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

In chapter 26, I want to start with the first two words here, judge me. Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. I have trusted also in the Lord, therefore I shall not slide. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me. Try my reins and my heart. Now, today, nobody seems to want to be judged. And this is something you hear so often, just don't judge. I don't want to be judged. I don't want anybody to judge me. Now, a lot of people will teach that the Bible says not to judge. The Bible says don't judge. Didn't Jesus say not to judge? You know, I get emails like this every day, and people say this to me verbally all the time. You know, never supposed to judge. And yet, that is not taught in the Bible anywhere. Amen. Okay, look if you look at Matthew chapter 7, we'll look at the place that they're misquoted. Now, understand something, that when you're reading the Bible, the whole Bible must harmonize, because everything in the Bible is true. It's all God's Word. Every book is true, every chapter is true, and every single verse is true. And so, no two verses can contradict each other. If you think that part of the Bible is contradicting, then you understand something wrong. And if you're going to tell me that it's wrong for me to judge, then basically, you're saying the Bible contradicts itself. Because Jesus told us, judge not after the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. So he said, judge righteous judgment. The Bible says that we will judge angels one day in 1 Corinthians. How much more will we judge earthly things today? He that is spiritual judgeth all things. Okay, so just say, never judge. There's a right judgment, and there's a wrong judgment according to the Bible. Now, let's look at Matthew 7, because this is the part that they'll focus on, and just say, judge not, judge not. And just repeat that over and over again. Judge not, but let's keep reading. Let's not just rip out two words. Why don't we read the whole thing. Judge not that ye be not judged. And then many will stop there, and just say, well, judge not that ye be not judged. But hold on a second. The reason why, and this ties in very nicely with Psalm 26, this is why we're here. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. By whom? By God. And David looked up at God and said, judge me. See, David wasn't worried about God judging him, because David walked in the integrity of his heart, and he said, judge me God, examine me, prove me. I've done right. Now, he's not perfect. No one's perfect. But he wanted to be judged because of the fact that he wanted to have whatever was not right in his life corrected. So he said, judge me. Just for fun? No. He's saying, judge me, because if I'm wrong about something, I want it to be fixed. So I want you to judge me so that I can correct whatever's wrong. I want you to examine me. He said in Psalm 139, search me, O God, and know my thoughts. Try me and know my heart, and see if there be any wicked way in me, because he's saying, I want to be cleansed of secret faults. Now look at this, and it has the exact same concept here in Matthew 7. Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye, thou hypocrite. First cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then leave the mote in thy brother's eye. Just leave it there. Let God handle it. Is that what it says? No. First cast out the beam that is in thine own eye. He said, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Now, who has had a piece of wood stuck in your eye of splinter for more than like an hour? You couldn't get it out. It's terrible. It's horrible. Now I used to work a job where this happened to me all the time, because I was working on alarms in houses, and we would pre-wire houses for alarm. And many, many times we would have to drill a hole above our head, like in the middle of a door frame right here off to the side. And so we're underneath the door frame. We're drilling up through wood. Wood chips are fine. Even if you have safety goggles, it can still get in. You try to close your eyes, then you can't see what you're doing. And so there's really just no good way to do it. There's no perfect way to do it. You're in a hurry. You've got a quota of how many jobs you're supposed to do, and so forth. And so there were many times when I got a piece of wood stuck in my eye, a little splinter in your eye, and you can't get it out. I've had it in there for hours. Now, if someone would have come to me and removed that from my eye, I would have been very grateful to them. And sometimes you've had people try. Who says they may try? Like, here, let me get that out of your eye, in your eye. And it's not fun having somebody else poke around in your eye. You'd rather say, let me figure it out myself. You're running it under water, your eye's getting all red and sore, and finally you get it out into relief. You're just thinking to yourself, all my problems I've had in life so far just start peeling in comparison. My life is livable. I can live my life if I can just get this piece of wood out of my eye. Because it's torture. After hours, it just gets worse and worse. It's bad. That's the illustration here. But he's saying, look, if you have something in your eye that's even bigger, you've got a beam in your own eye. Like a giant piece of wood. He's basically just exaggerating here. He says, a beam in your own eye, and you're going to get the moat, which would just be like a little speck of wood, like we're talking about, out of your brother's eye. You've got a beam in your own eye. He says, now I'm a hypocrite. He's talking about you judging someone else in a hypocritical way, where you're guilty of what you're judging them for. And then God's going to judge you. You're going to be judged by the same judge. But keep your finger there. Look at Romans chapter 2, verse 1. Here's another scripture that says almost the same thing. It says in Romans 2, 1, Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. But we don't want to stop reading there. He explains why. For thou that judgest doest the same things. This is talking about someone who's guilty of something themselves and then judging others. This is those who basically have done something that they don't think is as bad. Like, for example, let me tell you about a hypocrite that I ran into outsoleing. Who was my solewining partner? When I knocked on the Islamic lady's door. Was that you, Victor? We were outsoleing. And this woman was a hypocrite. We knock on the door of an Islamic lady. Over in Little Africa over here where all the immigrants from East Africa, a lot of them are Muslims. She had the head covering. She comes to the door and she's telling us how it's all about Allah. And I'm trying to give her the Gospel. I'm giving her some scriptures. I had a couple of verses memorized in Swahili because her English was a little messy. So I gave her some verses in Swahili. I was explaining them to her in English. We were talking. I asked her because she wasn't really wanting to hear what I had to say. But I got a lot of it out. And she started saying all of this and all of that. And I said, wait a minute. I said, what do you have to do to go to heaven? I said, do you believe in heaven and hell? She said, yeah. I said, what do you believe you have to do to be saved to go to heaven? She said, well, if I keep God's commandments, if I follow God's laws and do good things, I'm going to heaven. She said, if I do bad things, if I commit sin, I'm going to hell. That's what Muslims believe. We talk to them almost every few weeks around that part of Phoenix where we've been stolen. We're running into them all the time. That's what they say. And I said to her, you know what? You're not going to heaven then. Even by your own religion. I said, your own religion is condemning you to hell because I said, you do bad things. You're a sinner. I said, you commit sin all the time. I said, you're not going to heaven. She's like, well, if I get on my knees and promise that I'll never do it again, then God will forgive me. And she's not talking about what's. She's talking about over and over again. It reminds me of what a lot of Baptists believe. If you'll just repent of your sins and turn from it, you'll be saved. Same with the Muslims believe. All the devil's religions seem to have that in common. Work your way to heaven. But anyway, instead just believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved by faith through grace, plus nothing minus nothing. But basically she's saying, if I do bad, I'm going to go to hell. I said, you've done bad. And she said, oh, if I promise I'll never do it again. I said, if you do, you're lying. Because I said, you promise you'll never do it again, then you do it again. She's like, well, I guess if I do it again, I'll go to hell. While we're talking, and then she says, oh, Christians, you Christians are such hypocrites, she said. She said, because you guys go to church and confess your sins, and she's thinking of Catholicism. To her it's all the same. So she's saying, you go confess your sins to the priest and then you think it's fine. Like you go out and commit a bunch of sins. And I said, that's exactly what you just said. You know, go out and sin and then confess it and it's fine. It's the same thing. I said, we don't believe that. We believe that Jesus died for our sins. He's our Savior. He's our sacrifice. He paid for our sins. He's why we're going to heaven. You have no pathway to heaven. And she's saying, no, no, if I do the right things. Right behind her, the TV's on. I said, what about that right there? I never would normally point out people's sins to them. But when they're going to tell me that they're without sin. That's when I pointed it out. Because she's saying she's without sin and that's why she's going. And if she ever does do something wrong, she gets it right right away. I said, what about that right there? I said, what about all the garbage that's on that TV? I said, you watch that TV? You watch that stuff? I was like, that's a sin. And she's saying, oh yeah, you're right, it's bad, it's bad. And she's like, yeah, she's like, the music's bad. Does she say this, Victor? She started listening up. She's like, there's people on there fornicating. She didn't use the word fornicate because her English wasn't that good, but she described fornication. She said like, there's people fornicating, there's drinking, there's the wrong music. She's listening to everything that's wrong with TV. I said, that right there. I said, you're going to go to hell because you watch TV. True. It's true. You know why you go to hell? You know why anybody goes to hell? Because they're a liar. Because they're a murderer. Because they're a sorcerer. Because they're an idolater. Because there are any of these number of things that God lets. He said, the fearful and unbelieving, whoremonkers, sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burned up a fire and bridges stone, which is the second death. Everybody goes to hell to be punished for their sins. That's why they're there. If they had no sin, they wouldn't go to hell. They'd go to heaven. But all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And so, I said, that right there is going to send you to hell. I said, that's a sin right there. Where's your salvation? My salvation through Jesus Christ, who shed his blood for my sins, who died on the cross for my sins, arose again for my sins. How are you going to get to heaven? Oh, I just have to do the right things. You won't. Oh, I just can't do anything bad. You will do bad. She had no salve, but it's like, we just couldn't get through to her. I don't think we even made much progress with her. So we walked away. And I told her this, I said, according to Christianity you're going to hell, and according to Islam you're going to hell. You need to get saved. You need to believe on Jesus Christ. And so we were very polite to her. We weren't rude to her, but we were just trying to plead with her to be saved and to understand the gospel and understand the truth. She's a nice person, but she needs to get saved or she's going to go to hell. She's defending polygamy, defending all the false teachings of Islam. And so that's hypocrisy, isn't it? She wants to point out that Christians are such hypocrites. And yet, I don't think a TV is one of the tenets of Islam, watching all the drunkenness and fornication. It's like those supposed 9-11 hijackers who are at the strip club or whatever. It's like, I don't think that's what Islam is supposedly about. But you know why? Because Islam is a hypocritical religion. Because it's a religion that says you're good enough to go to heaven and nobody's good enough to go to heaven. And that's why Islam is false. And that's why any branch of so-called Christianity that says that you can be good enough to go to heaven is false because there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sineth not. Jesus said, why callest thou me good? There's none good but one, and that's God. And Jesus was good, and Jesus was God. And there's only one that's good, and that's God. There's none that doeth good, no, not one. They've all gone aside. They're all together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good, no, not one. And it's the hypocrisy of the Muslim who wants to judge us, and almost every Muslim who I knock at their door brings up stuff. Well, I know Christians who sleep together before they're married. I know Christians who do this. I know Christians, you know. And they're trying to justify themselves when they do the same things. You know, they have their own pet sins. They're violent. They don't follow their religion. You know, it's funny how hypocritical many Muslims can be. You know, they've got their head covering on, and they're wearing a tight pair of form-fitting jeans. Is that part of Islam? You know what I mean? It's hypocrisy. A tight form-fitting jeans, a low-cut top, and a head covering. But it's true. Who's seen what I'm talking about? Around fiends? Oh yeah, I've seen it many times. It's hypocrisy. There are Christians who are hypocrites, there are Muslims who are hypocrites, and the Bible calls every unbeliever a hypocrite. He said in one place they'll have their portion with the unbelievers, and then he tells the same story again and says they'll have their portion with the hypocrites. And those two things are inexorably linked, because anybody who is self-righteous is a hypocrite. And therefore, the only person who's not a hypocrite is the person who's saved, because they're admitting what they are. And admitting that it's all Jesus that's saving them, not because they turned from anything, or joined anything, or started anything, but just because of what He already did on the cross, His blood, His death, His burial, His resurrection. So this is talking about hypocrisy in Matthew 7 and Romans 2. He says, judge not that you be not judged, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye. That's step one. You need to worry about yourself before you worry about someone else. Instead of being so soon to correct others, instead of hearing every sermon I preach or everything you read in the Bible, and saying, oh man, it's too bad so-and-so's not here, he really needed this message. You know, maybe I'm talking to you, or maybe God's talking to you. And we always want to just, oh yeah, I hope so-and-so's listening, we're looking over. It's about you, okay? You know, you gave the car after church, yeah, so-and-so needed that. Instead you should be worried about trying to cast it out of your own eye. But then, once you've got it straight, if you can help somebody, and this is not trying to beat somebody over the head. When you're talking about proper judgment, judging as the Bible wants us to judge, it's not with the effort to harm someone. The goal is not to hurt someone. Like if I'm removing a splinter from someone's eye, I'm not like, here, let me get that splinter out of your eye. Yeah! No, I'm actually going to be as gentle as possible, but I want to get it out for their own good. I'm trying to help them, I love them. If I didn't care, I'd just walk away and say, you know, I'll just suffer. But no, I'm trying to help. But it's never going to feel good to have somebody stick their finger in your eye, and pull a splinter out of your eye. But it's going to help you in the long run. You know, when someone corrects you, when someone chastises you, or rebukes you, or reproves you, it's never a pleasant experience. It's never going to be fun. Yet, that person loves you. That person is trying to help you. And you think of that person, oh, they're the enemy. No, they're trying to help you. They love you. But look what it says, here's the key. You see, nothing in the Bible is just an accident. The verses are in the order that they're in for a reason. As soon as he finishes up about judging, look at the next verse. If not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Then he moves on to another subject, ask and ye shall receive. And he goes into that subject. But wait a minute. What does that verse have to do with judging? Because that verse, just out of nowhere, he spells that out, and then he goes on to another subject about asking for things from God, asking for things from others, giving gifts to your children, and so forth. I'll tell you why. Because he's warning you. He's saying, look, cast it out of your own eye, then you'll be able to see clearly to cast stuff from other people. But watch out that you're not casting your pearls before swine. Watch out that you're not giving that which is holy unto the dogs. He's saying, if you try to correct someone who's a fool, you're basically just going to get yourself trampled upon. You're just going to get that person mad. See, rebuke a wise man and he'll love you. But see, if you rebuke those that are foolish, it's just going to come back and bite you. You're just going to make them mad. You're just going to make an enemy. It's not worth it. And so if somebody rebukes you, take it as a compliment, because they're saying this person can handle it. And somebody who's a fool, if I see somebody who I think is just a fool, I don't even bother correcting them. I'm not even going to bother dealing with them, because I'm not going to cast my pearls before swine. I'm not going to give something that's valuable, which is my wisdom from the Bible that I'm trying to use to correct them. Or let's say you see something and you want to help somebody. You see what's going on, you don't want to waste your time with somebody who's not going to receive correction. And you see a godly person, a wise person, will receive correction when it comes. And they won't strike out or lash out at the person who's trying to help them, even if it seems a little painful. So go back to Psalm 26, if you would. So there's definitely a right judgment and a wrong judgment. But just to say, well judge not, period, is not accurate. Because there is a time when you need to judge, and here's the thing. Judge me, O Lord, judge me, God. You know, that's really who's doing the judging, usually, when people accuse us of judging. Usually we're just repeating what God said. Like, we're not even passing judgment. I mean, think about it. If the bailiff reads the verdict, are they judging? They just read the verdict. I mean, stop and think about that. Are they really the one doing the judging? No. If the jury or the judge laid down that sentence, just because somebody else wrote it down or repeated it or announced it, it doesn't make them the judge. And so, if I say to you, you know, hey, wait a minute, homosexuality is vile, it's perverted, that's not me judging. That's just me repeating what the Bible already taught us. If I say to you, hey, it's wrong to be with someone physically, you know, before you're married, to commit fornication. If I say it's sinful, it's wicked, that's not, oh, you're judging me. No. All I'm doing is repeating the judgment that God already brought. You're condemned already. Your lifestyle is condemned already if you're living in fornication. If you're drinking, it's not me that's judging you. It's God's word that has pronounced the judgment upon you if you're a drunk, if you're drunken, if you drink alcohol. And so, on and on, we can go down the list. The things that people accuse you, oh, you're judging. Don't judge. Most of the time it's not even us judging. I mean, 90% of the time you're accused of being judgmental is usually just when you say, well, the Bible says thus and so. Oh, you're judging them. Like, for example, I'm accused of judging, you know, Billy Graham or Joel Osteen. The Bible already said if you believe not that I am he, you'll die in your sins. And if he believes that there's some other way to heaven, then he's going to hell. That's what the Bible, that's not me judging. You can't judge whether he's going to hell or not. The Bible says that anybody who believes not that I am he, meaning I'm the only one, not I'm a way to heaven, but I am the way. He said if you don't believe that, you'll die in your sins. And if Billy Graham says that the Muslim can go to heaven through another name, and there is not another name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, he's condemned all around not to judge him. The people who are judging him are the ones who are saying, well, he's saved. Even though he says that you can be saved without knowing Jesus' name, he's still saved. That's their judgment. That's what they came up with in their mind. I'm repeating what the Bible taught, that you have to believe on Jesus Christ alone to be saved. And so who's judging there? Not me. And there's a time to judge, there's a time not to judge. And under everything that there is under heaven, the Bible says, a time to love, a time to hate. There's a time to judge, and there's a time not to judge, when you're insane yourself is not the time to judge. Or if it's not going to help the person, you say, well, why judge Billy Graham? He's going to help all the people that are deceived by him, to be warned of him. Just like Paul warned of about 11 different preachers named by name that were the false teachers and heretics of his day. So let's keep reading, and we don't want to get too bogged down in verse 1, but it's a great psalm. Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. He's saying, go ahead, judge me. And can you say that? Can you look up at God today and say, okay, God, judge me. And I bet you if you prayed this prayer right here or something similar in your own words, if you tonight by yourself got home and just said, judge me, God, examine me, examine my Bible reading, judge me, judge my lifestyle, judge what I listen to, judge what I watch, judge how I act, judge how I dress. I wonder if you just looked straight up into the heavens and said that to God, if it would make you start to think, oh man, there's some things I need to change. I mean, that's a pretty tough thing to say, right? Judge me, examine me, prove me, try me. It says it four different ways. Put me on trial, show me what's wrong with me. That's a person who wants to be right with God right there that would say those words, judge me, examine me. That's a bold thing to say, to look up at the God of the universe and say, judge me, because he might just take you up on it. But anyway, it says in verse number three, for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes and I have walked in thy truth. I've not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers. I have hated, I have hated the congregation of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked. To wash my hands in innocency, so will I compass thine altar, O Lord, that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all thy wondrous works. Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thy honor dwelleth. Let me explain it to you. Thy house there, God's house in the New Testament, is the church of the living God. He said that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. He said, the place where thy honor dwelleth, gathering on my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men, in whose hands is mischief and their right hand is full of bribes. But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity. Redeem me and be merciful unto me. My foot standeth in an even place in the congregation, will I bless the Lord. Why is it that David's foot was standing in an even place? What does that mean? As opposed to being on an uneven surface where you're a little bit off balance, you're a little bit precarious. He's saying, no, I'm firmly planted. I'm standing on my two feet. I'm on an even place here. I'm not going to slide. Did you see that in verse one? Look at the last four words of verse one. I shall not slide. You see that? That's the opposite of that is, at the last verse, he starts out by saying I'm not going to slide. In verse 12, he says, my foot standeth in an even place. Now, when your feet are firmly footed, and we'll get to that in a minute, why was David so firmly planted? Why did he say elsewhere I shall not be moved? I shall not slide. My feet stand in an even place. Because of the fact that all throughout this chapter, look who he's hanging around. Look who he loves to be around. Did David love to be around the most wicked people he could find? He said, man, I hated the congregation of the evildoers. He's like, I'm not going to sit down with a bunch of wicked people. And he said, you know, the bloody man. He said, I don't want to be hanging around a bunch of wicked, sinful, bloody evildoers. He said, I love God's house. I mean, look how it goes back and forth there. Several times, I don't want to be with these kind of people. And boy, I love being with God's people. I love being in church. I love having been in God's house. He's saying, I love to be with the right people and I hate being with wicked people. Now ask yourself that question. Do you love being in church and the crowd here at church? Or other good godly believers that you know that are right with God? Or do you just fit in better at work? You know, do you just kind of fit in better with the people at your job and when you come to church, you're kind of a little bit fish out of water? And then when you go to school though, you just love being around everybody down there, all the unbelievers and all the worldly people. You know, where do you fit in with? You know, I'd rather hang around with God's people any day of the week than the world. I love God's people. I love my brothers and sisters in Christ. That's who I have the most in common with. That's what the word fellowship means, by the way. The word fellowship really literally means that we have something in common. That's what fellowship means. You know, I don't really have fellowship with ungodly people. You know, I don't understand how a young man can date a young lady who's just completely ungodly, not a believer, unsaved. Where's the fellowship? Now if you're walking in the flesh, if you're living a carnal life where you're not walking in the Spirit, then yeah, I'm sure you'll have a lot in common with that unbeliever that you're dating. Or a young lady who's dating an unsaved guy. Well, if she's walking in the flesh and not after the Spirit, then she's going to have a ton in common with that guy. Because people are people, right? Yeah, we're all going to get along. We're all the same. But you know what? When you're walking in the Spirit, there becomes a rift between you and unsaved people. And not that you don't want to reach out to them and help them and love them and be their friend if you can and reach out to them, but you know what? There is a separation there. There's a rift. You just can't see eye to eye. You're just never going to be bosom buddies. If you're a spiritual Christian and they're not even saved, or if they're even just a really carnal, worldly Christian, there becomes a divide. I have known people who are not right with God, and it was just hard for me to get along with them. I try to get along with them. It's just hard to get along. And then that person would get right with God, and then all of a sudden, wow, now I get along great with them. How do I get along so well with people at church? Because we're all loving God. We all love the Bible. We all have that fellowship. We all have the same Spirit. The bond of unity and the Spirit is what we have here at church. Ask yourself this question. Do I love God's people? Do I love this congregation? Do I love this group? Or would I rather be right now in a worldly place and I'm just kind of putting in my time? That's why a lot of people only come to church on Sunday morning, by the way. Because if they come to church on Sunday morning, that pleases man. Because man has decided, you know what, if you go on Sunday morning, basically you're right with God. You're in church. It's kind of like they don't want to be seen as I'm out of church. I'm just not going to church at all. So I'm going to go on Sunday morning and just kind of put in my time. But see, the reality is I don't just come to church to put in my time. I want to be here. Like if there was a fourth service, I would be here. Even if somebody said, you know, the fourth service is just like an optional service. I'd like to be there. Sounds good. Because I love church. I love preaching. I love the singing. I love just seeing everybody. And so to me, I look forward to Wednesday night. I look forward to Sunday night. I look forward to Sunday morning. And whether this is right or wrong, sometimes I kind of take it as a personal insult when people don't show up. Right or wrong, I'm just being honest with you. Because I think to myself, you know, I wrote a sermon. I studied the Bible. I've got this sermon ready to preach and it's like, well people must not like my preaching if they only come Sunday morning. And I realize some people come on Sunday morning and they're driving like an hour to get here and stuff. I'm not talking about that. But I mean, some people just, they come because they're just taking it off that they're there. It's like, man, I wish you would just come because you want to be here. Even if you only come Sunday morning, or even if you only come two services a week, or whether you come to all three or one service a week, that's not even the point that I'm making right now. The point that I'm making is I hope you come because you want to be here. And that it's not like, well okay, I have to go at least once a week, you know, just to kind of do the minimum. Don't live your life like that. Come because you want to. Enjoy church. I know it's tough, you know. Just like it. Learn to love it. Right? You know, it's an acquired taste, I guess. That's what they say about stuff that doesn't taste good. It's an acquired taste, you know. But seriously, you should come to church because you want to be there. I mean, David said I love it. I don't want to be around some worldly crowd. I want to be here. I want to be with God's people. Be here because you want to be here. Not just because you have to. I talked to somebody recently who, you know, they're going to a church and it's just a really boring church. You know what I mean? Just the church is dead. And the church has been dead. The church has been dead. My grandpa went to this church in the 70s and said that church is dead. And it hasn't come back to life since then. There was a deacon in this church. This is a dead church. And a lot of good people go there and the pastor is a real nice guy. He's a good guy. But the church is just not exactly on fire. And there was a deacon in this church where my grandpa went in there like in the 70s or 80s or whatever it was before I was around. He went in there and he started up a lot of soul winning. He got a lot of soul winning going. And the pastor at the time was into soul winning. And they were getting a bunch of soul winning. And they were having a meeting about soul winning. And this deacon literally, when soul winning was brought up just went like this. Just the thumbs down of his soul winning. And this guy was like an old guy. And he's just ugh. And you know what? That guy is still there. To this day he's still a deacon. This guy's ancient. Yeah, 30 years later or whatever. Literally 30 years. So this church is pretty dry as a bone. And basically this person that I was talking to said, you know what? They said, you know, I would love to go to three services of church. They said if I had a church in my town that was worth going to, I'd go to all three. But this person said to me, they said, Steve, they said, it's bad enough on Sunday morning just to get through it. You know, they said, this is just so boring. Why would I come back at night? Because I learned nothing. And it's just boring. It's dry. So why would I come back? And I can see your point. But I'll put it this way. I'm not the best preacher in the world. I don't have some kind of preaching talent or ability. But I will say this. You will learn something in this church at all three services, period. Whether or not I'm the most eloquent speaker or the most silver tongued orator, or whatever you want to call it. I'm saying that you will learn something on Sunday morning, you will learn something on Sunday night, and you will learn something on Wednesday night at this church. And so if you don't come to church, you're missing something. I promise you that. Because you will get something. And just the fellowship here, you're missing. Because there are a lot of great people in this church that you could get to know, that you could talk with, that could help motivate you, that could build you up. And you're missing out on that when you miss church. And David had that in his life. He had the right congregation of friends that were building him up, that were motivating him, that were encouraging him. And I'm here to tell you that if you're in a dead church, that's fine. But this is not a dead church. People get saved in this church every week. People's lives are being changed. The preaching is teaching you meat and potatoes from the Bible. Be here. Take advantage of it. You know, one day you might not have this church to go to, and you'll wish you had this church to go to, and you'll say, Man, I wish I would have gone more faithfully to Faithful Word Baptist Church, because now I don't have a good church to go to. Now I'm starving spiritually. I wish I would have been there. I mean, who knows what's going to happen? You may move to some other distant place. You may be moved somewhere far away. You have no good church to go to. Man, I wish I would have gotten more when I was in Faithful Word. You'll be longing to be here. You know, or who knows, something horrible could happen in this church would no longer exist. Stranger things have happened. Pastor Anderson falls over dead and goes to jail or whatever, or both, or either way, and or. And if I died, I'm sure that this church would keep on going. If I fell over dead right now, I believe this church would continue to grow and move forward. I believe that. But that's not the point. The point is that any number of things could happen to where this church would not exist. You know, I pray to God that it will exist until doomsday. You know? It could happen that basically you could be moved away somewhere or some, you know, who knows what. And you'll wish that you had learned what you could have learned from this church, all the good solid Bible preaching. And you say, well, I'll just listen to it on the internet. It's not the same. It's not the same. You could say, oh, I'll just tune in and listen to it. It's not the same as being here. Because you know why? Because the Holy Spirit is here. And the Holy Spirit's a person. And He's here with us right now. Where two or three are gathered together in His name, He's there in the midst. And the Bible says, He that hath an ear, let an ear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Let me tell you something. When you're in church, when you're gathered together, the Spirit of Christ is here with us. And there's something about being there that's different than just listening to it on tape. Listening to preaching on tape is great. I've listened to a lot of preaching on tape. I've been blessed by it. I've gotten a lot out of it. But it's not the same as being in church. And you're missing out on the singing. One day you'll go to some church and you'll be sitting in church and some girl will get up and start wiggling and jiving and singing contemporary music. And you'll be like, man, I wish I was back at Faithful Word. Singing the hymns. It's true. You don't get to sing the hymns over the internet. You don't get to sing the hymns with a CD. You don't get to look into the eyeballs and faces of all the people that are here that love God, that win souls and talk to them and have fellowship with them and have godly friends. You don't get friends from a CD. You don't get singing the hymns from a CD. You're not present physically in the place. Hey, they were all gathered together in one accord in one place, it says in Acts 2. And that's where the mighty power of God was, where they were gathered together. Now we can read about it in Acts 2. That's kind of like listening to the tape. We read the story in Acts 2. But are we there? Did we see the clove and tongues of fire? Were we filled with the Holy Ghost like they were just because we read Acts 2? Not necessarily. But if we would have been there, it would have been another story, wouldn't it? Who would have liked to have been there? Man, I would have liked to have been in that early church in Acts 4 when they prayed, the place was shaken, where they were assembled together and they were all, all, all filled with the Holy Ghost. Why? Because they were there! And not everybody there was the same level of spirituality, the same level of Christian growth. Different people may have been a different place in their growth, but hey, they were there and they were all filled with the Spirit because they were there. They were in that congregation. Be there! Don't just say, well I'll just listen to it, I'll just read the Bible on my own. Well good, read the Bible on your own. That's where you should get 90% of what you learn. But be here, be here in the congregation to get the fellowship, to be filled with the Spirit, singing the hymns, to get the friends, to get the fellowship, to get the preaching. Right here, being here, it's different. Who thinks it's different? Alright, I agree. Every hand up. And then Psalm 26, let's keep going here. We already went through the whole chapter here, but we saw how many times he's mentioning, verse 5, the congregation of evildoers, but then he says that he loved the house of the Lord. He said in verse 8, Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honor dwelleth. Gather not my soulless sinners nor my life with bloody men. You see the bloody men, the evildoers, he's talking about wicked people who harm others. That's what evildoer means, someone who harms someone else. That's an evildoer. Now he said, I've hated the congregation of evildoers. Now so many times in the book of Psalm, David talks about hating violent, perverted, evil, harmful people. He said, I hate them. The Jeffrey Dahmers, the Adolf Hitlers, the Joseph Stalins, those kind of people that are just sick, depraved individuals. He said, I hate them. Put Barack Obama on the list. Did you hear me? Put Barack Obama on that list. I hate Barack Obama. You didn't know that, did you? But anyway, because Barack Obama fits the bill right here. Taking our tax dollars, funding abortion, funding murder, call it what you want, it's murder. Funding all this sick stuff, all this unjust warfare for the love of money, whatever you want to call it, go down the list. I'm not here to preach a whole sermon on Obama. But whoever the case may be, David did not love wicked, hurtful people. You see, if you love my child, if you love my children, Solomon and Isaac, John and Mary and Rebecca, if you love them, you'd hate those who want to abuse them and defile them and hurt them, you'd hate them. You say, no one would want to do that. Well, do you want to visit my email inbox after the service? I'll show you all the threats. You know, and tell me that people aren't out there that are sick like that. And you tell me I'm supposed to love those people and that God loves those people. He doesn't. It's a lie. Because those people are the people that he's very described, right? The bloody, the wicked, the perverted, the deviant. That's why they were stoned with stones. That's not a pleasant way to die, but God had it ordained for people that fit a certain bill like a kidnapper or rapist and so forth. And by the way, did you know that the NIV, I believe it's the NIV, basically twists, and this is a whole other sermon of itself, I'll show you after the service, but in the NIV, you look up in Deuteronomy. It basically says that if a man rapes a woman, that basically she has to marry that man. That's what it says in the NIV. Because atheists were throwing this at me saying, well, the Bible says that the woman has to marry the one who raped her. And I'm thinking to myself, no, the Bible says that rapists get the death penalty. What Bible are you reading? And then I got the scriptures from it, it was the NIV. The NIV says that if a man forced a woman, you know, which is God's euphemism there for what we were just talking about, that he has to marry her. You know, and they have to get married. That's not what the King James Version says. In the King James Version, it's talking about two people that are together consensually. It's talking about two people consensually, it has nothing to do with the violent act of forcing someone in that way, and yet that's how perverted the NIV is. I would turn there, I don't remember the chapter off the top of my head, it's in the book of Deuteronomy, but isn't that vile, isn't that sick, isn't that horrible? That's the kind of people that we're talking about here. People who would attack and violate a woman, a child, whoever. Those kind of people, my friend, there's a place in hell waiting for them, and that's where they belong, and we ought not be guilty of loving those who hate the Lord. The Bible says in 2 Chronicles 19, shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from the Lord. And so you don't have to say, well I'll just be safe, I'll just love everybody. You know, pedophiles, homos, Adolf Hitler, why don't you get a bumper sticker of your car that says, I love Hitler. You know, I love Stalin. I love Mao Zedong. Because you just love everybody. You see, you realize how twisted that is, but there are a lot of people in this world who are just as bad as those three men. Just because they're in a history book. There are a lot of men who are just as wicked, just as evil, that are living today, and then we point them out and we're somehow considered crazy. You know, these reporters came in here and are saying to me, well, you know, I said, well, do you think if Hitler was alive today, would you love him? They'd be like, no. Would you hate him? Yeah. Then I guess it's okay to hate some people according to you. Maybe we just have a different criteria for who gets hated. I got mine from the Bible. You got yours from, you know, the politically correct history book that tells you who to hate. And I agree with hating those people, too. But I'm just an all-around hateful guy. No, I'm just kidding. Anyway, let's go ahead and shut this arm and hook. You know, and it's funny because if you look at this chapter, there's a lot of love in this chapter. A lot of mention of love and a lot of mention of hate. You know, and that's how the Bible is. You've got to have a balance. You love the right things. You hate that which is evil. And that's the balance. And really, if you say, well, I love everything, it's like you love nothing. I love everybody in the whole world the same. That's not true. I love my wife more than I love you. So do I really love everybody the same? Do you think I should love you as much as I love my wife? You'd say, no, you need to love your wife more. Do I love my children the same? I love every child in the world just as much as I love my own children. Because my love is unconditional. It's agape. Because I love my children more than I love someone else's child. I love my wife more than I love other women. You know, what if I told my wife, honey, I love you, but you know what? There are a lot of women I love just as much. Is that okay? I mean, think about that. But this is the kind of garbage that we're taught in church many times. Oh yeah, I just love everybody the same. Agape. Don't let me catch you filet-o-ing. But anyway, let's just finish up with one thought here. He said, I shall not slide. I like that thought right there. That'd be a great title for a sermon right there. I shall not slide. And he said in verse 12, my foot standeth in an even place. Where is that place? In the congregation. He said, in the congregation will I bless the Lord. He's like, being in church is a solid place to be in God's house. It'll keep you from sliding. Let me tell you something. If you're not in church, you're going to slide. If I didn't come to church, I'd begin to slide. I promise you that. Coming to church is like a reset button. You know, you get fired up, you get your mind back when you think of God sometimes after being bombarded with everything from the world and all the cares of this world. I mean, if I didn't have church, you know, I would just get so into work and other things sometimes. You know, and I'm reading the Bible every day, I'm praying every day, but still, you begin to slide. You begin to slip. There's something about being in church. The longest I've ever gone without attending church is 20 days, which is basically one Sunday and then three weeks later, you know, the 21st day, I was back in church and it was because of illness. I was sick. And so I didn't go to church for 20 days. That's the longest I've ever not gone to church in my entire life. And you know, during that time, I could feel a difference just in my spiritual walk with God of just not having church there to help me and to motivate me. Iron sharpened with iron and just not being in church, even just for those 20 days, you could tell the difference. You know, I love being in church and being in church puts you in a solid place. But what does it mean to slide? Think about when you're sliding, you're out of control. When you're sliding, you're not in control. If you're walking, if you're climbing, if you're running, you're in control. But when you're sliding, the movement is involuntary. Think about it. If I'm climbing up a hill and I begin to slide, it's not because I want to slide. It's because I hit something slippery and I start to move down fast and I can't stop. And this is the way it is when you get out of church or when you get into sin. It's a slippery slope. You know, basically what you want to do is just kind of play around with sin a little bit. Like, you know, I know where I'm going to draw the line. Like with drinking, for example. I know where I can draw that line, you know, where I'm not going to get into trouble. Good friend of my dad's that I knew very well growing up with. Really successful guy. This guy had a lot of money. Owned several houses, had a hydraulic lift in his garage to work on cars with. He had like 10 or 11 classic cars at any given time. This guy was buying and selling classic cars. Successful guy. He was a nice guy. Today that guy is basically a homeless drunk. Like a dirty homeless drunk. If you see him, you'd think like this guy's a homeless person. I mean, this guy was, you know, somebody who was on the verge of probably being a millionaire back in the day. Very successful guy. And you know what it was? It's drinking. 10, 11 a.m. You see this guy and he's already drunk. In the morning. 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, he's drunk. And the poor guy, I mean, he once had a lot going for him. He's a cool guy. But today he's been ruined. He's been brought to nothing and he's a slave to the bottle. He's a drunk. And so many of you, you have your example. You can think of people that you know who have been destroyed by alcohol. But it starts with just a glass of wine. It starts with just a social drink. But that's a slippery slope. Because you drink one and guess what's the first thing that's impaired? It starts with what? Judgment. The first thing that goes is the good judgment. So guess what? Like the judgment of whether to have another one or not? I mean, think about that. Because you think, oh, I'm going to have one. Well, then once you drink the first one, though, now your judgment's gone. Two. Now you have even less judgment. Three. Okay? And you're just going to keep. That's why it's a slippery slope. You know, also with the opposite gender. You know, you think, well, you know, I'm just going to kind of play around with it. You know, I'm not going to commit fornication, but I'm going to, you know, see how close I can get or just kind of partially go. You know what? You're on a slippery slope. Because as soon as you, you know, you think you're just going to kind of put your foot in the water. Whether it be drinking, whether it be fornication. That's why the Bible says flee fornication. That's why the Bible says make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust there. Don't put yourself in a position where you're tempted to sin. You know, you think of Joseph running away from Potiphar's wife when you think of fleeing fornication. He went running, literally running, screaming the other direction. Because he wanted to get away from that temptation. He didn't want to slip and slide and say, oh, I'm strong enough. I've got a good firm footing. You know, you'll slide. It gets slippery when you start playing with sin. And you name the sin, whatever sin you want to talk about. Drugs, you know. And you say drugs? You know what? Most people in America are on drugs. I don't know about how it is today in school, but when I was in high school, I sat down with a large group of my friends and just a large group of other kids in the school. We were just talking about drugs. This was on a lunch break. We were just chit-chatting. And I said to them, I said, what percentage do you think of people in our school? And I said, I'm talking about across the board. I'm not talking about just our crowd or our friends or our style of people. I said, what cross section of people in this school do you think smoke marijuana? At least maybe once a month. And we all agreed on the number 50%. And I'm talking about across the board. I'm talking about the most goody two shoes to the most drugged out. We said about 50% and we said about 75% have probably tried it at one time or another. Have tried pot. Now I don't know whether you think that's accurate, but I'm saying we sat down with over 10, 12 people and that's what we came up with. And I thought through all my friends, I thought through everybody I knew and I thought, yeah, that's probably about right. Not to mention drinking. And then such as the street drugs. It's the drugs that the doctor gives out. The psychotropic drugs for little kids, the Ritalin, the antidepressants, the sleeping pills, the muscle relaxers, whatever it is, those are mind altering drugs. And people are hooked on them today. It's the love of money that drives it, the pharmaceutical industry. People are hooked on drugs. And when you start taking drugs, you're messing around on a slippery slope. You go to the doctor and get on those pain pills and next thing you know it's like, hey, I think I'll just refill the prescription. Well, I guess I hurt a little. Next thing you know, you're addicted to pain pills. I can tell you what, I've known a lot more people addicted to pain pills and muscle relaxers than I've known who are addicted to cocaine, heroin, or marijuana. So you tell me which one's the bigger problem. Because I bet if I asked, do you know somebody who's addicted to prescription drugs, probably every hand would go up. If I asked, do you know someone personally who's on cocaine? I don't. But this isn't something that's not being preached on in our day. It's a taboo subject. Oh, don't go there. The doctor and the drugs are sacred. Don't get on that subject. Whoa, stay away from that one. You know, if the Bible says be sober, I don't care whether it's pot, I don't care whether it's alcohol, whether it's pills, be sober, stay away from that stuff. If it's wrong to be drunk, it's wrong to be on drugs. And you know what, we need somebody to get up and warn you about it and preach about it. Because there are people who are out there, they don't care about your health. They don't care about your life. They just want to sell you drugs. And then they want universal health care so that the government can pay for your drugs, to keep you hooked on drugs. And so anytime you mess around with sin, you're on a slippery slope. You're on the firm foundation of the rock when you're trusting in God's word. But listen to me now, the church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth. It ought to be a firm place. It ought to be a place that keeps you from slipping. And you might be tempted to slip, but then you come to church and Pastor Anderson is preaching or someone else is preaching and you hear God's word, it keeps you from slipping. It picks you back up again. It puts you on a firm footing again. You know, you start to dabble in sin and then you hear it preached against. And it wakes you up a little bit. You know, because you're going to make excuses for yourself when it's your sin. But whenever you come and somebody else who's just an objective third party can point it out for you, it can put you back on a firm footing. Somebody else can get you on track. But this chapter right here is basically just a great formula for being on a firm footing, for standing up straight and not slipping. Number one, ask God to correct you. And don't get upset when other people try to correct you. Receive it wisely, take a rebuke, ask God to judge you. Number two, hate that which is evil. Hate the congregation of evil doers. And number three, stay in church. Get around God's people. Shun those who are wicked and evil. And I'm not just talking about people who are unsafe. I'm talking about people who are sick, evil, bloody type of people. Hate them. Get away from them. Stay away from them. Shun them. And run to God's people and say, I want to be in church. I want to get encouraged with God's house, God's people. And take advantage of everything that our church has to offer, by the way, which is the services, the soul winning, and the people here to fellowship with. That's what you ought to be taking advantage of, all of it. And if you're missing any of that, if you're not doing any soul winning, you haven't even tried. You can say, well, I tried faith forward Baptist church. I went there for a while. You didn't try unless you went out soul winning. You don't know anything about this. You don't know it until you get out there with us doing the work. That's when you really know us. That's when you know who we really are. You say, well, I tried it. Get to know the people. Do the soul winning and be in the services. That's where you get the full picture. Those who are listening on the internet, they don't get the full picture. Because they're just getting one small part of our church, the sermon. But see, the sermon is one man. Stephen Anderson. This church is not one man. It's a group. And you only get the whole group if you're here. Otherwise, you're just getting one aspect of it, just me. And this church is not just about me. I promise you that if I die tomorrow, this church would continue, this church would keep going. I hope it would. I mean, if I've accomplished anything, it would. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, please just bless our church, dear God. And please just keep us straight, dear God. Keep us from sliding. Help us to stay strong. Read your word. Be in church. Stand upon the solid rock of your word. Help us not to play around with sin and start to slip, dear God. Hanging around with wicked people or pleasuring wicked people through television or music or whatever it is. Help us to love those who love you, dear God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.