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

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Jesus comes together, his love once more. There'll be songs of grief when Jesus comes. There'll be songs of grief when Jesus comes. And joy for me when Jesus comes. Together his love once more. Together his love once more. Together his love once more. There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes. Together his love once more. That's our singing tonight. We want to go before the Lord and ask for a blessing on the service. So I've asked for the record with Bronc and his praise. Dear Lord, thank you for Faith Word Baptist Church, Lord. And thank you for everybody that's come to attend church today on this beautiful Easter Sunday. And Lord, I pray that you'd help us to praise you with the songs. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Amen. That could be pages number 32. Hymn number 32. He lives on high. Hymn number 32. Christ the Savior came from Heaven's glory to redeem the lost from sin and shame. That's how this begins. Number 32. Hymn number 32. Christ the Savior came from Heaven's glory to redeem the lost from sin and shame. On his brow he wore the throne crown glory and the palm gallery took my blame. He lives on high. He lives on high. Triumphant over sin and all its shame. He lives on high. He lives on high. Someday he's coming again. He arose from death and all its sorrow. Tomorrow to dwell in that land of joy and love. He is coming back so glad tomorrow. And he'll take all his children home on long. He lives on high. He lives on high. Triumphant over sin and all its shame. He lives on high. He lives on high. Someday he's coming again. Weary soul to Jesus come confessing. Redemption from sin he offers thee. Look to Jesus and receive a blessing. There is life, there is joy and victory. He lives on high. He lives on high. Triumphant over sin and all its shame. He lives on high. He lives on high. Someday he's coming again. All right this time we'll go through our announcements together. If you don't have a bulletin slip up your hand nice and high and we'll get to you with one. On the inside we have our service times. Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. This week we will be in Psalm 78. We've got the soul winning times listed there below as well as salvations and baptisms. Across the page Happy Easter of course. RSVPs for the mother daughter tea party. 27th is already filled up but May 4th is still available so RSVP before it is too late. Church skating night is coming up. April the 29th. So that's a Tuesday night just a week from this Tuesday. Nine days away. I know we're all counting down. It's super fun. It's free like all of our church activities and so you just show up at that address. 6 to 9 p.m. on that Tuesday night. On the back we've got the list of expectant ladies. Pray for them to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. And then friendly reminders about the covered parking spots belonging to other tenants. So we have to stay out of those. And then silence your cell phone during the service. Keep the kids supervised. I'm preaching this Friday night in Seattle, Washington. So looking forward to that. If you know anybody in that area let them know. There's the KJV conference coming up in Vancouver, Washington on May 15th through 18th. Looking forward to that. And then we have Pastor Dylan Oz from Anchor Baptist Church in Oklahoma City preaching here on May the 25th. That should be about it for announcements. Also just a couple of announcements about yesterday's soul winning. I know that down in Tucson, Straight Pads Baptist Church. I know some of you guys went down there. And I believe that the final stats on that soul winning event down in Tucson was like 65 soul winners with 25 salvations. Does that sound about right? Or are you saying it's higher? Twenty-six salvations. Twenty-six salvations. Sixty-five soul winners. Twenty-six salvations. And then I know there was the Oh Me TV soul winning marathon. What were the stats on that? Fifty-nine saved. Fifty-nine saved. And how many people participated? Like 11? Eleven people. Great job with that as well. And so let's go ahead and count up the soul winning though officially. So do we have anything from Thursday? Okay. So we got one there, one there. Okay. Anything else from Thursday? All right. And then Friday. Anything from Friday? Okay. Okay. Anything else from Friday? Okay. Okay. And then Saturday where obviously the Tucson stuff is getting counted by the Tucson church. But the Oh Me TV stuff, we're taking credit for that. Amen. That was your deal. All right. So that was 59 did you say? Yeah. All right. Very good. And then anything outside of that? We got two more up here. All right. So we're only counting the stuff that happened up here because the Tucson stuff, that stays in Tucson. And then anything else up here? Okay. Anything else up here? Anything else for yesterday? Is that one in the back legitimate or is that just a kid getting carried away singing this little light of mine? Okay. All right. Very good. And then what about today? Anything from today? Okay. Got it. Five with brother Scott. Okay. Boom. Got it. Got it. Okay. Anything else from today? All right. Very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning. And with that, let's sing our next song. Come lead us. All right. You should find the answer in front of your hymnal with the song entitled. I am the resurrection. If you don't have an answer, please raise your hand. One of the ushers will hand you one. I am the resurrection and the live. I am the resurrection and the lie. I am the resurrection and the lie. He never believed in me, though he were dead. Yet shall he live, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth shall never, never die. Man, good singing, everybody. Take your hymnals now and go to hymn number 34. Hymn number 34. I know that my redeemer liveth. Hymn number 34. I know that my redeemer liveth and on the earth again shall stand. Hymn number 34. Lift your voice together on that first verse now. I know that my redeemer liveth and on the earth again shall stand. I know eternal life begin with the grace and power already stand. I know, I know that Jesus liveth and on the earth again shall stand. I know, I know that life be given, that grace and power are in his hand. I know his promise never fail, that the word he speaks it cannot hide. Though through old death might death assail me, yet I shall see him by and by. I know, I know that Jesus liveth and on the earth again shall stand. I know, I know that life be given, that grace and power are in his hand. I know my mention he prepareth that where he is there I may be. Oh what good starts for me he careth, he at last will come for me. I know, I know that Jesus liveth and on the earth again shall stand. I know, I know that life be given, that grace and power are in his hand. Amen. Good things tonight. Alright, this time we'll pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Proverbs chapter 16. Proverbs chapter number 16, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads Proverbs chapter 16, beginning in verse number 1. Proverbs 16, the Bible reads, The preparations of the heart and man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord wayeth the spirits. Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. The Lord hath made all things for himself, yet even the wicked for the day of evil. Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished. By mercy and truth iniquity is purged, and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. A man's heart diviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. A divine sentence is in the lips of the king, his mouth transgresseth not in judgment. A just weight and balance are the Lord's. All the weights of the bag are his work. It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness, for the throne is established by righteousness. Righteous lips are the delight of kings, and they love him that speaketh right. The wrath of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify it. In the light of the king's countenance is life, and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain. How much better is it to get wisdom than gold, and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver? The highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He that keepeth his way preserveth his soul. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud. He that handleth the matter wisely shall find good, and who so trusteth in the Lord happy as he. The wise in heart shall be called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increase with learning. Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it, but the instruction of fools is folly. The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning to his lips. Pleasant words are as in honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. He that laboreth, laboreth for himself, for his mouth craveth it of him. An ungodly man diggeth up evil, and in his lips there is a burning fire. A froward man soweth strife, and a whisperer separateth chief friends. A violent man enticeth his neighbor, and leadeth him into the way that is not good. He shutteth his eyes to devise froward things, moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass. The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh the city. The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. Thank you, Father, for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank you for faith for our Baptist Church, and your perfect word, the King James Bible. I ask you to fill Pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit. Open our hearts and our ears to receive your perfect word. I pray this in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Man, the title of my sermon this evening is The Fear of God. In verse number six there, the Bible reads, By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged, and by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. Now, if we were to just look up this phrase, the fear of the Lord, in the book of Proverbs, I mean, it comes up over and over again, like half the chapters in the book of Proverbs are going to deal with the subject of the fear of the Lord, because it's the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of understanding. We are commanded literally hundreds of times in the Bible to fear God. Now, the reason I'm preaching this sermon is for those of you who don't follow the drama online, Pastor Joe Jones has preached a bunch of heresy over the last couple of weeks, and it's some of the worst preaching that I've ever heard in my life, and it goes against everything that we stand for as fundamentalist Baptists. Okay? It's this idea that basically, you know, we can't call anything out, we can't judge anyone or anything, and, you know, we need to stop scaring people into obedience, and he's saying that God does not chastise us or punish us, or if he does, it's just more like he kind of just talks to us on the inside, but he's not going to beat us or spank us, and there's no reason for us to fear his chastisement, and that's scaring people into obedience. I'm going to read for you a quote, and look, I don't have time to go into all of his weird heresy tonight, and I'm not going to. I already released yesterday online a 45-minute refutation of his garbage, and I played like 15 clips from his sermon. You can find that on our YouTube channel, X, whatever social media you want to find that on. It's everywhere. But I do want to just read you this one quote from him where he says in his sermon, quote, It's time that we stop trying to scare people into obedience. God does not do that to us, nor should we do that to God's people, okay? That is wrong. That is a gross error that is in Christian circles today. You know what? I think it's the exact opposite, Joe Jones. I think that there's a gross error today of people not talking about the fear of God, not talking about the fear of the Lord, and I think that all these big liberal fun center churches need to start thinking a little more about the fear of God. And we need some preachers today in America putting the fear of God back into God's people, not this soft, watered-down, wimpy preaching that says, Oh, you know, don't scare people. God would never scare us into obedience. We shouldn't be scaring people into obedience. Let me give you a little testimony personally, and if you would flip back to Genesis chapter 2. Let me give you a little personal testimony about the fear of God in my life. When I was six years old, I got saved because I was afraid of going to hell. Who here would say, you know, I got saved because I was scared of going to hell. That's why I got saved. It's virtually every hand in the building. Back there on the wall, we have an LP cover from Dr. Glenn Schunk, a preacher that my dad grew up listening to. He used to come and do revivals at Faith Baptist Church in Canoga Park, California. And on that record is the sermon, The Halls of Hell. And I actually took that record and, you know, digitized it and put it on YouTube. You can actually hear that sermon by Glenn Schunk called, The Halls of Hell, preached in the late 1960s. But what's interesting is if you look at that LP, you'll see that they talk about how hundreds of people got saved as a result of that revival meeting where Glenn Schunk is preaching on hell. And hundreds of people got saved, right? And I guarantee you that all kinds of hellfire and damnation sermons have been preached that led to souls getting saved. So I got saved when I was six years old because of the fear of the Lord, because I didn't want to go to hell. That was the big reason. Then, later on in life, I, through the fear of the Lord, cleaned up my life and lived right. You know, I remember one time as a kid, I pushed a little girl off a swing for no reason. And I felt bad about it because I was afraid God was going to punish me for doing that. And I decided not to be that way anymore, not to treat people that way anymore. And you know what? When I became a teenager, I had temptations just like every other teenager to commit fornication, right? And that's a major wicked sin that teenagers are constantly being tempted with, fornication. And I did not commit fornication for one reason, because I was scared of the chastisement of God. That's why I didn't commit fornication. So this attitude that says, oh, that doesn't work, fear doesn't work. Well, the Bible says fear works. The Bible says, by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. And you know, all this preaching sounds real good, it sounds real nice, but it's not biblical. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, the Bible talks about the fear of God. Folks, you don't have to get very far into the Bible to see this, okay? What did he say? He said, it's time that we stop trying to scare people into obedience. God does not do that to us. Okay, but yet at the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis chapter 2 verse 16, it says, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. It kind of sounds like he's trying to scare them. I mean, look, my mom, when I was a kid, would try to scare me about certain things. She said that if I went in the backyard and touched the toadstools that were growing in the backyard, and then I ate without washing my hands, I would die. That's what she said. Those are poisonous. If you touch them and then you eat, you're going to die. Now, she might have been exaggerating just a little bit, but hey, to this day, I wouldn't take my chances with that. I'm washing my hands with soap after playing with those toadstools, okay? She told me that if I used the same fork or the same spoon for the tuna and the mayonnaise, not only would I die, but I would kill the entire family by cross-contaminating the mayonnaise with tuna, okay? I guess she was trying to scare me into obedience, but you know what? I follow that stuff to this day. I mean, I'm strict about that stuff. I worry about these things that my mom and dad taught me. You know, I guess that was just a fear-based training or teaching me, you know, hey, if you eat of the fruit, you're going to die. Look over, if you would, at chapter 6. And we could literally just go through the whole Bible if we wanted to be here for the next few hundred hours and just look at every single time God scares us into obedience, right? We don't have all night to do that, but we could do that, literally. Look at Genesis chapter 6, verse 13. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them with the earth, make thee an ark of gopher wood. Room shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without. So God says, I'm going to destroy the whole planet with a flood, so build an ark. What's going to happen if he doesn't build the ark? He dies. He drowns. His family dies. His family drowns. Is he trying to scare him into obedience? Because you know what the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11 about this? It says, By faith Noah moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house. So why did Noah build the ark? Because he was scared! He was moved with fear. Hey, throughout my life, I've been moved by fear. Moved by the fear of God. Look, obviously there are verses that talk negatively about fear. Why? Because we don't need to be fearing man. We shouldn't be fearing what man can do unto us. Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. But rather, fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Of course we're supposed to fear God. I mean, this is basic Christianity 101. Fearing the Lord. And then he's teaching this garbage that basically says, Well, if you're saved, that's 100% by faith. Amen, we all agree on that. But that you're also just 100% sanctified by faith. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to work on anything to be sanctified because you're just already there. That's absurd. We're going to get to that later in the sermon. But if you would, flip over to 2 Corinthians, chapter 7. And while you're turning to 2 Corinthians, chapter 7, I'm going to read for you from Acts, chapter 9, verse 31. Because these false teachers and false prophets, and look, I am not just using hyperbole when I call them a false prophet. I am saying that he is unsaved because no one could be this stupid and be saved. I'm not kidding. Because here's the thing. Either he's mentally ill, a functioning idiot, or he's not saved. And look, he doesn't seem like a functioning idiot to me. He doesn't seem mentally ill to me. So I think he's just not saved. Because you know what? People who aren't saved can't understand the Bible at all. Because the natural man receiving not the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. And if anybody listens to that gobbledygook sermon that he preached, exposing the work sanctificationists, you'll come to the conclusion that this guy is unsaved and has no understanding of the Word of God. These are truths that people understand five minutes after they're saved. Okay? And again, I'm not going to re-preach everything I did yesterday. Go watch the 45-minute video I uploaded yesterday if you want to delve into that. But while you're there in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, I just want to read for you from Acts chapter 9 verse 31. The Bible says, Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified. Now doesn't that sound good? Churches had rest and the churches were edified. They're growing. They're being built up. They're being built up in the faith. Personally they're being edified. As a church they're being edified. They're adding members. They're growing. They're thriving. They're serving God. They're at rest. And it says, And walking in the fear of the Lord. And in the comfort of the Holy Ghost they were multiplied. So they're walking in the fear of the Lord and they're walking in the comfort of the Holy Ghost and they're multiplied. Right? But we're supposed to choose between this false dichotomy that says, Oh, you can either have joy or you can have the fear of the Lord. You can either have comfort or you can have fear. No, why not both? Why can't we have the comfort of the Holy Ghost and the fear of God both at work in our lives? And false teachers and false prophets, they love for us to choose between these false dichotomies. Like for example, the heretic John MacArthur when he says, Well, you know, it's not the blood of Jesus that saves us. It's just his death that saves us. Well, why not both? How about it's Christ's death that saves us and his blood and his resurrection and his sinless life. Why would we have to choose between these dichotomies of saying, you know, God doesn't, and here's another quote from Joe Jones, God doesn't relate to us through fear of a beating. He relates to us through intimacy. I don't even remember reading the word intimacy in the Bible, number one. But I do remember reading about fear of a beating many times. Okay. But he says, God relates to us through intimacy, not fear of a beating. Why not both? Why can't we have a close walk with God? You know, I'm not going to call intimacy. But why don't we have like a close, deep fellowship relationship, communion with God, loving, tender relationship with God, and fear of a beating. Why are these mutually exclusive? Can somebody explain that to me? Because you know what? I grew up loving my parents and yet fearing the beating. Okay. You know, that's just the way it is when you're growing up. And you say, oh, that kind of fear-based leadership fails. So is God a failure? I guess God failed when Adam and Eve ate of the tree anyway. Because you use that fear tactic, if you eat it, you'll die. And then they ate it anyway. I guess we should blame God for that. No, I think we're going to blame Adam and Eve for that. But I had you turn to 2 Corinthians, am I right? Here's one of the most classic passages that you're going to hear preached in a fundamental Baptist church. This is like a fundamental Baptist standard, okay? In any fundamental Baptist church is this passage at the end of chapter 6, right? Verse 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? And for sake of time, let's just jump down to verse 17. Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. And then look what it says. And I'll receive you, and will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Right? So if we want to be acceptable to God, if we want to be accepted by God, if we want to be pleasing to God, then we need to come out from among them and be separate. Now, this doctrine that he's teaching is that, yeah, salvation is a free gift by faith, but that also just being a disciple, being accepted, being pleasing to God, that's also a free gift. No work required. And, my friend, that is a lie, because the Bible says in order to be a disciple of Christ, you have to forsake everything that you have in order to be a disciple of Christ. You've got to deny yourself, and you've got to take up the cross daily and follow him. Wouldn't we all agree that that's work? I mean, how can anyone say taking up the cross daily and following Christ isn't works? Of course it's works. Okay? But that's what it takes to be an actual disciple. Because remember, Christ preached to multitudes of people who believed on him and got baptized, but how many disciples did he have? You know, he's got like 12 disciples. And then even in the early church in Acts chapter 1, how many people showed up in the early church in Acts chapter 1? A hundred and twenty people, including women and children. Although Jesus and the apostles and John the Baptist had won literally tens of thousands of people to Christ, they'd gotten tens of thousands of people saved, tens of thousands of people baptized. What's the church running? One twenty. That's what the Bible says. A hundred and twenty. Why? Because there's a big difference between believing on Jesus and getting saved and actually being a serious disciple for Christ. Okay? The Bible says, Wherefore we labor that whether absent or present we may be accepted of him. Sounds like we labor to be accepted. Right? The Bible says he that worketh righteousness is accepted of him. If we come out from among them and be separate and live a serious Christian life, he says I'll receive you. Okay? No, that's not talking about salvation. We're already saved, but there's being saved and then there's being pleasing to God. Being actually a disciple. Being actually accepted as an acceptable workman that needed not to be ashamed. This is really clear stuff in the Bible, my friend. We're looking at it right in front of our faces. But this all comes down to his weird understanding of the word sanctification. Okay? And let's not let this word confuse us, right? Let's just let this word be something that we understand clearly. Sanctify simply means to make holy. Okay? Now we can, we can actually prove all this from the Bible itself. Because if we just compare scripture with scripture, in fact, just keep your finger there. Go back to Exodus 13. Let's just do this just to make sure that we're all on the same page here about what words mean. Okay? If we go back to Exodus chapter 13 and we can just kind of let our King James Bible define itself. Look at Exodus chapter 13 verse 2 and the Bible reads, sanctify unto me. Everybody see that? Sanctify unto me all the firstborn whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel. Now jump down to verse 12. It says that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix. So we have a difficult word here, matrix. If we compare verse 12 to verse 2, what is a matrix? It's a womb because it's called a womb in verse 2. It's called the matrix in verse 12. So matrix and womb mean the same thing. Everybody see that? And you can see why matrix would mean that because like maternal, M-A-T-R are the consonants there. In matrix, in maternal or things like that. Even the word mother, M-T-H-R, right? So everybody got that, right? And then if we can also compare that in verse 2 it says, sanctify unto me all the firstborn. Whereas in verse number 12 it says, set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the womb or openeth the matrix. So if you compare verses with verses, you can see that the words sanctify and set apart are being used interchangeably, right? So sanctify means to set apart. Here's another word that's used interchangeably with set apart. To make holy or to be holy means to be set apart. And sometimes these words that are the most common words to us are the words that we don't often nail down their definition because we just take for granted. Oh yeah, holy, yeah, I know what that means. But hold on, what does holy mean? Holy means set apart, okay? And it's used interchangeably with sanctify, set apart, make holy. These are interchangeable, they mean the same thing. Holiness is the state of being set apart. So all throughout the Bible you have talk about things that are holy, those things that are set apart for the service of God. Things that are different, they're not just ordinary profane things, they're holy things. Does everybody understand that? Okay, so here's the thing. There's a verse in the Bible that says, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and let him be your fear and let him be your dread. What does that mean for us to sanctify the Lord? How do we make the Lord holy? I mean, isn't he already holy? Well, remember, what does holy mean? Set apart. So when the Bible says, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, it's saying set apart the Lord in your hearts, meaning put him in his own category in your mind. And let him be your fear and him be your dread, meaning that you don't fear or dread anyone else. Your fear and your dread is the Lord, he is sanctified, he is holy, he is set apart, he is different. Okay, so I hope that this kind of helps you understand these words, holy, set apart, sanctified, because they are used interchangeably throughout Scripture. And we also have this word sanctuary. Sanctuary means holy place, and it'll be used interchangeably with the term holy place and sanctuary. These are used interchangeably in the Bible, okay, because that's what it means. And so here's the thing about that, is that when we get saved, there are different meanings of the word sanctified. In one sense, we are just sanctified simply by virtue of being saved. Everyone who is saved is holy because we're all set apart, we're all different because we're different than unsaved people. They're unsaved and we're saved. We're holy. You know, we belong to the Lord. We belong to God. We are saints. The Bible used the word saint, which again comes from sanctify. We are saints just by virtue of calling upon the name of the Lord, the Bible teaches. 1 Corinthians 1-1 is an example of that. So as saints, as saved Christians, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. We are saved, and in one sense, positionally before God, as far as our salvation is concerned, we are holy in that sense. So we are sanctified. But then there are other verses that talk about sanctification as something that we would work toward or a process. Why? Because this is talking about like practical holiness in our lives. Okay, so there's number one, there's the holiness of you're saved, right? Just your status as a saved Christian. But then there's like a practical holiness of actually like living in a holy way. And what does the Bible say? Be holy because I'm holy. That's what God says. And it's very similar to the word righteousness. Because here's the thing, the moment that we're saved, we are declared to be righteous in the sight of God. Positionally, we are righteous in God's sight. But practically though, you know, there's living a righteous life versus living an unrighteous life. And it's really the same thing. And this is something that, you know, Christians understand. You know, it's something that's pretty basic. It's pretty simple stuff. It's stuff that you learn usually, you know, when you're first saved and learning some basics of Christianity. This is not something that you'd expect a pastor to struggle with, okay? This is real basic stuff. And the idea here is that sanctification in the sense of cleaning up our lives and becoming holy is a process. Whereas according to this new weird doctrine that he's been preaching over the last few weeks, it's just, nope, sanctification is 100% done at salvation. Nothing more to see here. And he said, he said, once sanctified, always sanctified. And so, you know, I'm just sanctified. And even if I'm doing sinful stuff in my life, you know, I'm not living in sin. Even if I do stuff that the Bible describes as sin, I'm not living in sin because I'm just sanctified. And just, you know, you can't judge me. You can't call me out. You can't criticize me for that. And don't try to scare me because God's not going to discipline me. Well, you know what? Maybe God won't discipline him. Because God only disciplines his children that are actually saved. You know, so I wouldn't go around bragging about how God's not going to discipline you. Because you're basically just saying, hello, my name is bastard, is what you're saying, okay? But if you would, look back where we were in 2 Corinthians chapter 7. Because, you know, we just finished up kind of that classic passage about, you know, come out from among them and be separate. Very popular passage of scripture in fundamental Baptist circles especially. But look at chapter 7 verse 1. It says, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves. Right? He's talking to saved Christians. Hey, we're saved. But let's cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit. Watch this. Perfecting holiness in the fear of God. So what are we supposed to be doing as Christians? How are we supposed to be living our lives? We're supposed to be perfecting holiness in the fear of God. The exact opposite of what Joe Jones is telling you to do. Joe Jones is telling you, do not perfect holiness because it's already perfect. It's already done. You're already totally sanctified. You're done. It's finished. Sanctification's over. Once sanctified, always sanctified. And it's just done. And he's telling you, you know, quit emphasizing the fear of God. You know, don't live in fear. Let me tell you something. I am living in fear all the day long. You say, I don't know about that, Pastor Anderson. That sounds a little extreme. Well, let's see what the Bible says. I'm just going to read this for you. You don't have to turn there. Psalm 36, one. That's not the verse I was looking for. Where's that wonderful verse about be thou in the fear of the Lord all day long? I thought that I had written that down. Somebody find that for me, please. But here's the thing about that is that perfecting holiness in the fear of God sounds to me like sanctification. Like, sounds to me like we're getting sanctified. We're getting holier by cleansing ourselves from the filth of the flesh and the spirit. By cleansing ourselves of the filth of the flesh and the spirit, we're perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Sounds like we're working on getting sanctified. Sounds like we're sanctifying ourselves. Okay, because that's another statement he made is we don't sanctify ourselves. And yet, just a quick little Bible search of the word sanctify and selves will just give you, you know, I think like 13 verses just right out of the gate. Because, you know, God's saying, sanctify yourselves, sanctify yourselves, let them sanctify themselves. It's a big theme. Okay, it was also a big hit in the 80s by Simple Minds. But anyway, what's the verse that I'm looking for? Proverbs 2317, yeah. Proverbs 2317 says this, Let thine heart, let not thine heart envy sinners, but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. I guess I'm just not supposed to obey that. Like the Bible just says like, hey, be thou in the fear of the Lord all day long. All day long, we should have in the back of our mind, I better not do something stupid or I'm getting a whipping. Is that bad? Is that a bad thing to have in mind? That's a great thing to have in mind. You know, what about when the Bible tells you in Proverbs that if you commit adultery with another man's wife, he's going to be super angry and he might kill you. Isn't that kind of scaring you into obedience? What about when he says, oh yeah, the strange woman, man, her lips are smoother than oil. Her lips drop like honeycomb. Her mouth is so sweet, she's so hot, but her house is the way to hell. Nobody comes back. The dead are there. It's full of corpses. Why doesn't he just say, hey, man, you can have a lot more joy if you don't go there. If you'd walk in gratitude, you won't go there. Is that what he said? No, man, he's trying to scare you straight. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, they'd bring in these weird thugs into your school. Who had those thugs come into your school to scare you straight? Right? And these people would literally come in shackles and handcuffs to our school. I'm not even joking. My wife's laughing because apparently you don't do this in Germany. Well, they do it here, honey. They would bring in literal convicts who are in prison. And I mean, I remember sitting down in a classroom. There's like 20 of us in the class. There's like three convicts at the front of the class telling us, don't end up in prison like me. I killed people. I stole. I did all this stuff. And they're like lecturing us about how stupid it is to do graffiti and to drink and to take drugs and to listen to rap music. And they're warning us about these things. And, you know, I think that some of these programs were called scared straight. That was kind of a phrase that stuck in my mind. It wasn't talking about straight like not being a homo. It was talking about just living like, you know, a straight laced life. Like living a clean life, not getting diverted off the path of righteousness into all this kind of criminal, wicked activity. And here's the thing, man. They're trying to scare us straight. And you know what? Maybe it didn't work on everybody. Well, you know what? God's warnings didn't work on Adam and Eve. Does that mean that we just need to throw out the Bible's plan and come up with some new attachment parenting weird positive only kind of an approach that just throws out the fear of God? And we could just totally change the way we preach and just ignore giant swarms of the Bible? Just because, oh, somebody disobeyed. That means it doesn't work. That means this fear-based leadership doesn't work. Well, you know what? I guess it's not working for God too well either since God's trying to scare people by going to hell and people just keep going there. Folks, that's their fault. God's not the problem. And you know what? If you stop preaching on hell, even more people will go to hell than are going right now. You could say, oh, man, this fear-based leadership doesn't work. Look at the fruit of it. Okay. But do you realize how much worse it will be if we get rid of the fear of God? Like, oh, the fear of God doesn't work. Bro, do you know how much worse it would have been without the fear of God? It's like, oh, I took this cold medicine and it didn't work. Well, maybe your cold would have been a lot worse. Maybe it was getting way worse and you took the pill and you didn't feel any difference because it just kept you the same, but maybe you would have been way worse. You don't really know, do you? So at the end of the day, why don't we just trust God? Why don't we just trust what the Bible says? You know, and it's like, oh, we see the fear of this, or excuse me, we see the fruit of this fear-based leadership. Well, here's the fruit of the fear-based leadership. The Bible says in Acts chapter 9 verse 31 that they were walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. Here's the fruit. They were multiplied, unlike Joe Jones and the incredible shrinking church. Right? Credible shrinking church that's smaller than when it started. Dramatically smaller than when it's, than when he took over. Right? Well, here's how you get multiplied. You walk in the fear of the Lord. Or here's another way to multiply. You can just throw out all the hard preaching, throw out all the standards, throw out all the fear of God and become a liberal fund slinner with a water slide baptism and a rock band and just have all of the, just appeal to the flesh. With a 15-minute sermonette. You know, you gotta go either way, my friend. Cold or hot. You know, you're not, you know, this middle of the road garbage is gonna get you nowhere. So 2 Corinthians chapter number 7 verse 1, it says, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness and the fear of God. Sounds like we're sanctifying ourselves with our living by cleansing ourselves from the filth of the flesh and the spirit and we're perfecting holiness or completing that process of becoming holy in the fear of God. You know, we're constantly trying to put the finishing touches on our Christian life. We're never gonna be all the way at the destination. We're never gonna be 100% perfect. But shouldn't we be working on it? Right? Isn't that the idea? Like we're working on it. We're perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And so do not get sucked into this weird teaching because on the surface, it can sound good. They can cherry pick a couple verses that they're twisting and misapplying and they can make something that maybe, and Joe Jones doesn't make it sound good because his preaching sucks. But I'm saying like other preachers will make it sound good like, you know, these kind of big name types like Joseph Prince or something that preached this stuff or, you know, the megachurch down the street. You know, they're gonna try to come at you with, oh, you need to get free and we're free in Christ and we need to stop talking about the rules and we need to stop preaching fear and just preach love. And if people would just be just overwhelmed by the love of God, then they're just gonna do all the right things and so forth. Wrong. Okay? You will walk in the spirit if you're filled with the Holy Ghost and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. But that's not by just gratitude and joy and whatever. You know, here's how you walk in the spirit, my friend. And look, I know that, you know, we're getting a little off track here but it's just there's so much to deal with here. There's so many verses. There's so much to say about this. You know, we want to be filled with the spirit, right? We want to be filled with the spirit. Okay. So how do we get filled with the spirit? Well, you know, one thing is if we look at the classic filled with the spirit passage in Ephesians chapter 5, be not drunk with wine, we're in his excess, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. If we look at the parallel passage in Colossians 3, 16, it says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns, spiritual songs. So notice that be filled with the spirit is used interchangeably with let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom. It's interchangeable with be filled with the spirit. So that tells me that one of the ways that we can be filled with the spirit is being inundated with God's word. Reading the Bible, right? Spending a lot of time reading the Bible is going to help us be filled with the spirit. Amen? Because we're putting in the word of God and that's going to actually help us to be filled with the spirit. If we're saved and we're reading a bunch of Bible, that's going to help us get there and have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And what's funny is Joe Jones said, Oh, you know, you don't get sanctified by how many times you've read the Bible. And then he goes on to quote the verse that says, Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. See, that's what sanctifies us. Um, excuse me, sir. Isn't that reading the Bible? Like if we're sanctified by the word of God and but then he goes on to say, well, you just got sanctified by the truth the moment you got saved. But he's talking about people that are already saved and saying, sanctify these people through your truth. Thy word is truth. Folks, the more you read the Bible, the more the word of Christ is going to dwell in you. Thy word if I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. So fullness of the Holy Spirit helps you not to fulfill the lust of the flesh. Well, how about this? Thy word if I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Isn't that kind of a similar idea? Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, here's another one, with all wisdom. And what's the beginning of wisdom? The fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord. So look, if I'm, if I'm just living in the book of Proverbs, right, I'm just living in the book of Proverbs and just reading it and actually reading it with fear in my heart. Like, oh man, I better get my crap together and do what the book of Proverbs says or I'm going to end up like these people that are being described in the book of Proverbs who are crashing and burning. So if I'm just like living in the book of Proverbs, reading the book of Proverbs and just applying all that wisdom, just getting all that wisdom from the book of Proverbs, okay, is that going to help me to be filled with the Spirit? Or not? Or is being filled with the Spirit some magical, spooky thing? Let me tell you something. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is a subtle thing, okay? You know how you can tell who's filled with the Holy Spirit? The person who's out there winning souls to Christ and is a powerful soul winner is filled with the Spirit. Because how else could they be doing those works for God? Preaching the Gospel, getting people saved, that's through the power of the Holy Spirit. The preacher who gets up and preaches a powerful sermon, lives are being changed, souls are being saved, that's a preacher who's filled with the Holy Spirit. Any questions? The sermon that accomplishes nothing, the sermon that falls flat, that's the sermon that's not Spirit-filled. The preacher who doesn't win souls to Christ, he's the preacher that's not Spirit-filled. I mean, does everybody understand? Now here's the thing. The Spirit-filled Christian is also exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, meaning that they're filled with love and joy and peace and whatever. But that is the result, not the cause. The Bible's not saying, hey, just get real loving and get real peaceful and get real joyous and then you'll be filled with the Spirit. No, no. You get filled with the Spirit and then you'll have love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. Does everybody understand? That's the fruit of the Spirit. That's the outcome of the Spirit. Here's another result of the Spirit. The Bible says in Acts 4-31, when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the Word of God with boldness. So another outcome of being filled with the Holy Spirit is you preach with boldness. Another outcome is that in your heart you have love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. Another outcome is that you don't fulfill the lust of the flesh. You end up living right because you're filled with the Spirit. Okay, but how do you get to the fullness of the Spirit? Well, we're looking for clues, amen? Here's a clue. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom. Sanctify them through thy truth. How about reading your Bible? How about getting wisdom from the Bible? How about starting with the fear of the Lord because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom? How about praying for the fullness of the Holy Spirit because the Bible says when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. So how about praying and saying, God, please fill me with the Holy Spirit? If you, then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your Father, which is in heaven, give the Holy Spirit to them than ask him? Right? Now all of us who are saved are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, but if you want to have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, then pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then read your Bible. And then focus in on the book of Proverbs and get the wisdom of Proverbs. Apply the wisdom of Proverbs and read it with fear and trembling. And go through life fearing God, keeping his commandments, following the rules. And let me tell you something, my friend, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, okay, actually leading you toward living a good, coddly Christian life is not what is being preached by this false prophet. Okay? What's being preached by him is just, oh, just forget about the rules, don't worry about rules, and just live a life of joy and gratitude and then, yeah, it's just going to be great. It's not what the Bible teaches. It's wrong. It's false. Oh, Bible reading is not the ticket. Yeah, Bible reading is the ticket. Here's the ticket. Bible reading is the ticket. Prayer is the ticket. Singing hymns is the ticket. Because it said, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sounds like there's another way to get filled with the Spirit, singing praises to God. How about that? Alright, that's the ticket. You know what all these things have in common? Reading the Bible, praying, singing the hymns, you know, walking in the fear of God. I mean, it sounds to me like work. Sounds to me like work. Sounds like something you work on. Who thinks reading the Bible is work? It's works. You're working on something. You're putting in effort. How about prayer? Right? I mean, it's pretty obvious, right? So, here's another thing that he said. He said, let's say I wanted to be Batman. This is his illustration, okay? He said, you know, if I just want, and I hope I don't get this too wrong because it was such a weird, bizarre illustration, I might mess it up. But he basically said something along these lines, like, you know, what if you're just pretending? What if you're just pretending to be Batman? And then you're just kind of like, you'd have to dress like Batman and act like Batman and kind of do the things that Batman does. But he's saying, you know, God doesn't want us to pretend to be a good Christian. He wants us to just actually be a good Christian. He doesn't want us to pretend to be the new man. He wants to be the new man. Now, he never really explained where he was going with this Batman illustration. It was a pretty wild illustration. Because I'm thinking to myself, I'm just thinking this through, and I'm thinking like, well, you know, if I dress up like Batman and I start training like Batman, and I get all the gadgets that Batman gets, and I start getting all the tools of Batman, and then I go start fighting crime like Batman, you know, at some point I'm just Batman at that point. Am I right? I mean, wouldn't I just be Batman if I dress like Batman, act like Batman, have the tools of Batman, and do the work that Batman does? I mean, at what point do I get to this tipping point, this watershed, where it's like, bro, you just are Batman? Does everybody understand what I'm saying? But I guess Joe Jones is just automatically Batman because he got saved. And just by virtue of being saved, he's just Batman. You know, and this is what he said, if we would just look inside and find the Batman within, you know, then everything's going to be great. But you know what? It's false. And let me tell you why it's false. Because the Bible clearly states that if you bring forth fruit, then God will purge you so that you can bring forth more fruit. Right? So first you bring forth fruit. Step one, you start doing the work as a Christian. You do works. Then step two, after you're fruitful, God purges you. And then step three is that you bring forth more fruit. And then you rinse and repeat. Right? Because it's like, bring forth fruit, get purged, bring forth even more fruit, get purged, and you have this positive feedback loop. And so here's what I would say. You know what? Why don't you start doing the things that you're supposed to do? And then watch how you will change as a person. You know, and this is why you have to be careful what you pretend to be. Because what you pretend to be, you can ultimately become that. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? You know, let no man deceive you by any means. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. And so we have this de-emphasis on works, which is absurd, because the Bible emphasizes works. Works are not salvation. But we all know that, don't we? Like, I don't have to sit here and go on and on about how there are zero works required for salvation. We all know that. We all believe that. The Bible says, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. What does the next verse say? For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So we're not saved by works, but we are saved unto good works. Meaning that God's desire, God's will, God's commandment to us is that after we get saved, we get to work. We go to work. God didn't save us to enslave us. But here's the thing, we are the servants of Jesus Christ. Okay, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, Romans 1-1. And we can show all those verses. Okay, the thing is that God expects us to be working as Christians. And here's the thing, maybe you don't feel like reading your Bible, you read the Bible anyway. You don't feel like praying, pray anyway. You don't feel like singing hymns, sing a hymn to the Lord anyway. You don't feel like going to church, go to church anyway. You don't feel like going soul winning, go soul winning anyway. Do you think that I only go soul winning when I feel like it? Do you think I only pray when I feel like it? Do you think I only read my Bible or preach when I feel like it? Of course not. And you know what ends up happening is that when you force yourself to do stuff, once you get into it, now all of a sudden you find yourself excited, you find yourself actually filled with the Spirit. You know what I mean? Because it's like, and we could use all kinds of worldly examples of this, like if I just, man, I don't feel like going to the gym or something. And then you get to the gym and you kind of get into it. And you know you're enjoying the workout. Nobody relates to that. Okay. You don't feel like eating a pizza. No, that never happens either. Alright, I'm trying to meet you where you're at here. You know, but there are so many things where you're just kind of like, okay, how about every teenager on the planet when you try to get them to do anything? You know, it's just kind of like, I don't feel like it. But once they start doing stuff, now they're having fun. Folks, isn't that how it is with all of us in life? Like there are certain things where, you know, oh man, I don't really feel like soul winning. But then once you're out there soul winning, have you ever noticed how all of a sudden you start getting super excited, super pumped, super zealous? And you know what? You find yourself filled with love for the lost, filled with joy at people getting saved. Could it be that you were not necessarily filled with the Holy Spirit but then you got your butt out soul winning anyway and then you got filled with the Holy Spirit in the process of doing the activity? Right? Or, oh, I don't really feel like reading my Bible but then you start reading it and you're loving it. Your heart is burning within you. You're excited about what you're reading. Right? This is the way the Christian life works. And so it's not about just, you know, looking within all the time to find Batman within. No, you know, at some point you just got to put on a Batman helmet and put on a cape and start punching criminals in the face at some point. You know what I mean? At some point you got to get your first gadget and just start firing it. I don't know much about Batman. I'm sorry. At some point you just get a Batmobile and start driving it. You know? And next thing you know you're Batman. I saw somebody said something online like, oh man, there's all these billionaires in the world and none of them has decided to become Batman. It's kind of disappointing because they would have the money to buy all the toys, you know, and do it. But I guess they heard that sermon by Joe Jones and they don't, they just, they don't know where to start. I feel like Joe Jones is discouraging the billionaires of this world from becoming Batman. But it's just so stupid, like, oh, you know, you can't just pretend to be Batman. You just have to be Batman. What the heck? Batman's not real. There is no Batman. But guess what? I like this saying. Here's a great saying. Fake it till you make it. Fake it till you make it. And look, what does that mean? It means you go through the motions on things sometimes, right? And in the process of going through the motions, eventually that becomes you. Okay. Anybody who's into running, which again, I know I've got a very small crowd I'm talking to right now, but here's the thing about running is that, you know, when I started running, I hated running. Okay. By the time I was 29 years old, the furthest I'd ever run was a mile and a half and I hated every minute of it. And it was in P.E. in school, I was being forced to do that. But around the time I was 29, 30 years old, I decided, man, I need to do something to get better cardio, get in better shape. And so I started just forcing myself to go out running and I'm just forcing myself to run. I didn't enjoy it. It hurt. It wasn't fun. It was painful. But I'm just dragging myself out there and just running and run a mile here, two miles here, three miles there, whatever. I'm out there running. And then I remember one time, just this one day to the next, I'm out there and I ran like seven miles and I was enjoying it. And as I was running, this thought came to my mind, you know what, I'm so comfortable right now running that I could literally be sitting on the couch right now and I would pretty much feel the same as I feel running right now as far as just how comfortable I am. And I just felt good. And I just was like, I like running. I like running now. And, you know, people out in the world will call this becoming a born again runner. You know, when you kind of cross this threshold from running being like a quid pro quo that says, oh, well, I got to run so I can lose weight. I got to run so I don't, you know, get out of shape. I got to run for my cardio. To just like, I like running. I enjoy running. And a lot of people can't even fathom this. They can't even grasp this. But you know what else people can't grasp? They can't really grasp sometimes enjoying reading your Bible or enjoying prayer or enjoying soul winning or enjoying church. But we enjoy those things, don't we? We enjoy those things. Why? Because we're born again. Okay, but here's the thing. Obviously the born again runner that they're misusing that term could even be considered a little blasphemous the way they're using that. Okay. But the point, everything's been blasphemous lately, amen, with these false teachers. I mean, it's all blasphemy. You know, I'm starting to agree with that. But the point is that with the Christian life, sometimes we have to do things that are hard and we have to do things that are uncomfortable. Like running starts out being really uncomfortable and painful and you're getting this stabbing pain in your side. Maybe, you know, a lot of people when they start running, they start throwing up because they're just, you know, out of shape. And then you puke because you're just so out of shape and you start running and your body's just like, what's going on here? You know, let's just empty my stomach and then we'll figure out what we're doing here. Okay, but here's the thing is that, you know, soul winning could be uncomfortable at first. Knocking your first door out of soul winning, that's going to, you're going to have to push yourself a little bit. It's going to be a little bit uncomfortable, isn't it? Now, can you imagine how horrible it would be if a pastor got up and guilted you into going soul winning? Or shamed you into going soul winning? Or scared you into going soul winning? I mean, what if the pastor got up and said something like, you know, Jesus said that if you don't gather with him, you're scattering abroad. Jesus said, if you follow me, I'll make you a fisher of men. What's the matter? You're not following Jesus? Because I don't see you being a fisher of men. And he said, if you follow me, I'll make you fishers of men. What's going on here? So, are you going to start following Jesus at some point? Now look, you say, oh man, that's kind of shame, that could shame me a little bit or make me feel a little guilty. Good. Get your butt out soul winning. You say, oh man, it's just, you know, you're just emphasizing all this work and stuff. Folks, it's all about the works. Jesus said, behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man the same because we're communists and we're all equal and everybody gets the same participation trophy at the end of it all. Is that what the Bible says? Jesus said, behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be. Christ has come in with a reward and it's for work. And you get rewarded more if you work more, you get rewarded less if you work less. Now look, I don't think there's anything negative at the judgment seat of Christ. I don't think that Christians who did nothing are going to just feel bad about it for all of eternity or something. I don't believe that for one second. Okay. I believe that there's going to be just varying levels of reward though. And look, I think that the probably, and again, I'm, you know, maybe I'm speculating a little bit, but I'm basing this on what I read in the Bible. You know, I think that even if you're just the, the, the lamest Christian imaginable who did literally nothing for God and all your works are wood, hay and stubble and you get no rewards and you're just saved yet so is by fire. I still think you're just going to be super happy to just be in heaven and just to be saved and just be with Jesus and just to be there. Even if you're sweeping the floor, cleaning toilets, you're just glad to be there. I mean, look, if I got to heaven and God just decided that, oh man, nothing that you did like really gets a reward because you, you got too much credit on earth or something. So you don't get any rewards. I'll just be like, okay, whatever. Cool. This place is great. The food's great. This is better than the cruise ship, you know, because guess what? I don't even mind. You know, when I go on these cruises, I always buy the cheapest cabin, the cheapest, worst, lowest, deep in the ship room with no window. I always get the crappiest, cheapest cabin that they offer on these things and it's still awesome. And I feel like the crappiest cabin in heaven is still awesome. Amen? Just getting to heaven's awesome. But guess what? When I get to heaven, I don't believe I'm going to be in the bottom. I don't believe I'm going to be in that crappy cabin. You know, I believe I'm going to get some rewards for the stuff I'm doing. Now, I don't know how much reward I'm going to get. I don't know how much I'm doing in God's sight. That's for him to judge. I don't really sit around thinking about it or worrying about it or caring too much about it. But you know what? If I work hard for the Lord, I know this for a fact. If I work harder, I'm going to get more rewards. And if I don't work as hard, I'm going to get less rewards. Amen? I mean, that's a really clear biblical doctrine. You get rewarded according to your work. It's not everybody. Let me put it to you another way. The thief on the cross and the Apostle Paul aren't of the same status in the kingdom of God, in heaven. They don't get the same reward. They just don't. So again, I don't think there's anything negative. I don't think the thief on the cross is just walking around as like a loser in heaven. There are no losers in heaven. I think even if you have the worst cabin, it's like the worst cabin on a carnival cruise. It's still really nice. I mean, I walk into the worst, cheapest cabin and I'm just like, this is beautiful. This is great. This is huge. I'm like, this bathroom's huge. This is great. This is nice. And people are like scoffing at me in the elevator. This one person is like, oh, you know, I pushed that button for floor one. And some boomer woman is just like, oh, man, you're on the first floor. Oh, man. Good luck with that. I'm just thinking like, dude, the first floor is awesome. You know, this is going to give me a lot of good exercise. Because every time I want to go to get a meal, it's nine flights of stairs. And I don't use the elevator. I just keep using the stairs and then I'm going to, you know, burn the calories or whatever. But here's the point is that you'd rather be in the worst cabin in heaven, you're still going to be happy. I think everybody's going to be happy to get to heaven. Nobody's going to be sad or down and gloomy or just kind of suffering throughout eternity. I don't believe that for one second. That's crazy. Okay. Everybody is going to be rejoicing and happy to be in heaven. But there's going to be a dramatic difference based on rewards. And when Christ comes and rules and reigns on this earth in the millennium, your status is going to be based on the work that you did. You know, he's going to say to one person, be thou over ten cities, be thou over five cities, be thou over two cities. And some people it's going to be like, all right, grab a broom. But hey, blessed is he that eateth and drinketh in the kingdom of God no matter what your job is. Right? And by the way, I believe hell is the same way. I don't think everybody's experiencing the exact same hell because the Bible says that some people will receive a greater damnation. He said some people are in the lowest hell. But here's the bottom line. Every part of hell is bad. It's all torment. It's all bad. Everything in heaven is good. Everything in hell is bad. There's gradations there, but there's a giant leap between being the lowest in heaven and being in the, you know, the least warm spot in hell or something like that. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? But don't get this weird commie attitude that just, oh, we're all the same. There's no rewards. Nobody's a hero. Yeah, there are going to be some heroes and there are going to be some zeros in heaven. And the zeros are going to be happy to be there, but the heroes are going to get the big rewards. You know, and I'm not claiming to be some big hero or something. I don't know. You know, we'll find out when we get there, won't we? But you know what we should focus on right now is just working and just doing the work. And here's the thing. You know what? I'd rather basically pretend to be Batman and, and put on the cape and start fighting crime because eventually, at what point are you Batman? You know, it's like, well, you know what? I'm just going to go out soul winning. Am I a big soul winner? I don't know, man, but I'm saved. So I guess I'm just going to put on the cape and put on the helmet and just go soul winning. Ah, you're just going through the motions. You're not real. You're an imposter. Here's the thing. If you believe in Jesus, you're real. Amen? If you're saved, now look, the only fakes are the people who aren't saved and they're going through the motions of church or soul winning or reading the Bible. If you're saved, you're not going through the motions as a fake in that sense. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So why don't you just read your Bible? Why don't you just pray? Why don't you just go soul winning? Instead of navel gazing trying to find the Batman within, go do the works of Batman and thou shalt be Batman. It's just stupid to just say, like, oh, you know, you can't just pretend or whatever. The only one who's pretending is you, Joe Jones, because you're pretending to be a Baptist preacher when you don't understand anything in the Bible, when you can read a Bible verse and then just say the opposite of what it says. And everybody who's actually saved is listening to the sermon and saying, wow, this makes no sense. That's not what that verse said. And, you know, when I see a bunch of people listening to his sermon in the comment section saying it's wonderful, I'm just thinking, wow, there's a lot of unsaved people listening to Joe Jones who are this stupid that they don't understand clear teachings of the Word of God. Or they're just so blinded by hatred where they just hate Pastor Anderson so much that any enemy of Pastor Anderson is automatically wonderful. That's what's going on. And the bottom line is that we get sanctified by working at it. We read the Bible to get sanctified. We pray. We go soul winning. We go to church. We sing praises to God. I mean, this is how we grow in the Christian life. Okay? And you know what? Rules also are helpful to act as guardrails in our lives to make sure that we don't go off the deep end. And I'm reading the Bible and the Bible is just constantly telling me to do this and don't do that. And I just wonder, like, are people reading a different Bible than me? Because I'm just reading the Bible and every day it's like telling you do this, do this, don't do that, don't do that. The Bible is emphasizing the fear of God. Now I'm almost out of time because I kind of went off on a few tangents there. But here's a great verse for you. Psalm 36 verse 1 if you want to flip over there. Psalm 36 verse 1. The Bible says in Psalm 36 verse 1, it says, The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart that there is no fear of God before his eyes. Notice what the Bible does not say. It doesn't say, you know, the transgression of the wicked says within my heart that, you know, this guy just doesn't have enough joy in his life. This guy just doesn't have enough gratitude in his life. No, in this particular verse it says, no, when I see people violating God's laws, it tells me that there's no fear of God before his eyes. Now look, it doesn't just say he doesn't have the fear of God in his heart or in his mind or in his brain. It says he doesn't have the fear of God before his eyes. And you know what that tells me is that we need to put the fear of God in front of people. You put it in front of people and show them this is the fear of God. Put it in front of people, put it before their eyes so that it can be in their mind. And look, part of the reason why we go to church is sometimes to get these warnings, to be warned of these things. Look, is it a bad thing to say, hey, if you commit fornication you can get an STD? Isn't that trying to scare you into obedience? Should you be scared of getting an STD and should that come into your mind if you're ever tempted to commit fornication or to commit adultery, shouldn't you stop and think, well, I could get an STD? Or shouldn't you stop and think, well, God killed 23,000 people in one day because of fornication. Maybe I could be one of them. Or when you think about committing adultery, you think about all the warnings against adultery and the bad things that can happen, right? You think, what about this? What if you're tempted to go shoplifting? Isn't the idea that the cops could catch you going to deter you from doing that? Does that work as a deterrent? I mean, if shoplifting were 100% legal versus illegal and the cops could arrest you and you could go to jail for that, isn't that going to come into your mind about whether or not you're going to shoplift? Right? Now here's the thing. Obviously these things are there for a reason. Now here's the thing. Let's say shoplifting were 100% legal, obviously the mature person, the mature Christian isn't going to shoplift anyway. Right? Even if we know the cops aren't going to do it. Okay, but what about the backslidden Christian? What about the baby Christian? Right? Then that's where these things come into play, don't they? There's a huge segment that will do these things if there's no consequence. And you know, if I'm honest, if God somehow, if I somehow knew that God would let me get away with certain things, then it might make me think, oh, well maybe I'll do these sinful things if I know I'm going to get away with God. But I'm looking at the Bible and I'm seeing all these warnings not to do this, not to do that, and I'm thinking to myself, like, I don't want God to punish me for that, so I'm not going to do it. It's pretty normal to think that way. Okay? And look, here's the thing. When I was a teenager, I heard a lot of teaching when I was in the liberal churches, because when I was a teenager I spent a lot of time in liberal churches. And I heard a lot of teaching that said, hey, virginity is this special gift that you give to your spouse someday when you get married. Don't defraud your spouse of giving them this gift of your virginity. Now look, amen. I say amen to that. But you know what? When I was 15 years old, that did nothing for me. That was just like, whoop. I was 15 years old, hormones were raging, and when they said, oh, you want to give your spouse a special gift, and I'm just like, whoop. And then they said, oh, man, you're going to be so happy that you waited, and oh, it's going to be so great, and you're going to have such a better relationship with your wife, and you know, you're going to have marriage problems if you commit fornication, but you know, if you stay pure, things are going to be better. And that's all true. Now I believe and understand all those things. But at the time, that was in one ear and out the other, and I was a Christian kid who had been saved for a decade, and it was in one ear and out the other, but yet I did not commit fornication for one reason, because I was scared to do it. Because I was like, you know what? This is a big sin. God kills people for things like this, and I am not going to commit this grievous sin, because God is going to whip my butt if I do this. And you know what? There were a lot of things growing up that I didn't do because I knew that my parents were going to whip my butt if I did them. Not even God, but I knew my parents were going to whip my butt if I did those things, and so I didn't do them. Go to Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus chapter 19. It's funny that I have a five-page sermon here, and we're on page one. Actually, I'm only halfway through page one, because I kind of just freestyled it tonight. So maybe, I don't know, maybe I can save this for another time or something. I don't know. Look at Leviticus chapter 19 verse 3, because at the end of the day, I don't care what somebody's philosophies are and thoughts are about what they think works and doesn't work. At the end of the day, I'm just going to do what the Bible says. You know, if it works, if it doesn't work, you know, if I do what the Bible says and it doesn't work, I'm just going to keep doing it. I'm just going to keep doing it because of what the Bible said, and I just have the faith that in the long run it's going to work. So if I do something in the Bible that doesn't work right away, I'm just going to think, well, in the long run it's going to work. Keep doing it. It's like Abraham and Sarah. God's telling them, you're going to have a child, not working, not working, not working, not working for decades, still not having a child, but then Abraham just keeps believing God. You know, and eventually it worked. That's faith. Look what the Bible says in Leviticus 19 verse 3, Ye shall fear every man, his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Now, what does that say? Every man should fear his mother and his father. Is that what the Bible says? So am I supposed to fear my parents? Oh, that's so terrible. Oh, you're just not loving. You know what, here's the thing. I was afraid of my parents growing up, but I also loved them. They loved me. I loved them. They were nice to me. They did good things for me. They gave me a great upbringing, but I was also scared of my dad. I was even scared of my mom because my mom would get these long manicured fingernails and she would stab me in the chest with them in the sternum. She'd be like, you better shoot. It was just like, it was, it was like Woody Woodpecker on my sternum. All right. And so here's what I did. I, you know, I took a bunch of photos of my chest and uploaded it to the internet and said, help, I'm being abused. Look at all these little, look at all these little semi circles all over my shirt. That's, that's through two shirts. And I got all these little semi circles. It's abusive. Look, I was scared of my dad and I was scared of my mom. And you know what? That's, that's healthy. That's normal. You know what? When I was growing up, I saw the kids who weren't afraid of their parents. I, I've been over at a friend's house and saw a kid say to his mom, I hate you. Or you're a B-I-T-C-H or something, right? And you see kids say these things to their parents and I'm just like, whoa, I would never say that. I'd be scared to death. My parents would kill me. You know what I mean? And, and guess what? That's what keeps you straight as a kid. Scared straight. I probably need to change the title of the sermon to just scared straight because that's what, that's what it is. But, but, but the thing about that is that, you know what? You probably grew up the same way. It's probably why you're here. Where you had some fear and respect for your parents. And here's the thing. Fear of a spanking is a deterrent. Obey or be spanked. And then you do what you're told. That's called growing up as a kid. So then what about when the Bible says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth. Why does he tell us that? Because he wants it to be a deterrent that we will straighten up and fly right so that we don't get the continual beatings. And Pastor Thompson, Pastor Aaron Thompson, he correctly from the Bible preached. This is what he said. He said, yeah, you can do whatever you want as a saved Christian. You're still going to go to heaven. But he said, do whatever you want if you want to get beaten a lot by God. If you want to get a lot of beatings, then do whatever you want. Pastor Joe Jones plays a clip of him saying that and says like, oh, God didn't give us a spirit of fear and oh, you know, this is bondage. This is fear or whatever. Because Pastor Thompson just preaches the most basic standard Christian doctrine of God's going to beat you if you refuse to obey and live however you want. If you just live however you want, just total disregard for God's word, you get into beating. If I was growing up in my house and I just did anything, I'm getting a beating. You're getting a whipping is what my parents would say. This is what my parents would say, you're getting a whipping. They'd say, I will slap you down. Okay, that's what he said. And you know what? I knew it was for real and I did right and I'm saved and all my siblings are saved. My two sisters are saved, my brother's saved, I'm saved. Why? Because my parents put the fear of God into us. You know, and here's the thing, here's the thing that's funny about that. I love and appreciate my parents. My brother's a whining little bitch about getting spanked 40 years later. He's whining and complaining about dad calling him an uncoordinated spaz 40 years later. Same home, same upbringing, right? And he's an ungrateful brat that doesn't give my dad respect. I love and respect my dad. Same house, same upbringing. And guess what? Cain and Abel grew up in the same home. Okay? Don't tell me that spanking doesn't work. Don't tell me that preaching hellfire and damnation doesn't work. Explain this to me. If preaching hellfire and damnation doesn't work, then why do we have 323 people in the service this morning? Even after we lost, look, we lost 90 people because of all the crap that went on last year, all of the lying and rebellion and evil that went on last year, all of the slander and false accusations and garbage. We lost 90 people. We sat down and counted and we lost about 90-some people, somewhere between 90 and 100 people. Yet, we had 323 people in church this morning. Okay? Yet, we have, and what did we have last year? Last year we had 36 more people than that. So last year on Easter Sunday, we had, you know, I don't even want to, I'm too tired to do that math. But was that 359 or something? We had like 359 last year. I'm sorry. I just, let me just check. So last year we had 359 on Easter Sunday. This year we had 323. So we've, you know, we've gone down by 36 people, even though we lost like 90-some people. That means we've reached like 60, 70 new people. Okay? You know what? Because we're constantly reaching people. Because hard preaching works. God's word works. And by the way, so what if our attendance is down 35 people? Soul winning's up. Giving is up. Spirits are up. Everything's up. And a lot of the people that we lost, it was a good riddance, bad rubbish type of situation. And let me tell you something, my friend. If hard preaching doesn't work, if preaching the fear of God doesn't work, then explain 20 years of ministry of Faithful Word Baptist Church resulting in hundreds of thousands of people being saved. And a church going from five people in a living room to 300, 400 people. Right? Seems like it works. Yeah, but you've got this rebellious punk and that rebellious punk. The whole world is filled with rebellious punks. The entire Bible is a story about rebellious punks. There's a rebellious punk on every page of the Bible. Are you listening to me? That's life. But you know what? I'm not going to sit around crying and whining about the rebellious punks. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to keep reaching more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm going to keep on leading the soul winning army that is Faithful Word Baptist Church. I'm going to rack up rewards in heaven for me, for you, for all of us. We're all going to work together. We're all going to be a team. We're going to do work. We're going to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. We're going to preach the Bible. We're going to get people saved. And we're going to bring the fear of God back to this country. And you know what? We're not going to let a bunch of sniveling, teenage, young adult brats tell us how to do our job, how to have our church, how to be parents, how to serve God. Because you know what? I've been serving God successfully for 20 years as pastor of this church. And, well, we've seen the fruit of that. Yeah, we have seen the fruit of it. Look around. This is the fruit of this. Look at the fruit. Here's the fruit. Look in the mirror in many cases and that's the fruit. Do not even for one second buy into this neo-evangelical, hyper-grace, lib-tarded, sloppy agape kind of preaching. Okay? We need the hard stuff. Amen? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Thank you for all of the hundreds of times that you told us to fear you. And Lord God, thank you that we can love you and cherish you and have warm, fuzzy feelings about you and also be terrified of you at the same time. Because that is exactly how I feel about you, God. And I am scared and terrified, but I'm also just in awe of your grace, your mercy, your love, your tenderness and gentleness toward us, Lord. Thank you so much for just being exactly the way you are, God. And I like everything about you, God. And I like everything about the book that you've given us, the Bible. And thank you for the gnarly stuff and the loving stuff. Thank you for all of it. We love you. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, everybody. Take your hymnals, please. Go to hymn number 13. Hymn number 13. Must Jesus bear the cross alone? Hymn number 13. Sing this out together now. Hymn number 13. Amen. Must Jesus bear the cross alone And all the world go free? No, there's a cross for everyone And there's a cross for thee The consecrated cross I'll bear Till death shall set me free And then go home, my crown to bear For there's a crown for me Upon the crystal pavement Down at Jesus' fierce feet Joyful, I'll cast my golden crown And His dear name repeat O precious cross, O glorious crown, O resurrection day The angels from the stars come down And bear my soul away Amen. Excellent. Sing tonight. We are dismissed. Thank you. Thank you.