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and take your congregational singing this evening hymn number 20 is what we begin this evening number 20 when i see the blood hymn number 20 once you found your place we'll sing it on that first verse hymn number 20 christ our redeemer died on the cross number 20 sing it on this verse Christ our redeemer died on the cross, died for the sinner, paid on the tomb. All who receive it lead them here, yes, he will pass, he will pass over you. When I see the blood, when I see the blood, when I see the blood, I will pass, I will pass over you. Jesus the sinner, Jesus the sinner, as he has promised so will be new. All sinner here, he trusts in his word, and he will pass, will pass over you. When I see the blood, when I see the blood, when I see the blood, I will pass, I will pass over you. Just when it's coming, all will be there. Who hath rejected, who hath refused? Oh, when I see the blood, when I see the blood, when I see the blood, I will pass, I will pass over you. Oh, what compassion, oh, how it's gone. Jesus the power, Jesus the stone, all who believe are safe from the sword. Oh, he will pass, he will pass over you. When I see the blood, when I see the blood, when I see the blood, I will pass, I will pass over you. Hey, Matt, great singing. I'll ask for the Baron if he would have accepted our prayer. Father in heaven, thank you for the gathering here in your church. I pray that you please bless all aspects of this service and Pastor Anderson as he preaches your word. Bless him, Lord, with the fullness and the power of the Holy Ghost. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Number 191 is next. In my heart there rings a melody. Hit number 191. Sing it on this verse. I have a song that Jesus gave me. 191. I have a song that Jesus gave me. It was sang from heaven above. Where ever was a sweeter melody, there's a melody of love. In my heart there is a melody, there is a melody with melody. In my heart there is a melody, there is a melody of love. I want the Christ to die on Calvary, for He washed my sins away. It all within my heart a melody, and I know it's there to stay. In my heart there is a melody, there is a melody with melody. In my heart there is a melody, there is a melody of love. To be my endless scene in glory, with the angels I will sing. To be a song with glorious harmony, when the thoughts of heaven ring. In my heart there is a melody, there is a melody with melody. In my heart there is a melody, there is a melody of love. All right this time we'll go through our announcements together. If you don't have a bulletin slip up your hand nice and high we'll get to you with one. On the inside we have our service time. Sunday mornings at 10 30 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our bible study. This week we will be in Ecclesiastes chapter number 6. We've got the soul winning times listed there below as well as salvations and baptisms. We've got the birthdays and anniversaries listed across the page as well as the new bible memory passage 1st Corinthians 2 9 through 13. And the deadline for this new passage is July 11th. On the back is the note about using proper caution as the summer heat increases, especially if you're a visitor or you're new to the area make sure that you understand how to deal with the heat. So you've got to stay hydrated which means water and electrolytes. So salt your food, eat, drink, take breaks as needed and if you're out soul winning and somebody needs to take a break just both people take a break. We don't want to get split up and so forth. There's nothing wrong with taking a break, sitting in the shade, cooling down, hitting the gas station for something cold to drink. We don't want to run people into the ground. We want to make sure everybody is safe out there. Other summer hazards to be careful of be sure that your kids are not around any swimming pools unattended because every single year kids drown in the Phoenix area by stumbling into a swimming pool. So make sure that you're very careful about that and also be sure not to leave kids in the car this time of year. That's also very dangerous and happens all the time. So those are just some things to think about. Make sure you have some systems in place to make sure that you're safe and careful during the summertime. That's you know we don't have natural disasters here. We just kind of live in a kind of a slow burn natural disaster every summer. You know because like what disaster do we have? You know we're not on a big major earthquake fault. We don't have the the tornadoes or the hurricanes or things like that. We just have extreme heat so you've got to be careful with that and then below that keep praying for our expectant ladies that they will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. Don't forget the Spanish night is this Thursday night at seven o'clock and then coming up on Friday morning through Saturday evening is the small town soul winning trip to Safford. This is probably going to be the last one to Safford so it's exciting to finish Safford. I mean it's a pretty big city and uh to knock every single door in Safford is a great accomplishment so thank you to everyone who has participated in the soul winning down there. There's also going to be a time of recreation at Roper Lake State Park so you can finish it off and be a part of that recreation time and so that's available for anyone. It's free. We pay for the lodging, the food, the transportation, everything. You just show up on Friday morning. The details and the sign-up sheet are over here and then also we just have a day trip to Globe to do soul winning. It says Friday. It should say Saturday. The date is correct June 19th but it's Saturday June 19th and 8 p.m. is the time that they will return from that. So it's pretty much like an all-day thing on Saturday. So more details sign up are over there and I believe that that's about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past couple days. Anything from Thursday? Anything to report? All right. Anything else from Thursday? What about Friday? Anything from Friday? Okay. Anything else from Friday? What about Saturday? Nine for the Globe trip. So great job on that Globe trip. Another one outside of the Globe trip. All right and then what about uh is that Saturday? All right. Okay and then what about today, Sunday? Brother Scott? One for the group with Brother Scott. We got one over here. One over here. One over here. Is that a three? All right. All right. Very good. Anything else? All right. Great. Keep up the great work on soul winning. With that let's go ahead and sing our next song. Come lead us. Those please uh number 64 is what we'll be. Shall we gather at the river? Hymn number 64. Singing on this first verse. Hymn number 64. Shall we gather at the river? Where rioting defeat has won. With his wisdom tied forever. Flowing by the throne of God. Yes we'll gather at the river. The beautiful, the beautiful river. Gather with the saints at the river. That flows by the throne of God. On the vessel of the river. Where the singer of God. We shall meet us on the We shall meet us on the Never think our glory of the throne. Yes we'll gather at the river. The beautiful, the beautiful river. Gather with the saints at the river. That flows by the throne of God. There we reach the shining river. Lay thee everywhere and now. Praise our spirits we'll deliver. And provide a golden crown. Yes we'll gather at the river. The beautiful, the beautiful river. Gather with the saints at the river. That flows by the throne of God. Soon we'll reach the shining river. Soon our pillar will cease. Soon our happy hearts will wither. With the melody of peace. Yes we'll gather at the river. The beautiful, the beautiful river. Gather with the saints at the river. Gather with the saints at the river that flows by the throne of God. Amen. Turn to number 446, please. Ivory Palaces, hymn number 446. 446, my Lord has garments of wondrous fine, number 446. If you know this hymn, please sing it out. If you don't, let's learn it together. Hymn number 446. Sing it out on this first verse together, number 446. My Lord has garments of wondrous fine, and her their texture fills. His fragrance reaches the heart of thine, with joy my being frills. Out of the ivory palaces, into a world of hope, All is great, eternal love, may my Savior grow. His life at home, so its sorrows soar, for aloe's had a part. And when I think of the cross He bore, my eyes will tear just heart. Out of the ivory palaces, into a world of hope, All is great, eternal love, may my Savior grow. His garments, pure and passive gift, with hearing and a touch, Will shine the Phoenix of sin and sin, He took me from its flight. Out of the ivory palaces, into a world of hope, All is great, eternal love, may my Savior grow. In darkness, glorious He will come, to open wide the door, And I shall enter my heavenly home, to dwell forevermore. Out of the ivory palaces, into a world of hope, All is great, eternal love, may my Savior grow. All is great, eternal love, may my Savior grow. In the book of 3 John, the Bible reads, The Elder, unto the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. For I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers, Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church, Whom with thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well, Because that for His name's sake they went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellow-helpers to the truth. I wrote unto the church, But Diatrophes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, Prading against us with malicious words, and not content therewith, Neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbideth them that would, and casteth them out of the church. Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil hath not seen God. Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself. Yea, and we also bear record, and ye know that our record is true. I had many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee, But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name. Dear Lord, help all the children in this church to walk in truth. Help us to be fellow-helpers in that truth. And Lord, help us to never use malicious words against one another. Bless the sermon in Jesus' name. Amen. Man, the title of my sermon tonight is Monoculture Clones. Monoculture Clones. If you would go back to Genesis chapter 1. We'll come back to 3 John a little bit later. Go to Genesis chapter 1. Now, I'm going to warn you. This sermon tonight is going to be somewhat of a science lesson and a sermon rolled into one. So you're really going to have to pay attention, and you're going to end up learning something about science, and learning some spiritual truths. And I make no apology for that because the science that I'm going to teach you is actually really worth understanding just in and of itself to help you understand where our food comes from and some of the problems with the food production in our country and around the world. But obviously the spiritual truths are what is most important. So it's worth it for you tonight to pay attention and to understand what I'm saying. I'm going to break things down and make them as simple as possible. And I think that anybody who pays attention is going to be able to understand what I'm preaching tonight. But before I get into the sermon, I want to start out in Genesis 1 and just lay down a foundation here just to make sure that no one misunderstands what I'm teaching tonight. First of all, I want to show you in Genesis chapter 1 beginning in verse 11 where the Bible reads, The Bible reads, And these are the three words I want to emphasize. Jump down to verse 24. Now we're talking about animals. After his kind. Cattle and creeping thing. And beast of the earth. After his kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth. After his kind. Are you getting the idea? And cattle. After their kind. And everything that creepeth upon the earth. After his kind. And God saw that it was good. So I just want to make sure that we understand right away that the Bible teaches that everything brings forth after its own kind. So we do not believe that evolution takes place from one kind of animal to another. Or that human beings evolved from animals. Okay, let me just say that right up front. That is false. Okay, everything brings forth after its own kind. But what you have to understand is that a kind of animal is a broad classification. Like, for example, all dogs in this world and coyotes and wolves. Anything that would be considered a canine whatsoever. That's one kind of animal. It's not like, you know, Noah was just running the American Kennel Club on the Ark or something and just having all these different breeds and species of dogs. There were two dogs on that Ark. And all of the diversity that we see of dogs today came from two dogs on the Ark. So here's the thing. Within a kind, there's a lot of variation and adaptation that goes on. You know, animals do not produce a clone of themselves. But rather, their offspring is a little bit different than they are. And there's constant change going on. So, you know, people talk about evolution. What does evolution mean? Change over time? Do animals change over time? Yes, they do. Do plants change over time? Yes, they do. Can they change dramatically over time? Yes. Can they even be considered a different species? Well, yeah, because species is so specific. You could have two birds that are virtually identical, but they live in different parts of the world. One of them's brown, one of them's yellow. That's two species. Okay. So there could be a lot of species within a kind. So do animals and plants change and evolve over time? Yes. But a dog doesn't become a cat and a plant doesn't become an animal. A fish doesn't grow legs and walk out of the sea. And here's the big important part. Apes did not evolve into humans. Humans did not come from animals. Humans are created in the image of God. So when I use the words evolve or adapt in this sermon, I don't want you to think that I'm buying into this garbage that says that every plant and animal on this earth came from a common ancestor. I don't believe that for one second. Okay. But what I do believe is the obvious fact of microevolution, not a macroevolution, but microevolution that animals and plants are constantly changing and species are going extinct and new species are coming into being. That's well documented. There's overwhelming evidence for that. That's good science. And here's the thing about that. God's creation was specifically designed to do that. And it's part of the genius behind God's creation why nature runs like a well-oiled machine for thousands and thousands of years. Because think about it. Without this adaptation, variation, or microevolution, think about it. The stronger animals would just destroy all the weaker animals. The stronger plants would just take over and the weaker plants would all die. But because animals and plants are programmed to be able to adapt and evolve and change according to their environment, there's kind of this push and pull where the predators get stronger and they start taking over. And then the prey, they adapt and then they can actually survive. And then it's just kind of a back and forth push-pull. It's this never-ending equilibrium where things are constantly changing. Does everybody understand what I'm saying tonight? I just want to get that out of the way. Make sure that there's no misunderstanding about what I'm saying. Now if you would, go to Leviticus chapter 18. Leviticus chapter number 18. Again, the title of the sermon is Monoculture Clones. Now what does monoculture mean? Okay. Well, if a farmer plants only one species of crop in his field, that's a monoculture. Okay. So, you know, think about all the different kinds of potatoes there are, right? You go to the grocery store and you've got the russet potatoes that are brown and they're sort of rough on the outside. They almost feel kind of dirty or fuzzy on the outside. And they're pretty big. But then you have other little gold smooth potatoes. You've got red potatoes, purple potatoes. You've got all these different kinds of potatoes. Well, monoculture is referring to just planting a giant field, a giant area with just one species of potato. Just the russet potatoes, right? Just that one kind. And then maybe even taking it a step further and saying that everything that you plant could even be clones of one another. Now this cloning has been going on. You say, oh, that's recent. This is new science. No, no. Cloned plants has been going on for literally thousands of years. It was going on in Bible times. We know this for a fact because there's a whole chapter in the New Testament that talks about grafting in Romans chapter 11. Okay. And again, let me get some of the science out of the way and then I'm going to make the spiritual applications. But pay attention to this part of the sermon or you're going to be lost later. Okay. Let's say I take an apple, right? I go to the store and there's a big pile of apples and they're all identical, right? You know, red delicious. They all look pretty much the same. Granny Smith. They all look pretty much the same. The Macintosh or whatever. You've got these different Fuji and all these different kinds and they're pretty much identical. If I took one of those apples and I cut it open, what am I going to find inside? Seeds, right? Well, guess what? If I take the seeds out of that apple and plant them in the ground, if I have a Macintosh apple and I take all the seeds out of there and I plant them in the ground, you know what I'm not going to get? I am not going to get trees that produce Macintosh apples. That might surprise you because you'd assume like, well, yeah, I mean, if you plant those seeds, that's what you're going to get. Here's what I'm going to get. I'm going to get a bunch of apple trees that produce totally different apples than a Macintosh apple and they're all going to be different from one another. So if I get five seeds out of there, I'm going to have five totally different kinds of apple trees. Here's why. Because apple trees reproduce sexually to where basically the genes from two different apple trees would come to get, you know, they're pollinated by bees and, you know, I'm not going to explain to you the birds and the bees, but basically that's another time. But anyway, you know, it's basically like my wife and I. When my wife and I have children, do my children look exactly like me? No. They might look way more like her or they might look like neither of us or somewhere in between. So when you have the children of that apple, it's not going to be that exact apple that you have a million clones of on the grocery store shelf that are all the same. If I plant those seeds, some of the apples are going to be green, some are going to be red, some are going to be yellow, they're going to be big, small. They could be bitter, sour. They could be totally different than a red delicious or whatever that I started with. Does everybody understand? Because they're the children of, they're not the clones of. So you say, well, how do they make all these millions of apples be the same? Here's how. By cloning them. And this is not some new science technology. Again, this goes back thousands of years. It's called grafting. So what they do is they take a little apple seedling and instead of just letting it grow and produce whatever it was going to produce, you know, a mix of its parents as it were, what they do is they take a branch from an apple tree or actually just a little bud from an apple tree that they really like. You know, the one that's producing those perfect golden delicious or red delicious or whatever. And they graft that tiny little bud into the seed sapling and then you're getting genetic clones. You know, that's what's going to grow on that tree. And they cut off the wild branches and they graft in the one that they want. And so that's how you just have these orchards of just acre after acre after acre of apples that are genetically identical. Does everybody understand? So this is not normal natural reproduction like my wife and I have kids and they have kids. Think about it. Are my great grandkids going to look like me? Probably not that much. My kids are going to look the most like me. My grandkids are going to look a little different. The great grandkids. Pretty soon there will be descendants that you'd never think that they were related to me, right? They could even be black or Chinese. And it's like these are Pastor Anderson's great great grandchildren. It's like huh? But why? Because it changes. Because it's a mix of genes from different parents. And here's the thing. My kids, they both have my genes and my wife's genes but they all look different. Why? Because they took different sets of genes from different parents, mixed and matched. And that's what's going on in those apple seeds. The same thing. Now here's the problem with this, okay? The problem with this is that when you have a genetically locked in plant like these apples, right? Where basically they never change. They don't even reproduce sexually to produce, you know, the variation of children and grandchildren, whatever. They're just cloned, cloned, cloned, cloned. Here's what's going on. The whole rest of nature around them is evolving and adapting and changing and they're just kind of genetically frozen or locked in. So what happens is all of their predators are adapting and figuring out how to crack the code, how to pick the lock, how to get in and destroy that apple and use it for their own purposes. Whether that's a fungus or a virus or a bug or a pest, right? All the things that farmers don't want to destroy their crops. These things are all adapting and changing and coming up with new tactics. And instead of the apple being able to fight back by adapting and evolving and changing, it's just locked, it's just frozen. It's just a sitting duck ready to be wiped out. So then what do you have to do? Now you have to bring in all these harsh chemicals to try to do the apple's job for it. Like you're trying to defend this apple. And, you know, it's not just a matter of, well, you know, organic farmers pull the weeds by hand, the other farmers have to dump these chemicals. No, no, no. Look, you could not grow those apples organically because of the fact they have no natural defenses because everyone else is moving forward and they're just frozen and locked in time and all their enemies have become experts at destroying them. And then, of course, when you hit them with the pests with the pesticides, then the pests just evolve and adapt and figure out a way to beat the pesticide. Because if you kill 99% of the pests, the 1% that survived, they're immune. That's why they survived. And then they reproduce. Pretty soon 100% are immune and you've got to keep getting out more chemicals harsher. Now that's a monoculture type of a model and especially with the cloned produce. But the opposite of that would be let's say a farmer plants like 13 or 14 different species of potatoes. Instead of just one kind of potato, he's planting all different kinds of potatoes. Well, then if one of them gets attacked, he doesn't lose the whole crop, right? Because the rest of them can survive. And then the strong survive and there's basically this battle for which ones can live and adapt and survive and reproduce naturally and normally by planting seeds instead of just cloning all the time. So those are kind of two different philosophies behind farming. There's nothing evil about grafting or, you know, hey, everybody wants these really good apples that taste a certain way. You get the perfect apple. Let's keep that thing going. But you see how eventually, eventually you've got to get some fresh DNA in there. Eventually you've got to go back to nature and go back to the wild olive, not olive, I'm quoting the Bible here. You've got to go back to the wild apple trees and get the more up-to-date genes that are better at fighting off today's pests, right? And then find the one you like and start grafting that for a while. But you can't just stick with the same thing for decades because it becomes obsolete, okay? Now the next thing that we're going to talk, and this is all the foundation for the sermon here, okay? I hope you're following so far. The next thing I want to talk about is the idea of inbreeding, okay? Look down at your Bible in Leviticus chapter 18 verse 6. Leviticus chapter 18 verse 6. It says, none of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him to uncover their nakedness. I am the Lord. And then he gives a bunch of examples. I'm going to spare you all these examples. I'll just give you a couple examples. Look at verse 11. The nakedness of thy father's wife's daughter. Begotten of thy father. She is thy sister. Thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister. She's thy father's near kinswoman. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister. For she is thy mother's near kinswoman. Why is God telling us not to lie with a near kinsman? Now here's the thing. Obviously, if God says it, you know, we're going to obey it no matter what, period. But here's the thing about that. Even in our society that rejects the word of God, in many cases rejects Christianity and has this kind of love is love mentality where they accept all kinds of weirdness and perversion. Why is this? It's illegal today. Forget being moral. Why does our government make it illegal to marry your sister or even your cousin? I'll tell you why. Because it's bad genetically. It's unhealthy and the children will have problems, be deformed, diseased, and have all kinds of problems. Why? Let me explain to you why. Because when a child is conceived, it gets genes from both of its parents, right? It gets genes from his father and its mother both. Now here's the thing about that. The baby wants to be healthy and basically the natural process is going to favor the good genes over the bad genes and it's going to make those the dominant genes, okay, in many cases. Obviously I'm oversimplifying this just for the sake of the sermon, but just to keep it simple for you is that basically if there's a certain gene where the dad has a defect on that gene but mom has a perfectly healthy version of that gene, you know, that's the one we're going to go with. We're going to go with mom's gene. Does that make sense? Or vice versa. Let's say mom has some genetic disorder on a certain gene, but then dad's got a good copy of that gene. Hey, that's the one baby's going to grab. And obviously I'm oversimplifying this, but the point is that if you get genes from two different parents that are genetically different, you have a better chance of getting something good in every slot. But what happens is if you have people that are closely related like cousins, maybe even second cousins or, you know, siblings or aunt or whatever, you know, all these close relationships, what will happen is you'll both have all the same problems. So because you have all the same weaknesses and all the same problems and all the same bad genes, well, you're going to have the recessive bad defective gene from dad and then a bad defective recessive version from mom and it's like, well, I guess that's what we got to go with, junk. And then you end up with some junk and some problems and some genetic defects, right? Whereas if you have genetically distinct parents, chances are mom's problem genes are going to be different from dad's problem genes and between the two of them, you can get a good set. You can get a set that's viable, right? So this is why it's physically unhealthy to inbreed, okay? Now, if you would, flip to Galatians chapter number five. Galatians chapter number five, say what does this have to do with the word of God or what is this, what's the spiritual application here of being a monoculture or cloning or interbreeding or inbreeding or incest? You know, what's the issue here? What are we talking about here? Well, what we have to understand is that spiritually speaking, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, don't we? You know, as a pastor, I have my strengths and weaknesses. There are going to be things that I preach and cover very well and I teach them very well and then other maybe blind spots or subjects that I don't really cover that well, right? And then maybe another pastor over there, you know, he's preaching and teaching some other stuff really well but he's got some other blind spots and that's the stuff I'm good at, you know? And so we all have different strengths and weaknesses and blind spots and what we have to understand is that we don't want to become a clone of a preacher of the past or a clone of our pastor but we need to diversify the gene pool spiritually a little bit so that we don't start stacking up these bad traits or bad genes or false doctrines or blind spots in our lives. Now, let me show you the Scripture in Galatians chapter 5. He's listing the works of the flesh. So these are like a bunch of really bad things. I mean, look at the list starting at verse 19. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variants, emulations and let's stop right there. I want to talk about those two things. Variants and emulations. So these are sinful tendencies of the flesh and these two things, they're right next to each other in the list because they're related, variants and emulations and they're actually kind of the opposite of one another because I would define variants as being different for the sake of being different. You know, this is the contrarian, froward person who just disagrees with everything that you say. You know, you tell them it's up, they say it's down. You know, you tell them it's white, they say it's black. They just, everything's the opposite. They're just an argumentative, contentious person who just wants to be different for the sake of being different. They just want to change things, not improve things, just change them. Just always want to be different, show how different they are, preach something different, act different, dress different, just for the sake of being different, just to be variant, just to vary from others. Then there's the opposite of that which is emulations and emulations, that has to do with basically copying someone or imitating someone, right, emulating them and basically becoming a clone of that person, copying their every mannerism and trying to be just like them and this could lead to like a cult-like following where, you know, we have to drive the same kind of car that the pastor drives, eat his same food, have his same hair, right, you know, use all the brands that he uses, dress like him, talk like him. You know, for example, there's a famous preacher of yesteryear who had something wrong with his sinuses and he was always like, you know, just always like clearing his throat and kind of like sucking up snot. And so, therefore, like a lot of other preachers started doing that to sound like him, you know, just kind of clearing their throat, just kind of, you know, making these kind of noises just because they were emulating him and that's not healthy or normal to do that, right? You know, the Bible says we should follow their faith, we should follow them as they follow Christ. It's great to have and samples to the flock and I'm all for leaders and following people and having role models and mentors but isn't that taking it too far when it becomes emulation where it's just this cloning, copying thing, okay? We don't want to be different for the sake of being different, that's a carnal attitude that just says, oh yeah, I want to be different, I want to dye my hair green and get all these weird piercings just to be different. But then there's this other thing that just says I'm just going to be a carbon copy and human nature does both. We see both, right? We could point to all kinds of people that are just trying to copy and be carbon copies of celebrities, just emulating them, right? And then we see other people that are just trying to just be different for the sake of being different, just trying to be different from their parents, different from their church, different from, it's both stupid, right? We don't want to do either of those things. The problem with emulation is that it's like a cloned produce where there's no growth happening, there's no adaptation happening, there's no change happening, you become obsolete as an individual. Now go if you would to 3 John. Let me explain this to you, okay? The independent fundamental Baptists of the past 30, 40, 50 years ago, you know, they had a successful soul-winning movement. They did great things for God. I'm just kind of speaking in generalities. You know, they got a lot of people saved, did a lot of soul-winning. They'd preached a lot of great sermons or whatever. But here's what you have to understand. That was then and this is now. That was what was needed at the time. And you have today the old IFB in many cases just wanting to remain a clone of that IFB movement from decades ago. You know, they want to stay basically, they've got that red delicious locked in DNA and they want to just stay with that so they, instead of listening to today's preaching, they want to listen to preaching from the 70s. And that's what they listen to, a steady diet of sermons from the 70s or 60s or whatever and they want to turn out young people that are clones of Jack Hiles, clones of John R. Rice, clones of Curtis Hudson, clones of Lee Robertson and I have nothing against those guys but here's the thing. Those were the guys that were for that generation and you know what? We don't need clones of them today. We need today's men of God that the Holy Spirit is leading today that are maybe the spiritual descendants of those guys but not clones of those guys. And I've been saying since I started this church, I've been predicting, I said, look, the independent fundamental Baptists are going to have to change because everything in this world is constantly changing all the time. Animals are changing, plants are changing, everything moves forward and changes unless it's artificially locked in and it never works. You know, artificially locking in these apples and potatoes, hey, great, now all the french fries at every McDonald's in the world can all be identical and the apple pies at every McDonald's can all be identical but here's the problem with that. Those plants are now susceptible to the attacks of the pests and the viruses and the fungi and all their enemies and because they can't fight back, you have to dump all these toxic chemicals and do all of these sketchy things in the farming world in order to make sure that all the potatoes are long enough so that the french fries will stick out of the top of the red box. You can't use small potatoes. Nobody wants a short fry. They need a long fry. So, you know, we got to keep the monoculture, the russet, whatever. Okay. And I've been saying this for years. I said, look, what you're going to see is a divergence in the species. Okay. So independent fundamental Baptist is a species. There's a speciation going on where basically you've got some independent fundamental Baptists that are getting more worldly, they're getting more effeminate, they're getting more liberal and soft and kind of, they're basically interbreeding with the non-denom crowd and bringing in that DNA in order to produce that offspring. Right. And then you have our brand of independent fundamental Baptist, which are tightening things up. We're ramping up the soul winning. We're preaching harder than ever. You know, we're turning it up and, and basically you've got the Goldilocks independent fundamental Baptist where they look at us and we're too hard. And then they look at these guys who are going the non-denom direction. They're too soft. But guess what? That's life. Things change. Things adapt. And let me tell you something. We're going to survive because it's survival of the fittest, my friend. And you know what? Even these pink shirt wearing soft fundamental Baptists, they're going to survive too because they've got a new little habitat, a new little ecosystem that, that, that accepts them. But you know what's not going to survive is this cloned IFB movement that's just locked in and stuck in like the 1930s and just trying to emulate 1930s, 40s, 50s fundamental Baptist. It's over. Let it go. Now look, some things never change. The Bible never changes. The truth never changed. But you know what? Some things do change. And let me tell you something. Every single creature on this planet has genetic defects in it. And let me tell you something. The independent fundamental Baptists of yesteryear were not perfect. They had all kinds of problems and defects and by cloning them, you're just perpetuating those defects instead of bringing in some fresh DNA. Let me give you an example. I'll give you a perfect example. You know, the, the fundamental Baptist preachers from the 1950s and 60s, they didn't have to deal with this issue of homos because homos weren't an issue in this country. They weren't a problem back then. They were not even a thing. Nobody thought about that. Nobody was worried about that. So that was a pest or a fungus or a virus that was not attacking their crops at that time. Is everybody following the sermon here? Okay. So then what happens is they want to keep cloning that and they want to clone that preaching, clone that preaching, clone those pastors. And then what happens is this new pest comes in called the sodomites. And then this new pest comes in that no one could have predicted, the transvestites, the trans. Yeah, I don't call them transgender. I just call them a transvestite. But basically, you know, these other weird things come in and here's what's happening. Their DNA is stuck so they're not adapting to deal with this new enemy, this new pest, this new blight upon the crop. You see, here's the thing. They had this gene in their DNA. They had this gene called the reprobate doctrine in their DNA. You know what? But it wasn't really turned on the way it needed to be. You know what I mean? You know, some genes are kind of turned on and turned off. And not only that, but here's the thing, they had the reprobate doctrine but they didn't really associate it with homos. You know, so basically, you know, Pastor Anderson comes along, this genetic aberration, you know, basically bringing in this gene code that basically takes that gene that they've got and fixes it. And now I am actually geared up to defeat this enemy and to keep this enemy at bay. Well, the old IP is just the sitting duck that literally allows homos to attend their churches, even allows people to come to their churches and drag in many cases. I've talked to independent fundamental Baptist across America that said, you know, a queer couple, one of them in drag comes and sits in the front row and the pastor says they're welcome. You know, just opening the door to the virus, opening the door to the fungus, opening the door because you haven't evolved the defenses because you're a clone from the 1920s when that disease wasn't a problem. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? And this is why we need today's preaching to deal with the issues of today. And I promise you that if Christ doesn't return for the next 50 years and, you know, we're still around here in the year 2071, there's going to be some issues in 2071 that my preaching is not sufficient to cover because I couldn't have predicted it. I couldn't have foreseen it. And so therefore some preacher who's spirit filled and reading his Bible in 2071 is going to have to preach what they need today. And he's not going to be a clone of me. He's going to be a descendant of me, but he's not going to be exactly the same as me. Now he's not going to be, you know, too variant because obviously there are certain essentials in a species. Okay, think about a dog. I mean there are certain things that are just not negotiable with a dog. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears, right? It's got four legs. I mean there are certain things that make it a dog. You know, if it had no teeth, we'd be like, what? Right? Dogs, they bark. You know, they have these attributes that are essential to being a dog. But isn't there a pretty big difference between like a Great Dane and a Chihuahua? Isn't there a pretty big difference between a Cocker Spaniel and a Pit Bull? Isn't there a pretty big difference between say a Weimaraner and a Boston Terrier? I mean these are dramatically different animals, right? But they're all dogs. So there are certain essentials that don't change and then there are other things that can change. You can get bigger, you can get smaller, you can get longer, you can get shorter, different lengths of tail, different colors, different markings. And so it's the same way with spiritual things. You know, there are certain doctrines that are locked in, my friend. You know, the Trinity, the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ, salvation by faith alone, eternal security, the Word of God. It's inspired, it's preserved, it doesn't change. These are the locked in things that are just exactly who we are and we would never change those things. We don't want to adapt on those things. But then there are other things that get adapted and changed with time. And it's not because the truth changed, it's because the environment changed, the situation changed. Let's stick with the same example. You know, we were chatting about this after the service and, you know, you mentioned to me before or after the service this morning, you said, well, you know, shouldn't they have been preaching hard against the homos anyway just because it's in the Bible? Even if it wasn't a big issue back then, shouldn't they have been preaching it? But here's the thing about that. Think about all the things in the Bible today that are really clear in the Bible, but the Bible doesn't really talk a lot about them. But we don't really emphasize them because they're not relevant to our lives. Like, for example, the Bible talks quite a bit about eating things sacrificed to idols. Well, here's the thing. In 2021 America, that's a total non-issue. Now, if we were living in India right now, we'd probably be dealing with that. If we were living at other times and other places. But here in 2021 America, I mean, if I just get up and I'm doing a 10-part series on meat sacrificed to idols, you know, it's like, why is Pastor Anderson going on about this? It's not even a thing. Now, what if it were a thing? Then I'd be talking about it a lot more, wouldn't I? Well, think about it. Why would you want to bring up homos? It's such an unwholesome subject. It wasn't a thing. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a big part of the culture. So, of course, you're just going to avoid talking about it. And the only time you're going to talk about it is just because, you know, you're kind of preaching everything in the Bible, so you throw out every once in a while, hey, don't marry your aunt. But how often am I going to preach against marrying your aunt? It's not going to come up because that's not a thing in our society. It's not a problem. It's not like, bless God, you know, you're marrying your auntie and I'm sick of it. It's like, what? That's not happening. So it would have been weird. It would have been weird to get up and preach week after week in the 50s and 60s against sodomites. You would have been like, what is this guy talking about? Why does this guy keep hitting this issue? What is his deal? You'd think he was a weirdo. But here's the thing. In 2021, it's not weird to bring it up all the time because right now, today, if I go on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, all the big businesses, all the big corporations have changed their logo to a queer logo right now. Am I right? What are some of the businesses that have changed it? American Airlines, Starbucks, Bank of America, Duolingo. Hey, that hurts. I like Duolingo. Ouch. What's that? Google. I mean, you know, you go down the list. These are big companies. Rosetta Stone. I mean, just you go down the list and, you know, it's like you get tired of just putting all the vomit emojis, you know, because it's just like they're all changing to that logo. And so that's an issue that we're dealing with. 50 years ago, not so much. 50 years from now, what are they going to be dealing with? I can't predict it. And so clones of me are not going to be able to feed the flock effectively in 2071. We're going to need descendants of me that have also got some fresh DNA and they've got some fresh ideas that have done their own study of the Word of God and corrected some of my errors and, and fixed some things and tightened some things up and adjusted them to something. Because guess what? Everything that I preach is not perfect. Now, here's what's funny about this too, is that people expect me to never change on anything. Now, again, of course there are many essentials that we will never change on, but should I be expected to preach for 50 years without ever changing on anything? You know, that sounds like one of these dangerous farming practices of just perpetuating this monoculture clone that's just, you know, wide open to attack. Now, I'll get back to that in a moment, but if you would look down at 3 John. Look at 3 John in verse 9. The Bible says, I wrote unto the church, but Diotrophes, who love it to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words, and not content therewith, neither that he himself receiveth the brethren, and forbidth them that would, and casteth them out of the church. This is a very misunderstood passage. I've heard a lot of people just, it's almost like they just kind of brush past this. They read it, but not carefully, and then they just start expounding it without carefully reading what it actually says. Because the way I've often heard this explained is just like, oh, Diotrophes is a dictator. You know, Diotrophes isn't loving or whatever. But hold on a second. What is Diotrophes' actual problem? Okay, the Apostle John writes to the church, right? Diotrophes doesn't receive him and his associates. Why does Diotrophes not receive him and his associates? Because Diotrophes loves to have the preeminence among them. Now stop and think about it. Who do you think is more of a big shot spiritually? Apostle John or Diotrophes? Who's the big name guy? I mean, this is the disciple whom Jesus loved. This is the guy who's leaning on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper. This is guys in the inner three, Peter, James, and John. I mean, this is John. Now, here's the thing. Let's say John were coming to preach tonight at Faithful Word Baptist Church. Tonight, at Faithful Word Baptist Church, Apostle John is coming to preach. Do you think our attendance would be a little higher? You think all the Sunday morning glories would show up? Absolutely. They'd be like, well, I mean, if it's the Apostle John, I'll be there. Now, should that offend me? Of course not. Because would I understand that the Apostle John is a greater man of God than me? Of course. It's like, great. Let's hear what he has to say. Let's get him in there. But see, here's the thing. It was important to Diotrophes that he have the preeminence. What does preeminence mean? It means that he's number one. He's the center of attention. He's the big kahuna. And he feels threatened by John and his companions coming in. He loves to have the preeminence, therefore he doesn't receive John. Now, the people would have been blessed by hearing what John had to say. If John would have showed up and preached, they could have learned great things, important things from one of the greatest Christians who ever lived, who, you know, walked and talked with Christ for many years. But this guy, Diotrophes, is more interested in just his own ego, or being number one, so he doesn't want any competition from anyone else. And so, therefore, John is angry and calling him out. And John says, wherefore, because of that, if I come, I'll remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words. Prating means to talk nonsense, like you think, like prattle. He's making stuff up, malicious words, and not content therewith, neither that he himself received the brethren and forbideth them that would and casteth them out of the church. He's basically just so protective of his people, he doesn't want anyone else coming in and preaching. He doesn't want John coming in. He doesn't want other guys coming through. He just wants to have the preeminence. So his attitude is this, only listen to me. I'm your pastor. Don't let anyone else lead you or feed you. It's me. I'm the guy. Okay? And this is a wrong attitude. Okay? And here's the thing about Diotrophy's Baptist. Diotrophy's Baptist is not going to get a lot of cross-pollination, right? Because it's like they've shut themselves off from any kind of outside influence. They're kind of just locked off and there's no influence or cross-pollination going on. And you know what? We've had so-called pastor friends that are like this as well, where basically, you know, they get mad if their people are listening to sermons from other pastors. You know, if they're listening to myself or they're listening to Pastor Jimenez or whatever, they get mad because they feel threatened by that. Like, I'm your pastor. You're supposed to only listen to me. Don't you be listening to them. Or why are you talking about them all the time? If you love them so much, why don't you go there? Now, let me just tell you something right now. Let me just go on record and say this. I do not have to be your favorite pastor. You know, just as long as you understand that I'm your pastor, just as long as you love and respect me and want to be on my team and work with me and serve with me and as long as you're on board and you're a team player and you love and respect me as your pastor, that's all I want. I don't have to be your favorite pastor. You know what? I'll settle for being fourth place in your life. You know what I mean? I don't even care. Because why would I have a desire to just be your one and only? That's weird. That makes no sense. I'm not that insecure, okay? You know, I already get that kind of individualized attention from my wife, right? Like, where I'm her, not just main squeeze, but her only squeeze. You know what I mean? Like, my wife and I have an exclusive relationship. Well, I don't need that in my life with hundreds of church members. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't really, you know, look, if you're out there and in your heart, you're thinking, I like Pastor Roger Jimenez better. You know what I say to that? Praise the Lord. Now, obviously, it'd be rude to go around saying that. It'd be rude to be announcing that and say, I don't like Pastor Jimenez. It'd be, it's like, dude, what, ouch, what are you trying to say here? But you know what? Here's the thing. I'm not threatened by that. I don't care. Because here's the thing. I would love for you to listen to other pastors that are sound in doctrine. Obviously, you don't want to just listen to anybody and everybody that's out there because there are a lot of false teachers out there. But you know what? I'm talking about good men of God that are doctrinally sound pastors of churches that are of like faith. Hey, the more you listen to other preaching, the better as far as I'm concerned. And you know, if you walk into church and you're talking about the latest sermon from Pastor Jimenez and you're talking about Pastor Burson's sermon and you're talking about Jason Robinson's sermon, you know what I say to that? Praise the Lord. Great. Because you know what? That's just less work that I have to do. Right? Because you know, you're getting all this great teaching and preaching from other people. And I guarantee you that there are things that I'm leaving out because I'm not perfect. I'm human. And I guarantee you that because I'm not necessarily going to preach every word of the Bible and cover every possible subject, although that is what I try to do. I try to preach every possible subject. There's going to be stuff that I miss. And you know, if you're listening to other preaching, that's just going to fill in some gaps for you. Great. Amen. You know, and it's just going to make you a better Christian if you're listening to good preaching. Oh, but I want you to listen to me. I want you to follow me. You're my people. You know, I don't own you. I don't want to own you. And here's the thing. When someone comes to me and says, hey, I'm moving across the country to go be at some other pastor's church because I listen to him online all the time and I just really like his preaching. I really like that church. You know what I say? Great. Amen. Why? Because I'm not threatened by that. I'm not worried about that. Are we running out of church members here or something? Is there some shortage of church members? You know, this is a Sunday night crowd. This is a pretty good crowd. Amen. And Sunday morning crowd's looking great. Sunday morning crowd's more packed. This is a Sunday night. Wednesday night's looking good. Who cares? Hey, if somebody wants to go somewhere else, you know, I'm for you. You know, as long as you're going somewhere to serve God, as long as you're going, you know, if you're going to some heretic church or going somewhere where there is no church or switching, you know, denominations or something, then obviously we're going to be like, whoa, what are you doing? But, you know, if you're actually going to another godly church and continuing to serve God, what's the issue? There is no issue because I don't need to have the preeminence in your life. I don't mind being your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh favorite preacher. I don't care. Just as long as you like me and listen to me and love me and respect me as your preacher, that's all I want. Amen. You know, now if you don't like me, you shouldn't be coming to church here because that's not a healthy thing to go to a church where you don't like the pastor, where you don't love the pastor, where you don't respect the pastor. You can't, you know, be a good church member if you don't have the right attitude and feeling toward your pastor. So I do want you to like me. I want you to love me. I want you to respect me. But you know what? I don't have to be the only preacher in your life. Okay? Because this is not a marriage. Okay? You know, you're not married to me or this church or whatever. You know, it's not like you're getting divorced if you switch churches or something. You can switch churches whenever you want, my friend. The door swings both ways. You know, I like you. I want you to stay. But if you, if there's a reason why you're better off somewhere else, then you know what? I want you to be where you're better off, not where I'm better off. I want you to be what's best for you because I'll be fine with you here or not here. You know, I like you. I want you around. But if you're better off somewhere else, then I want you to be blessed. I want you to be where you're the most blessed. Everybody understand that? Now, the good thing about being exposed to other points of view is that it keeps you from getting too radical. And again, what happens when people inbreed? All of their bad traits start stacking up. All the blind spots start stacking up. All the weaknesses and deficiencies start stacking up. You need to bring in that fresh DNA and keep on basically shuffling the deck, as it were, genetically in order to stay current and stay healthy and stay strong as a church or as an individual. So it's good to get exposed. That's why Jesus said, you don't have to turn there, but in John 17, Jesus said, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. God does not want us taken out of this world. He wants us just kept from the evil. That's why we're not going to go live in some commune somewhere or, or lock ourselves off into some jungle and, you know, because the way the world's too wicked. No, no, no. We need to be in this world, but not of this world. Now here's a good way to bring in some fresh DNA into our church to make sure that our church doesn't become just this monoculture clone that just gets obsolete year after year. Here's how we bring in some new blood by going soul winning. See, here's the thing. Every time we go soul winning and win someone to Christ, and if we can then get that person to come to the church, a new believer coming into the church, you know what? That's like a new fresh DNA infusion into the church. That's adding to the gene pool. Now what if we just keep shuffling around the same people between Baptist churches? What if everybody who joined our church came from another fundamental Baptist church? That's not really going to do anything to diversify our genes, is it? Now let me ask this question right now. Put up your hand. If you were already a fundamental Baptist before you started listening to my preaching, you were already a fundamental Baptist and you switched over. Okay. Do you see how few hands this is? What's that? Ten hands? Twelve hands? Okay. How many of you were not a fundamental Baptist before you started listening to my preaching? And look, it's literally 90 some percent of the building. You know what this is? This is a healthy gene pool. You know what? This is not a monoculture here. This is all different species, all different genes coming in. And here's what's good about a new believer. A new believer comes in and brings a fresh set of eyes to something that people who grew up with it, they just take it for granted. Okay. Like for example, you know, people are born and raised in these independent fundamental Baptist churches. They might never question the preacher of rapture. They might never question supporting Israel or things like that. I mean it's just, well yeah, of course. But you know, when I married my wife, she grew up not only outside of the faith, but she grew up in another country, you know, from the other side of the world. She grew up Roman Catholic in Germany and then became an agnostic. So when she got saved, she's sort of bringing in a fresh DNA to this thing. And so, you know, I never brought up the preacher of rapture to her because I didn't want to say anything negative about our church. I didn't want to confuse her. I didn't want to talk smack about our church. So I just didn't bring it up. You know, I taught her other things from the Bible and I just kind of stayed off that subject. And she read the Bible cover to cover a couple times by herself. And you know, she's catching up. So she was reading a lot of Bible in the early days of our marriage, getting caught up because she didn't grow up with it. And she started volunteering down at the Christian school and tutoring kids at the Christian school and teaching English and everything. And in one of their curriculums, it was teaching the preacher of rapture, and she starts telling the kid, yeah, this isn't right. This isn't what the Bible says. This part of your curriculum here is incorrect. Ignore this part. And one of the other teachers is like, whoa, what are you doing? What are you saying? You know, then my wife came home to me and she's like, do they really believe this? I'm like, well, yeah, they do, you know, I'm like, it's wrong. It's not biblical, but they believe it, you know, whatever. But you see what I mean? Like when you got fresh perspectives coming in, things that other people just took for granted because that's all they were raised with, they've only had that recessive gene. And let me tell you something, the preacher perhaps is a defective gene. That thing is an abnormality, okay? It's a defect and you know, you bring in the fresh genes and you can correct some of those things, can't you? And get some, get some stronger versions of that gene in there. Okay. I hope the sermon is making sense to you tonight because, you know, obviously this is science that a lot of people maybe don't really think much about, all this kind of biology, but that's why I'm trying to keep it really simple and just, you know, make it, make it easy. So here's what's interesting too, by the way. Let me just touch on this. And if you would flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Let me just touch on this as well. The people who want to be clones of us, they're always the ones who end up turning on us. You know, the guys who preach sermons called, Why I'm an Andersonite, that's a stupid sermon title. Isn't it interesting that that guy, you know, less than a year later is attacking me, slandering me, talking smack about me behind my back, lying about me, breaking fellowship and doing all these stupid things. Isn't it interesting that the clone turns around and hates on me behind my back? Why is that? The guy who wants to be an Andersonite, the emulator. Let me tell you, let me tell you why. Because there's a couple reasons. Number one, when you're emulating, you're not the real deal. You're a poser is what you are, okay? But not only that, but here's the thing about that is that life changes, people change, churches change. And you know what? Things are supposed to change, by the way. You say, Well, I'm the Lord, I change not. Yeah, except you're not the Lord. I'm the Lord, I change not. No, you're not. You're not the Lord. The Lord's the Lord and he doesn't change. I'm not the Lord, so I do change. Because guess what? You're not going to believe this. When I started this church at age 24, I didn't know everything. Can you believe that? I mean, who here thinks that when I started the church at age 24, I started passing, I was 24 years old. You think I knew as much as I know now when I was 24? But people demand that I stay identical to 24-year-old me. They're like, We like that Macintosh. We like that Fiji Apple. We like that Red Delicious. We like that Golden Deli. Stay Granny Smith. No, I'm not going to, because the pests are going to chew me up if I just stay identically, if I just stay genetically identical. Okay? Now, you know, I thank God that 99% of what I preached in those early days is correct, which is why I still leave all those sermons on the website and people still come up to me and say, Hey, I love your preaching from 06 and 07 and I listen to it. You know, and you know what? In my flesh, I want to take it down. I would love to delete, because I cringe when I listen to those early sermons. I'm just like, Oh man, you know what? I used to be surprised back then why the church wasn't growing faster. Now I'm surprised that anybody even came when I listened to those old sermons. I'm like, Who came? But you know what? I know there's people out there that are benefiting from them and profiting from them, so I leave them up there. And you know why I leave them up there? Because I agree, like I said, with 99%. And so because my doctrine has remained consistent, hey, I can leave up all that preaching from 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you know, even though Pastor Anderson changed. Well, you know what? There's two kinds of people. There's people who grow and people who don't. And like I said, usually these people that are saying I changed, they're usually lying about what I changed about because I can always pull out examples from 06, 07 and 08 of me saying all the same things, you know, on the things that they falsely accused me of changing up. All the things that I've changed my mind about. Yeah, I did because I wasn't God at age 24 and I'm not God now, so guess what? I'm going to change my mind on things. I mean, shouldn't that be obvious, my friend? But here's the thing. The clones, here's what they do. They clone 2006 Pastor Anderson and then they don't like 2021 Pastor Anderson because he's not a clone of 2006 Pastor Anderson. That's why the posers, the emulators and the clones, they're all going to eventually turn on us because they refuse to adapt. They refuse to evolve. They refuse to change. They refuse to grow. And by the way, this is the problem with things like the 1689 Baptist Confession. You want to talk about some DNA that needs an overhaul. You know, the 1689 Baptist Confession, and here's the thing about that. If it was just laying down some basic fundamentals of the faith that never change, then yeah, okay, yeah, you could expect 300 some years later to still be able to follow the thing. But the problem with the 1689 Baptist Confession is that it's literally a book. It's not just saying we believe in the virgin birth. We believe that the Bible is preserved. We believe that Jesus rose again. It's like a book going into every detail of what they believe and not only that, it goes into all their pet doctrines that they don't have scriptural support for and they're dead wrong on predestination. It's a totally Calvinistic view of predestination. It's wrong. But you have these people that are in 2021, the 1689 Baptist Confession, you know, it's like, you know, you want to have an, I want to have the apple tree with the DNA of 1689. It can't handle today's pests. Does everybody understand? That's why you would have to update, how could you update a statement of faith? You know why? We've updated our statement of faith over the years. You want to know why? You want to know why we've updated it? Because new enemies and new heresies came up. You know, our statement of faith didn't use to say anything condemning oneness. Because that wasn't, we didn't know that that was even a thing that would ever come into a Baptist church. But now if you go to our statement of faith now, it's like, we believe in the Trinity. We reject oneness. He has a little diagram. Why? Because you know what? We had to basically adapt to a new pest, a new fungus, a new enemy that's coming wrong. You know, having some statement of faith from 1689, folks, the only thing that should last that long is the Bible itself. You know, the Bible itself. And that's why I'm not interested in reading theologians from the 15 and 1600s. Because they're not relevant to today. Sorry. Well, the truth doesn't change. Yeah, I know. But the truth that doesn't change is in this book. This is the truth that doesn't change. How they applied it in many cases is totally obsolete. They're living in a totally different world, totally different situation. I mean, do you think your view on end times is going to be a little different in the 1600s as now? And here's the thing. Very few people back then are taking Revelation literally. And I'll tell you why. Because Revelation is saying things like, oh, the two witnesses are going to lie dead in the streets for three and a half days. And every person on the whole world is going to see their dead body. Every tribe, every family, every nation of the earth is going to see their dead bodies lying in Jerusalem. How could that be literally fulfilled if you're living in the 1600s and you don't know about TV and internet? How can every family and nation dwelling on the whole world see these guys dead? But do you wonder about that now? Now it's like, well, duh, it's a webcam. You know what I mean? It's like, well, how hard is that? It's on every CNN and TV and websites. It's on YouTube and Twitter and whatever. It'd be a piece of cake. But back then, before they understood technology and stuff, 300 years ago, they'd probably look at a lot of things like that in Revelation and say, well, this must be figurative. And so they take an allegorical interpretation. That's not who I'm going to go to to interpret prophecy. Because as we get closer, things become clearer as we get closer. So I'd rather listen to somebody preaching on prophecy in 2021. Even more than someone in the 60s. You know, in the 60s, look, you want to know the preaching I grew up with in the 80s? It's like the Soviet Union and it's like, but Soviet Union doesn't even exist anymore. But man, the preaching in the 80s, it was all about the Soviets and Germany, East Germany and all this stuff that's totally obsolete. And even Brother Hiles, before he died, even said, hey, you can buy them. I'll sell you all my old prophecy sermons for really cheap. Because they've pretty much all been proven wrong at this point. Because you know, things change. The situation changes. That's why we need the preaching of today. You need to listen to the preaching of today and not be stuck in the past. And don't get this dumb attitude. We're going to cover this in Ecclesiastes 7 that says the former days were better than these days. The Bible says that's a foolish thing to think. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter number, or 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Is that where I had you turn? 1 Corinthians chapter number 12. You know, the Bible says in verse 14, for the body is not one member but many. If the foot shall say, because I'm not the hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, because I'm not the eye, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now as God set the members, every one of them in the body, is it that pleased him? And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. So what we see here is that there's a diversity of members in the body. And this is a healthy body, this is a good body. See, my body is filled with all different cells, right? All different cells and the cells in my skin are different than the cells in my heart or in my, you know, my muscle tissue, my reproductive system, my endocrine system, right? All these different circulatory, respiratory, digestive system, all of these different parts of my body are distinct and they're different and they have different functions. And you can't really say that one's more important than the other. Like, which one's more important, your heart or your lungs? You know, your heart or your brain? You know, you need both. You die if you lack either one. What's more important, your hands or your feet? It's like, hmm, hmm, you know, that's a tough one, right? I'd say my feet are more important, but who knows, you know, some people would probably say they'd rather have their hands, you know, but hey, who knows? Yeah, my wife's disagreeing. She wants the hands. See, this is the thing. And by the way, you know, my wife and I are very different people and that's why we can compliment one another, not compliment one another, although we do that also, right honey? But we can compliment one another because of the fact that I can make up for areas where she lacks and she can make up in areas where I lack, right? And so we can actually, you know, if you marry someone who's identical to you, it's like you're both going to have all the same weaknesses. Whatever you're bad at, you're both bad at, and this is really bad, okay? You know, it's like you go to these online dating. It's like we match you according to 52 points of compatibility. You know, I'd be, your sister's probably going to pop up on that thing. You're probably going to type it all in. It's going to be like processing and it's going to be like, we found a perfect match for you. It's your sister. It's like, no, ah, dang it. You know, no wonder we have so much in common. You know, you marry someone who's different. Well, here's the thing. In our church, we have all different kinds of people. You know, I think that the healthiest kind of church is the church where everybody's not poor, everybody's not rich, everybody's not white, everybody's not black, everybody's not smart, everybody's not dumb. Like you just have like a normal mix of all different intellects, all different ages, all different demographics, all different finances, and you have all different levels of spiritual growth. So we, shouldn't we have babes in Christ? Shouldn't we have people that are saved for less than a year who has been saved for less than a year? You've been saved for less than a year. Amen. And who's been saved for less than five years and who's been saved for over 20 years? You've been saved for over 20 years. Amen. Right. You want to have a mixture because you want to have a healthy church where you have this kind of genetic diversity. That way we don't have blind spots. We, you know, we've got the ear, we got the hand, we got the foot, we got the mouth, and we can have a healthy church where we balance each other out. You know, people who don't go to church, they can get imbalanced. And I've said this many times, church makes you normal. When you're off by yourself, you can get pretty weird and get radical. But the cross-pollination keeps you normal. It keeps you up to date. So I'm out of time. You know, this is a subject that we could talk about all night. But I'm kind of out of time. So let me just go ahead and just, and just kind of summarize the points quickly as far as the spiritual points. I'm not going to explain the science. If you have any questions about the science, you know, we can talk about it sometime. But I think you understood everything, amen? You know, one thing I didn't have time to talk about is the great potato famine. The great potato famine in Ireland is because they were all planting one species of potato called the lumper. And they were, this is just what they lived on in Idaho. I mean, it was like, it was great because, you know, potatoes are originally from South America. And the Incas, when they grew potatoes in South America, they grew them on the mountainsides and they grew them at all different elevations. And different species did better at different elevations. So they planted like all these different kinds of potatoes at all different elevations. And so if one of them fails, it's no issue because they've got all these other backups and they're constantly adapting and evolving to their environments. Okay. But then what happens is when the potatoes brought over to Europe, it's like, here's the potato we like, the lumper, this is the good stuff. So then that's what's planted all over Ireland. And literally in a matter of a couple of weeks, an airborne, some kind of fungus or something comes in and just corrupts all of their potato plants in the whole nation within a matter of weeks. All the potatoes turn to mush in the ground. And I kid you not, over a million people starved to death. And listen to this, don't miss this, one out of eight people died in Ireland from the great potato famine. One out of eight died. And you can imagine that the rest probably weren't having fun. I mean if one out of eight are dying, that's horrific. But seven out of eight are probably pretty stinkin' hungry too. Why? Because they put all their eggs in one basket, that's the problem with monoculture, right? When it's all one crop, it can all die at once. It can all fall. So you want to diversify, okay? So I just wanted to mention that. But here are the main spiritual points, okay, that I made. You know the old IFB can't be cloned. I'm not trying to be a clone of preachers of yesteryear. I'm their descendant, not their clone. We must beget offspring, win new people to the Lord and teach them the word of God and allow them that they need to think for themselves, process the information, and grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We beget offspring and that's why the IFB is going in two distinct directions. Toward the more queer-bait, sissified, you know, non-denom style and toward a more hardcore tightening up of doctrines and hard preaching which represents, you know, our church for example and people like us. And it's funny how these old IFB, they don't like either one because they want to stay the same. You can't. It's not going to happen. The second thing is that we need the preaching of today to deal with the pests of today, right? This church is genetically adapted to deal with the freaks of our day and you know what? Natural selection is on our side, buddy. We're going to survive because we've got the defenses. We've got Romans 1. We've got Leviticus 2013 ready to roll. So we're not worried about it, amen? We're not in danger of being corrupted by these freaks. The old IFB church, it's wide open in many cases, okay? Thirdly, we need to keep winning souls in order to keep bringing in the fresh blood, right? The new blood, the fresh DNA, the keeping the gene pool fresh. We've got to keep winning people to Christ, not just playing musical churches with people that are already saved. It's better to reach people and pull them out of various false religions and atheism and agnosticism and bring them in in order to remain healthy, not just have a bunch of transfers from other IFB churches. Fourthly, we can't isolate ourselves or there will be no cross-pollination. So we don't want to be like Diotrephes Baptist where, you know, don't listen to anybody else. I need to be the preacher in your life. I'm your pastor, I'm number one. Hey, just so long as you acknowledge that I'm your pastor, that's great. You can listen to other pastors and, you know, let's say I preach something and you hear what I preach and you say, I don't think Pastor Anderson is right about this. This doesn't sound right to me. This doesn't seem to line up with the Word of God. I'm going to go hear what Pastor Jimenez said about it. And then you go listen to Pastor Jimenez's sermon and he nails it and it's directly from the Bible and you say, I think Pastor Jimenez is more biblical than Pastor Anderson on this. You know what I say to that? Amen. I don't care. I'm not trying to have a bunch of clones that believe exactly like me on every doctrine. That's not the point of pastoring. Now are there certain essentials that we don't compromise on? Absolutely. You know, you start getting some other view of the Trinity or salvation or whatever, then we're going to have a problem. You know, because just like we're going to have a problem if we have a dog that has three eyes and five legs, we're going to have a problem, right? And you know what? There are those kinds of deformities out there. Am I right? Yeah. I mean, even, you know, there are genetic defects and strange things. You know, I was at the airport with my son about six months or a year ago and we saw a little girl about five years old with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each feet. Now that's an aberration. Now usually in the United States when children are born like that, they're surgically, I think they cut it off right away at birth usually, so you don't really see it very much. But this little girl was from India and I'm telling you, it was a totally functional set on both hands and both feet. And there's a guy in the Bible like that, you know, the Bible talks about Lamai and he's got the six fingers, you know, but it was kind of cool to actually see it in real life and especially because I'd always heard that the six finger would be kind of a gimp finger but actually this girl had a full functional set up. So it was pretty fascinating. But here's the thing, is that normal? No. No. That's a genetic aberration, that's a defect, that's not something that's positive or normal. It's an aberration, it's a fluke, it's out there. So here's the thing though, you know, what you're not going to have though is a human with like three eyes or something and if you did, there'd be a serious problem. You know, children like that that are born with some like, you know, four arms or something, I mean they're probably going to die at birth because they've probably got other problems. So look, but is it good to have some variation amongst humans? Hey, you know what, it's good that humans aren't all white or all black or there's diversity that we, you know, you've got the blondes and the brunettes and the redheads, it's great, amen? God has created this whole, you know, diversity amongst humans and it's great that we go to the zoo and we can look at all these different cool animals and, you know, I kind of like it when you go to the zoo and it's not just kind of the same animals that you're used to. Don't you like it when they have something kind of weird that you've never heard of? Because there's only so many times you can look at a giraffe and a zebra and a lion and a tiger and it's kind of like, okay, we've gone to the zoo. You know, I like it when they pull out the exotic stuff, the wild stuff, right? Because there's a lot of cool stuff out there. So we can't just isolate ourselves like diatrophes. We need the cross-pollination and you know what? We shouldn't be afraid to live in this world and interact with unsaved people or people of other religions. And look, obviously we don't want to get unequally yoked together with unbelievers. We don't want to be best friends with unsaved people. But you know what? If you're afraid to get out and meet your neighbors a little bit and, you know, meet some of the guys at work and interact with people, you know what? I'm not scared of people outside of the faith because of the fact that I'm here to reach them. And that's why I'll walk up to their door, knock on their door, talk to people, meet people. And you know what? Soul winning keeps us cross-pollinated too because we get our ideas challenged. We talk to people. We see what's out there, amen? Not trying to be isolated. Unity, yes. Isolation, no. Isolation is not our policy. We want cross-pollination. And then fifthly, be a follower but don't be a clone. Don't be variant where I'm not going to follow anybody. I'm only following Jesus. I don't follow a man. You're an idiot because Jesus told you to follow a man. The Bible said follow me as I follow Christ. The Bible said that God gave you pastors and teachers to perfect your faith. And the Bible says obey them that have the rule over you, submit yourselves. It says whose faith follow? Follow them considering the end of their conversation. Hey, it's good to follow people but don't emulate. So we need to steer the middle course, not variant but not an emulator. A follower but not a clone. A follower, not someone who refuses to follow anybody. Be a follower but don't be a clone. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your marvelous creation, Lord. It's truly amazing. And it's sad that biologists have taken such a good teaching and such a good scientific phenomenon of microevolution and change over time and adaptation and perverted it as supposedly explaining why life created itself which is absurd and unscientific, Lord. It's sad that biologists have perverted this doctrine and taught that life came from non-life. It's madness. The fool had truly said in his heart there is no God. But Lord, thank you for your amazing creation and all the changes that are happening out in nature, Lord. And Lord, when we look at the animals and plants and watch them change, Lord, we glorify you the Creator who created such an amazing system that could keep adapting and stay relevant, Lord. And Lord, I pray that each of us as Christians would also keep adapting and staying relevant, Lord, and that we would all increase in our knowledge and grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Lord. And please just help our church also to beget offspring and to win people to Christ and to beget other churches that are not clones. But Lord, I pray that churches that we plant would be better than Faith Forward Baptist Church, Lord. I pray that my kids would grow up and be better Christians than me, Lord. Lord, help us constantly to be growing and adapting and moving forward and not to be frozen in time. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Amen, let's take our hymnals, please, and turn to hymn number 140. We have an anchor, hymn number 140, once you find your place, let's sing it out on that first verse. Will your anchor hold in the storms of life, number 140, let's lift up our voices together on that first verse, one, four, zero. Will your anchor hold in the storms of life, wait a thousandfold, there is a sign. When the storm times end and the cables sing, will your anchor, breath, or breath remain? We have an anchor that leads the soul, stand fast and sure on the bales of salt, fastened through the rock which cannot move, grounded firm and deep in the Savior's love. We have an anchor that leads the soul, stand fast and sure on the bales of salt, fastened through the rock which cannot move, grounded firm and deep in the Savior's love. When our eyes gleam old, will the gathering guide, the sick and bold our hearts provide? We shall anchor fast by the deadly shock, when the storms all pass forevermore. We have an anchor that leads the soul, stand fast and sure on the bales of salt, fastened through the rock which cannot move, grounded firm and deep in the Savior's love. All right, just one quick announcement. So, people who hate us, one of the ways that they persecute us is to sometimes, like, call in pizzas that we didn't order as a way to mess with us. Like, people, you know, people are constantly sending us weird stuff in the mail and pranking us in this way. So, they just delivered a whole bunch of pizzas and we feel bad for the pizza guy because it's not his fault. So, we just went ahead and paid for it. So, it's first come, first served. There's a bunch of Pizza Hut pizzas back there courtesy of the enemies of the Lord. So, you know, the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. So, you have a question? I felt weird at the end of the sermon because I smelled pizza. I'm like, am I just hungry? Yeah, no, no, no. It was not you being carnal. The pizza was really there, okay? Good job staying focused. But, anyway, there's not enough for everyone. This was out of my control. So, it's first come, first served. So, if you're hungry, head back and get some pizza. And, you know, we glory in tribulations, okay? We rejoice in persecutions around here, all right? All right, God bless you. Have a great night. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.