(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. Welcome to Stronghold Baptist Church. Turn to song 129. Song 129, Rock of Ages. 129. From my wounds I will flow, the upstand of the world. Stay from where I may make you more, through my tent or at your floor. Would my zeal or anger know, these were simply not at home. But I will stay, with thou alone, in my hand. Oh, lies I bring, simply to the cross I lead. While I draw this fleeting breath, when my eyes shall close in death, when I rise, the world's not gone. Hang me boldly, all night long, while the angels laugh for me. Let me light myself indeed. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to be in the house of the Lord. We thank you for using us as vessels as we go out and go soul winning. And now we pray for those souls that were saved. And we pray for those souls' warnings, the warnings that we did give to others. Please pray that you feel pastored with your spirit, that he may edify the church, that we may learn, usually in our daily lives, at the church this evening. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We turn to Psalm 162. 162, to God be the glory. 162. 162. To God be the glory. Great things he hath done. So loved be the world that he gave us his Son. Who yielded his light and the torment for sin. And hope in the light he that all may go in. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the earth hear his voice. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the people rejoice. All come to the Father, Jesus the Son. And give him the glory. Great things he hath done. The perfect redemption, the purchase of money. To everything he heard, the promise of God. Who of this the grand purpose will be relieved. That moment from Jesus I'll pour and receive. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the earth hear his voice. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the people rejoice. All come to the Father, Jesus the Son. And give him the glory. Great things he hath done. Great things he hath taught us. Great things he hath done. They pray our rejoicing through Jesus the Son. But for higher and greater will be our wonder of transport. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the earth hear his voice. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the people rejoice. All come to the Father, Jesus the Son. And give him the glory. Great things he hath done. All right, great singing this evening. At this time, we're going to go through our announcements. If you do not have a bulletin, just lift up your hand real high. Brother Lindsay will get one out to you. And if you open up your bulletin to the first page, you'll see our service time is listed. There is always Sunday morning at 10.30. Sunday afternoon, again, at 4 PM to Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. We've got the soul-winning opportunities listed there, as well as the salvations and baptisms for the month of July. Let's go ahead and count up salvations. Salvations for today. You went on soul-winning today and had any salvation? Just lift up your hand real quick. And do you have any for yesterday? No for yesterday. You're always, when you come in in the afternoon, I got to make sure I remember to ask, because we had one today. Anyone else? One back there, Brother Chris? Anybody else for today? All right, very good. Did everything work out with the guys? All right, cool. Excellent. Very good. Yeah, we had another baptism after the morning service, so that's exciting. I'm telling you, Christian's setting the bar high for August. Because our August challenge, you see on the next page here, is to try to bring a first-time visitor to church. Well, not only did he bring a visitor, but that visitor got baptized. So that's setting the standard real high. Bring your visitors in, and then we got to get them baptized. That's like two-month challenges there all at once. Anyways, that's great. It's exciting. It's exciting to see people, especially people, all these people that we baptized lately, except for one, were already saved, but they just hadn't been baptized yet. And it's important. And when you run across people, especially when you run across people who are saved, ask them about baptisms. Hey, have you ever been baptized? Because there's a lot of people out there that have gotten saved, but they never did just end up getting baptized after their salvation. And it's important. It's an important step. And that's a step that will help them, I think, get on the right path of dying to self and trying to walk in newness of life. Anyhow, really exciting. One more baptism in recent weeks is very exciting. And was there any other salvation's report outside of today, just to make sure? Yes, sir. 101's Day. Very good. All right. And then the offering totals through the months of July listed down there at the bottom of the page. Prayer requests. I did get an update from Brother Devin just a little while ago. And we've been praying for his grandma. And she's been having some injuries from her fall and just having some issues. And I guess they found recently an aneurysm. So that's one of the problems with her stroke, with the strokes that she's been having. And they're not sure how they're going to proceed with that. Because she's elderly, if they're going to conduct a surgery or whatever. So let's pray that God will give these doctors wisdom and the family wisdom on what the right course is to deal with that. And that God will heal her and just help prolong her life. And then also, Devin's grandfather has potentially, they're not sure if he has bladder cancer. They're not positive on that. But they think that he might. So he's also been having his own episodes of falling and stuff. So pray for him as well. And then also, just Devin's parents have been dealing with the care for both of these grandparents. And that just obviously adds a lot of stress and extra work and stuff. So pray that they'll be able to manage and deal with all that. Because it is a lot of added work. And just kind of everything's been happening really quickly for them. So appreciate the extra prayers for that. And I don't have any other updates. But just continue to pray for everyone else on this list. And bring these home with you, please. And remember to pray daily for our church and for the people on our list here. On the next page, of course, I already mentioned the August challenge. If you do happen to bring a first time visitor, and I'm actually going to start writing some names down here. Because I want to keep track of who has. We had a couple today that I know of for sure. But we'll get that whole number later on. But remember to bring these new believer follow up cards with you when you go out soul winning. They're on the bookshelf out front. Do we still have these? Does anyone know? We still have a decent stack? Because I actually make these at home. I'm going to try to get these reproduced at a print shop somewhere so I don't have to do them at home. It's kind of time consuming. But I wanted to make sure we were loaded up for a while. And you can use these to try to follow up with people. Obviously, it's an extra work. But if we all kind of pitch in, then working, trying to pray for these people and get people involved, then try to get some more people plugged in and living for God. That's the whole point. And then maybe you'll get an August challenge win by getting a visitor in too. So that's one way to help you there. Special guest preacher Pastor Mejia, Pastor Bruce Mejia is going to be here on Wednesday, August 11. I need to remember. Leslie, please help me to remember to make a video about this so I could promote this and see if we could get a full house. I'd love to see a record breaking attendance on Wednesday night. We haven't done that for a while. But if we get the word out, I think we might be able to get enough people here on a Wednesday night to listen to Pastor Mejia. You no doubt will be edified by whatever it is that God's going to lay on his heart to preach for you here. And I encourage you all to come and not just come and hear what he has to say, but really importantly. And again, if it's at all possible, even for you that are traveling longer distances to come, be an encouragement to him and his family because they've just been dealing with all the stuff not that long ago with the church bombing, and then their car getting stolen, and all this other stuff. I mean, they had people scoping out their house and just like, I don't even know how much of everything is public, but this stuff has been happening to them. And let them know that you're thankful that he's continuing to stay strong and to be in the fight. Just encourage him. So I appreciate it. As much as possible, people come to church on that day for that reason alone, to be an encouragement unto him, and they could take that with them to his church too. Many sermonette here, but we see in the scripture time and time again that people are encouraged and edified. The Apostle Paul, we see the apostles, especially in the book of Acts, who say we were comforted by the coming of Timotheus when he went unto you and he brought back your zeal and your desire and all this stuff. That was encouraging to us. That helped us to get through. We're being persecuted, but then we hear about how you're doing. We hear about your affairs, and everything's going well, and that's good news. So we want to try to provide that for Pastor Mejia and strengthen him and edify him maybe even more than he can edify you. Make that an objective to try to do that for him when he comes into town. Let them know that we're all behind him here. And Wednesday, August 11, just our regular church schedule, will be 7 PM, like always. But he'll be preaching for us here. And we've got the upcoming events down there. And the only thing to note that's different is I added the camping trip dates. So if you loved our camping trip this year, if you attended, make sure you get that time up. And if you didn't, you missed out on a great time. But these are the dates we're going to be having a camping trip. And we have limited availability in general. So obviously, the members of our church get first dibs. We do have enough. We rented out the whole place this time. I think there was one cottage that we weren't able to get. Because we booked right away. And I couldn't believe I was like, someone already booked something for over a year out? But they did. I mean, I was trying to book the same week. And there was already too many things that were booked up. So this is going to be awesome. Try to get that time off of work if you can that week of May. And then the Bible memory passage. We've got a deadline of tonight. I counted three people this morning who were going to have that done or did already get that done. And then John 8. Now we're starting off week one of three. You've got three weeks to finish memorizing John chapter 8. You've hopefully been working on this through this whole way. If you didn't, you've got three more weeks to get it done. 59 verses. If you quote a word perfect to someone outside your family, then you'll be able to earn a prize for that. Upcoming birthdays and anniversaries are listed there. Sarah's birthday, we sang to her this morning. Birthday's today. Abigail's got a birthday on Tuesday, August 3rd. And you can see the rest of the birthdays there starting from the middle of the month on out. And that is about it for our announcement. So I'm going to have brother Brian come up. He's going to lead us in our next song. Open up the song 316. So I'm 316. I have decided to follow Jesus. So I'm 316. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his goodness behold they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel and Hezekiah slept with his fathers and they buried him in the cheapest of the sepulchers of the sons of David and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for this time to come here together and hear your word preached and pray that you would feel pastored with your spirit and help us all to learn something this evening and Jesus and I pray, Amen. All right so the sermon topic for this afternoon is dealing with accusations. Dealing with accusations, how to deal with accusations just in general and before we even get into how to deal with them and what the Bible talks about dealing with accusations is I want to specifically just kind of bring up railing because railing and railing accusations go hand in hand but not every accusation is a railing accusation and I want to just kind of point out a little bit of a distinction here and just teach a little bit on what railing even is because this actually is extremely important when just going over accusations in general because if someone's a railer or railing and they're a brother or sister in Christ then that's actually a sin that's worthy of being disfellowshipped from church. That's something that would get you kicked out of a church. In 1st Corinthians chapter 5 there's multiple sins that people can be involved in that if you were to be guilty of those things and just actively doing those things like fornication drunkenness okay there's some examples are listed in 1st Corinthians chapter 5 that we would say you know what you're a wicked person get right with God repent you know but until then we're not even going to go out and have a meal with you I'm not even going to go out to lunch with you okay this is one of those things so if someone's if someone's guilty of railing that it's that serious of a sin so that's why I'm going to invest a little bit of time and since railing and railing accusations basically just go hand in hand here they're not necessarily you know synonymous definitely not because you can have an accusation like I said before it's not necessarily a railing accusation but it's the way that it's that it's delivered has a lot to do with the railing I mean it's still an accusation it's usually false accusations and it's also some despite ridicule mocking also kind of get tied in with the accusation that make it make something like a railing accusation so we started off in 2nd Chronicles chapter 32 because here we have the king of Assyria Sennacherib okay and he's been just coming in and conquering land after land after land right and he's just gotten really lifted up with pride and again this is one of these kings that God was using to judge people but got too lifted up in his own pride and when he comes to Israel he's saying you know what look at what all you know what other God was able to deliver their people and he's saying don't let Hezekiah deceive you right don't let him make you think that you could trust in the Lord your God because what other God of any other land was ever able to deliver them out of my hand so you might as well just surrender now give up because we're going to destroy you like we destroyed everybody else and we're going to specifically see here how what he's saying is railing against the Lord now obviously I'm going to be dealing with you know teaching on how we deal with accusations against ourselves so the way that God responds to an accusation isn't always going to be the way that we would respond right so just keep that in mind we're just looking at this I'm not getting to the dealing part I want to deal more with just focusing in on understanding what railing is because God could just judge people right but we're taught that God is the judge in general that we should be leaving judgment to him and we'll get into that I'm gonna get way ahead of myself if I get too far into that so let's look down here verse number 14 the Bible says who was there among all the gods of those nations that my father is utterly destroyed that could deliver his people out of my hand that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you nor persuade you on this manner neither yet believe him for no God of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand and out of the hand of my father's how much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand and his servants spake yet more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah so what he's doing here is in his language what is he doing he's bringing God the true God you know the one God the Lord down to the level of all these false gods because everyone else has just been a false God and he's basically saying well there's just no difference between the Lord the Lord God of all heaven and earth God Almighty and and all the red bale and bale zebub and and whatever chemosh and all these false gods of all these other lands and then it says in verse 17 he wrote also letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel and to speak against him so the railing and the speaking here is going hand in hand he's railing against the Lord saying and this is literally saying well how is he railing on him how is he speaking against him where he says as the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of my hand so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of my hand so he's basically saying you know what your God can't save you your gods nothing he's got nothing on me we're gonna come in and destroy you and your God whoever it is you're worshiping he can't he can't do anything for you that's railing okay now this is very direct this is very upfront this is just coming out and just kind of being real bold about about calling out you know in this case the Lord and it's railing against him right that's that this is this is what railing is but railing can also be more subtle than this turn back to 1st Samuel chapter 25 because it doesn't always have to be so bold and in your face and just yeah there I said it right out you know God can't do anything right that's what Sennacherib was saying oftentimes railing comes in a form where people are still gonna be labeled as railers but they're not just being as bold and vocal coming out coming right out and saying something but they're implying basically the same type of thing and the Bible is gonna define that also as being railing so in 1st Samuel 25 we're gonna see the story with David and his men and with Nabal so look at verse number 14 real quick and then we're gonna go back and get this in more context verse 14 of 1st Samuel 25 the Bible says but one of the young men told Abigail Nabal's wife saying behold David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master and he railed on them so they're giving this account to Abigail after he already sent messengers unto Nabal and they're now they're going to Abigail saying hey look David sent his messengers unto our master but he railed on them it says but the men were very good unto us and we were not hurt neither missed anything as long as we were conversing with them when we're in the field so he's telling Abigail like your husband just railed on these guys so now let's go back and look and see what he said to them that's being labeled as being railing what did he say that's saying oh man he railed on them look at verse number four the Bible says and David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep and David sent out ten young men and David said unto the young men get you up to Carmel and go to Nabal and greet him in my name and thus shall you say to him that liveth in prosperity peace be both to thee and peace be to thine house and peace be unto all that thou hast and now I have heard that thou hast shearers now thy shepherds which were with us we hurt them not neither was there ought missing unto them all the while they were in Carmel ask thy young men and they will show thee wherefore let the young men find favor in thine eyes for we come in a good day give I pray thee whatsoever come into thine hand unto thy servants and to thy son David so he's humbly entreating and basically for a little bit of help saying you know what when your guys were out in the field we protected them we made sure nothing was lost because they were doing their job of shepherding and making sure nothing's lost he's saying you know what they were kind of a wall to them and and helping them ultimately to do their job and didn't hurt them whereas other people might go through and not care and just take what they want because you know say what are you guys gonna do about it whatever he didn't do any of that they were treating him fairly treating him properly and then he's going here and just basically just asking hey you know we did this for you what you know what can you do for us and then the response we're gonna see that in a minute here look at verse number nine and when David's young men came they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David and ceased and Nabal answered David's servants and said who is David and who is the son of Jesse there be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master shall I then take my bread and my water and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be now you got to understand David is known widely in the kingdom David's not just some low-ranking person that like no one even really knows about I mean after David killed Goliath his fame went abroad throughout all the land okay they knew who David was they knew that David was in Saul's house they knew all this stuff but see this is also a time when there was some friction between Saul and David but the way that Nabal is treating him here notice he doesn't flat-out just come out and say like David's in rebellion to Saul and David is you know messed up or baby he doesn't come out and just say that instead he says well who is David and just as well there be many servants nowadays I'm not saying to David's one of them but there be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master and was David broken away from his master no he was fleeing for his life and who we all know who was right who was wrong in that situation you know Saul was wrong Saul was the one who was envious and bitter and had all these problems with David was righteous they was just trying to do the right thing and was fleeing for his life and he's in the way that Nabal is pitching this is that if David some wicked person that's just you know breaking away from his master and then saying what am I gonna give my stuff unto unto men I don't know where they're from I don't know anything you know it's like yes you do Nabal but notice how he's not really saying anything specific or direct he's just he's just bringing up in a roundabout way he's bringing a bad name on David and on his men and the Bible still calls that railing and this is an important point because people always and especially nowadays you see you see this way more often than the direct what we consider railing is this indirect method of railing where people like to just kind of say things they throw it out there because they always want to have a way out to say oh well that's not what I meant even though it is what they meant they want to throw things out there and insinuate things and say well you know I don't know but look at this this this or whatever and then and then just kind of insinuate things without coming full forward with an accusation but that can oftentimes still be considered railing because you're dragging someone's name down and it's railing especially when it's unrighteous right like it's not right David was not in the wrong here yet Nabal is kind of trashing his name a little bit in doing so so that's considered railing and then another example in Scripture in turn if you would to Matthew chapter 18 is in Mark chapter 15 when Jesus was hanging on the cross right when Jesus was crucified Jesus is up on the cross the Bible says in verse 29 and they that passed by railed on him wagging their heads and saying ah thou that destroy is the temple and build us in three days save thyself and come down from the cross so notice they don't have to come full forward and say you are not the Son of God right say oh that's a railing accusation yeah but they're just saying oh now we see you you're so you know you were so you know talking big that you could destroy the temple and build it in three days how about you know if you could do all that why don't you save yourself huh and any notice it's that attitude mixed in with these with the with the tarnishing of someone's reputation of their character of who they are that's that's all tied in here with railing and ultimately there's not that many examples specifically we're railing is brought up and labeled as railing just definitively in the in the scripture we brought up a few there's a couple others but generally this is what we're working with when we're trying to understand things so you said well I know what a hula-railer is be aware that most of the time in fact and just in practice you see people are just kind of saying things and making these comments about people that really denigrates them and brings them down and in all of these instances also it's false right I mean there's slamming someone's character and it's just not true and that's considered railing so I would just say this and first and foremost because we don't ever want to be guilty of railing on somebody else right I'm going to deal with the main subject is how do you deal with railing or more generally accusations but be careful with what you say and how you say things just about other people and you know I preach this from the beginning we want to be careful that you don't get caught up in some sort of you know I hate the term but the term like a witch hunt right I hate the term because I agree with the Bible the Bible says that witches ought to be put to death and that's why I don't like the term being used back to a time when when they actually used to do that in this country but you know the the terminology is from you know people who are just jumping on like a let's put a mob mentality right where all the facts aren't necessarily known but people get all upset and up in arms and just say we need to do something about this right you don't even know necessarily all the facts of what happened and before we go around and making statements about things and especially public statements that just get broadcast you know make sure you know what's going on because otherwise you could be guilty of railing against someone without knowing all the facts and it's you know too many times there are instances where you everything can seem one way in particular and just be like man that just looks like that and then and then you find out a little bit later oh now it all makes sense because there's all this other information I just didn't know now a little bit of guidance on this is you can consider the person's character and even who the person is just in general what they're known for when you hear things before you just you know would jump to conclusions we shouldn't jump to conclusions with anyone but if someone's already as a habit and a pattern of doing things and you start to see the same patterns form and the same things that they do let's say you know someone who's I don't know just known for maybe having some certain sin and they start doing the same patterns you know coming to a conclusion going like okay you know they're doing this again or whatever it's not such a great leap but when you have someone who's not known for doing things and then there's this big slam on their character like we see with David or with Jesus Christ right he's on the go like they're not known to just be these bad yo David was a great guy and everything we read about him in general I mean the guy was was a you know a stand-up guy he wasn't just someone who's just breaking away from his master he was humble he knew how to serve that's kind of his character was so you start hearing these things like well maybe there's more to the story than what you know nay ball and if he treated you well and he's doing all this you know it's railing when you start jumping to that conclusion of oh well you just you know you're a bad guy or whatever and I'm not gonna do anything at all for you here whatever and the same thing with Jesus you know Jesus had a great reputation obviously he had no sin and he's going around helping people and preaching and they just come up mocking him and wagging their heads look he wasn't known to just be someone who wasn't delivering on his promises ever Jesus of all people was the most faithful so you know they just come up to him and just say you know save myself the railing on him so my point with that is you know obviously facts are facts so you got to go with what the facts say but careful on the areas where you don't know necessarily everything that's going on before you start opening up your mouth and even just just throwing out questions and throwing out statements that can really tarnish somebody and and just just cause them to look like there's something that they're not that's railing and so now let's let's get into because I don't want to you know that wasn't the focus but I wanted to bring it up how do we deal with that how we deal with that what of any type of an accusation just in general turn it you're in Matthew 18 right so there's different circumstances where you may you know this may come up and we're gonna see how people in the Bible also dealt with being accused and having accusations come against them but one of the simplest things and I think you know when things happen let's say like in-house in church among people here among a brethren the best thing to do is just deal with this stuff individually and that's all that's almost always gonna be the best way to deal with it is just if someone's bringing an accusation against you whatever deal with it with that person and it's irritating because we live in a society where people by and large have become really cowardly in many areas I mean from the smallest things or you know even just in neighborhoods and neighbors and it's like you've got people that are causing you a problem and what do people I do now they want to call the cops it's like why don't you just go and talk to the person that you got a problem with instead of just jumping to just having some authority some guys with guns show up to enforce something on those people because they offended you or they're doing something you don't like or whatever why don't you talk to them you know this this concept of even just just approaching people it's usually because people are scared look grow a spine and just communicate with people like that solves so many problems in and of itself you start bringing cops and get cops involved in things generally it's gonna make things worse especially these days but let's read what the Bible says here in Matthew 18 verse 15 about says more of thy brother shall trespass against thee and that's an act this could be any sin right but specifically someone's bringing accusations against you you could be like hey you're trespassing against me you're sinning against me the Bible says go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone like you know what let's just settle this you're saying I did this you're saying I did that what's up with that right just deal with it and sometimes many times you can just deal with that because oh well I heard this from there I heard you know like well look that didn't happen or whatever you set it straight and then hopefully that can just be the end of the matter because we don't want to have a bunch of conflict you want to just be able to deal with it and normally you can just deal with a lot of things right off the bat someone's accusing you of something or whatever bringing your name down railing you can you can deal with them individually and then it says here if she if he shall hear thee thou has gained thy brother great because that's what we want anyways we want to be able to be at peace with our brethren and not have conflict right and this obviously again this is a deal this is a situation that's that is specific to being among brethren like in a local church okay this isn't dealing with other people outside out in the world or whatever because this is going now obviously you can still use the same principle of going to them individually but as we continue here there's gonna be a church authority that is that is used so it's not going to just work on anybody and everybody that could be bringing some accusation against you right just keep that in mind but the principle is still staying in general just to go and deal with a person one-on-one to solve a problem verse 16 but if you will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established so that way there's other people there they could hear okay here's what he said here's what they said you know what what's established all the facts essentially what's agreed on what's not agreed on where's the district you know and kind of help settle the situation and and also be able to give their understanding oh here's what we see right I mean there's a couple more people here you say this you say this okay this is kind of what we think to help mediate and and arbitrate the situation but then it says in verse 17 and if he shall neglect to hear them which means that there are a few people involved and they're all kind of given the same answer going like yeah you know like you're wrong here good then it says tell it unto the church but if you neglect to hear the church let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican and again this is for people who are in a church because people outside the church aren't going to care and come before church for it's not they're not recognizing authority anyways right but the whole point is you you escalate things as needed but you try to just deal with it at the source as much as possible verse 18 verily I say unto you whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loose in heaven and this is regarding that the church's authority to handle such matters given by God verse 19 again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven for that where two or three are gathered together my name there am I in the midst turn if you would to Acts chapter 24 and there's multiple chapters that deal with Paul being accused in the book of Acts especially near the end of the chapter because it I mean a chapter basically or the book excuse me not just a chapter the book kind of finishes off with you know this this whole event of Paul being arrested and falsely accused and then he's going before all these different people and presenting his case and then going on to Rome and and it kind of the book just ends with him just okay finally going to Rome right like like but all of this has to do with him you know all these things that happen along the way are a result of these accusations that came against him in Jerusalem so we're going to look at two specific people who had accusations brought against them and how they dealt with them one of them being Paul and the other one being Jesus and we're going to see how they dealt with them and they dealt with them in different ways and you know there's not it's not to say that one way is right and one way is wrong so we're dealing with accusations there could be different ways of dealing with it and it doesn't mean that either one is wrong so just keep that in mind also and and just keeping context other events that are going on and I'll try to bring that up as we get into each of these stories because there is some things that that separate what's going on here but let's look at the Apostle Paul in Acts 24 verse number 10 the Bible says then Paul after that the governor had beckoned unto him to speak answered for as much as I know that thou has been of many years a judge under this nation I do the more cheerfully answer for myself so up to this point you know I think as tortillas is this order that they hired to just bring forth these accusations against the Apostle Paul and then Paul gets his opportunity to speak and this setting is one where he's defending himself against accusations have been brought against him right and this is more of a formal setting and obviously this isn't just before the church either this is a setting that's going to be not handled within a local church because they brought it to these authorities right they're bringing them before someone which by the way and just one more point to mention here is that if you have a brother in Christ the Bible teaches that you should not go to law you know brother against a brother like that's just something you shouldn't do especially with matters like this someone's policy say oh well they're slandering my name well look deal with it in the church it's wrong to go to law with your brother in Christ and just bring that before the unbelievers why don't you just deal with that within the house of God within the church because that's a perfectly suitable place to deal with these things so Paul's answering for himself verse 11 says because that thou mayest understand that there are yet but 12 days since I went up to Jerusalem for the worship and they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man neither raising up the people neither in the synagogues nor in the city neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me but this I confess entity so up to this point he's saying you know what I didn't do anything they've got no proof like this should just not even be an issue and he's answering honestly and just in just defending himself in that way but now he's just gonna add a little bit more insight to him to say hey just so you understand what's really going on here though here's the here's the real deal they're accusing me of stuff because they don't like what I'm saying and this is what he's gonna say here in a few more words and I just said verse number 14 but this I confess unto thee that after the way which they call heresy so worship I the God of my fathers believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets and have hope toward God which they themselves also allow that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust and herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men now after many years I came to bring alms to my nation and offerings whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purifying the temple neither with multitude nor tumult who ought to have been here before thee and object if they had ought against me or else let these same here say if they have found any evil doing in me while I stood before the council except it be for this one voice that I cried standing among them touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question by you this day so he gives a full account of what he did and it's truthful and you know when we're answering accusations you ought to be able to just tell the truth and just say here's what I did right so when you're living uprightly when you're doing righteousness you don't fear the light shining on you and you ought to be able to just answer well this is what I did and here's what's really going on and he's saying you know when I was in the temple I wasn't doing anything wrong I wasn't causing a bunch of problems there wasn't some big too much there wasn't some big uproar and the people even had a problem with me you know if they had something to say against me then why aren't they here now because the people that originally found him doing this because they thought they brought a Gentile into the temple which he didn't and you know all these other things they just made up stuff and they assumed stuff and just came after him because ultimately hated what he was teaching but he's saying why aren't they here now he says the only reason I'm here is because of what I preach it's because of this voice it's not because of anything I did I didn't break any law I didn't do anything wrong and the way he's dealing with this accusation is just being fully honest and fully transparent saying here's what's really going on this is the truth of the matter and just telling the truth and telling a side of the story flip over to chapter 25 and part of my point of this is that you know that should be a no-brainer yeah you tell the truth but you need to be living righteously in a way so that no one has anything on you to really be able to drag your name down through the mud right or to falsely accuse you where they could tie in some things and be like well yeah I mean I was doing that because that's gonna really damage your testimony is just gonna hurt even if they're saying other things that are false against you then it's gonna be harmful in trying to clear your name on those things but you can have the confidence like Paul has no no qualms about this there's nothing to hide he's not trying to cover up anything he's just saying well yeah this is exactly what happened look at verse number seven the Bible says and when he was come the Jews came down from Jerusalem the Jews which came down from Jerusalem stood roundabout and laid many and grievous complaints against Paul which they could not prove while he answered for himself neither against the law of the Jews neither against the temple nor yet against Caesar have I offended anything at all but Festus willing to do the Jews a pleasure answered Paul and said wilt thou go up to Jerusalem and there be judged of these things before me then said Paul I stand at Caesars judgment seat where I ought to be judged to the Jews have I done no wrong as thou very well knowest for if I be an offender or have committed anything worthy of death I refuse not to die but if there be none of these things where of these accused me no man may deliver me unto them I appeal unto Caesar now this also has to do with because this is like a legal proceeding right and they're accusing them of things that they want him punished for by the state by the government so and again I'm kind of generalizing a lot of dealing with accusations but this would be a more serious type of an accusation where Paul's is basically just saying what's going on but at the same time he's not just he's not just doing everything that they want him to do like he's using his liberty and his rights to do things in a way that you know hopefully he could get just a proper outcome from because they're saying oh well do you want to go and just be judged to the Jews then like if you didn't do anything wrong how about you just go there and be judge like no I'm not gonna go down there obviously there they have things against me and they're not gonna be impartial in their judgment so no I'm gonna I have the right to appeal and it's either so that's what I'm gonna do and there's nothing wrong if you've got people coming at you with the law to use the law to your advantage the way however that's going to be to to try to get a fair hearing here as well now I want to compare because Apostle Paul is very open right and in in dealing and confronting his accusation and just you know kind of just being forthright honest and just just saying everything very frankly very matter-of-factly let's turn to Matthew 27 and look at what happened when Jesus was accused and this is obviously another more more serious accusation being brought against Jesus because we're trying to put him to death and the Apostle Paul essentially they wanted to put the Apostle Paul to death too but the way that they dealt with it was a little bit different and I'm not gonna say either one was wrong I'm definitely not gonna say Jesus was wrong we know that he wasn't wrong and I'm not gonna say the apostle Paul is wrong either I don't think he did anything wrong he's just speaking up for himself and you know ultimately there's nothing wrong with with speaking up for yourself when people lie about you and try to slander you and bring up an accusation about that's totally acceptable and expected and right but you don't always have to do that either when you're dealing with people accusing you you know you don't always have to answer or respond to every single person who's going to be lying about you or bringing up accusations against you look what Jesus did in Matthew 27 verse number 11 the Bible says and Jesus stood before the governor and the governor asked him saying art thou the king of the Jews and Jesus said unto him thou sayest and when he was accused of the chief priests and elders he answered nothing then said Pilate unto him here's thou not how many things these would they witness against thee and he answered him to never a word in so much that the governor marveled greatly so they just keep on bringing up these railing accusations against Jesus and he doesn't even answer them at all now that's another option to do and and obviously there's nothing wrong with that now we do have to understand too that Jesus knew he needed to be crucified too and he you know he's not going to try to talk his way out of something even though he'd be truthful and right you can't just say like he's not really putting up much of a fight but either way they still wrongfully convicted them right he's basically saying well no I mean it by not saying anything they would still have to prove the things that they're testifying which they couldn't ever do anyways and Jesus's method was just to basically take the fifth right who plead the fifth not going to say anything about it and you have that option for both turn if you would the first Peter chapter two of course you have that option and I recommend you know sometimes clearing yourself and sometimes just ignoring it and not not giving any more attention to it when you find yourself being accused this goes a little bit more into the mindset of Jesus Christ and first Peter chapter two that we just read about from Matthew 27 first Peter chapter 2 verse number 19 the Bible says for this is thank worthy if a man for conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully and just right there is understanding this well so this is thankful thank worthy there's something you should be thankful for if a man for conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully if you're doing right if you're doing something good for God and people are trying to slander you and bring down your name and saying you're wicked and saying you're doing something bad or whatever and you're not doing that and you're just doing right that's actually thank worthy that you could be in that position of knowing you're right even though people are trying to to bring you down for what you're doing with a conscience toward God the Bible says in verse 20 for what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults you shall take it patiently saying yeah I mean there's no glory and if you deserve to be beaten if you deserve to be punished because you did something wrong and then you actually take the punishment patiently and it's like okay yeah I mean I did this so now I'm gonna I'm gonna serve the time or whatever of course you should do that but there's no glory in that that's just you did wrong and now you're gonna suffer for you're gonna take the punishment it says but if when you do well and suffer for you take it patiently this is acceptable with God so taking things patiently you know you don't always have to put up a big stink and a big fight and everything else when you're being wrongfully accused of things when you're wrongfully suffering because you're doing the cause of Christ let God be the judge which is ultimately what we're gonna see here verse 21 the Bible says for even here unto were you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth look at verse 23 who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered he threatened not but committed himself to him that judges righteously so he's basically all these people are lying about him to slandering about him the railing on him the bringing forth false accusations there and you know what he did he just didn't answer him I'm just gonna keep doing what's right and I'm gonna commit myself unto him that judges righteously and I'm gonna let God judge these matters because God will judge those matters now and no matter how you respond you could do again there's nothing wrong with responding in truth what the Bible say about Jesus is that he didn't revive like he didn't just go tit for tat he didn't go oh you're reviling me now I'm gonna revile you he didn't threaten people when he was suffering he very easily could have just said the truth of what he's doing and that's that's not you know in which he did even still if you go back and read all the context of everything his conversation between Pilate and Herod and everyone but um you know he didn't do a lot of explaining like Paul did but neither one is wrong but we need to understand at the end of the day when you're going through and this is you know again part of the service the main point is how do you deal with accusations leave it to God you know do you keep doing what's right and let God sort things out because he will things always sort themselves out I was just dealing with this recently and I've been trying to even just counsel people at work right did my secular job I go to work and there's there was a person there who's just not not a very good person and they were doing things are kind of shady and you know I'm talking to some other people they're saying you know they're getting real frustrated and anxious and they don't you know all these things and I'm just like look just these things always will it'll work itself out and a specific person it was like they were pretty doing some pretty wicked things and devious things they say you know people who are setting traps for and laying snares and doing this up they always get found out and it did and I said you just need to be patient and wait on God wait on the Lord he'll right the wrongs you don't have to go every single time they're doing stuff you say you know what just let it go because they're gonna hang themselves you give someone up rope your expression and they'll hang let them hang themselves with it you do what's right you make sure you have the reputation that just says hey I'm working I'm upright I'm doing my job you have no reason to doubt my character if someone's gonna start slandering you and lying about you and it's just coming from one person and that person's not a good person they're a liar they're probably gonna be lying about other things too and and pretty soon it's just gonna become obvious and made known where the truth lies and where it doesn't lie and being able to have that that reputation you know means a lot now obviously building that reputation you want to be able to defend that reputation right so you want to be able to still speak the truth and if someone is trying to put you in a bad light and say that something you were doing you know whatever if something you see could require an explanation then by all means give the explanation so that it could just be known hey no this is this is the truth of the matter so people don't have all these doubts in their minds and trying to come up with things because unfortunately that's what a lot of people do you start seeing some things and people are connecting dots where there aren't necessarily any dots of connect but someone who's wicked and and you know what this is happening more and more these days online where you got people who are disgruntled people used to go to good churches and now they want to just it's it's their agenda to just tear people down and they want to start questioning all these different things what about this and what about that and I don't even want to bring up certain people that come out recently by name because I don't want to draw any more attention to it to be honest with you because there's no point the whole point of it is just to destroy is just to to you know do damage to the cause of Christ at the end of the day because there's some things that have come out that I have personal knowledge of but I'm you know these people are liars and they bring up things and they just question and and you know that's the most common tactic just bring oh well what about this well I don't know what do you and just start conjecturing and just throwing out things with no real evidence and just bringing things up and going well what do you think about this well maybe it's because of this I don't know I heard this and I you know it's just a bunch of rumors and railing and lying by people who ultimately either hate God or just extremely backslidden and are just doing damage to the cause of Christ which you know if something comes up and you feel like no I need to give an answer for that then give an answer for that the Apostle Paul saying you know the Romans are going there's this great tumult these people are trying to kill him like what's going on they're trying to get at the bottom of the situation yeah that's a fair point I'm gonna I'm gonna let you know well this is what's going on right I'm not doing anything I'm trying to serve the Lord they don't like what I teach they don't like what I'm preaching and that's why this is happening that's the truth of the matter flip over to chapter 3 where this this concept of kind of relying on God to deal with these situations and having that patience to get through times of being accused of things you know don't let it upset you for chapter 3 really goes in depth even further than chapter 2 did on the mindset that we ought to have like verse number 8 the Bible says finally be all of one mind having compassion one of another love is brethren be pitiful be courteous not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing but contrary wise blessing knowing that year there unto called that you should inherit a blessing for he that will love life and see good days let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile let him eschew evil and do good let him seek peace and ensue it for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open unto their prayers but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil that's a powerful verse right there the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous you want to live righteously and do right and the eyes of Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open under their prayers you want God to hear you try living righteously try doing what God wants you to do God will be there to hear you he's there for you he'll be there to protect you be there to defend you but you know what the face of the Lord is against them that do evil so if someone's trying to do evil unto you just know the face of the Lord is against them he's gonna hear you and knowing that alone why not well I'm just gonna leave it up to God then it's in his hands he promises to deliver me out of these things and you know what a lot of things seem real scary at first and oh we're gonna expose you we're gonna bring this but if you're not if you have anything to expose first of all you got nothing to worry about and if you do got something exposed and you should have you know not done those things or whatever and hopefully you know that's something from a long time ago whatever I don't know I mean you need to be living a life right now that that would be in a way that you could just be upright and and and beyond reproach right and not and not be have a have shameful accusations brought against you verse 13 says and who is he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good but and if you suffer for righteousness sake happy are ye and be not afraid of their terror neither be troubled but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ for it is better if the will of God be so that you suffer for well-doing than for evildoing so you're saying you know hey if you got a good conscience they're speaking evil of you they're gonna want to be ashamed now it seems terrifying right verse 14 says be not afraid of their terror when someone just laying accusations against you and it could be I mean sometimes people could bring really bad accusations against others you know something like just really extreme stuff and you're like oh man what am I gonna do now right I mean just think about someone you're living righteously someone just comes up and is like oh you know so-and-so they're they're into this or they're into that or I they did this to that part you know just something just really bad that could be a little scary because you could think like man oh I mean if they just want to to you know lie about me I could be thrown in jail I could have this happen you know so you know say someone's just like you know we're not so winning and then someone says oh yeah I saw him he went into that to that house with that woman and he didn't right he went in there and she screamed and called the cops and everything you know it's like whoa and if none of that's true that could be scary if someone were to do something like that to you right it'd be a false accusation but the Bible saying you know what if you've got the good conscience and they speak evil of you as of evildoers they're the ones are gonna be ashamed that falsely accused your good conversation in Christ because the truth will always have a way of coming out and God will make sure that that will be made known and obviously you could you testify to the truth but you know we don't need to worry about those things and if things like that come up you know what just just know that the enemy is always looking for a way to bring people down and no don't just believe everything that you hear about other people either turn if you would to 1st Timothy chapter 5 because we should all know this at the more the more people are doing for God there's two things and we need to be aware of both the more people are doing for God the more they're gonna be a target and that just makes sense right Satan's gonna want to stop the good work that's going on because he's the adversaries he's the accuser of the brethren he's the one that wants to stop the work for the Lord it's real simple right basic stuff so when you have someone really doing a lot of work well one they're gonna be targeted to try to tempt to get to sin right so there's always that possibility that people who end up doing a lot of great things can succumb to being tempted and fall because they've been targeted so much to have that ball so that is definitely possible that's happened to good men in the past right where those things happen but simultaneously you can have the false accusations and the lies coming forth about someone who's doing a good work for God because they want the same end of just well I just want it to stop they just want it to stop they want that good work to stop so they're gonna say whether you know if we get them to do something great because then we could destroy the ministry and destroy their testimony by getting them to fall into sin and if you can't get them to do that then they say well we're still gonna try to destroy the ministry by spreading lander slanders and lies and in trying to drag you know bring down a good name from doing the work so both of those are our possibilities so when you're seeing things again you've got to go and give the the benefit of the doubt with someone who's already has a proven character not to just trust everything that that people are gonna throw out because those accusations are gonna come but always just in the back your mind you know you know it's always possible for someone to fall into sin too right we don't ever want to just sweep things under the rug if something bad really does happen but look at 1st Timothy chapter 5 I'm almost done here because accusations and railing accusations it is it's a very big deal and it could do a lot of damage and especially when it comes against what the Bible calls an elder or a pastor look at 1st Timothy chapter 5 verse 17 the Bible says let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor especially they who labor in the word and doctrine now at the beginning of chapter 5 when it talks about the elders I do believe it's talking about elder people in the church but when we get to this portion of the chapter and I think you can also use that spiritually as well spiritual elders but this I believe is specifically talking about elders in a church like like pastors that are worthy of double honor of being taken care of by the church those who are laboring in the word and doctrine and then it says in verse 18 for the scripture saith thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn why because they're working late in laboring for the church or working real hard so don't muzzle them get you know provide for them give them double honor because they're working really hard in the word and doctrine and the second part of verse 18 says the labor is worthy of his reward right and then verse 19 continuing on the same vein says against an elder an elder receive not an accusation but before two or three witnesses so if someone's gonna bring forth an accusation now about an elder and that could be a railing accusation accusation and remember accusations railing accusations can be kind of subtle and just throwing out these things well you know I saw this and this about pastor so-and-so and you know and they're just coming at you with this railing or this accusation you don't receive that according to Bible but before two or three witnesses why so that person can't just say oh yeah I never said that because at least if you got two or three witnesses you can say yeah that happened but if you could stop them off and say look I'm not receiving that don't talk to me about that and if you're gonna bring it up then there needs to be other people here because what you're saying is serious what you're saying is a big deal and it says in verse 20 them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear now this is the last point that when it comes to these accusations there's also a time where it's prudent because I say in general you know when you're doing good you're doing right and people are accusing you Jesus kept silent Jesus didn't didn't respond or answer back and he committed himself unto God we always commit ourself unto God but especially when it's when it's directed at like a pastor of a church these accusations need to be dealt with in railings and things where the people who are doing the accusations and if they're doing it wrongfully and they're just bringing forth lies and slanders is brought and rebuked before all why so that people just don't feel empowered to just continue to throw a bunch of garbage out there in trying to undermine these efforts because you know other people need to fear not to do that and need to be made an example of hey no look you can't do this and so it is appropriate for accusations especially serious accusations against you know like against an elder to be dealt with out and open and just be called out and dealt with and in turn if you would last place we're gonna look at in the book of Proverbs look at Proverbs 17 verse number 4 I feel a little bit disjointed but the reason for that is because there's not just one specific way to deal with accusations right so that the sermon is about dealing with accusations there's not only one right way of dealing with it and it's kind of multifaceted and there's you know other things that get involved with this generally speaking just to recap one be able to tell the truth and just have a good testimony anyway so that when people are bringing accusations against you they're false so if someone's gonna say anything but that you just know they're false and that you can just say the truth tell the truth and clear your name just on your own word and your own testimony because you didn't do anything wrong right that's number one that's one way to deal with it is just don't have anything that people could have accused you of anyways and you could just you get whatever you say it could it's true right number two you don't have to answer every single accusation that comes against you because the more you do for God the more accusations that probably come your way and you're not even gonna have time to deal with all of that especially in the realm of online there's no way if you started dealing with everybody that ever commented and said anything it's just like look whatever it's a full-time job just have to deal with that you're gonna have to let some things go and then but then thirdly you know there are times where where accusations need to be dealt with given who they're coming against and some of the context surrounding that especially you know with like an elder where you're gonna say okay you know it's not that an accusation can ever come for if something's true then it needs to come forward but if it's false and look if something's true then a person would shouldn't have any problem with having multiple witnesses around because the truth isn't afraid and doesn't need to do anything in secret the truth should just be like yeah this is I mean this is this happened and I'll tell anyone you want me to tell and I'll say it in front of anybody because it's true as opposed to people who want to be a little bit more subtle and sly and sneaky about it well I don't really want to say anything then don't don't insinuate things don't just say oh whoa but look at this and you know just one example of that was was somewhat recently there's a guy that that left steadfast Baptist Church and just hates pastor Shelley for some reason and put out some video about like oh you know because because he has his own dealings now with some guy that was that was not performing the work that he was supposed to on their house so unfortunately there's some documents that came out and I say unfortunate because it just turns into a bigger fiasco than it needs to be not because there anything that needs to be hidden but they're trying to say oh look you paid this money here and look at these days and it's on Monday it's just after Sunday so look what he's doing you know and they're trying to insinuate that he's basically they're trying to say he's misappropriating church funds that's that's the accusation without actually saying it well I'm not saying this but oh look at look at how coincidental that is and you know people who don't know anything don't know how much money he makes or was making because he was working full-time as a software developer which is not a low-paying position by the way and everything else you know it's like they don't know his personal if I don't know anything they just want to start throwing out these railing accusations without actually accusing and just try to make it look like something's going on when nothing's going on and that's just one example I know of that personally so it's just like it's ridiculous it's it's frustrating it's irritating but this kind of stuff is going to happen and people who don't know the truth can get sucked into that you don't know and oh wow yeah look at that oh you know and for most people it's none of the business anyways but also you know if someone's be bringing these accusations don't just be receiving them anything that they have to say I mean it's this is this needs to be established and then them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear they need to be called out and dealt with Proverbs 17 verse number 4 the Bible says a wicked doer giveth heed to false lips so someone who's actually gonna listen to a liar someone who's just bringing forth like false accusations and false testimonies it says a wicked doer giveth heed to false lips oftentimes the people flock together birds of a feather flock together where people will will kind of you know people who are into gossiping want to hear gossip right and this is something similar a wicked doer giveth heed to false lips so someone who's already a wicked doer sure they love it they'll listen to person lying to them because they're already wicked they're already gonna do wickedness so they're they're all happy to get and they don't care about someone lying to them they'll run with it and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue to someone who speak in wickedly right and the Bible teaches how to deal with with the backbiting in Proverbs 25 23 Bible says the north wind driveth away rain so it's an angry countenance a backbiting tongue I've taught on that before where if someone's bringing some backbiting to you some railing some accusations that you don't receive it you don't accept it you just give them a mean look and let them understand that that you're not going to participate in that and then my last verse here is in Proverbs 30 verse 10 the Bible reads accused not a servant unto his master lest he curse thee and thou be found guilty so you know don't be on the other end of the accusations and just feel like you need to start accusing people you'll accuse the servant to the master and all I'm going to get him in trouble you know that's not your job either you're not supposed to be accused Satan is it is the accuser of the brethren right we ought not to be these accusers and you know a lot of this stuff is it's going to continue to happen and go on whether it be our church or our friends or whatever you know the the work that's being done and I said you know be ready because as our church continues to grow and we continue to do better work and it is growing and the more we're doing for the Lord the things that you see happening to other churches it's going to be happening here too it just will obviously we don't want them to it's not like I'm looking forward to drama looking forward to two bad things happening but hey if we're going to keep doing a good work for the Lord then it will happen all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution so it's going to come here we've had a lull for a little while in general I mean I don't know about you personally and you know I'm sure you all have your own personal struggles and things you might have had to deal with lately not everyone talks about those things but as a church just a matter of time so just be ready be aware of those things someone accuses you you know unless it's some big deal that you kind of have to speak about it's easier just to kind of let things go right and let God deal with it because it will ultimately come to light it'll come to the service if there's something brewing there you just trust that God will allow the truth to come to the surface and come to the light and in the meantime don't stress about it have patience through it well hopefully the sermon helps you out a little bit with it with the accusations it's my words have a word of prayer dear Heavenly Father Lord we thank you so much for your word and for and for the examples that we have in Scripture and I pray that you would please help us be able to navigate sometimes what seemed to be difficult times for us dear Lord and that you would help us all to just live uprightly so that you know others would be ashamed that want to bring down a good name of someone who's serving you dear Lord and I pray that you would just just help us all to be righteous and that we would and that you would be able to bring any lies and falsehoods to to the surface and to the light dear Lord before any real damage can be done and in Jesus name we pray Amen all right we're gonna sing one last song before dismiss this afternoon brother Brian we please lead us in our last song you open up your criminals to column 244 44 Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. What grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my tears relieved. How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils, and spares, I have already come. Disgrace that what be saved thus far, and grace will lead me home. When we've been there 10,000 years, shining as the sun, we know less days to see God's grace than when we've first begun. Thank you for coming out this evening. You're a miss. Thank you.