening to that person, amen. And on the other side of that coin, that's why you don't want to get a reputation for sharing things that are fake or saying things that are fake or inaccurate. Everybody's going to make a mistake. I'm sure that over the last 13 years of my preaching, I've made some mistakes. I've repeated things that were wrong. I did not fact check enough or whatever. I'm sure that I've made mistakes. But you don't want to just be constantly making mistakes or just constantly making errors and getting a reputation or showing a pattern of being a bad source of information, right. You want to be a good source of information so that when people fact check you, it pans out. They fact check you the first time, it pans out. If they fact check you 60 times and it pans out and then on the 61st time, they fact check you and you were wrong, and then when they call you out on being wrong, you say, oh, you know what, you're right, I'm wrong about that, I made a mistake, you haven't lost credibility. You're just human at that point. But if it's like you're wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, right, wrong, right, right, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, right, wrong, wrong, wrong, you know, at some point it's like it's not worth even listening to anything that you have to say, right. Look what the Bible says in Romans 16, 17. Now I beseech you brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you've learned and avoid them, for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, watch this, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience has come abroad unto all men, I'm glad therefore on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil. He's saying, look, the best way to not get sucked in is to be wise about what's good and then when that which is evil comes, you're going to notice the difference. The best way to identify counterfeit money is not necessarily to study counterfeit money all day, it's to study the real money all day. Look at every little watermark, every little color, every shade, every feature, every hologram in the money so that you'll know what's real and what's not. He's saying, I want you to be wise, but he says, look, when you've got these people that are preaching other doctrines than what you've learned from the Bible, they're causing divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you've learned, you need to mark them and avoid them, right. Make a note, hey, I need to not listen to this person, why? Because those people aren't serving Jesus, they're serving their own belly and by good words and fair speeches, they're convincing, they make it sound good, they use flattery, they compliment you, but they deceive the hearts of the simple and we don't want to be that guy, amen. Let me give you some examples of this, okay. Obviously identifying bad sources, you know, identify the National Enquirer, Weekly World News, The Onion, The Babylon Bee, blah, blah, you know, just different sources that you feel are just, okay, this website's constantly lying or giving bogus information, avoid that, right. Click, don't show me these posts, you know, block all posts from this bogus website or whatever, right. I don't want to see this stuff. But how about, let's talk about some Bible teachers or historians or filmmakers that we should avoid because they're constantly giving bad information, okay. The first one I want to bring up is Chuck Missler. This guy is one of the biggest liars to ever stand behind a pulpit, wicked as hell. You say, well, I like him, I don't care if you like him or not, he's one of the most damnable liars that I've ever seen. You can click on one of his sermons and just listen to it for 10 or 15 minutes and multiple times in that little 10-minute piece, he'll tell you, oh, well, that's not really what the Bible says. Oh, that's not really what, if you go back to the Hebrew, it's this. If you go back to the Hebrew, it says this. If you go back to the Hebrew, it's actually this. If you go back to the Greek, it's actually this. Just every literally two minutes, he's telling you, the Hebrew says this, the Hebrew says this, the Hebrew says this, the Greek says this, telling you something totally different than what the Bible says. Let me give you an example. And by the way, go fact check it. But here's how he knows you're not going to because if you look at a Hebrew Bible and you don't know Hebrew, it looks like a bunch of chicken scratch. If you look at a Greek Bible, it's all Greek to you and you don't know what it means. So he doesn't think that you're going to go learn a foreign language and then come back and fact check him, learning a foreign language just to fact check him. You're like, no, I don't think I'm going to do that. So he's just banking on the fact that 99% of people can't fact check him because they don't know the language. But it doesn't take a genius, folks. Let me give you an example. Chuck Missler is teaching through Genesis and he says, you know, in Genesis 4 when it says then began men to call upon the name of the Lord, what the Hebrew actually means here is then began man to curse the Lord. It doesn't say man began to call upon the name of the Lord, it says man began to curse the Lord. Now, stop and think about this. There are like 500 literally translations of the Bible into English, literally. Literally a thousand, but there are for sure 500. Okay. Every single one of them says call upon the name of the Lord there. So you don't have to be Hebrew to tell yourself, okay, every Bible on the planet in every language that's ever been published in the history of mankind says then began man to call upon the name of the Lord. Chuck Missler is telling me man began to curse the Lord. I wonder who I should believe. Now look, I believe that the King James Bible is a perfect word of God. I'm going to trust the King James Bible's translation, but even if someone didn't trust the King James, okay, look at every other Bible. None of them say that, but this liar is saying stuff like that literally like every two minutes. You know, oh, well when the Bible says in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void, what it really says is but the earth was without form and void. But the earth was void. Folks, it's a lie. Every verse practically in Genesis 1 starts with the same word. Look at Genesis 1. You'll see that virtually every verse starts with the word and, and, and, and, and. Guess what? It's all the same word. But he's like, well, in verse 2 it's actually in Hebrew it's but. It's the same word, folks. So it's supposed to say but, but, but, but, but. I mean read it that way. Look at Genesis 1 substituting all the ands for buts. In the beginning God created the heaven but the earth, but the earth was without form but void, but darkness was upon the face of the deep, but the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, but God said let there be light, but there was light, but God saw the light that it was good, but God divided the light from the darkness, but God called the light day, but the darkness he called night, but the evening but the morning were the first day. Believe that? Everybody believe that? But that's the kind of junk that this guy is teaching every few minutes and people are just eating it up, just, oh, this is such deep Bible teaching. Oh, man, I never would have figured this out on my own. Oh, the Nephilim and the giants and the, and the angelic beings coming down and meeting with the humans and creating this race of supernatural beings and all that, yeah. Folks, Chuck Missler needs to go in the trash, okay, garbage, and you know what the Bible says? If you add to his word, he'll add unto you all the plagues in this book, and if you take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, he'll take away your part out of the book of life and from the holy city and from the things that are in this book. I just think you're being too hard on Chuck Missler. Well, did I send him to hell? Did I damn him eternally? Did I plague him with every plague of the book of Revelation? Did I remove his part out of the book of life? Did I remove his part out of the holy city? Did I damn him eternally? Well, then I must not have been too hard on him because that's what God said shall be done under the person who tampers with his word. If you're going to get up and say, oh, the Bible doesn't really say this, it actually says this, this is what it actually says. Yea hath God said, Chuck Missler. The serpent is what he is. Now, look, that's an extreme example of a guy who's just way off the deep end, just constantly lying, lying, lying, lying. You go back and look it up in the Hebrew, he lied about it. Look it up in the Greek, he lied about it. But he's banking on the fact that nobody's going to check it and most people can't check it. That's why going back to the Greek and going back to the Hebrew in sermons is a bad practice because nobody can fact check you because they don't know the language. That's why we need to speak English from the pulpit, amen? Preach in English. Let me give you another example. There's a documentary called Sightgeist. You ever try fact checking that stupid movie? There's a religion section on this documentary Sightgeist. He just starts listing all these ancient gods from Egypt and other parts of the ancient Mediterranean world. He lists all these gods. Oh, this god, he was born on December 25th, had 12 disciples, died and was resurrected three days later. Here's another god over here, born on December 25th, resurrected on Easter. I mean, he's just like going through this huge, who's seen that and knows what I'm talking about? Folks, have you ever tried to actually go to the library and look up and read about those gods that he's bringing up and find out that none of that stuff is true? Is anybody home? It isn't true, folks. They didn't have 12 disciples born on December 25th, died and was resurrected three days later. It's just an utter fabrication. Do the work, folks. Fact check it. Look it up. It's a lie. Now if that were true, here's what I would say to that. Oh, the devil's such an imposter. He's trying to copycat everything that the Lord does. It's kind of interesting that all these cultures are all telling the same lie that's identical. It must be because of the fact that they're counterfeiting the true story and they're trying to get in there first with their lying story before the New Testament can be written and tell the truth about it, but you know what? Guess what? That is a wrong argument because of the fact that none of the stuff in that movie is even true if you actually fact check it. But how many people are going down to the library and checking out books on ancient history today and reading all up on the Hittites and reading all up on ancient Mediterranean religion and looking up the gods of Mesopotamia and ancient Greece and ancient Egypt? How many Egyptologists do we have out there today? Right? Yeah, but how many people have seen that part of Zeitgeist? Put up your hand if you've seen that part of Zeitgeist. But how do you know if it's true or not, right? Did you go fact check it? No. And I'm not saying you believed it, of course. If you believed it, you wouldn't even be here because the whole movie is trying to debunk Christianity. But let me tell you something. It's a lie. It's a fraud. It's easy to debunk. That stuff doesn't pan out. Now that's coming from an atheistic perspective. But even from a Christian perspective, you get liars doing the same thing. Like for example, here's a book filled with stuff that doesn't check out. Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop. Who's familiar with that book? Oh man, great book if it were true. You know, it's like, oh man, the Roman Catholic Church and all the similarities with these ancient pagan religions. And look, of course, the Roman Catholic Church has a ton of similarities with pagan religion. It's obvious to anyone. But if you look at the actual individual claims in Alexander Hislop's book, Two Babylons, and start trying to verify them anywhere with any sources, if you try to look up the footnotes that he points to, you will find that a lot of it does not check out. A lot of it is false. A lot of it is fabricated. So I look at a book like that and say, I'm never going to quote this book. This is not a source I would use for anything. But I guarantee you there are literally probably 10,000 websites on the internet that quote that book. I mean, if you Googled Alexander Hislop, Two Babylons, I mean, I don't even know how many hits would come up, but a lot. It's like just the go-to source, well, yeah, I mean, it's right here in this book written in the 1800s. Case closed. I mean, that's everything we need to know about religion BC. One guy writes one book with a bunch of wild embellishments, exaggerations, fabrications, and then it just keeps getting repeated, repeated, repeated. You've got to fact check. And when you find a source to be not true, Zeitgeist, Two Babylons, Chuck Missler, stay away from that source, okay? Another one, and look, I know, you know, this might offend some people, Gail Riplinger is a bad source of information. Now look, when I was a teenager, I liked Gail Riplinger's book. I read it when I was a teenager and I liked it. But guess what? Later I started fact checking the things in Gail Riplinger's books and I started realizing that she lies a lot. Now because she's a King James Onliest, well, you know, then I guess we'll just look the other way because she's on our team, right? Wrong. Lying is wrong. Okay? And it doesn't, you can't lie for a good reason and just put out a bunch of false facts for the cause. Lying for the Lord as the Mormons call it. You can't do that, folks. Let me give you, let me give you an example of this from her book, okay? She's talking about this guy on the NIV committee, Edwin Palmer, and she's trying to say that he denies the deity of Christ. Now look, I'm sure that this guy's a wicked person because he's on the NIV committee, but let me ask you this, does that give the right to lie about him though? Should we lie about him because he's bad? Let's just lie about our enemies and make them look even worse. Folks, the truth is enough to damn these people. You don't have to lie about it, okay? She puts this little quote from him, NIV editor, Edwin Palmer, quote, the Holy Spirit did not beget the son. Mormon doctrine, the son was not begotten by the Holy Spirit. She's like, see, he believes exactly like the Mormons about the, about Christ, you know? Here's what, here's what the guy actually said. If you actually look at his whole quote, here's what he actually said. There is among the three persons of the Trinity a definite relationship and order. Because the three persons are equally God, does it sound like this guy is denying the divinity of Jesus? Does it sound like he's wrong about the, he says the three persons that are equally God, it must not be thought that they're all the same. Each one has distinctive properties and relationships to the other. Between the first and second persons, for example, there is the relationship of father and son. From all eternity, the father begat the son, the Holy Spirit did not beget the son, only the father did. Okay, look, the Holy Spirit did not beget the son. That's true. The father begat the son, that's why he's called the father. That's why the Holy Ghost isn't called the father, okay? Well, I think the Holy Ghost is the father. Well, you're wrong then. The father is the father, okay? Listen to what else he said. This is another quote from the same guy, Edwin Palmer. The Holy Spirit was needed at the very start of Jesus' human life at his incarnation. By the word incarnation, we mean the act by which the second person of the Trinity, remaining God, became flesh and lived for a while among us. This was an act effected by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the cause of the conception of Jesus. He is the one, not the father nor the son, let alone Joseph, who planted the seed of life in a mysterious way in Mary's womb. So he's saying, look, yeah, the Holy Ghost was involved, yeah, the Holy Ghost put the seed there, somehow, miraculously, but the Holy Ghost did not beget Jesus, he begotten of the father. Well, he's teaching his actually correct, normal, standard doctrine about the Trinity and the deity of Christ. I'm not saying he's a good guy, but it's not true to make all these quotes out of context by themselves, put next to what a Mormon says and claim that this guy denies the deity of Christ. Do you see what I'm saying? Also here's a quote from her book, and this is very indicative of quotes in her books. She'll just put all these ellipses in the quote, okay? Here's a quote from her book. This is from New World Order, or New Age Bible Versions. New World Order Bible Versions is a great source of information. New Age Bible Versions, page 546. Listen to this quote from her book. Readings of all F and B should be accepted as the true readings, dot, dot, dot. They stand far above all documents, dot, dot, dot, are very pure, dot, dot, dot, excellent, dot, dot, dot, and immune from corruption, period. One sentence with four ellipses. She combined five quotes into one sentence. This is the way her books are, folks. The worst thing that I've seen that she did in her book Hazardous Materials, she claims that the Greek New Testament, published by the Trinitarian Bible Society, the Greek Texas Receptives that they sell, differs from the King James, she claims, in like 50-some places. I sat down and spent a few hours with her book, a King James, and a Greek New Testament all laid out on the floor side by side, and I looked up every single discrepancy she brought up and only two of them were true, and the rest were fabrications, lies, twistings of the truth. That's not a very good track record when you're claiming, oh, man, the Trinitarian Bible Society, Texas Receptives has 50-some issues. No, I looked it up, it only had two. Two of the things she brought up were legit, and you want to know what they were? The Trinitarian Bible Society, Greek New Testament, leaves off the word, amen, at the end of Ephesians. Throw it in the trash. No, don't throw it in the trash. Take a pen and write, I mean, at the end of Ephesians. That's a quick fix. Yeah, there you go. You just write that down at the end of Ephesians. Well, guess what? Oh, and by the way, if you go back and look at the replica, the 1611 edition of the King James Bible, guess what has the exact same typo where they accidentally forgot the amen at the end of Ephesians. You're going to throw that in the trash? No. It's a typo. Every book I've ever purchased had a typo in it. Every Bible I've ever owned had a typo in it somewhere. Books have typographical errors from the printing press, human error, not in the text of the Word of God, but just typos in the printing. And then the other one was in one place, it said Word of the Lord instead of Word of God. That's it. Oh, man, throw this garbage. Oh, it's so horrible. Hazardous materials is the name of the book, folks. Warning, one missing amen and Word of the Lord instead of Word of God. Wow. Oh, wow. Folks, that's nothing a whiteout and a pen won't fix in five seconds. You can have a perfect Greek New Testament that fast. And you really think that the Trinitarian Bible Society is like, we're going to leave off that amen at the end of Ephesians. And then you know what we're going to do next? We're going to take the Word of the Lord and turn it into the Word of God. It's the same person, folks. The Lord, God, same person, same thing. It's not a big deal, folks. Just calm down. So how can you trust someone like that? How can you trust that? That's not a good source of information. Look, if I pick up a book and read it, I don't want to be questioning everything. So I'd rather read books from people that have a track record for telling the truth, not a track record for twisting things and lying and slander and so forth. And of course, nobody's going to be perfect, but that's just a bad record. I got to hurry up. I'm almost done. But how about preachers who make predictions and prophecies that don't come true? This is the last place we'll turn, Deuteronomy 18. Preachers who make predictions and prophecies about the future that don't come true. Guess what? We're done listening to them. Now look, again, I'm not talking about somebody who says, hey, here's what I think is going to happen. You know, hey, this is just a guess. I'm talking about where people say, hey, God has revealed unto me that X, Y, Z is going to happen. If it doesn't happen, we're done listening to that person. That's what the Bible says. Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 22, when a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, so he's not just giving his opinion or throwing something out there, when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him. Don't let this guy intimidate you with his doomsday predictions. Guess what? They're not going to happen. He's a liar and a false prophet. We don't listen to people like that. Okay, but why is it that when these people make these false predictions and set dates for the rapture that don't happen, why do their followers keep listening to them? Because they are gullible, or they're wicked, or both. But they're gullible, right? A lot of people are nice people, they're just gullible. Harold Camping put up billboards all over California and all over America saying the rapture is going to happen on such and such the day 2011, the Bible guarantees it. That's what it said, folks. The Bible guaranteed, it made me so mad, I'm just like gripping the steering wheel. Because I'm like, you know what, nothing's going to happen on that day, and then you know what everybody's going to think? Oh, the Bible lied. The Bible guaranteed it was going to happen on that day, the Bible's a lie. Folks, that's the devil trying to destroy people's faith in the Bible by putting a date out, oh, the Bible guarantees it. What a liar. Thank God he's rotting in hell right now. May he burn in hell. Why? He blasphemed the word of God, and look, why would you want Harold Camping to go to hell? Why did he send thousands of people to hell, millions of people to hell? Folks, hell's ready for him. Come on in, Harold Camping, because that blasphemous, wicked, perverted billboard that was all over America destroying people's, and then everybody laughed and mocked and scoffed, where is the promise of his coming? That's why they're going to be saying that in the end times, because of these kind of lying predictions. But Harold Camping, the next day, did his radio show go off the air? Nope. He just kept on going. People kept sending their money, kept listening, because they're idiots, that's why. Now the people who believed him were gullible. People who keep going after they make a false prediction like that, at some point you cross over from being gullible to being a fool, okay? And I'm not saying everybody who follows these people is a fool, but if you keep seeing this and you just keep going, keep going, folks, you're going to graduate. You're not going to stay a simple one for the rest of your life. You're going to graduate either as a fool or a wise man. You're going one way or the other, folks. You need to decide which fork in the road you want to take. How about the Watchtower Society, aka the Jehovah's Witnesses, who falsely predicted the second coming of Christ six times? Six times they give an exact date of Christ's return. It didn't happen. Did they shut their doors and everybody walk away? Nope. They're still going strong. Look around. Look at all the kingdom halls, jw.org. Six times they prophesied the return of Christ and here's what they said. Did they admit that they were wrong? Did they say, you got me, I'm wrong? No, they said, I'm so glad you pointed out my error. But here's what they said. I'll tell you what they said. They said, well, he came back, but it was just to us in our headquarters in New York, you know. Well, behold, he's in the secret chambers where we are. Okay, how about the Seventh-day Adventists? The Seventh-day Adventist religion was founded upon a false prediction of the coming of Christ in 1844, which became known as the Great Disappointment. Just look it up in an encyclopedia, the Great Disappointment. And you'll find that this guy named William Miller predicted the Second Coming of Christ. He had just multitudes of followers. People were selling everything. The Bible guarantees it, yada, yada, yada. The day came and went and guess what the vast majority of his followers did? No, they quit following him. I mean, they stopped following him. I mean, the vast majority of his followers, they're like, yeah, we're leaving. They left. But you know what the people who stayed, you know what they became known as? The Adventists, the Seventh-day Adventists, okay? That movement sprang out of everybody who stayed after the prediction was false, they stayed anyway. That evolved into the Seventh-day Adventists with, of course, Ellen G. White and her husband and a few other people being the founders. You go to their website to this day, Adventists.org, fact check, friend, hero. I fact checked. On their article, type this term into Adventists.org, investigative judgment. And they'll tell you that in 18, here, I'll read it for you from their website. In 1844, at the end of the prophetic period of 2300 days, Jesus entered the second and last phase of his atoning ministry which was typified by the work of the high priest in the most holy place of the earthly sanctuary. It is a work of investigative judgment which is part of the ultimate disposition of all sin typified by the cleansing of the ancient Hebrew sanctuary on the Day of Atonement. Let me just summarize this doctrine for you. They claim, well, it turns out he didn't return in 1844 but he just started cleaning the temple. And he just started investigating people's lives, started like looking over people's life to figure out whether they're worthy to go to heaven or worthy to go to hell. So he started doing this investigative judgment. He started doing some fact checking up in heaven. And you know what's interesting is that he's still doing it today. Boy, that's a long cleaning session. So he supposedly started cleaning in 1844 and he's still cleaning and he's still investigating. Folks, nothing happened in 1844. Basically nothing. But the Seventh-day Adventists are people who refuse to admit that, well, something must have happened. So doggone it, it happened in heaven. He started cleaning up the place. That's an interesting choice of yours to start cleaning the place up. From the Garden of Eden to the Tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom to the exodus from Egypt, God has always investigated before taking action. Now before his return, Jesus is investigating the lives of everyone who ever lived, revealing the choices that led to salvation or destruction. God wants to make clear and transparent to the watching universe that no one reaps a faith they did not choose. This is from Adventists.org explaining their beliefs, investigative judgment. You know, he just wants to be transparent, folks, so he's auditing the books in front of everybody. He started in 1844. These audits just drag on, don't they? 2019, still auditing. Folks, is anyone gullible enough to believe this stupidity? Folks, they lied and said, oh, Christ is coming in 1844. Didn't happen, so then they tell another lie. Oh, no, no, no, it just happened up in heaven. He's up there in heaven going over the books, investigating. Yeah, oh, well, all throughout the Bible, I mean, God always investigated in the Garden of Eden, Tower of Babel. Here's how God investigated in the Garden of Eden. Who told thee that thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I said unto thee, thou shalt not eat thereof? Folks, that investigation lasts about 60 seconds. Well, the Tower of Babel. How long did that investigation last? Like one day? Well, the destruction of Sodom. How long did that last? One night? Well, you know, the exodus from Egypt. Folks, what kind of an investigation is this that started in 1844, but yet, let me ask you something, are there Seventh-day Adventists out there today? Millions and millions and millions of them. Look, I'm not saying that they're bad people, but folks, if they hear this warning, if they watch this video, if they hear this sermon, and they're going to say, well, I'm just going to be a Seventh-day Adventist anyway, you know, eventually, you know what, they're going to graduate from being gullible, or just being simple, just being a good, simple person, just, they don't know better, eventually, when they hear all this, when they watch my sermon called Seventh-day Adventist cult, or Seventh-day Adventist exposed, and they walk away and say, well, I'm still going to be a Seventh-day Adventist anyway, eventually, they graduate to just being a fool at some point, and you say, well, you don't love Seventh-day Adventists. Yes, I do love Seventh-day Adventists, that's why I want to help them graduate from being a simple one to being a wise man. And so those are the three tips tonight, this is practical preaching tonight, number one, beware of flattery, number two, fact check things that you hear before repeating them or basing your beliefs on them, and number three, you know, search the scriptures daily, right? Whether these things be so, that's the ultimate fact check, amen? And then number three is identify bad sources, known liars, and false prophets, and avoid them. That means when you see Doug Batchelor from amazingfacts.org, as soon as you find out he's a Seventh-day Adventist, click, we don't want to hear anything he has to say, well, he's got some good stuff, he's got some interesting stuff, no, no, Doug Batchelor is off, why? He's a Seventh-day Adventist, believes in investigative judgment, he's perpetrating this 1844 lie, he's done, over, done, finished, Harold Camping, you're done, Jehovah's Witnesses, you're done, we're done with you, right? When people make these lying prophecies and false predictions, they're done. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer, Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, which is the ultimate fact checker, Lord, that we can go to your word and figure out whether things are actually true, what is actually right, Lord, thank you that we have an anchor for our soul, for our faith, Lord, and Lord, all of us, myself included, have been gullible at times, we've all been sucked in, Lord, I can think of many times, Lord, that I've gotten duped and hoodwinked and sucked in, I've been gullible, we've all been gullible, but Lord, help us put these biblical principles into effect so that going forward we can be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.