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

The verse I want to focus my sermon on this evening is verse number 8, where the Bible read, And thou shalt take no gift, for the gift blinded the wise and perverted the words of the righteous. And in Exodus 23, we have a lot of different instructions, but a lot of these are really just how people should govern themselves, and how God wants His people to govern themselves. And an important aspect of judgment is that justice is blind, in a sense, whether you're not any respect of persons, whether there's not anything clouding your judgment, there's nothing that's causing you to essentially favor one person or another, if there was a controversy between two, or to try and exonerate the wicked, or to condemn the just or the righteous. And when we understand the Word of God, we realize that God wanted a system of judges. He wanted to have their nation essentially have certain men that are lifted to a position of judge, and they're supposed to open the Bible, open the Word of God, and at the mouth of God determine what's supposed to happen in their society, how people are supposed to be judged according to God's Word. And He's giving an important commandment here saying that these judges should not take gifts from anybody, because a gift will pervert their judgment. Pervert just means to bend, or to make something crooked, or to make it bad. And so the perverting here is just going to cause them to not have righteous judgment, not necessarily follow the law exactly. It could be perverted a little bit, or it could be completely 180 of what the law says, but in some way it's going to damage the judgment. It's not going to be righteous. It's not going to be exact, as God would lay it out. Now go to Proverbs chapter 15, Proverbs 15. The title of my sermon is this, A Gift Perverted Judgment. A gift perverted judgment. And obviously we make judgments every single day. A judgment is simply a decision, okay? Making a decision, and we make decisions every single day. Whether you like it or not, you judge people every second, okay? And the reality is there are certain people that have a position called judge, and they are supposed to hear cases, hear about situations, judge people according to the law. And in America, honestly, our system models a lot of how the Bible sets up, where we have a land of judges, right? And if you commit a crime, you would go and stand before a local judge, whether that be a city judge, or a county judge, or depending on the severity of the case, or anything like that. And the judge would judge you according to the law, okay? And even at the very beginning of our nation, and for several hundred years, the rules or the laws of our nation were very similar to the Bible. Now I'm not saying that America is perfect, or they're following the Bible exactly, but it's actually pretty easy for us to understand how the system is supposed to work, because our system theoretically, in a lot of ways, models what the Bible actually instructs people to do. But it says because of this system, or this system to work, you can't have judges taking gifts, because if the judges are taking gifts, it's going to end up perverting their judgment. They're not going to really care what the law says. They're not going to really abide by the law. And so you see a lot of favoritism. You see judges making bad rulings, not really exercising what the law truly says, because they've received gifts. Now this could also be applied to us in our personal lives, and any decision or judgment you have to make about someone's character, whether that's people that you work with, whether that's your employees, whether that even be thinking about a spouse, whether that be thinking about what church to go to. You know, the interactions you have with people, if someone's giving you gifts, it can often pervert your judgment about that person. It can cause you to not have the right type of understanding, or the right type of vision when it comes to who they are, what they're doing, what they're about, it can cause you to be perverted in your thinking or decision-making about them. Now look what it says in Proverbs chapter 15 verse 27. He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house, but he that hateth gifts shall live. Now this is a very interesting phrase because most of us, you know, in our hearts, we kind of think like, I don't really hate gifts, you know, like, I kind of like the Christmas tree to have lots of things in my name under them, right? Or, you know, it's nice to receive a gift. It's not like receiving a gift in a carnal sense is something bad. We all like a gift. A gift can make you feel special. A gift can be a blessing. And we see even the Lord Jesus Christ receiving three gifts at his birth, okay? And it's not to say that a gift inherently is bad or sinful or anything like that, but you have to be careful in understanding what the context is here. The context is here is someone that's really greedy, someone that wants lots and lots of money is willing to receive gifts when they shouldn't. They're willing to take some kind of a monetary or some kind of a physical gift possession. They're actually looking for that or they want something like that because they're really just a greedy person. And so obviously there's nothing necessarily wrong with receiving a gift or giving a gift or these type of transactions, but people that are just seeking money, they just are a lover of money. They're just a very greedy person. They'll try to figure out how to gain gifts from people because of their position of power. You know, they're going to be all kinds of people in a political office or maybe they're a pastor or something and they'll put pressure on people to receive gifts not because of any sincere reason. They just simply want gifts. They just simply want handouts. They want money. They'll pressure people to buy them meals, buy them goods. It makes me think of Fanon. Sorry, he's going to be such an easy target here. But whenever I took over Jacksonville, I remember at least one person, I think it was multiple people, they told me that Fanon would walk up to them and he would say, hey, you know, it's customary for church members to buy the leadership gifts, like buy, like take them out to dinner and help them or whatever. And he was like, I really want to go to this restaurant. And it was kind of like, he's kind of like putting this assumption on this church member saying like, you need to take us to this restaurant. You know, and he said not only him, even his wife would put this kind of pressure on the women and like tell them like, you know, these people usually buy gifts for the pastor, buy gifts for the leadership or whatever. And it's just, it's really him not hating gifts. And here's the thing. If someone gives me a real extravagant gift or someone were to try to offer me something that's just really kind of out of place, it doesn't really fit the scenario. You know, it's like they, I've never met them before and they give me an AR 15 for coming preaching for them the first time. You know, it would be like, I would be, I would be leery of like why someone wants to give me something so extravagant for that particular situation or event. And so really, the honest person would actually hate that gift because they would be thinking like, what are you trying to get out of me? You know, someone came up to me like, hey, Pastor Shelley, you know, here's a car, you know, and it's like, what? It's like, what's going on? You know, I would be, I would be weirded out about like, why someone would want to give me something really extravagant or like why they want to give me something. Because, you know, if you ever, if you're a really honest person, you realize they're probably not just sincerely wanting to bless you. There's an ulterior motive to their gift. But the person that's greedy, the person that's a lover of money, he doesn't care if someone's going to give them money with strings attached. They don't care if they have ulterior motives. They're just like, bring on the car, bring on the gun, bring on the laptop, bring on the food. You know, they're just like, whatever, you know, my name is Jimmy. I'll take all you can give me all right. Go with Isaiah 33, Isaiah 33. But the reality is we should not have this inordinate desire for gifts. And in fact, you should hate someone that's trying to bribe you with a gift. And that's really the word that I think will help you understand this phrase better, is a bribe, okay? Because ultimately, they're not going to walk up and say, hey, I want to bribe you. But that's kind of what they're trying to do. They're trying to give you a gift in order to gain favoritism or to gain some kind of an advantage against you or towards you. And they'll try to subvert you sneakily. But you have to understand that why would someone want to give you a gift? You know, it could be they sincerely love you. It could be they sincerely appreciate you. But you have to think about, like, why would this person be giving me this gift? Is it out of the place? Does it really make sense? Does it fit within a budget that they have? You know, someone that doesn't have a lot of money and they're giving you something really expensive, that would be kind of questionable. Like, what is this person even doing? Where is this coming from? And I'm not to say that you couldn't receive a gift. You don't want to lick a gift horse and the mouse. You know, look a gift horse and the mouse. But here's the thing. You need to be careful about people giving you gifts because it could be that they're trying to take advantage of you. I've honestly seen this happen to a lot of good people where they receive a lot of blessings or good things from somebody and it ends up perverting their judgment about that person. Look at Isaiah 33 verse 14. The Bible says this. The sinners in Zion are afraid. Fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Yes, things can burn forever, OK? Verse 15. And he that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly, he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shut his eyes from seeing evil, he shall dwell on high. His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks. Bread shall be given him. His waters shall be sure. So notice, this is in, I believe, parallel with the verse we saw in Proverbs. Someone that hates gifts is the same mentality or same person that would shake his hands of a bribe, meaning that someone that's coming up to you and trying to offer you money or goods for something that's not right, that person would be like, no, I don't want that. You know, they shake their hand of it. They're like, you're trying to hand them something. They're like, what's this for? And then they're like, no, I don't want that. You know, I don't want your money. I don't want your goods. I don't want whatever you're trying to hand me here because I'm not interested in being bribed. I'm not interested in being taken advantage of. I'm not interested in perverting my judgment about you, so I don't want to take that gift. And the person that hates gifts is not in danger of having verted judgment. But the person that's just, hey, my name is Jimmy. I'll take all you give me, he can be very perverted easily. He can be very misled and manipulated and taken advantage of because he doesn't understand that some people will give you a gift just to take advantage of you. OK, go if you would to 1 Samuel, chapter number 8. 1 Samuel, chapter 8. So a righteous person will, when offered a bribe, not take it. Now that would seem contrary to like your carnal thoughts. Like if someone's offering you money, it's like just take it, right? But there's some times when someone could offer you a gift or goods and you should refuse it. You should not want it. You know, I think of every time the government tries to offer me anything. You know, they offer all this coronavirus stimulus package and all this money, you know, money, you know. Look, you get entangled with the government, it is not a true gift. You know, it's not like banks offer gifts. They offer loans, OK? And these things are not like a gift. And you should look at it that way. People just want to give you goods, give you money, give you gifts. Really, in the back of their mind, they're thinking, OK, I'm going to give him this. So then, and you have not found ought in my hand. And they answered, he is witness. So notice, a good minister can get up in front of the whole congregation and say, hey, which of you people did I defraud? Which of you did I say, you know, just take advantage of you or take your money or take some bribe from you or take some good? And they all are just like, none of us. Now, there's been other pastors and men where they got up and probably wouldn't go so well if they said that, would it? In the gate, it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious under the remnant of Joseph. So in Amos, he's preaching against this group of people and he's telling them, look, you guys need to establish judgment. You perverted judgment through gifts. You're abhorring that which is good. You're loving evil. And ultimately, someone rebuking them, they hate him. The guy getting up and saying, hey, you guys shouldn't be taking gifts. Hey, you guys are perverting judgment. They hate him. They hate that guy that's rebuking in the gate. But we as God's people or any group of people, they should seek good, not evil. They should hate the evil and love the good and establish judgment. God loves judgment. This is not a sermon brought to you by most churches today. Judgment is good. Judgment is a righteous thing. And look, God will judge every single person, whether you're saved or unsaved. Jesus, you're going to either be at the judgment seat of Christ or you're going to be at the great white throne. Judgment. You're going to be judged. I'd rather be judged right now by God's word and get it right than wait for the sentencing from God, than wait for the terror of the Lord to stand naked before Jesus Christ and then him tell me how much my life sucked. Okay? There's a lot of Christians today. They don't want to be told what the Bible says about their life. But guess what? Jesus will tell them one day. Jesus will make it clear. So it's not like you can escape it. It's just delaying it. They're trying to delay hearing what Jesus has to say about their lifestyle. Why not here now? Why not figure it out now? But here's the problem. Gifts have perverted judgment today. And, you know, we live in America, and I kind of mentioned how our society has somewhat a resemblance of Israel and how they are supposed to set up judges and have that system. But the reason why our system is so broken is because of gifts. And I don't care. Look, if you took every Democrat and you executed them for legitimate reasons, all of them, Biden and Kamala and all of them, don't think that our system would magically be fixed. Don't think that it's going to be better. Don't think that it's going to be righteous. Because, listen, a gift perverted judgment, and all, all, all of our governments are perverted in their judgment. There's a thing called lobbying. Now let me explain lobbying to you. It's not bipartisan. I'm sorry. It's not like partisan. It's both. It's every party. OK? Lobbying. What is lobbying? In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation, is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials. Most often, legislators are members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which usually involves direct face-to-face contact, as done by many types of people, associations and organized groups, including individuals in the private sector, corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or advocacy groups, interest groups. Lobbyists may be among the legislators' constituencies, meaning a voter or block of voters, within their electoral district. They may engage in lobbying as a business. Professional lobbyists are people whose business is trying to influence legislation, regulation, or other government decisions, actions, or policies on behalf of a group or individual who hires them. Individuals and nonprofit organizations can also lobby as an act of volunteering, or as a small part of their normal job. Governments often define and regulate organized group lobbying that has become influential. Now, I'm reading you Wikipedia's definition of lobbying. It's basically saying that it's legal for any kind of group to try to influence government. Okay? That's basically what I just read for you. It says, the ethics and morals involved with legally bribing or lobbying are complicated. That's the next sentence in the Wikipedia. Let me explain lobbying. Bribing. Okay? It's literally bribes. Okay? And the definition I read for you, everything we saw in the Bible, it's lawful bribing. Okay? Lobbying can, at times, be spoken of with contempt. I wonder why. When the implication is that people with inordinate socioeconomic power are corrupting the law in order to serve their own interests. Oh, man. I would be shocked that they would give bribes that benefited themselves. Okay? When people have a duty to act on behalf of others, such as elected officials with a duty to serve their constituents' interests, or more broadly, the public good can benefit by shaping the law to serve the interests of some private parties. A conflict of interest exists. What would this be? I don't know. Like the Surgeon General not wanting to put warning labels on cigarettes because of the danger it may cause. And it may dip their sales, so for a long period of time, they didn't want to warn people about the dangers of cigarettes so they could make more money. This is called a bribe. It's perverted judgment. The fact that the government doesn't want to warn against, I don't know, vaccination. Because of bribes? Look, in 2015, I did a whole bunch of research. You want to know some of the most influential lobbying is vaccination lobbying. I mean, they are paying millions and millions of dollars to these legislative leaders, these government agencies, to pass legislation in support of certain vaccinations, saying everybody has to get this vaccination. And then the government will reward that company with contracts in the billions, billions. Because why? The lobbyists paid them a bribe. Hey, I walk up to government officials and say, hey, I want to stab people with poison. Why would you want to stab people with poison? Here's $10 million. Oh, okay, sure. All right, now everybody has to get the poison shot. And I decided I'm going to pick that guy to do it. And I'm going to award him $5 billion from the U.S. government to pay for them. And then we're going to give them all to you for free. Hey, come down and get your free shot. It's a scam, my friend. It's a scam. And if you don't think it's a scam, it's because your brain dead, okay? This is literally happening in the open. Everything I'm saying is public knowledge. And then this guy says, hey, what if people sue us because we stabbed them with poison? And he says, well, let's pass legislation that says no one can ever sue a vaccine manufacturer. Perfect. And they say, well, how are we going to sell that? Well, we'll just have CNN tell them that it's good. Hey, it's good that vaccine manufacturers can't be sued because if they make bad products and they get sued, then they'll stop wanting to make products. And we don't want these vaccine manufacturers to stop making products. I do. I don't have a problem if they all go bankrupt. That was just a side note, okay? I'm going to get into it a little bit more. Look, I could preach on lobbying for like days. It's every single area of our life is being influenced by literal bribes. And what did the Bible already tell us? I don't care. Look, it doesn't matter Democrat, Republican, Libertarian. I don't care what political person you put in office. If they're taking bribes, it's going to ruin everything. It's going to pervert everything. And let me tell you what, the Republicans take bribes just like the Democrats do. It says many critiques of lobbying point to the potential for conflicts of interest to lead to agent misdirection or influential failure of an agent with a duty to serve an employer, client, or constituent to perform those duties. The failure of government officials to serve the public interest as a consequence of lobbying by special interests who provide benefits to the official is an example of agent misdirection. That is why lobbying is seen as one of the causes of a Democratic deficit, okay? Now let me give you a few more points from the Wikipedia article. This is going to give you examples. Major American corporations spent 345 million lobbying for just three pro-immigration bills between 2006 and 2008. The $345 million were spent by American corporations to try and influence legislation for pro-immigration legislation. That was several years ago. Foreign-funded lobbying efforts include those of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and China lobbies. And 2010 alone, foreign governments spent approximately $460 million on lobbying members of Congress and government officials. This is Wikipedia. This isn't like some pro-new-IMB website or something, okay? This is them admitting foreign governments are paying local officials to do what? Sell out our nation, sell out our country. A study from the Kellogg School of Management found that political donations by corporations do not increase shareholder value. Oh, shocker. But Wall Street spent a record $2 billion trying to influence the 2016 United States presidential election. $2 billion were spent by lobbyists. Coronavirus package fuels boom for lobbyists. Here's the title of an article. Oh, that coronavirus stimulus. I wonder why they did that. Companies' interest groups seek to help win a piece of the $2 trillion bill. Helpful policy tweaks in 2008 and 2009 and lobbyist business grew 22% to $3.5 billion. So lobbying is a literal business. Bribing. It's like, what do you do? I bribe people professionally. I'm really good at it. I try to tell people to do something really wicked, but I give them enough money to do it anyways, and I'm really good at it. That business is a $3.5 billion business. Wow. This is our country that you live in. Well, I think Trump's going to save it. Okay. Hey, you know what? I hope Trump exposes all the wickedness in our country, but you know what? It would be the whole government then. Expose lobbying then. How about getting rid of lobbying? How about this one? We talked about, it said something about elections in here, 2016. Well, how about the most recent election? Did you know that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook gave $350 million to local officials in the election? I think it was even more than that, but there was one article specifically, let me read you a little bit of information here. He gave $300 million at one point and I think another $50 million in another article, but this was in September, okay, in September before the election. He decided to just, out of the goodness of his heart, give $300 million to protect American elections. Who believes that Mark Zuckerberg wants to protect elections? Zero. I don't see that hand, okay? God bless I don't see that hand. Listen to this article. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are donating $300 million to protect American elections. It is one of the couple's largest single gifts ever, meant to bolster democracy during a pandemic, but it's also one that critics say is brimming with irony, given Facebook's past failures in protecting the integrity of elections. Now let me read you a little bit more of this. It says, the majority of the gift, $250 million, will go to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit popular with many tech philanthropists, which will then re-grant the money to election officials so they can recruit poll workers, supply them with PPE, and instead of drive-thru voting, drive-thru voting, okay, another $50 million heads up the Center of Election Innovation and Research, this is how they figure out how to cheat better, to be distributed to secretaries of state across the country. It says, the money does not come from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Their joint philanthropy is a personal donation, oh, thank you, says election officials across the country are working hard to ensure that everyone can vote, and every vote can be counted at least a thousand times. I'm sorry, I added that. Zuckerberg said, and we want to help make sure that you have the resources they need to do this. I'm going to read a little more of this article. Now, here's what's funny, this is like a pro-Zuckerberg article. It's like ABC or CBS, you'd have to look it up, you can check me on this, but it's so pro, but here's the thing. They still criticize him, and they say that he's like hurting elections all the time, and this is what they say in the article. It says, many on the left, and to Facebook critics more broadly, he says, it is Zuckerberg's company that has harmed democracy, so it's saying leftists and liberals, they attack Zuckerberg saying he's harming democracy, okay, which is weird. This is why they say, because he's tolerating hate speech, because he's failing to curtail disinformation and allowing Russian operatives to mess with the 2016 election, which was apparently a hoax. I mean, there's no proof, no evidence, it's already been debunked, and they're saying, oh man, Mark Zuckerberg's undermining the election by allowing hate speech. That's the criticism, so he has to give, fork over 300 million dollars, and it's saying even after all that money, he didn't even win the leftist over. They still don't like him. They still think he's wrong, because they're implacable, my friend. It says this, election officials were nevertheless ecstatic about the gift. Oh, I'm shocked. But here's the thing, why would an election official want a gift to pervert judgment? That's why. Not because of any integrity. Says this, Michigan Secretary of State called it a game changer. Oh, I bet you did. They said the money would go a long way to ensuring the public's confidence in the vote. Now, people have looked at these shell companies that they're shifting money through to these election officials, and it's interesting how pretty much the people that got the biggest donations were all only democratic areas, and only the places where all the election fraud has been found. That's a surprise. How about this article says, $15.8 million of this money and safe election grants went to three counties in the metropolitan Atlanta area, Fulton, Cobb, and Gwinnett. So there's only three counties in Georgia they decided to shuffle the majority of the money, and shocker, lots of weird stuff happened there. Okay. According to this article, when they wrote it, the thing you have to understand is they hadn't doled out all that money. They give all the $300 million to the shell company, but the shell company hadn't granted all of the money yet, all the $300. They had only granted about $63 million when the time of this article had been written. So $63 million has been given, $15 million has gone to three counties in Georgia. Now there's over 3,000 counties in the United States. So why are they only giving it to these specific counties? I wonder. In fact, this article says that 99.5% of the funding that has been granted went to election commissions in only 17 counties, and two cities, and they were all won by Hillary Clinton in 2016. So he wants to ensure election integrity for everybody. He wants everybody to feel really comfortable and really safe in what's going on. Isn't that really nice of him? Only one county that went to Donald Trump in 2016 did they get any money, and they got $289,000, and it was a county in Texas, Hays County, okay? Now let me read a little bit more. A significant portion of these grants, more than $13 million, went to election commissions in areas Hillary Clinton won with more than 80% of the vote in 2020. $10 million went to the city of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, which Clinton won with 84% of the vote. $3.5 million went to Wayne County, Michigan, which Clinton won with 96% of the vote. And $467,000 went to election commission in the city of Flint, Michigan, which Clinton won with 84% of the vote. Yeah, I'm sure Hillary Clinton won 96% of the vote. This is destroying our nation. The gifts are perverting our nation, and they're destroying our nation, and you know what? I bet I could find Republicans that gave money to revert elections, too. But it's just sick what these people are doing. And look, you say, well, where's the corruption at? Everywhere. Where is it not? Show me the judge in America today that's shaking his hand to bribes, that doesn't want any kind of money, doesn't want any handout. So then whenever there's any kind of tough decision, notice they don't want to make any tough decision in our nation. Why? Hey, O.J. Simpson's on trial? Just let him off. You go to Proverbs 23, you go to Proverbs 23, and you say, were the elections real in our country? They never have been, number one. Okay. I mean, at least any time recently. It used to be a shame to promote yourself for candidacy. You should have let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth, a stranger, not thine own lips. But, you know, not that long ago did politicians actually start campaigning for themselves, which should be a shame. It should be like, I don't want to vote for that guy. He loves himself. He prags about himself. Nobody loves the Bible like I do. You know which Bible verse I love the most? All of them. Every single one. This is a Bible. I don't even know what it is. I don't read it. Some people say I read it. I don't even read it. It's like, look, Donald Trump is a lover of himself, okay? And Joe Biden is a pedophile that doesn't even know where he's at, okay? So, I mean, it's picking which fox you want to watch over the hen house. You say, well, I can't wait for the red fox over the black fox. What? Why is the red fox better? And you say, yeah, but he's not as pro-abortion. What? He's not as pro-LGBT, but he's still pro? Yeah. He doesn't take as big a bribe. I don't care. He's going to go down the same road. These all guys are perverted, taking gifts, taking money, and you say, well, Donald Trump gave up his $400,000 salary. Oh, that was a lot. I bet he's never passed any legislation that's helped any of the businesses he owns, though. Oh, that was sarcasm. Sorry, you couldn't figure that out. But here's my last point, and I want to make this quickly. A gift perverts judgment into the point where you'll follow a wicked man, like Trump, like Biden, like a lot of our politicians, or even not just politicians. How about pastors? Look at verse one. When thou sitest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee, and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given the appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties, for they are deceitful meat. There's been many a man won over by food, and it's sad. Women, if you want to win your husband over, it's with food, all right? But that's not for anybody else to take part in. And when you sit with the ruler, beware of the dainties he puts before you, because it's to pervert you, and to pervert your judgment, and to get you to follow a wicked man. Good Isaiah chapter one, good Isaiah chapter one. Look, people will get caught up in the heresy of their pastor because of all the good that he's done unto them, all the gifts that he's blessed them with. He will pervert them. And you know what? There was virtually two people that called me when it came to the Jacksonville situation. People that called me to tell me all the gifts that Adam Fannin gave them, and how they're going to stay with him, and then virtually everybody else. Now, there is an exception to that, but I'm not going to go into it. But virtually everybody, people are like, oh, he bought me this meal, and oh, Adam Fannin, you know, he gave me this, and he did this special thing for me. And it's like, okay, does he really care about you, though? Well, he gave me a gift. Does a gift definitely mean that he loves you? I mean, do you really think the lobbyists just love those politicians? But look at all the money he gave me. Look, he wasn't giving you money because he loves you. He's buying you off. He's trying to trick you. Hey, the king's not giving you those fancy food items because he really likes you. He wants to trick you. And you know what? There are certain churches, and there are certain pastors, and there are certain leaders, and there are certain people in this world. They'll try to buy you off. You shouldn't want to be bought off. You should want righteous judgment. Instead of me just saying, good sermon, that was so great, amazing. You should rather me just tell you the truth. Hey, if your sermon sucked, you'd rather ... That sucked, buddy. That was terrible. You just taught that Jesus Christ, you know, when you said that people were going to bow down to him, you said that was the anti ... You pointed to the anti-Christ, and said people are going to rule the anti-Christ. That was a bad sermon. Not putting it on YouTube and being like, look at this great sermon this guy preached, you know? What bizarreness. People will try to buy you off. And when you get bought off, look what it says in verse 23. Thy princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. You could be a companion to a lot of wicked people. Notice this. Everyone loveth gifts. Oh, the people that love gifts, they're companions of thieves. And why would I be wanting to surround myself with a bunch of vain, light, treacherous persons? They're all thieves. They're all going to rip each other off. They're all flattering. You know, I flatter you, you flatter me. I give you a good gift, you give me a good gift, and we just love each other, and we're just patting each other on the back until one of us grabs a knife. I'd rather just be honest with one another. I'd rather have righteous judgment. Hey, a gift perverts judgment, and it can get to such an extreme that people will follow a wicked man. Go to Isaiah 39, it's the last place I'll be turned. I'm going to read another verse for you from Proverbs. Beware of gifts. Don't just accept a gift. Think about why someone would give you something. Think about where it's coming from. Think about why someone is trying to bless you. Is it sincere? You're like, I don't even know this guy. That doesn't seem very sincere. That doesn't seem very real. Proverbs 19, I'm going to read for you verse 6. It says, many will entreat the favor of the prince, and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts. You know, many people will try to buy off the leader, buy off the person in charge. And so it's important to realize that gifts can pervert your judgment and decide, I don't want gifts. You know, I just want to stay pure. I want to have good judgment. I don't want to be persuaded. You know, I wouldn't want to have somebody that should be dealt with with church discipline and be clouded. My judgment clouded because of a gift they gave me, or something they blessed me with, or some favor. It's like, hey, remember when I did this for you? It's like, too bad. You know, if you think that's going to help you. In fact, bringing that up is going to make it worse for you, okay? But there's a person in the Bible that gets bought off, and he ends up ruining everything and ruining his whole family and his life. And he was a godly guy. In fact, he's a great guy in the Bible, but a gift perverted his judgment. Look at Isaiah 39 verse 1. At that time, Merodach-beledan, the son of Beledan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that he had been sick and was recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them and showed them the house of his precious things, the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious ointment and all the house of his armor and all that was found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not. This is crazy. Imagine someone walking up, knocking on your door. I heard you recovered from coronavirus. Here's a special gift basket of fruit. Can I come in and see your social security number? And look in your vault. Where are all your guns at? What kind of stocks and bonds you got? And Hezekiah's just showing them, hey, here's my gun safe. You know, here's where I keep all the gold. Here's where I keep all the goods. Why, that gift perverted his judgment. Why does this foreign king really care about you? The foreign king was hoping you died, Hezekiah. He was like, oh, that guy lived. But then he's like, well, I'll just send him a present and act like I'm his buddy, act like I'm his friend. And then, you know what? When I get in his favor, then I'm going to spy out all of his goods. And then when I know where all his goods are, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to come and take them. You think it's a coincidence that later Babylon's going to come and take all the goods out of Jerusalem? No, this was the spy campaign. This is where he's going to figure out. And look at work. It's the Trojan horse. What's the story of the Trojan horse? They leave a present outside the wall. This beautiful wood horse. And they can't get in the walls of the city. They can't invade. And so they bring the Trojan horse into the city, and they celebrate, and they get drunk. And then at night, there's men hidden in that horse. They sneak out, open the gates, and the army comes in and wipes out the city. I can't remember. It's like Athens, or it's kind of a Greek war. You can look it up. But it's the Trojan horse. And look, why? Because they like gifts. You know what they should have done? They should have burnt the horse outside. And then all those soldiers inside would have died, and they would have never lost anything. Don't take the Trojan horse into your house. It will destroy you and your whole family. Look what it says. Let's read it a little bit more. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto King Hezekiah and said to them, What said these men? And from whence came the entity? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen. There is nothing among my treasures that I have not showed them. Now he's saying this like he thinks he did a good job. He's like, It was great. I even gave him the combination lock. Verse five, Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts. Behold, the days come that all that is in mine house and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, for there shall be peace and truth in my days. This guy just doesn't care. He just ruined everything. Why? Because the gift perverted his judgment. Well, as long as I have the gift, you know, as long as I can sell America out to China and I don't have to see it in my generation, who cares? That's what it seems like most of the officials say in our country. And you know what? It seems like a lot of Baptists have sold out the younger generation for gifts today for their retirement. They sold them out for their house. They sold them out for their reputation. They sold them out for their job. They sold them out for whatever. And they say, I don't care if this church goes to hell by the time my grandkids get it. I don't care if they have nothing to inherit. I don't care if they have a faggot behind the pulpit. I don't care if they have a faggot in the sanctuary. I don't care whatever nonsense going on. Look, those gifts have perverted their judgment today. And there's people today, they like bribes. They like money. They like all the gifts. They like the fact that, hey, they own the Bible college, so they can go to any one of the churches that are supporting them, and they'll give them a really nice love offering. And you know what that love offering does? It perverts their judgment about that church because they'll say, oh, that church preaches repent of your sins, but that's not what they meant. Hey, I've never heard that before. Hey, this guy preaches that God didn't die, but that's not what he meant. Hey, this guy says that Judas got more people saved than any other apostle. That is what he said he meant. But he gave me a love offering. So who cares? And the stupid gift perverts judgment today. Hey, I hope people never give me a gift as long as I can retain my judgment today. And we as God's people should shake our hands of all the bribes. Hey, you're not going to fix the American government. Good luck. The lobbying is a $3.5 billion industry. Good luck solving that. And you know how much there should be? Zero. They should all go to jail. They should all be destroyed. And it's never going to change. I don't care what president you get in there. They're all bought and paid for. But we cannot be bought and paid for. We can be honest. Don't take the bribes. Don't take the money that people want to offer you because it will pervert you and your business dealings and your life and the ministry. You know what? We need to have righteous judgment. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for giving us your wisdom so that we can protect ourselves from those that would want to pervert us, those that would want to destroy us, those that have evil intentions. We understand that gifts can be good. The gift of God is the greatest thing ever. But we understand that's out of true love that you have for us. I pray that we could see through the thinly veiled fake gifts and the bribes that people want to harm and hurt us with. I pray that we would just hate covetousness today, that we wouldn't desire to have some kind of a gift, but rather we would desire to have the truth and have righteous judgment in our lives. I pray. Amen.