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

Man, Ezekiel chapter 13, we just read this passage about the prophets that prophesy out of their own hearts. Instead of preaching the Word of God, they preach something that they have dreamed up themselves, something that comes from within in their own heart. The Bible says in verse number 2, Son of Man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, hear ye the word of the Lord. Blessed sayeth the Lord God, woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. Now this is the mentality that a lot of people today have and even Christians today have, where instead of following what the Word of God says, they follow their heart. They sort of just go with what seems right unto them, what feels right to them. And there's so much scripture about this, like for example in Proverbs it says, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. When we read the book of Judges and see all of the wrong things that are described there in those final chapters of the book of Judges, it says in those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. They're not setting out to do wrong, hey, let's go be evil, let's go be wicked. No, they're doing what's right in their own eyes. But is it right in the eyes of God? No, they're not following the Bible, they're not following the Word of God. They're doing what's right in their own eyes. You know, oh, just trust your heart, the world will tell you. Follow your heart. The Bible says, who so trusteth in his own heart is a fool. The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? You know, we don't even necessarily understand our own heart. Our heart is a product of so many things and influences that we have and we've been taught things and we've seen things and in many ways we've been brainwashed our whole lives in certain ways. And so we can't just trust our gut all the time or our instinct all the time or our heart all the time because it will often lead us astray. We've got preachers today getting up and preaching nice things. And we got people in the congregation sitting and hearing and saying, this sounds nice. I like this. This sounds right. You know, I just walk in, it just feels right, just seems right. But if it contradicts the Word of God, it isn't right. We've got to follow what the Bible says and God says, I am against the prophets who preach things that they dream up on their own, they preach things out of their own heart and they're not preaching what the Bible actually says. Woe unto the foolish prophets, verse 3, that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. Now when it says they've seen nothing, this is referring to the fact that in the past before we had the complete written Word of God, God would speak to prophets and he would always, or he would often, I should say, appear to them in visions and dreams. And so they would see a vision, they would see a dream, and then they would preach the Word of God that they had received in that manner. And he's saying they didn't see anything. You know, this did not come from the Word of God, they just dreamed it up. The equivalent today would be you didn't read it in the Bible, you just dreamed it up because today we have the written Word of God as our guiding light. The Bible says in verse 4, O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. We've not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Now there's a contrast here between the fox and the one who's actually making up the hedge, okay? The fox does his own thing. First of all, throughout the Bible the fox is described as a tricky, conniving type of animal, and it is harmful, it is malicious, and also it is a solitary creature. Many other similar animals travel in groups or packs or work as a team, whereas the fox of the desert is a solitary animal, he's doing his own thing, he's in it for himself, he's out to trick and to deceive, so obviously this is not what a man of God is supposed to be doing, okay? The opposite of that is the one who makes up the hedge and stands in the gap, right? The one who is in the place where he's supposed to be, where God has put him, he's a team player, he's working for the best of the whole group, he's looking out for everyone, sort of like in a battle, when you go to battle, and you have ranks of soldiers and they're all lined up side by side, and they work together toward the common goal, which is the cause of Christ, as opposed to just being out and doing your own thing, trying to just aggrandize self, which is what a lot of preachers are doing. It says in verse number six, they've seen vanity and lying divination, saying, the Lord saith, and the Lord hath not sent them, and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. And as we're going to see in this passage, a lot of what these pastors are preaching is very positive. They're not preaching against sin, they're not preaching judgment and wrath of God type stuff, they're preaching very positive things. And again, this goes back to the fox versus making up the hedge. The making up the hedge illustration is going to war, you know, going to battle for the cause of Christ, right, fighting on the Lord's side, versus just being out there tricking people and, you know, squirreling away whatever you can into your little den or whatever that the foxes have. Preachers need to be willing to preach that which is negative, if it's the word of God, whether people like it or not, whether it seems right or not. And if the Bible says it, it is right. End of story. The Bible says in verse 8, therefore, thus saith the Lord God, because you've spoken vanity and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord God. And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity and the divine lies. They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel, and ye shall know that I am the Lord God. Of course, this is being written at a time when the children of Israel are in the Babylonian exile. And he's talking about how he's going to get rid of a lot of the wrong people before he brings them back into the promised land. He's going to get rid of a lot of these false prophets and liars and phonies so that the people who come back and reestablish the nation will actually be righteous people who love the Lord, who love God. And when it comes to this thing of following the word of God versus following your heart, where does the Holy Spirit factor into this? Because obviously, we as believers are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and we definitely want to be guided and to be led by the Holy Spirit. And you can see how these two things could get mixed up, where people could maybe become confused between listening to their own heart versus listening to the Holy Spirit, because both of them are inside of us. So if we look within, are we going to get the right answer or the wrong answer? Because of the fact that people will sometimes say, hey, you've got to look within, look inside, and find the truth, and find the answers, and search your feelings, and search your heart, and things like that. And there could be some truth to this if you're saved and indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Now let me say this. The unsaved man, if he looks inside, he's going to get the wrong answers. He doesn't have the Holy Spirit. The only thing he has is his own heart that's going to lead him astray. It is deceptive, the Bible says. And so the unsaved man, he looks for answers inside. He's not going to find them. He needs to be shown the word of God externally by someone who is saved, who can interpret it for him, someone who has the Holy Spirit indwelling, that can preach to him the gospel of Jesus Christ so that he can get saved, that can preach the truth to him so that he can understand it by the power of the Holy Spirit that is within that preacher that's preaching it to him. So the unsaved man, if he looks within, he's going to find the wrong answers. But what about those of us that are saved? Obviously we're saved. We do have the Holy Spirit inside of us. So can we follow our gut or, you know, look within or follow our heart and listen to the Holy Spirit? How do we know whether it's our imagination and our own heart that's leading us or whether that really is the Holy Ghost that is leading us? And look, I can see how these two things could be confusing because they're both within one person. You know, the voice within could be the Holy Spirit talking or it could be your own imagination or your own heart talking. How do you know? The answer to this question is very simple, okay? That which lines up with the Word of God, that which is right according to the final standard which is the written Word of God, the Bible, that's the Holy Spirit talking. And if something contradicts the Bible, I don't care what you felt, I don't care what you think or it seems, no, no, no, if it contradicts the Bible, that's not the Holy Spirit talking. He's not going to contradict himself. He's not going to tell you something that flies in the face of the Word of God that he inspired. And so this is how you can tell. Now, look, in the past, in the Old Testament times and before we had the full written Bible, the Bible says God at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. So God was speaking through prophets and they're having visions and dreams and different prophets would speak as the Holy Ghost came upon them and they would say, thus sayeth the Lord. But there are also false prophets, right? And so you've got right prophets, you've got false prophets, and again discernment had to be exercised about who do we trust, who do we listen to, is this guy a prophet of the Lord, is he a false prophet? Now obviously it was more difficult back then to discern truth than it is now because back then there's an issue of, okay, I don't have a complete Bible, Genesis to Revelation to test everything with. You know, at different times they had various portions of the Bible and they had prophets that they knew were telling the truth and then other prophets that maybe they don't know. Do we listen to this guy? Do we trust this guy? How do we know? Okay. Well, obviously once they had some written Word of God, the prophet that's preaching better line up with what's written, with what they have. You know, if they have the law of Moses that they got at Mount Sinai, if they know that's right and then some prophet is preaching something different, well then they know that he's wrong. But then God also says that if a prophet makes predictions and they don't come to pass, they don't happen, then the Lord did not send that prophet. In fact, he should be put to death, the Bible says, for being a lying false prophet pretending to see visions and have a word from the Lord when he doesn't. So there are some ideas in place where they were supposed to, you know, see if what the guy says is true, see if it actually happens, see if it lines up with other revelations that we've had. You see, the New Testament dovetails perfectly with the Old Testament. I mean, we as Christians, we bind these together into one leather-bound volume, New Testament and Old Testament and it's just, it's perfect, it's great, it flows so well and the Old Testament sets us up for the New Testament and the New Testament reflects back on the Old Testament and it's one cohesive book here, the Bible, right? Then you have other people come along and try to add to this, like, say, Islam comes along and adds the Qur'an, it doesn't line up with this at all. It's not even close, it's just ridiculously different. Or the Book of Mormon comes along or, you know, Brigham Young comes along with all of his revelations and weird things that just outright contradict the Word of God. And then what's their answer when you show them these things? They say, oh, well, the Bible's corrupted. It's funny, Jesus didn't come along and say, oh, the Old Testament's corrupted, listen to me now. Is that what he said? No, when Jesus came along, here's what he said. He said, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, for I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. So Jesus comes along and says, everything in the Old Testament is true. Search the scriptures. If we're in them, you think you have eternal life, and maybe they would testify of me. If you believed Moses, you'd believe me. Search the scriptures. How read is thou? Every word in the Old Testament, he said, is true, right? He said, heaven and earth shall pass away, my word shall not pass away. And then he said, it's easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one jot or one tittle to pass from the law. He didn't come along and say, oh, well, you know, unfortunately, Moses hasn't been preserved. No, he actually affirmed the preservation of God's word, whereas Islam does the opposite. They come along and say, oh, well, the Bible used to be good, but it's corrupt now. Mormons come along, oh, well, the Bible used to be good, but it's corrupt now. We need Joseph Smith to tell us what it really says. And then Joseph Smith, and they don't like to talk about this, but Joseph Smith, before he died, was working on his own translation of the Bible called the Joseph Smith translation, abbreviated as the JST, okay? And he actually, and by the way, part of this is included in their holy scriptures known as the pearl of great price. It includes his translations, quote, unquote. And the reason I put that in quotes is because the man isn't translating from Greek and Hebrew. He's basically just changing the Bible because he's getting some divine revelation or whatever. And if you look at his translation for Genesis, chapter number one, it says, in the beginning, the gods created the heaven and the earth. And the gods, plural, said, let there be light and there was light. And the gods, plural, saw the light that it was good. See what I'm saying? He's not affirming previous scripture. He's coming along and outright changing scripture. And then in Matthew 24, when it says, then shall be great tribulation, he adds in, and the old IFB is going to love this, he adds in, then shall be great tribulation upon the Jews. He just adds things, takes things out, changes things to fit his doctrine, to fit what he's saying, because he's contradicting what came before, whereas the New Testament affirms and points us to the Old Testament. And Christians love the Old Testament. We're all carrying around with us. We all bring it to church with us. We read the whole thing. We don't just say, hey, well, you know, the Old Testament's got some problems, just read the New Testament. No, read the whole thing. So in the Old Testament, there are various ways to test the word of God, right? If the signs and wonders and the predictions don't come to pass, it's a false prophet. If it contradicts previous revelations that we know are true, it's a false prophet. If it contradicts the written word, it's a false prophet. Now we today really have no excuse because we have this whole Bible, so much information, 31,000-some verses of the Bible here, 1,189 chapters. I mean, we have got the answers right here, my friend. And so if you're trying to figure out, hey, I don't know if the Holy Spirit's leading me, I don't know if God's leading me, or if I'm just following my own heart, am I being tricked by my heart, test it with the Bible. Test it with the word of God. See if it lines up with Scripture, and that's how you can tell the difference. Because yes, as a saved Christian, I and you, we can look within and actually be guided and know, hey, this is right, this isn't right. You know, sometimes you'll be sitting and listening to something and just something tells you, hey, this isn't right. If Bible verses are popping into your head, if your opinion ends up matching the word of God, well then, okay, sounds like that's the Holy Spirit that's working in you and reminding you of God's word and showing you what is right and what is not right. Verses, if you just look inside and it just contradicts the Bible, you know, and you get this little positive message that just seems so right, that just feels so right, that's garbage, my friend, if it doesn't line up with the Bible. I don't care how smart you think you are. I don't care how spiritual you think you are. At the end of the day, let him that is spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I've commanded to you are the commandments of God, the apostle Paul said. Let the spiritual man acknowledge the word of God as being the authority. And so people today, they read the Bible and they're reading along and they're just like, oh, you know, oh, you know, they're reading the Old Testament and they're like, well, the death penalty for adultery, that doesn't seem right. Death penalty for homos? That doesn't seem right. According to who? According to you, because your foolish heart is leading you astray, okay? Because that's what God said. God said that. At Mount Sinai, he spake out of the cloud and Moses wrote that down, that is the word of God, and you're just like, well, that doesn't seem right to me. What does seem right to you? Oh, never mind, I don't care, because only the Bible matters when it comes to determining truth. Okay? Now again, if you're saved and you have the Holy Spirit, you are going to get a gut feeling that can lead you the right way when the Holy Spirit is leading you, okay? But by the way, here's a good idea. If you want to be led more by the Spirit, you got to walk in the Spirit, right? You got to be filled with the Spirit. So who is more led by the Spirit versus their own heart? The guy who's reading his Bible every day, praying, singing hymns, going to church, going soul-wanting, versus the guy who's just living in this world all day, just nothing but podcasts from worldly people, just nothing but worldly entertainment, and just maybe just touching down at the church building for 45 minutes or an hour and a half a week or whatever. Okay. Who's going to be more led by the Spirit? The guy who's saturated in the things of God, or the guy who barely touches the things of God and is saturated in this world? Folks, if you're just filled with this world all the time, then your opinions are going to match the opinions of this world, and you're going to end up following your heart and trusting your heart into error and that which is wrong. And then when we actually test your so-called beliefs against the Word of God, we're going to find out that, no, you're wrong, thus saith the Lord. This is what the Bible says. And it's even worse when we have preachers today that are saturated in the things of this world. They're not filled with the Holy Spirit of God. They're just inundated with worldliness, and then they get up and preach those things from the pulpit as if they're the Word of God, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men as opposed to what the Bible actually teaches. And by the way, some of these guys, they literally become mentally ill and have delusions of religious grandeur. And because they get up and they say, well, God told me this, and it's really just they're dreaming things up, and it's everything's, well, God said this to me. God told me, and then they just make something up. And it's often something that just outright contradicts the Word of God. This is what God told me. This is what God revealed. Really, they revealed it to theyself. They told it to theyself, and then they said, oh, this is the Word of God. Well, you know what? And by the way, this becomes like a God complex where they start actually thinking that they're God. I know that's hard to believe, but what is that one famous pastor with the really bad sweater? Who knows what I'm talking about? Steven Furtick. Yeah. See, I knew that would get it. He had like some $2,000 sweater, like you couldn't even pay me $20,000 to even wear that sweater. I wouldn't want to be caught dead over a fence post wearing that sweater, okay? And this guy's wearing this $2,000 sweater. It looks horrible. Some totally faggoty sweater that he's wearing, and it was like way too big for him, and then his pants are way too small, so he just looked like this weird bird man or something. And he got up, and he's up there preaching, and this guy gets carried away preaching. This false prophet, this lying false teacher gets up, and he literally starts screaming, I am God Almighty. And the crowd's cheering for him. Who saw that video where Steven Furtick yells that he's God Almighty? I mean, he's like, I'm in covenant with God Almighty. Actually, I am God Almighty, and they're just like, woo! And look, maybe that's an extreme example, and I said that guy was a sodomite literally over 15 years ago, by the way. But anyway, maybe that's an extreme example when the pastor's literally screaming, he's like that one TSA agent that lost his mind that one time and started screaming, I'm God, and had to be dragged away, a true story. But there's this extreme example of the guy getting up and screaming, I am God Almighty. But here's the thing, he's not the only one who's thinking that way, because you got all these other guys who, they look at what the Bible says, and they think that they know better. And if you spend decades thinking that you know better than the Bible, you're smarter than the Bible, the Bible's a little too mean, the Bible's a little too rough, God's not loving enough, Jesus isn't loving enough, I'm even more loving, you know, eventually you could get to the point where you literally lose your mind and start thinking that you're God and develop this God complex, because you've spent so much time correcting the Word of God, pretty soon you start thinking that you must be God. I mean, who else would have the right to sit there and edit and change and correct the Word of God? I mean, you must think that you're on a higher level. And folks, I'm telling you, this is the insanity, the madness that's out there, and a lot of preachers will get up today and they'll just say, well, you know, I don't necessarily have any evidence for this except just, you know, just common sense, just, it's just obvious, it's just, you know, obviously, you know, obviously what Pastor Max is preaching is just wrong, you know, obviously what Pastor Shelley preached here is wrong, you know, and it's just, it's just, you know, and, you know, I mean, the Bible does say, I mean, literally, in that, in that movie, The Sodomite Deception, the guy literally says like, well, you know, the Bible does say, and he reads what the Bible says, but he never explains what it means, he just reads it and says like, yeah, I kind of struggle with this verse, I mean, it is what the Bible says, you know, obviously, that can't, I mean, but that can't be right, it can't be right, why? Because you got to just listen to your heart, you know, whatever, and just, and just follow your heart, my friend, God is warning us that if you trust in your own heart, you're a fool, there's a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death, and, and let me tell you this, if you don't read the Bible, how are you going to be able to test anything? You know, I, and look, maybe I'm a little bit overboard on this, just because obviously I'm a pastor, and it's my job, and it's my life, and everything, but man, I've always just been so nervous about being wrong about stuff all the time, I'm just like, I'm always just worried about it, am I wrong, and I'm always just like reading the Bible, and trying to make sure, and, and trying to figure out, you know, am I for sure right about this, am I wrong, I'm just constantly proving all things, testing everything, because one of my greatest fears is to get up and mislead the church, or mislead the congregation, it's a big responsibility to be a pastor, I don't want to get up, and I'm preaching, and I'm saying these things with authority, and then it turns out that I'm wrong or something, I mean that's, that's a scary thing for me, it's, you know, it's a, that's the biggest response, I would rather get up and just preach a really boring sermon, I'd rather preach a sermon that no one likes, but at least what I said was true, my biggest fear is to just get up, and, and, you know, preach just a banger of a sermon, and it's just wrong, it's just false, folks, we've got to have the truth, and the only way we can know the truth is to test it with the Word of God, that's, I mean, this is the standard, otherwise we don't know who's right, we don't know who's telling the truth, maybe Steven Furtick's right, maybe that's the right sweater to wear on Easter morning, how do we know? Maybe he is God Almighty, right? I mean, look, at the end of the day, we've got to have the final authority, it's the Bible! Let's get back to the passage here in Ezekiel chapter 13, we left off in verse 10, it says, because, even because they've seduced my people, saying, peace, peace, and there was no peace, and one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar, saying to them which daubed it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall, there shall be an overflowing shower, and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall, and a stormy wind shall rend it, lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, where is the daubing, wherewith ye have daubed it? Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury, and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury, to consume it. Now what is he saying here? He's saying, look, you know, the prophets, the preachers at this time, they're preaching an overly positive message, telling people what they wanted to hear, telling people what sounded good to them, what felt right to them, and they ended up giving them a false sense of security by building this fake wall of untempered mortar, because the wall represents security and safety, right? In the ancient world, there's a lot of violence, and you've got a wall around the city so that you can go to bed and feel safe at night, and not worry about roving bands or marauders or other armies or whatever coming in and harming you. You want to be able to sleep soundly in the safety of the walled city. And he's saying that these preachers, instead of actually building a real wall, making up the hedge, standing in the gap, they've built up this false sense of security around people where people feel like everything's going to be great and it's not going to be great, telling them, oh, it's okay to do this. And so, you know, this super permissive type Christianity that just says everything's okay, that says that fornication's okay, drunkenness is okay, taking drugs is okay, it's okay to just divorce your wife and marry someone else, just giving them all these kind of permissive teachings and so forth. And what ends up happening is that they end up building this wall around, and then they feel safe, they feel secure, and then eventually it all comes crashing down. Because guess what? Life is going to hit you with storms, right? I mean, it's just a fact of life. If you're going through hard times in your life, join the club, so is everyone else. And you say, well, I'm on easy street. Oh, you just wait. Wait till next year comes. Wait till the year after that comes. Because I'm telling you, life is going to chew you up and spit you out. I don't care who you are. You know, when people talk about how they just had this really easy life, I'm just like, I don't know, man. You know, I'm real skeptical when people act like their life is so perfect, it's so good and so smooth, you know, I don't know. And you know, maybe it's true, but you know, they're probably not doing much for the Lord. Because it seems like, man, when you do stuff for God, it's rough. And people that are out living like the devil, they have an even worse life. They have an even rougher life. Look, here's what I believe. I believe that the storms come in everyone's life. Even if everything outwardly is going well, then there's going to be an internal storm. If it's not your health, it'll be relationships. If it's not relationships, it's family. If it's not family, it's work. If it's not work, it's church. If it's not your body, it's your mind. Something is going to break, man. That is life. And let me tell you something. When the storms of life come, you want to be founded on the rock and you don't want to be standing next to a wall that's daubed with untempered mortar. And the idea here is that the wall, you could say, is made up of these statements about the Word of God or teachings from the Bible and so forth. If you get real good teachings from the Bible, here's what you're getting. Each Bible verse is like a brick in your wall. And then you want the bricks to be connected well so that things aren't being taken out of context and connected the wrong way. You want to take a Bible verse over here and properly connect it to this Bible verse and then stack the right Bible verse here. This is how these things go together. This is how it works. Then you have a solid structure of your faith. And when you go through trials and tribulations, your faith is going to sustain you. Your faith is going to protect you because it's real. It's correct. You know, it's not just like, well, anybody can just start piling rocks and just throwing slime between them. Right? You want to have somebody who actually knows what they're doing build that wall for you. Because guess what? You build a wall and the earth shifts and the storm comes. You want that thing to withstand the forces of nature. Well, Jesus Christ gave a parable about the man who builds his house upon the rock. Right? The rains descended, the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. And it fell not for it was founded upon a rock. The foolish man build his house on the sand. The rain descended, the floods came, the wind flew and beat upon that house and it fell and great was the fall of it. And this is the same idea here of being founded on the rock, a solid structure, a wall of rectangular bricks with sharp edges, clean cuts, and nice tempered mortar as opposed to, you know, you ever buy stuff at Home Depot and it's just like cheap, flimsy, and you're just like, ah, you know, whatever, whatever the materials or the parts were. One time I bought a shovel from Home Depot and I tried to dig with it and it was just, it was, the metal was just too weak. It was untempered. Right? And, and I walked up to the lady and she said, why are you returning this shovel? And I just went, I said, that's why I'm returning the shovel. And she's just like, okay, because I'm not that strong. I shouldn't be able to do that with my bare hand. You know, other times you buy drill bits and they're just dull immediately. It's like one hole, they're dull. Or you can spend a little more money and get a drill bit that can last you for years. Or you buy one stupid drill bit after another that just, you're just burning through 10 drill bits in a row. Then you get one good one. It could replace 100 bad ones. It's, you know, and this is the same idea here. The untempered mortar, it's some kind of a watered down mortar that's not gonna hold. You know, you want something that's gonna be hard as a rock. And I guarantee you that some store somewhere is selling some janky mortar that they cut corners on what went into it and, and basically the bricks are just gonna come falling apart. You know, you could just run into it if you're, you could just run into it and if you're like a cartoon character it'll just be the shape of a person cause you just ran through the brick wall. Right, and that's not supposed to happen. But it's untempered mortar. You see, wrong preaching, preaching that comes from the worldly mentality, the worldly heart, just kind of going with the culture of what people believe and what people think, the zeitgeist if you will, what people think is right in 2024. That kind of preaching is a wall daubed with untempered mortar and when the floods come and when the rains blow your life is gonna come crashing down. I don't know, I went to church, you know, I did what they said. I don't know why. They were lying to you. That's why you gotta check it on your own, check it in the Bible. You know, I can't even count how many people have walked up to me and said, man, I wish I would have heard this preaching when I was younger. I wouldn't have made a lot of the decisions that I made because my church was telling me that this was okay and then I did it and ruined my life and they said it was fine. Well, guess what? Just because they said it's fine doesn't make it fine. You need to see what the word of God says. First of all, you need to get a church that's actually preaching the word of God. Number two, you need to be searching the scriptures daily whether these things are so and then you'll know whether you're being told the truth or not because your life can really come to a crash and burn if you're following bad teachings and following wrong advice and listening to wrong counsel. All of us are going to get hit with the hailstones, the storms, the rain. That's what it means to be a human being in this world. The difference is whether your faith will sustain the barrage, whether the commandments that God has taught you to follow are going to help you live a life that's built on a solid foundation because who's the one who builds this house on a rock? Jesus said, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them. That's who's building on the rock. If you're doing what Christ taught, when the floods came, you'll be okay. Whereas if you just do what a church taught you, if you just do what your heart taught you, the storm comes, you can you can all come crashing down. You know, no matter how bad it gets in the life of a Christian who's following the Bible, in the end, they're going to be okay. All things work together for good to them that love God. In the end, it's all going to work out and God's going to fix everything and even if you're like Job and go through the worst things imaginable, you're going to come out the other side and this is what Job said, when I'm tried I shall come forth as gold. He knew, man, I'm going to go through this and I'm going to come out as gold. Whereas if you've got the wall of untempered mortar, you're going to, you might just end up as a pile of rubble at the end of your life. There's no guarantee that says your life will not crash and burn. There's no guarantee that says your marriage will not crash and burn. There's no guarantee that says your family or your church or your job or your business will not crash and burn. Any of those things can happen. You've got to put your faith in the Word of God, build on a solid foundation and then you know that no matter what happens, God will get you through it. But you've got to trust in something that's real, the Bible, the Word of God. And by the way, listening to what this world tells you is right, sand is a perfect illustration of that. Listening to what your heart tells you is right, sand is perfect illustration. Why? Because this world is constantly changing their opinion on things. I mean things that I preach today that are considered insane, you would have been insane 75 years ago if you didn't believe those things. And I'm just talking about worldly, unsafe people would have said you're insane. More than two genders, you're insane. You think being a homo is normal? You're insane. Right? I mean dressing in drag, it's insane. 75 years ago, worldly people would have said you're nuts. Now you get up and just preach the Word of God and people say you're nuts. But you know what, some of us don't care because we're not building our life on that anyway. And look my friend, I promise you, I have been influenced by this world. I have been brainwashed. I have been influenced by the media. I have been influenced by Hollywood. I have been influenced by the things in this world that are wrong. That's why I'm not infallible. Okay? Because we've all been subjected to these things just living in this world and that's okay. That's life. We're all going to be in this world. We're all going to get influenced in one way or another, whether it's at work or at school or whatever. You know, we're not trying to just go live in a cave and just, you know, it's just us and the Bible and, you know, we can never be misled. God wants us to be in the world but he doesn't want us to be of the world. Now obviously I'm not saying to just fill your mind with all this junk, but what I am saying is that realistically all of us have already been influenced by it. Even if you stop consuming a bunch of trash, even starting today, you already have. You've already been influenced by it. And you say, well no I haven't. Okay, well then your own heart will lead you astray. You don't even need the media's help. You don't even need the devil's help because the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. Even just your own sinful flesh can dream up stupid things. And so at the end of the day your heart is not infallible. All contraire, your heart is pretty much guaranteed to lead you astray ultimately. And so you've got to get in the Word of God. And again, it feels good to follow your instinct, to follow your gut, but make sure that you're saved, make sure you've got the Holy Spirit indwelling, make sure you're walking in the Spirit, and then follow your gut all you want. Then follow your heart all you want, as long as your heart is right with the Lord. And how are you going to know that? Because what you're saying, what you're doing, what you're believing is lining up with the Bible. And so follow your heart sounds good, and it could be good if your heart is in tune with the Holy Spirit of God. The problem is when a sinful world out there is just saying follow your heart, well, that's going to get you nowhere. Let's hurry up here and finish a little more in this chapter. It says in verse number 14, so will I break down the wall that you've daubed with untempered mortar and bring it down to the ground so that the foundations thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall and upon them that have daubed it with untempered mortar, and will say unto you, the wall is no more, neither they that daubed it. To wit, the prophets of Israel, which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord God. And he kind of moves into another subject here in verse number 17. He's talking about these women. They sound like some kind of sorcerers or witches or something that are basically doing divination, taking bribes, and some kind of sorcery. I'm not going to go into that for sake of time, but it says in verse 22, it says, because with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I've not made sad, and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way by promising him life. Therefore, ye shall see no more vanity nor divine divinations, for I will deliver my people out of your hand, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. The last point I want to make here is in verses 22 and 23, this idea of lying false teaching, lying false preaching, either making the righteous sad or strengthening the hands of the wicked so that they don't turn from their wickedness. You see, if preachers get up and preach things that aren't biblical, and let's say they preach things that are not biblical, and they're super strict, and they could get up and be condemning people who aren't really doing anything wrong. Sort of like Jesus said, if he had known what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, then you would not have condemned the guiltless. Because if you remember, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are condemning Jesus' disciples for breaking their rules, but it's because they had made up all these rules that weren't in the Bible. So you have these super strict rules about washing your hands and about what you can and can't do on the Sabbath day where they had taken it overboard. And so they've gone overboard, and then they end up condemning the guiltless, or maybe getting up and preaching standards that are so high and so impossible and so unattainable that basically it could just be depressing where people just kind of just throw in the towel and just say, oh man, you know. It's like these pastors who pretend to be just so righteous, and they're just so godly, and then you're just like, oh wow, I could never live up to that, when in reality they're just like you. Now hopefully the pastor is a little bit more righteous than the average church member, but the point is though, hey, the pastor's just like you. We're just human beings. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not one. And so pastors who put themselves on a pedestal pretend to be sinless, act like they're not even tempted with sin, and they're just on some other level, or constantly making people doubt their salvation. Oh, well, you know, if you're struggling with sin, you're not even saved or something. You know, this kind of dumb stuff, just basically making the righteous sad, like making people that are actually saved doubt their salvation, or making people that are actually doing the right things always constantly feel like they're not good enough or something, because they don't fit all your man-made rules and expectations and going overboard. But then on the other hand, on the other side of that coin, there's the pastor who gets up and is too permissive, and basically he just has this anything-goes attitude, and he's just condoning of everything, okay? Because what's he doing? He's strengthening the hands of the wicked. I mean, someone's living a wicked lifestyle, and he tells them, hey, you're fine. This is fine. Yeah, go ahead and do this. He's strengthening the hands of the wicked, and then they don't end up turning from their wickedness. I mean, think about it. If you have some serious sin in your life, and you're going to church, and the pastor's telling you it's fine, then you might just be like, oh, it's fine. And then you're just going to keep doing it. Whereas if you go to church, and the pastor's getting up and preaching against your sin, and he's using the Bible, then you can say, okay, I need to get this sin out of my life. I need to fix this. And that's what God wants. God wants us growing and becoming better and becoming more godly, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that we would increase more and more in our love and also in sanctification, being holy, being righteous. God wants us to grow and do better. So which one is it? We don't want to be too super strict and make the righteous sad. We don't want to be too super lenient, and then we're strengthened in the hands of the wicked. How do we find that balance? Here's how we find the balance. We preach what the Bible teaches. We preach what the Bible says, okay? Now, obviously, we're never going to be perfect at this. Pastors are never going to be perfect. Obviously, you have to be patient with pastors and understand that they're human and that they're trying and that they're, you know, hopefully doing the best that they can. You're never going to find this exact balance point, but we want to make sure that we're not going beyond what the Bible teaches and being pharisaical and teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men and laying on men heavy burdens that are difficult to be born. And then, by the way, typically the people who are lading on you those really heavy burdens, they don't even touch them with one of their fingers because, you know, Jesus talked about how the Pharisees behind closed doors are super wicked. They just outwardly seemed righteous. They outwardly appeared righteous unto men, but within they were full of hypocrisy and dead men's bones. And so, on the one hand, there's the overly strict adding rules that aren't in the Bible, just ridiculously high standards, and then there are the ridiculously low standards that are just, they're just totally fine with things that the Bible outright condemns. How do we find the balance? How do we avoid falling into the ditch on either side of the road? How do we go right on, straight ahead? We've got to test it with the Bible, okay? You know, and you can walk in and sometimes, sometimes you hear the pastor preach something and it sounds too strict. And you think, that sounds too strict, that doesn't sound right. But wait a minute, it's in the Bible. Follow it. Right? And look, we have some strict views, you know, according to this world, because I don't consider anything I preach to be radical or extreme or anything, because I'm just preaching what the Bible says, what's right. To me, that's the middle. The middle is what's right and what the Bible says. Right and left are deviations from that. So I don't, because I'm not an extreme right-wing, no, no. I am a centrist, but I'm centered on the Bible, not necessarily centered on this world's political spectrum or spiritual, religious spectrum, whatever. So the point is, you know, what the Bible says is the center. That's the middle, you know, and then people could depart there from to the right hand or to the left and get too radical in either direction. Okay, so sometimes the pastor will get up and preach something and to this world it seems radical. You know, for example, we preach here not to drink alcohol. Okay, you don't want to say, well, we just want to take a middle of the road on everything, you know, do a little fornication, drink a little bit of beer, smoke a little bit of pot, snort a little bit of cocaine, gamble a little bit, watch a little bit of porno. You know, is that what we mean by moderation? Absolutely not. The center is what the Bible teaches. Okay, the centrist view would be no alcohol. That's what the, because the Bible actually teaches that. And I know there's people out there thinking that I'm wrong about that. Well, go listen to my sermons on it because you're wrong. Just go on faithfulwordbaptist.org, go to the sermons page, search for the word wine or alcohol or something, and listen to my sermon and you'll find out that you're wrong and that the Bible teaches that we should not drink alcohol. That might see, you might walk in and your heart tells you, well, that seems extreme. Your heart tells you, well, I think it's okay to, you know, have a glass of wine with dinner or whatever. You might think that, but you'd be wrong because the Bible says you're wrong. And again, I'm not going to preach that whole sermon because I don't have time, but guess what? I've already preached that sermon several times and I used a lot of Bible and alcohol is wrong. Okay. You know, other views that we preach might seem extreme to you and that might seem too, you know, like for example, I preach an extreme view when it comes to marriage and divorce. The world would say it's extreme, but I don't consider extreme. I believe that my view is dead center right on because it's what the Bible says. I mean, if Jesus flat out said, whosoever marrieth heard that is divorced, committeth adultery. That's a quote from the Bible. Whosoever marrieth heard that is divorced, committeth adultery. Oh man, what a radical teaching. No, it's just the right teaching. Radical teachings would be deviations from the word of God. Radical teachings would be to teach you to be celibate and not to be married at all. Radical teachings would be teaching you, oh, you're divorced and remarried. You have to go back to the first person that you were married to. No, that's not what the Bible teaches. If you're on your fifth wife, you're supposed to stay married to your fifth wife until death do you part. That's what the Bible actually teaches. I don't have time to prove all these things in this sermon, but I've done it in other sermons. The point is, you might think that something that's preached is radical, but it's only because our society has become radically permissive. Right? There was a time in this country when alcohol was literally illegal. Nowadays, virtually everyone condones alcohol. Do you see how that shift has happened in our own country? Just in the last hundred years, it went from being totally illegal in America to sell or drink alcohol. Now, everybody virtually thinks it's okay to drink alcohol, even Christians. Now look, I think making it illegal is an extreme view and that it should not be illegal. I just think that we should not drink it of our own volition. And so the point is that just because something seems radical, folks, we're living in a world today where every time you fill out a form, it's like, what gender are you? Male, female? Prefer not to say. Who the hell doesn't want to say what their gender is? We're living in a day where it's like, gender, male, female, non-binary. Right? I mean, male, female, and then sometimes they'll even have like five options, ten options, twenty options, right? So that's extreme. So then if I get up and say, hey, there's basically three kinds of people, male, female, and pervert. And say, oh, that's so extreme. No, that's not. That's just normal. There's male, female, and mentally ill. Right? Look, oh, it's so extreme. You believe that homos should get the death penalty. The Bible says that in Leviticus 2013. If a man lies also with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Oh, it's so extreme. No, it's not. Extreme would be to put you to death for wearing that sweater, Steven Furtick. That'd be extreme. That's overboard. Okay. So no, just because you walk in and say, well, that doesn't feel right. That seems extreme. No, my friend, how do we know what's extreme? How do we know what is the central view? How do we know what is moderation? How do we know what is reasonable and logical? The Bible. Okay. If the Bible tells you, look not on the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright, don't look at it. Okay. Then it's not extreme to say, hey, I don't drink any alcohol. Okay. If the Bible says, whosoever marrieth her that is divorced, committed adultery, then it's not extreme to say, no, sorry, I'm not going to perform your remarriage to another woman who's already been married to someone else. No, I'm not going to do that. Oh, so such a hard line. Not really. It's just, I'm just, it's just the Jesus line. Okay. You see, there are things that seem right that are not right. There are things that seem wrong that are not wrong. Oh, I just, I mean, I just can't see how God would, well, I'm sorry that you can't figure it out, but that's what God said that he did. If that's what God says that it is, then that's what it is. And look, I'm just throwing out a few examples, just kind of randomly, of stuff where people would say, we're out, we're radical, we're out to lunch, we're crazy, right? They would say, that's crazy. But yet, if we went back in time, you'd be crazy if you didn't believe it. We go back 100 years, all preachers are against virtually drinking alcohol to the point where it's even illegal in America, okay? We go back, you say, well, you know, oh, you're taking such a radical view on homos. Homosexuality was illegal everywhere in America 50 years ago. Every state, illegal. Go back a few hundred years and it was the death penalty, right? But, oh, Pastor Harris is crazy. Oh, you say, oh, what about this hard line you're taking on divorce? Okay, how about President Andrew Jackson? President Andrew Jackson married a divorced woman and it was such a scandal. People were so horrified, just newspaper articles. I'm talking about worldly people saying, he is desecrating the office of the presidency. This is about, what, 170 years ago or something? Forgive my math on that one. A little more than that. It was less than 200 years ago, okay? Less than 200 years ago, Andrew Jackson horrified the nation by marrying a divorced woman and from the time he got voted in as president, because you know how, like today, we have the election in November and you actually become president in January? It used to be that you had the election in November and you became president in March, okay? Things moved a little slower back then. Well, here's the thing, from the time, I forget exactly when it happened, but from the time that he got elected to the time that he took office, his new wife died. And you know what the pastors of America said? That is the judgment of God because God didn't want us having, you know, her as our first lady because it tears down the office of the presidency. You know, look it up. You think I'm crazy, right? Okay, why don't you go look that up? Why don't you go buy a book on Andrew Jackson and read it? Because I've done it. I've read the books on Andrew Jackson and what I just told you is a true story that every book on Andrew Jackson will tell you. Now, if it's written by some left-wing historian, he's gonna be like, oh, can you believe it? You know, whatever. But at the end of the day, that's what every book on Andrew Jackson is going to tell you because it's a fact that people were scandalized by Andrew Jackson. And then today, what do we have today? We have pastors on their third wife or on their fourth wife. I mean, back then, they're horrified for the president to do it. The president's not a man of God. This has never been a religious government. America has always had a secular government. There's always been separation of church and state. And so they were horrified by just the secular leader being involved in that. Today, pastors can be on their second, third, fourth wife, and they're still pastoring. Nobody bats an eye. So who's crazy? Because, look, I just backed every single example. I just brought up backed up, which I'm sure there were certain people that are kind of like cringing and like, Oh man, why is Patrick Anderson saying he's wrong about that? Everything I brought up, I was able to give a historical example from the last 200 years where the majority of people in America would have been on my side. Not that I need anyone on my side because this is all I need on my side is the Bible. But you know, you love what the world thinks so much. You love common sense so much. You love mainstream, you know, decency. Well, guess what? I just gave you an example from the last 200 years. Every radical so-called thing I preached within the last 200 years, at some point in America, the majority of Americans, saved or unsaved, Christian, non-Christian, the majority of Americans agreed with me. So what, how are people going to feel 200 years from now? You know, 200 years from now, it might even become more permissive. We might be living in a literal Sodom and Gomorrah here. Or 200 years from now, maybe it'll go back the other way, and maybe 200 years from now, everybody will be super conservative like they were a couple hundred years ago. But you know what? At the end of the day, I don't care. Because if the world becomes too conservative, too right-wing, then I'm going to preach the Bible and pull it left. And if the world gets too left-wing, I'm going to pull it to the right. At the end of the day, the Bible doesn't change. Change! How do you know whether I'm right or wrong? You know, oh, you're crazy, I'm never coming back this year. How do you even know if I'm right or not? There's only one way to know if I'm right. And it's the book that's sitting in your lap right now. That is the only way to know whether or not I'm right. Let's borrow the number of words of prayer. Father, please help us to study the Bible, Lord, to learn the truth. Help every single person here not to trust in their own heart, but rather to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, which is always going to be consistent with your word, Lord. Help us to study your word. Help us be filled with the Spirit, Lord. Help us to prove all things and help us to discern between good and evil. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.