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

The title of the sermon this morning is Getting Thrown Out of Church. Getting thrown out of church. Now let me put you at ease. No one's about to be thrown out this morning, okay? This is a precautionary tale. This is what the Bible tells us. I've mentioned things in the past through different sermons about somebody possibly being thrown out or different reasons, but I think it's good for us to just understand what does the Bible actually say? Why would someone be thrown out or why would they not be thrown out? Is the pastor just making, you know, ominous threats? Is he just making threats that really wouldn't happen? Is this something that he would just say or is it something he would actually do? Is it just something he comes up with out of his, you know, own mind like, hey, I'm just going to throw somebody out tomorrow for this reason or that reason? No. Everything is based on what the Bible clearly teaches. I want to follow what the Bible teaches. And let me make it very clear, I never want to throw anyone out, okay? I'm not a type of person that thinks, oh, that'd be so cool and that'd be really exciting. I hope I never have to throw anybody out. I hope that through the preaching and through the teaching of God's Word that the people that were going to get thrown out just end up deciding not to show up anyways or the people that want to get it right will just get it right anyways. So my desire is to never throw anybody out. That's my approach to this situation even. But the reality is I will throw somebody out without hesitation if they decide to refuse to do what the Bible teaches. And I would rather preach to five people this morning, the whole Bible, than to say, well, I'm just going to limit certain parts of the Bible just to keep a bigger crowd, just to have more people in the church, just to start growing and have all these people. No. I'd rather just preach the truth to five people that care than to like 300 people that don't. So it's important to preach what the Bible teaches. Why? Because the point of being a pastor is to help others serve Christ. My job is to help you serve Christ better. And the reality is sometimes that means tough love, tough love, telling you what you don't want to hear, trying to help you get something out of your life. But not only that, I have the care of everyone in the room. So if one person is ruining church for everybody else, then for the better of y'all, I'm going to get rid of that one person, okay? Just like if you had a loaf of bread and one piece of bread has got some, you know, something growing on it, I mean, you probably want to throw the loaf out, but I'm just saying you could at least just throw that one out and maybe preserve the rest or try to save some of the rest. So I'm not going to try and just stink up the whole place just because of one person. I'm not going to say, well, this person's really crucial to the church, so even though they're going against the Bible, I'm just going to kind of look the other way because I don't want to throw them out. I don't want the church to, you know, get upset about it or whatever. And as a father, as a husband, as a pastor, it's important for me to lay down my life. You say, what does that mean? It's putting down my selfish ambitions, my desires to help you serve Christ. So what's more important is me trying my hardest to help you be a better Christian. It's not about me, it's not about my church, it's not about my preaching. If my preaching doesn't affect you positively, then I'm failing. I put all the sermons on YouTube and I put them online and I try to make resources to help people. Maybe someone misses a church service or, you know, to try and get the gospel message out more, but if I'm not changing your life, you sitting here in this room, then I'm failing. And my goal is to help you grow in Christ. Help you serve Christ with your life. Help you learn the commandments. Help you do what is godly. So that's why you have rules like this in 1 Corinthians chapter number 5 that say some people sometimes need to be thrown out. Not everybody is welcome in church this morning. Let's get that in reality. And even people that are saved, not everyone that's saved is welcome at church either. You see a lot of signs today, the liberal churches, they'll say, come as you are. You know, we just want you to come and you just feel welcome. This is a hospital. Look, I don't even like being in hospitals. Everybody's sick and disgusting and gross. I want to be somewhere that's clean and nice. This is not a hospital. If you're sick and diseased, don't come. We don't want your disease. We don't want your sickness. This is not a hospital. This is a place to worship God. This is a place that is holy. The holy congregation, the assembly brought together to worship God, to learn about God, to do things for God. This is about God. And this is about helping you serve God and us giving him honor and glory. Now go if you would to Proverbs chapter number 27. Proverbs chapter 27. But you want to keep your finger in 1 Corinthians 5 because we're going to look through this whole chapter. But the Bible says in Mark chapter number 8, he says, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake in the gospels, the same shall save it. So my goal should be to lose my life. What do you mean by that? It means all of my selfish desires to be, you know, a professional sports athlete or have my own business or have some great property with all this land that I can just do whatever I want, ride four wheelers and do all these things. It'd be better for me to give those things up and say, you know what? I'm going to find Christ. I'm going to make Christ my life. And how does that look practically? Well, it's influencing other people who live for Christ. It's helping other people learn the Bible, learn how to go soul winning. You know, I mean, it would probably be more fun for me to give up all the soul winning times at our church and just go have fun every weekend, right? Just go do something that I want to do that I would enjoy. But you know what's better? You guys serving Christ. That gives me more joy at the end of the day. So why do I do all these things? Because I love you. So if I was to throw someone out of the church, it's not like all character is gone. Oh, I'm just doing it because I'm mean and hateful and I want to throw somebody out. No, it's because I love that person and I love the church and I don't want bad things that happen to our church. And I don't want people to be ruining their lives, destroying their lives and me say nothing. What does the Bible say in Proverbs 27 verse five? Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. So according to the Bible, a true friend will tell you something you don't want to hear. He'll tell you something that's going to even hurt. You say, hey, what you said hurts. Okay, well, it sounds like he's a good friend. I mean, you say I'm offended. I hope so because what you're doing is wrong. You should. I'm offended. I'm offended by your bad lifestyle. The Bible says, rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. So that sounds pretty harsh, but you know, when someone's destroying their life, sometimes you got to wake them up and say, hey, don't do that. You're running your life. And when we look at this list of six things, these are all very grievous, wicked sins that people are on a road of destruction. This is not something that just average every day. You know, hey, I have a foolish thought. We all have foolish thoughts. Okay. There are certain things that Christians can start going down a dark road. That's going to ruin and destroy their life. And they need to be woken up. You say, how do they get woken up? Well thrown out of the church. That's how you get woken up when you realize, well, I can't, I'm not even welcome at church anymore. You're right. Now let's understand this chapter. Go back to first Corinthians chapter number five. I want to give a little bit of an introduction because my desire is never to throw anybody out. And even if I had to, I don't, I won't, I wouldn't want to, I won't want to get up and tell somebody they have to leave or whatever the situation would be. And let me make it clear that if someone were in this situation, someone's violating first Corinthians chapter number five, they're not going to walk in on church Sunday morning. It's going to be a surprise. They're thrown out of the church. They're going to get warned. They're going to be told, Hey, this is what's happening. And when they refuse to make the correction, when they refuse to harken and they say, I'm just going to show up anyways, then they're going to be publicly thrown out of the church. And then it's going to be like, you, if you want to come in here and try to violate the Bible, you will be called out. I have to take a stand against what the Bible says, but you're not going to walk in church and you know, everybody's going to discover your secret. It's not going to be the first time. So don't get so nervous that you're like, Oh, I don't know. You know, passage is going to just throw me out this morning. Well, if you're not doing anything on this list, you don't have to worry about it. First of all. And then second of all, you will get warned. But look at verse one, it is reported commonly that there is fornication among you and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles that one should have his father's wife and you're puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that had done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily as absent in body, but present in spirit have judged already as though I were present concerning him that has so done this deed in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you're gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such an one in Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So what's happening? Well, somebody in the church is committing fornication. Not just fornication, wicked fornication. He's laying with his father's wife. Now what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, I think a good example would be Adonijah. Adonijah in the Bible, he wants to become king, he separates from his father David and David in his old age is given a very young wife. Well, David dies very soon after. So when you typically think of this, you think having your father's wife, isn't that really weird? But it'd be in this kind of a circumstance, right? A father's remarried, maybe he's remarried to somebody much younger than he normally was, and the person's your age, then your father passed away. Now she's single, you're single, and you start lying with that woman. That's the type of fornication that this guy was in. He's having the same woman that his father had. Now that's very sick, it's very perverted, it's very gross, and unfortunately, because we live in America today, there's so many more disgusting and more perverted things that happen that this doesn't even seem as egregious sometimes. But throughout history, this would have been a very wicked sin, it would have been detestable in the eyes of most people, even says, look, the Gentiles think this is disgusting. The Gentiles, the unsaved, the world is looking at you saying, y'all are disgusting, y'all are a bunch of inbred hillbillies, having your own father's wife, that's gross. And according to the Bible, it was punished with the death penalty. If you read in Leviticus chapter number 18, it tells you all the people you're not supposed to lie with, and if you do, you're worthy of death. So this is a death penalty worthy sin according to the Old Testament law. But are they under, you know, which law are they under? They're under Roman law at this time, right? Or they're under, they're under Corinthian law, you know, under a Corinthian law and Roman law. So do they have the laws of the Bible to rest upon? No. And when you read first Corinthians chapter five, you don't read any sins that are worthy of the death penalty in the list. This one is because it's an egregious form of fornication. So whenever we read this list, anything that would be death penalty worthy is also included in this list. Just let me, let me give you that right away. Adultery, yeah, still going to fit in this list, even though it says fornication. So anything more extreme is obviously going to follow the same protocol. But we see God takes notice of other sins that are not necessarily punished with the death penalty that say this is worthy of being cast out of church. Now let's look at verse number six. He says, your glory is not good. So is this a good thing that the church is letting this guy in their building? No. And not only that, Paul is not a member of this Corinthian church in a sense that he goes there and regulates. Paul's a traveling evangelist. Paul's a member of the body of Christ. Paul's a member is going through, he's an apostle. He's preaching and teaching everywhere. But he just says, hey, you shouldn't be doing this. And this is the type of commandments from the Bible that say every church should be like this. This is not pure words Baptist church doctrine. This is Bible doctrine. So if a church is not following this, they're in sin, they're in error. This is not a personal preference. This is not a good idea. This is a commandment from the Bible of how the church should operate. And the church that decides, you know what, let's just harbor all the weird fornicators and adulterers and, you know, let's harbor all these types of sins in the church and never try to correct it. Just come as you are. Stay as you are. Just keep living in your fornication. They're in grievous sin. They're puffed up. They think, well, we're just more loving. That's what you hear, that's what your churches say. We just love people more. You know, we're supposed to hate the sin but love the sinner and so we just love them. We'll love them all the way to Christ. They're going to love them all the way to hell. And they don't love them, they hate them. If you hate somebody, you won't try to help them. You won't correct them. You won't give them true love. That's why it says faithful are the wounds of a friend. But what did the enemy give you? Kisses. Oh, how loving. How sweet. Oh, that Joel Osteen, he's just so kind and loving. He's going to kiss you all the way to hell. That's what he's going to do, kisses of death. Now let's keep reading. He says in verse number six, your glory is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Now it's interesting because there's some people that believe in observing all of the Old Testament feasts and laws and they just have nothing to go on. So they'll just try to take whatever they can get. And verse number eight, they'll say, oh, see, they're supposed to keep the feast. So they're trying to tell us we still got to keep the Passover and we got to observe the Old Testament laws. But here's the reality. He is saying to keep the feast, but it's not in the same way. He's saying in the way that the Passover was observed in the Old Testament, spiritually signifies how we're supposed to keep it in the New Testament. So they were supposed to physically kill a lamb, go to Exodus chapter 12, go to Exodus chapter 12. They're supposed to physically kill a lamb on the 14th month of the first month, Abib, the 14th day of the first month of Abib. And then they're supposed to sprinkle the blood on the doorpost. Then they're supposed to eat unleavened bread seven days afterwards with bitter herbs. They're supposed to do all these things. And Paul's looking back at that and saying this represents something in the New Testament. Well, what did the lamb represent? Jesus Christ. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is what the Passover is represented. Look at verse number six in Exodus chapter 12. And you shall keep it under the 14th day of the same month and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door posts of the house wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh and at night roast with fire and unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. So this was the observing of the Passover. He tells them what they're going to do. Then they're going to leave and they're supposed to observe this. And we know that the Lord Jesus Christ is the lamb of God that was slain for the sins of the world. So in the New Testament, we don't kill a lamb once a year. Christ is the lamb slain once for all. It's one time he laid down his life for us and now we have, you know, his blood sprinkled to our hearts, sprinkled on the altar. Our sins are forgiven. We're washed in the blood is what the Bible teaches. But there's other teachings here that we can get. Go to verse 14. And this day it shall be unto you for a memorial. So what's the purpose? A remembrance. He says and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread. Even the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses. For whosoever eateth leavened bread for the first day unto the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. So in the Old Testament observance of the Passover, if someone were to eat bread that is leavened. Now what does leaven represent in the Bible? It represents sin. He's saying if someone is eating this leavened bread, they are cast out of the church. They are cast out of the congregation. They're cast out of the assembly. In the same way, he takes this and says this is how the New Testament is supposed to work. When someone is in certain leaven, they're supposed to be cast out of the church so as not to corrupt the rest of the church. So what? A little leaven? Leaveneth the whole lump is what the Bible says. And whenever you see bread with a little bit of fungus on it, if you just let it fester, the whole lump is going to be destroyed very quickly. I mean fungus and you know leaven or these type of things, they work very quickly. Look at verse 19. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses. For whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether it be stranger or born in the land. So go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. The Bible says in Acts chapter 7 that that was called the church in the wilderness. So what does church mean? Congregation assembly. And he's saying those that want to eat this leavened bread, they're cast out. You say, oh, I thought God's house was for everybody. Everybody's welcome, but if they are eating with the leavened bread, now all of a sudden you're not welcome. So anybody has the opportunity, but when you're in certain sin, when you have certain leaven in your life, you're not welcome in the congregation. So that's how we're supposed to keep the feast of the Passover is by having church and casting out the leavened people from the church. Christ is our Passover. So do we do that from the same physical sense? Are we going to slay the lamb and are we going to literally eat the unleavened bread? No. And that's actually pictured through communion or observance of the Lord's Supper, which is a different sermon. But look at verse number nine now, keeping that in mind, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with idolaters, for then must he needs go out of the world. But now I've written unto you not to keep company of any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or extortioner with such an one known not to eat, for what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not you judge them that are within, but them that are without God judges. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. So you say, what is this saying? Well, if you just go out into the world today, everybody's pretty much going to be on this list. I mean, everybody's like drinking and committing fornication. I mean, in America we live in today, unfortunately, it's not the 1950s anymore. And most people would probably fall somewhere on this list possibly, especially in a group. If you're in a group setting, there's just going to be these type of people among you. There's going to be people that would fit this bill. And he's saying, I'm not saying just be away from all wicked people. Otherwise we're going to just go buy some land south and be at a commune and live by ourselves and be this Amish colt and drink the Kool-Aid and all that. I don't want to do that. I'm not going to do that. We're supposed to be in the world, but not of the world. But inside these walls, when we get together and have church, this type of person's not welcome. And the only reason that someone would be in here and on this list is because I don't know it. That is the only reason. You say, hey, I can't believe that person's in here. Pastor must not realize. Pastor must not. I better tell him. I better show him, discover the fact that this person is in this situation. Now the only exception to this would be someone that's not part of our church, but shows up. Okay. Someone that just walks in the door, they're not part of our church. They're just a visitor. Okay. So they could be in one of these situations. They're not just going to immediately throw that person out. They're welcome to have space to repent is what the Bible teaches. So let's look at the first one we have on our list. What's the first one fornicator. Now it also says before that if any man that is called a brother, let me clarify what this means. What it means to be called a brother. We can't be for sure anybody's saved in this room. We're a hundred percent, right? But if everybody considers that person saved or a brother, then that's what this is saying. If it's saying us as a church, when we'd look at a person, we would all look at that person and be like, well, that person is a brother because they've confessed to the Lord Jesus Christ. They believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's pretty much all we can go on. We're not basing on their lifestyle. So even somebody that's not in this church, but we would look at them and say, well, they're saved. It's not like you're going to give them the gospel. It's not like you need to try and convert them into Christianity. They're saved. And they're called a brother. You would say so and so. So let's take somebody that goes to a Catholic church that says that salvation's by works. And you walk up to them and you say, hey, if you die today, are you a hundred percent sure you go to heaven? Hey, what's up, brother? Hey, we're all, you know, sons of God, brother. Would we all look at that person and say, oh, brother, hey, you're our brother. So I'm not saying that person. The Bible's not saying that person. But let's say we went to another church. Okay. Or let's say you have a family member that goes to another church, but they're saved. And they, and everybody in this church would say, yeah, they're saved. They believe the gospel. They're saved. That person fits on this list. So the only people that don't fit on this list are unsaved people that you, that generally everybody would agree, like this person's not saved. They don't believe the gospel. They're not trusting the gospel. Whether or not they call themselves a brother or go to a church. I don't care. It doesn't make any difference to me. Whether or not they're saved. Okay. And they say called a brother. Again, I think the emphasis there is the fact that we can't be 100% certain. And I don't think you have to just check every single person's salvation in the church, you know, to determine whether or not this is true. They've been coming to the church. They've been calling themselves a Christian. That's good enough to be cast out if you're in the sin. Okay. Now we also see the word fornicator. What is fornication? We'll go to 1 Corinthians chapter seven. And as I say this, there's six things on this list. We're not going to go in super deep discussion of any of these points. We don't have time. I'm going to do my best to just get through this sermon. So we're just kind of surface level just kind of talking about these. Each one of these probably deserves its own sermon to talk about all the depths of what it means. But we're just going to try and skim the surface to get an idea of what it is so that we can identify it and know this is why someone would be thrown out of the church. Look at 1 Corinthians 7 verse 2. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. So what is fornication? Well, it's lying with someone who's not your wife. And this is my greatest proof because when you get married, that only increases your chances for adultery. Now some people will say fornication is adultery, but that would be stupid to say that getting married will lessen your likelihood of adultery because now you've only increased your chance for adultery. By getting married, any person that you lie with now, you're committing adultery. But we see to avoid this fornication, to avoid lying with people that you're not married to, get married. Then you can fulfill that desire. The primary application is the fact that every person has a natural desire, 99% of people, and to fulfill that desire you should fulfill it in marriage so you're not just going out and lying with other people. Now go to Revelation chapter number 2. So when it comes to fornication, one thing that we have to take note of is nobody is going to be committing one of these sins while in church. So this is not a, well if you're in church committing fornication, you're going to be thrown out. It's a lifestyle. This is something that someone's done in the past and they're in this type of lifestyle. They haven't repented of this action. It looks like they're probably going to do it again in the future by their actions. What would this look like? Two people living together that are not married. You're in fornication. You say, oh yeah, we're not fornicating. You're in fornication. All right. I'm not going to sit here and have someone tell me, yo, we just lived together, but we're not in fornication, liar. I don't believe that for one second and abstain from all appearance of evil anyways. And look, obviously even if you weren't hypothetically, that's still sin. That's still wicked. I'm not going to tolerate that, but let's say we get some people saved and they're living together and they just come into the church. I'm not going to say, you know, within five minutes of coming in the church, get out. You know, we just got you saved. You don't know any of the Bible. I'm going to show you first Corinthians five and throw you out immediately. We're going to give them space to repent. Let's look at Romans, Revelation chapter two, verse 20, notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee because thou suffers that woman Jezebel, which called herself a prophet is to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication and eat things sacrificed and idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication and she repented not. So what is he saying? The Lord saying, okay, well, this woman's doing something wicked and I'm going to give her space. Meaning what? Time. So someone comes in, they're in this situation, they hear the preaching, pastor gets up and he rips on fornication and says, if you do this, you're going to be thrown to the church. We see a couple of weeks later, nothing's changing. Now all of a sudden, pastor is going to go talk to that person and say, hey, look, did you hear the sermon? Did you hear what the Bible says? Can I show you what it says here? This is what's going to happen. And if someone's in fornication, I'll basically give them three options. I'll say, well, you can get married within seven days and I'll give you a free wedding or you can stop fornicating, which means if you're living together, you're not living together anymore, or you can not come to this church, but I'm not just going to let rampant open fornication just happen in this church. Now let's take another scenario though. Let's say we have somebody that's been coming to this church. I mean, they've been in this church for a year. They've been to this church for two years. And then all of a sudden they're in fornication. They're not going to get this space to repent. If you've heard the preaching, if you know what God's word says, and you're just going to bring your girlfriend to church, you're going to be told to leave. You're going to be cast out of the church. You're not going to just bring your girlfriend into church and expect that it's all going to be okay when you're living with them. Then you're in open fornication, setting an example for all the young people to say, hey, look at us. You know, we're just going to go against the Bible and we're just going to commit fornication because you're going to leaven the whole lump. Everybody else is going to look at it and say, whoa, well, they're in fornication and they seem happy and they're serving God and pastors not saying anything. Look, I see this in all kinds of churches. I've been to tons of churches. There's a couple there. They're living together. Everybody knows it. They're Sunday school teachers. The Sunday school teachers are in fornication. They're having Christmas parties. Everybody's coming to their house that they live in. Fornication is not going to happen in this church. I preached last Sunday about how someone would get remarried and just walk back into church. That's a scenario I'm painting. I'm not saying someone that's divorced from remarried is not welcome in our church. I'm not saying that someone that's divorced is not welcome in our church. Look, whatever you've done, you're welcome to this church as long as you're not going to come in here and teach the people that. As long as you're willing to admit, hey, that was wrong, that was a sin, not going around. I think it's great. Everybody should get divorced and remarried. You're going to have some problems then. And if somebody's a member of my church, they're not going to go from the phase of being married then divorcing and then both people getting remarried and they're just coming to the church the whole time. It's just not welcome. I'm not going to watch people go through this phase. And I was at a church where there's this young guy, he gets married to a young woman in the church. A few months later, they're divorced. Now he's just dating one of the university students in the church. You think that's going to happen in this church? No. It's not welcome. Obviously, if we get someone saved, they come in and say, hey, this is my new wife. You know, we had divorced in the past, whatever. I'm not just throwing that person out. You got to understand, I'm just not going to let these processes happen to the congregation. Why? Because it's going to teach the congregation bad things. It's going to leaven the whole lump. It's a bad example. Now look at verse number 14, but I have a few things against thee because that thou hast there, then that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast the stumbling box before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. When you commit fornication in the church, you're teaching other people it's okay to commit fornication in the church. That's why you're thrown out. For a couple reasons, actually, but that's the primary reason. We don't want to leaven the rest of the lump. We don't want everybody else to follow in your sin and follow in your ways. And this is a very public thing a lot of times. I mean, if you're living together and you're coming together, everybody's going to realize, hey, this is not my wife. This is just somebody I'm lying with. He's like, whoa, it's concubine or whatever. That's you're teaching people to commit fornication. We see it's a stumbling block. But not only that, the only way you're going to fix it is by someone giving you a kick in the pants and saying, you're not welcome until you get married and come in and do the honest thing. We're not going to have this situation. So if someone's in fornication, they're not welcome in the church. I'm not even going to eat with them. You say, hey, well, I know I'm not welcome in the church, pastor, will you come have lunch with us? No. Hey, will you come over to our house? No. Will you come, what about the Christmas party? No, you're not welcome. You say, not just this building, you're not welcome to be a part of the fellowship. That's what, you're getting thrown out. And why do you do that to somebody? So they'll fix it. So they'll change. So they'll repent. So they'll get that sin out of their life and come back to the church. Because when you just accept it, the people that come as they are, they're going to stay as they are. They're going to stay that way. The point of coming to church is to get closer to Christ. What did I say was my job? Was to help you serve Christ better. If you're in fornication, you're not serving Christ. You are a stumbling block to yourself and others. And I'm going to try and get that out of your life with tough love. By saying, you are not welcome in this church until you fix it. And then once you fix it, come on back in. We love you. We'll forget it. We'll forgive it. We won't even mention it. I don't care. If you commit a fornication in the past, I don't care. But if you're in active fornication, you're not welcome in this church. I can forgive and forget, but you know what? You're not going to bring it in to each other people. Now go, if you would, to Exodus chapter number 20. So that was the first one we had on our list. Fornication. And it should be a good warning. It should be a good warning to young people that say, you know what? I can't wait to commit fornication when I get a little bit older. Well just know, you're not welcome in the church when you do that. You're going to be thrown out of church. You're going to be publicly shamed if it comes to light. Look at Exodus chapter 20 verse 17. The second thing we had on the list was covetous. Now when it comes to some things on this list, okay, some things on this list are super clear and some things are a little bit more vague. It's really obvious when someone's in fornication if they're living together. I mean there's not like a question, you know, to some people I guess. To me it's not a questionable thing. You're living together. You're in fornication. It's super clear. Someone being covetous though, we have to try and decide what does that mean? What does that really look like? And I don't think God would give us a list of things that are somewhat, you know, broad in their definition to where we couldn't actually apply this to somebody, where we couldn't look at someone and say, you're covetous, you're thrown out until you fix that, until you repent of that. So what is covetousness? Well it's pretty much wanting people's money, wanting people's stuff, the love of money. Now you can covet anything. He also says covet your neighbor's wife. That would be, you know, things of just lust in nature. But most of the time when we're looking through the Bible, it's money, it's the love of money. That's what it says in 1 Timothy chapter number 6. Go if you would go back at chapter number 2 now. It's in the Minor Prophets in the middle of your Bible, just before the New Testament. When Jesus talked about the Pharisees, he said they were covetous. The Bible also says in Proverbs chapter 11 verse 1, a false balance is abomination of the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. So what does covetous really look like? Well I think if we were honest with ourselves, we probably all have covetous thoughts. Every single one of us desires something that we don't have, or just desires more money, or just desires to have the nicer things in this life. You see a really nice house, you think, oh man, that would be really cool if I had that house. It'd be really cool if I had that brand new truck. It'd be really cool to have this fancy vacation, or just things in the lust of the flesh, just foolish thoughts, things that we desire. I'm not saying you're going to be thrown out for that. But when you start getting past the point of thought, to where it then becomes action, now we're seeing the manifestation of covetousness. The Pharisees, they loved money so much that whenever people would come to the temple and they would be buying and selling, not only are they doing that which is wrong, buying and selling, but they would have a false weight. So you would come in, you would bring your money to exchange it. I've got pesos, you've got a dollar. And if we go across the street to the government institution, just for an example, let's say they're giving 20 pesos for a dollar. But when you come to church, well, I'm only going to give you, let's say, a dollar for 50 pesos. So I'm going to jack up the rate, I'm going to have a false balance, but not only that, I'm not even going to tell you. I'm going to tell you that's the current rate. Or whenever you put your money on the scale, and it says 20 pesos, it's really 50. So not only am I taking more than I should, I'm lying to you that I'm even taking it. So a lot of times money in the past, it was measured by weight. So it would be so many shekels of silver, so much weight. So let's say a pound of gold, that would be a lot of money. But I'm just saying, let's just say for an example it's a pound of gold. Well, when you put a pound of gold on my scale, it only says like .75 pounds. So you've got to put a little bit more on there, so then I'm getting more money. Why? Because I'm covetous. I'm lying to you, I'm stealing from you, I'm being deceitful to try and get more money because of my covetousness. That's a different level than just one time driving by a nice house and saying, man, it'd be cool to live there, right? And again, I'm not even saying that's a wicked sin, obviously it's okay to have desires. It's okay for you to want stuff. Hey, I would like to eat food over here, or I would like a new truck. It's okay to have this, but when you're just consumed and every thought is about having stuff you don't have, you're not content with the things that you have, you say my truck broke down, I need a new one. That's not covetous. But you just bought a new truck and then someone comes out with a little bit newer one, the newer model, they're like, oh, I got to get the newer one now. I got to get the one with the cool audio player, whatever. The new rims, what are they called, 86? Somebody told me, was it 86, these rims on these cars that these thugs drive or whatever? It's disgusting. I'm having to get way off of my sermon, okay? It's good to have back at chapter number two, okay? Look at verse eight. Because thou has spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee because of men's blood and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein. Woe to him that covetous and evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil. Thou has consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people and ascend against thy soul. Now back at two, it's very well believed that this is just focusing on Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar is a rebuke of Nebuchadnezzar. Now what did Nebuchadnezzar do? Well he went out and he conquered the entire world. He went out and destroyed all the nations and he dumped to himself riches and land and all these things. And the Bible says he had an evil covetousness. So through covetousness, he decided through war and through killing, he's going to take other people's stuff. And we see that's why people have war. Why do they have war? To take things that don't belong to them because of evil covetousness. And we see it's affecting their action. Their actions are they're stealing and robbing and killing so that they can have things that are not theirs. This is like Judas. Judas was one who was decided was covetous. What did he do? He stole the money from the bag. And he would even say things, he would say, why didn't you sell that ointment? Why was that ointment not sold and given to the poor? Not that he cared for the poor, but that he was a thief and he would take what was put out in the treasury. So he was covetous and we can even see a semblance where people are getting close to that line by their words. He's like, hey, why don't we, you know, sell this and buy this and they're always talking about money. But if someone's gonna be thrown out of the church, it's pretty much going to be for me, their actions are being altered because of their covetousness. So they're stealing. They're robbing people when they, you know, it's not theirs for covetousness sake. They're trying to get things, you know, through dishonest gain. What's dishonest gain in the Bible? Charging usury. Someone who's a money lender. Money lenders are going to be cast out of my church for being covetous because that's not honest gain. That's dishonest gain according to the Bible. So you say, hey, I just opened a new check cashing business. Okay, see ya. You know, hey, I do mortgaging and I do all these hard money loans. I can't wait to get everybody in your church set up. I'll get you a good interest rate. Get out. You're not welcome to come in here and start stealing from people from that dishonest gain. Now again, if someone walks into the church, they're in this situation, I'll give them space to repent. But I'm saying, if you're in my church and you're like, I can't wait to start all my cash checking and my banking and my hard money lending. You're not welcome in my church. That's not, I mean, that's not a business. That's a business that's clearly a sin in the Bible. Now there are certain businesses, there's certain things in this world that have an element of wickedness or things that are wrong with them. I'm not just saying, well, you need to get out of that business or you need to sell your business or you're not welcome in this room. If it's a clear, obvious sin in the Bible that's violating clear things, then it's going to be cast out. There's plenty of things that are not profitable that I, you know, I wouldn't do. But having money being usury, being a usurer is so much of a wicked sin, it's going to be cast out of the church. Cash now businesses, or if you're lying and manipulating yourself products, one of these salesmen that comes in and they offer a product to somebody, but they do like a bait and switch with the person or they're lying or they're being deceptive. This is someone that's filled with covetous. They're doing wrong things to try and get money. So go if you would to Exodus, go back to Exodus chapter 20. So I've looked at a couple of things, you know, I'd even say with multi-level marketing, that's a pretty fine line. I'm not going to let people come in here and just start using the church as their multi-level marketing schemes. Even say if it's a good product, I don't care if it's a good product or not. Most of them are, they're cheap crap. But even if you bring in your Mary Kay and your Avon, your Amway and your Herbalife and your Scentsy. Look, the Scentsy candles are stupid. I don't like them at all. But you're not going to come in here and try to sell all of your junk to everybody in the church, just being lover of money. You know what you're going to talk about in church, soul winning, the Bible, hymns, worshiping God. You're not, we're not going to come in here and change the culture of the church to your business. Well, have you, have you bought so and so Scentsy yet? They're having a Scentsy party at the church and they can't get you, wait to get you set up on their mailing list and they want you to be a distributor. You should get under them and you can, you can start selling with them. It's not going to happen. We're going to talk about soul winning. You come up to soul winning, you're like, hey, did you buy my stuff and are you getting my stuff? This is not a place to buy and sell. This is a place to worship God, to get people saved. We're going to influence people to go out soul winning, to serve God, to sing hymns unto God, not your money scheme. And that leaven is going to come in and destroy the church. There's a lot of churches today where people just bring their business into church and they just make money through going to church by selling to all these people and getting them on their lists and they have life groups where they're selling people stuff. I mean, it's not going to be welcome in this church. Not only that though, the Bible said in idolatry. What's an idolatry? Someone who worships an idol or idols. Look at verse number three, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. For I am the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. So according to the Bible, the first commandment is thou shalt have no other gods before me. That's saying God is a jealous God. He doesn't want to share his attention with some other God. First of all, there is no other God. There's no other God beside me. It's just the Lord. So you're just worshiping, you know, some inanimate object, some rock, some stone, evolutionists, worshiping rocks and time and space. But we see many religions today, they worship inanimate objects. They have some Buddha statue or some statue to their false god or whatever throughout all time. Even today, there's millions, if not billions of people falling down, worshiping graven images. It's a Catholic church. They literally have graven images in their churches that they pray to. They're praying, oh, Blessed Virgin Mary, you know, help me and bless me and protect me. That's wicked. That's not welcome in God's church. We're not mixing Christianity with other religions. It's not a melting pot of religion and faith. And we'll worship a little bit of Christ here and there and we'll worship other gods. Even if you were going to say, well, I'm not making false gods, Pastor Shelley. You don't understand. I'm making pictures of Christ. We have a crucifix. That's of Jesus. I'm of the Christian faith. We'll go to Deuteronomy chapter four. The second time we have the commandments given to us, Deuteronomy chapter number four. Look, that's still wicked. And that's not Jesus. Whatever picture you think you have, not Jesus. Whatever graven image you have, not the Lord Jesus Christ, not godly. It has nothing to do with God. He makes that super clear. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like it when you draw ugly pictures of Him and then try to say that's Jesus. That's not what He wants you to do. The Bible says without faith it's impossible to please Him. If He wanted you to look at Him, He'd show up. And one day He will and every eye will behold Him and we'll all see the Father's face. But right now, we walk by faith, not by sight. We don't need to bring that sight into reality because it's a false vision. It's a false picture in your mind. Look at Deuteronomy four verse 15. It is of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth. You say, what's a graven image? It's here. You say, if it's a bird, oh, we got a dove though, Pastor Shelley. You don't understand. If it's a fish, oh, we got the Jesus fish. It's a graven image. Throw it away. Burn it. Don't have anything to do with it. You say, well, I'm not worshiping it. Okay, well, it's a twofold sin. The first sin is making it. The second sin is bowing down. And just because you're not bowing down or worshiping it, in a sense, does not mean it's not sin. It's a wicked sin because look at verse 15. He says, for ye saw no manner of similitude. You say, hey, can I make a picture of Christ? No. It's impossible. Man cannot make the vice that looks like Christ, that looks like God. He says, when I came down, you never saw anything like it. And you'll never see anything like it again. You can't make it. It's impossible to make something that looks like me. Don't even try. And whenever you try, it's like a three-year-old trying to draw you. What is that going to look like? He's got maybe some circles and some lines coming out. You're like, that's not an accurate picture of what you look like, okay? This is what God thinks when you're trying to make these graven images of him. And then you're worshiping it. You know what I'd rather you do? Just come talk to me. Don't draw a weird picture of me and then be like, oh, I'm talking to Pastor Shelley. You know, you see my picture of Pastor Shelley. Hey, Pastor Shelley, how's it going? No, why don't you call me on the phone? Or why don't you come and talk to me in the flesh? I'll have a conversation with you. That's great. But it's not honoring to God to make these wicked images that don't look like him, have nothing to do with him, and then try to talk to those and worship those and do anything with those. It's even clear here that you shouldn't even have any type of graven image. We shouldn't have statues out in the world today. We shouldn't have trees of bears and horses and all these things. It's a sin. It's not something we should have. You shouldn't have your house decorated with all these graven images. That's not something we should have. Now let me make it clear. I'm not saying that it goes beyond that. So anything beyond that I'm not saying is a sin. I'm not saying drawing a picture of a bear is a sin. I'm not saying having a stuffed animal is a sin. But what am I saying? If you're making a graved or carved image of an animal or bird or man, it's sin. It's against God's commandments. It's not right for you to have this shrine of animal graven images in your house. You're worshiping them in a sense because you're giving them honor and respect and reverence. Even though you're not bowing down to it, it's still wicked. We shouldn't be worshiping. God made them. God made them to be taken and killed and eaten. That's how I'm going to worship God through animals is by eating them and by domesticating them and taking rule over them. I'm not going to make a special image of, oh, but there's a really special dog and a special kitty cat and a special bear. Kill it. I don't care. And you know what? It kicks people's hearts off of man and puts them on animals. People today, they don't care about abortion, but oh man, if you kill the puppy, the whole world will flip out. The whole world will go crazy. Why? They make all these little puppy, you know, graven images. They worship it and they think it's so special and precious. I think people are precious because they're made in what? The image of God. That's the closest thing you're going to get to God is people. That's who we should love. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. You want to love God? Love people. And the person that wants to worship animals and images does not love God as much as they love, you know, this wicked image. Oh, I don't bow down to it. Yeah, you're still worshiping in a sense, aren't you though? You're still giving reverence to where it shouldn't be. Get your heart on the things of God. That's why I say, I don't even want anything in this church. You say, I'm going to bring my graven images into church. I'm going to throw them out, okay? Now obviously a visitor comes in, again, I'm going to give them space, and you know, there's a fine line. What do you say, like an action figure? I don't believe an action figure is technically violating this statute, but I don't want it. And you know, I don't want your kids to bring in anything that's really, abstain from all appearance of evil. Don't bring all your action figures. You want to bring in your toy cars. If your kids have like some toy or whatever, whatever, okay? But let's just refrain as much as we possibly can from anything close to the semblance of this, you know, violation, okay? Now what is an idolater? Well, it's going to be the person that has these images, is worshiping it, is, you know, bowing down to it, thrown out. I'm not saying just because you have this in your house, you're thrown out of the church, okay? I've rarely been to a house where someone didn't have one of these, okay? Someone's got a graven image somewhere in their backyard, they got a gnome or they got, I mean they just have something somewhere. It's just everywhere in this country, unfortunately. But go to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. I'm trying to hurry through these. We've got a couple more. I'm not trying to go in super grave detail of all these. They probably all need their own sermon to kind of talk about the depths and all the verses we can look at. But to be thrown out of church, we're talking about your basic Hindu, okay? We're talking about your basic person worshiping, you know, graven images, your Catholic, okay? Your Catholic is not welcome in the church. He's not going to bring Mary in here with his graven image, bring his crucifix around his neck. Hey, did you see my crucifix? He's kissing the crucifix during service. Not going to happen. That person's going to say, hey, did you really get saved? I mean, that's not Christ. That's not welcome. Throw that out or you get out. That's your two options. Something's going to leave. I hope you stay and that leaves, but you're not both welcome. Look at 2nd Corinthians 6, verse 14, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth of an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? No idols are welcome in the temple of God. It's going to be thrown out. You say, oh, I saw one. Come tell me and I'll destroy it, all right? I'll be like Gideon, Jerubabel, throwing down the altars of Bel, all right? Now let's go, if you would, go if you would to 2nd Chronicles chapter 32, go to 2nd Chronicles chapter number 32. We had another definition in our Bible called the Raylor. Now Raylor is a word where I believe this one's a little bit broad again. It's kind of one that we have to try and figure out what does this mean? What does the Bible say? To rail, according to a dictionary, says to revile or scold in harsh, insolent or abusive language. Now here's the thing. Based on that definition, sometimes people will look at a godly pastor and say, well, he's a Raylor. Did you not see him, you know, ripping face on Joel Osteen or John MacArthur or one of these type of people? Well, clearly the Bible tells us to rebuke. So what is rebuke? It's to speak harshly about somebody. So there's got to be a difference between railing and rebuking, okay? Railing would be you're speaking against somebody, in my opinion, that you're speaking against somebody that you should love, that you should have respect for. Now whenever you rebuke somebody, I only rebuke people that I love. You know who only rebukes people they love? God. God says I rebuke and chasten them that he loves. If you're without chastisement, then are you a bastard and not a son? So God rebukes and chastens those whom he loves. You know who God does not love? False prophets. Okay? Sodomites. So if you speak harshly and wicked about somebody in that extreme category, and I'm saying they're like for sure known sodomite, they're for sure known false prophet, like they teach a hardcore work of salvation, they deny the death, burial, and resurrection, something you know extreme. Jehovah's false witness. Okay? Mormons. These type of people you cannot speak harshly enough against them, okay, in my opinion. We rebuke them sharply, all right? But this is not railing. But let's say someone's a brother in Christ, okay? Let's say this is another pastor that actually believes the gospel. It's not right for you to just go on and on and speak against them and speak wickedly and be all mean. Look, why don't you go to them in private if you really need to rebuke them or if you really need to say something? And you have to be careful because the Bible says very clearly in 1 Timothy 5, rebuke not an elder. So you're not supposed to go around rebuking pastors. And if you start rebuking pastors that are saved, pastors that are friends of ours, you're going to be called a railer and you're not welcome in the church. You're not welcome to go around speaking against pastors, whether it's true or not true. Now I think most of the time when we learn in our Bible about railing, it's usually false accusations. But I believe it can also be true accusations. You know, we're independent. This is an independent Baptist church. I don't know if you believe that or not, but it truly is. You know, I'm the person up here making the rules, but it's based on this book. Obviously this is the final authority, but someone has to interpret it. Someone has to decide what's right and wrong. And we have friends and they're independent churches too. And you know what? We have differences. There's differences between us. And it's not right for you to pick out differences of them that you think are wrong or even we teach as a church that are wrong and start speaking against them and being harsh about them and saying, well, they're not right and they're wrong and they're sinners and wicked and all this. Cause did you see what they did? They had service. You know, they sang two songs before the service, not three. She's like, what are you talking about? And obviously the things that are differences between us are minor. They're insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it's not right for you to go around and saying, well, I don't like that church. They're so wicked. They only have two songs before the service. It's like, whoa, you're now in a railing situation. Even if that's true, if they really only have two services or we're talking about minor pieces of doctrine, okay, that they do a little bit different than us. It's not right for you to go around speaking against those types of people. Look at second Chronicles 32 verse 17. This is where I get my definition of rail. It says he wrote also letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel and to speak against him saying as the gods of nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand. So two things here. First of all, he tells us rail is kind of like speaking against, but then in the example, he's mocking him. He's saying, God can't save you. God can't deliver you. He's making fun of him. He's speaking against them in a very irreverent way. This is what the railing is like. When people are just going around, just speaking evil of people to speak evil of them, a lot of times even false accusations. Go if you went to Jude chapter 1, one other place I want to look for this point. The Bible says to judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. In the context, Jesus Christ heals on the Sabbath day, and the Pharisees are saying, hey, you're in sin. You're doing wickedly, and Jesus points out their hypocrisy saying, well, you would circumcise a guy on the Sabbath day, but I can't actually heal him of some disease. I couldn't actually make him whole, and they're not judging according to the Bible. So whenever you're going to judge anything, and especially when it's not yourself, you better make sure it's coming from God's word. You say, I want to rebuke my neighbor. Well, you better make sure, first of all, that you're not hypocritical about it, and then secondly, that it's coming straight from God's word. You're saying, hey, this is what the Bible says, and I'm worried for you, or I don't want you to be in this type of situation. You're not just going around just making careless statements, mocking people, making fun of people. Well, that pastor's stupid, must not read his Bible, because they only have two songs before their service. It's like, what in the world? That's railing. That's not edifying. That's not trying to help the person. You're not trying to correct them in a way in which they could respond to it. You're just being a jerk on purpose. That's a railer, a jerk on purpose. We have a lot of examples of this. We have people doing this to Christ. Christ is on the cross. The Bible says they passed by, they railed on him. It says, oh, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days. So that's a false accusation, too, because they're saying, oh, you thought you were going to build the temple in three days? Now look at you. You're on the cross, not even realizing he is going to fulfill that. He was speaking of the temple of his body, and in three days he will rise again. They says other malefactors which hanged railed on him, saying, if thou be Christ, save thyself and us. So the one guy that doesn't want to get saved, he's sitting there dying on the cross, he's making fun of Christ. Hey, if you really are the son of God, wouldn't you just save us? Don't you have all power? Couldn't you just do anything? So they're railing on the Lord Jesus Christ, and railers would be thrown out of the church. Look at Jude chapter 1 verse 9. Yet Michael the archangel went intending with the devil. He disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said the Lord rebuke thee. So even though, do you think Michael the archangel has any dirt on the devil? I mean let's be honest, the devil's got a lot of things going on. Michael could have brought up all kinds of accusations, but he still didn't even bring up his own personal beliefs or viewpoints. He just said well I'll let God rebuke you, or I'll let the Lord do it. So it's not necessarily our place to just go around rebuking people, doing whatever we want. We got to be careful that we judge according to righteous judgment, and we're not going to bring any false accusation. We're not going to bring up something that's not true necessarily. You know I've heard a lot of people that would attack like Hillary Clinton, and they would say I hate Hillary Clinton, and I'd say why? They'd say oh well she murdered you know millions of people, and she's gotten all these scandals and all these things. Basically just conspiracy theory information. Nothing that's verifiable, nothing that's factual, just stuff you've heard, just bringing up all these accusations. Look Hillary Clinton, I was trying to think of someone really close to the devil. Hillary Clinton's really close to the devil okay, but if you're going to focus on someone that's wicked, focus on things that are true, verifiably true. You don't have to wonder, you're not questioning it. Look you went to her website for her stances, she's like I want to evangelize the whole world with sodomy. She's saying every country has to recognize transgender passports in the world. That's just a verifiable fact, that's on her website. I'm not bringing up a railing accusation of saying, did you hear about this guy who died? Wink wink, it's probably Hillary wasn't it? That's a railing accusation. I don't think you should do that. That's not godly. Why don't we just focus on the things that we know are true are verifiable if you're going to bring an accusation against somebody. Judge righteous judgment. Do it with truth and sincerity and honesty and integrity okay. Even Michael the archangel, he's not going around saying well the devil did it. That's not what churches do, something bad will happen, oh the devil did it. The devil must be the one who's behind every bad thing that ever happens in the world. That's a railing accusation. You don't know if the devil did that or not. And Michael the archangel, he's like you know what I'll just let the Lord take care of you. I'm not going to sit here and blame everything on you. I know you do a lot of wicked stuff and look Hillary Clinton does a lot of wicked stuff but not every bad thing that happens in this country is Hillary Clinton's fault. You can't just say every bad thing is just Hillary's fault or just the devil's fault. We need to make sure things that we say are true and honest and have sincerity. Let's go to our next one. Go to Proverbs 23. So we're almost done. We've got two more, drunkard. Now here's one where some people would think this is really vague or really broad. I think it's really clear. And I have five things that identify someone that's a drunk from the Bible. That's how I got this definition okay. What would be someone who's drunk? Let me give you an easy answer. Someone who's not sober. If you're not sober then you're drunk. I don't care what level you're drunk okay. If you're not sober you're drunk in my opinion. Now the world today they have all these extra in the middle interpretations. Oh I'm tipsy. Oh I'm buzzed. Oh I'm feeling it. You know I'm lit. Or whatever they want to say in the middle. Look those aren't Bible words. You're either sober or you're drunk. You're either sober or you're influenced by alcohol in some way. And that's a form of drunkenness. Now look at Proverbs 23 verse 20. Be not among wine bibbers among riotous eaters of flesh for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. So my first identifying point. You say what's a drunkard? Someone who drinks every day. They have a they have a reputation of being a wine bibber. He's saying this guy drinks all the time. I mean we just see him drink every time we're around him he's drinking. This person is a drunk according to the Bible. They're a wine bibber. They're not wanting to be sober. They're constantly wanting to be influenced by alcohol. You're a drunk. If you drink every day you're not welcome in my church. Period. That's an identifying mark. I don't care what it is. I have a thimble full of beer. Not welcome. If you drink every day you're a drunk. You have a problem. You need to solve that problem real quick. Why would I throw you out of church because you need to stop drinking. I want you to stop. It's horrible. Listen to my sermon. Drinking makes you stupid. Okay. It's very clear it has short term and long term effects on your body. I don't want you to do it. Look at verse 35. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick. They have beaten me and I felt it not. When shall I wake? I will seek it yet again. This guy's a drunk. He's just every day. I just got to drink every day. It doesn't matter. Good bad happens to me. I'm going to drink. So if you drink every day you're a drunk. Get out. Look at verse 29. Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. So I have two more points from this verse. They say right here they go to seek. That means you're going to a place where the main purpose is to get drunk. What would that place be called? A bar. A club. So if you're going to bars, if you're visiting nightclubs, you're a drunk, get out of the church. I don't want you here. You're leavening the church. Hey, what are you doing later tonight? I'm going to the bar. You want to go with me? Get out of my church. Don't influence people to go to the bar, to go to the club. You know what people are doing there? Getting drunk. You say, oh, we're living together, not fornication. Oh, I'm going to the bar and I'm not drinking. Well, get out. Just don't go to the bar. Now I'm not saying Chili's Bar and Grill, okay? Obviously, find a restaurant these days that doesn't sell liquor or alcohol. Man, it's ridiculous, right? I'm not saying, but it's the primary purpose of going to Chili's just to get drunk. They will stop you even from, they have certain limits and statutes where they're trying to not get people drunk. They can get a lot of trouble. Look, the bar is really lax on all of those, you know, statutes and limitations. They're letting people get really drunk. So now if you go to a restaurant, I try to not sit in the bar section. But again, I'm just saying people that are visiting a place where it's just a bar, like the place, the reason to go here is to get drunk. You stumble out of a bar, not welcome to church on Sunday morning, all right? Not only that though, he says, seek mixed wine. So if you're mixing something with your alcohol to make it more intoxicating, you're obviously a drunkard. Because what did I say? What's drunkenness? Not being sober. So if you decide, well, if I take these drugs and mix it with alcohol, now I'm going to get really buzzed, you're a drunkard. You're trying to seek to be drunk. You're not trying to be sober by doing that. There's no one that in their right mind is saying, well, I'm mixing the drugs and alcohol on purpose to be really sober. It's clearly your intentions and your actions are saying, I want to be drunk. Not welcome. Say, hey, if you mix, you know, a couple of Vicodin with that beer, buddy, it feels even better. Get out of my church, not welcome to my church. Look at verse 34 now. So there's three reasons. You drink every day. You're going to bars. You're mixing drugs and alcohol. You're a drunk. And why do I have these rules? So it's clear. Because some people say, well, a drunkard's at .08% alcohol, blood alcohol level. Nobody can identify that. Nobody can understand if that was really happening or no. These are very identifiable things. Hey, every time we see this person, they're drinking. Every time when I saw this person, he's going to the bar. When I'm around this person, he's inviting me to have Vicodin with his, you know, beer or whatever. Obviously, this guy's a drunkard. This guy is not seeking to be sober. Look at verse 34. Yea, they shall be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. So when you drink, you're putting yourself in dangerous situations. This person's not being considerate of others. He's just lying down in the midst of the sea. That sounds very dangerous. Or on the top of a mast, what is that? It's called a crow's nest. So you have these things at the top of a mast where you could go and kind of spot things from afar off. It's a dangerous place. They're usually not even, they're just like a couple rimmed bars, you know, on some of them that you just kind of barely hang on. That's not a place to take a nap. That's really dangerous. So my fourth thing is people who drink and drive. Because now you're putting other people in danger, you're putting yourself in a very dangerous situation, you're not considerate of others. And even the world condemns this. The world condemns drinking and driving. And if it's more important for you to drink alcohol and put people in jeopardy, then you're a drunk. You're not being sober. You're not being a Christian. Get out of this church. You can't tell me, oh my drinking's so important I just have to drive to the bar and get drunk and drive home. Get out. Not welcome. Not a Christian attribute. You're going to leaven the whole church with that wickedness. And Joel talks about people and says they have cast lots for my people and I've given a boy for a harlot and sold a girl for wine that they may drink. It says people got so dependent on alcohol, they would literally sell a girl, sell a boy just to have another drink. But look, what will people do today? Well, I don't have another option so I'll load up the family and we'll go to the bar, we'll go somewhere I can drink and I'll drink and drive them home. Because if I stay home, I can't drink. So I better load up my kids, put them in danger. Put my whole family at risk just so I can drink alcohol. You're a drunk. Get out. I don't want that filthy leaven. You're ruining your life. You're ruining your children's lives. People die every single day because someone drives drunk. Get out. I don't want it. It's not a Christian attribute. I don't want them to say, hey did you see so and so member of Pure Words Baptist Church killed 10 people in a drunk driving accident. What a shame. Better approach against the church. Don't drink and drive. That's wicked. That's evil. You're not welcome in this church. Don't show up drunk. You'll be thrown out. That actually applies to people that aren't members too. I'm not going to let some drunk person just come in and ruin the church service, alright? Let's go to one last place. Go to Isaiah chapter 5. So so far, I think most people would agree, most people realize that hey this person's a drunk. He's an everyday drunk. You're going to the bars. Some people would probably give me a little bit of hesitation on that one. But again, I'm not trying to see how close I can get to the drunk in this line. I'm staying as far away from it as possible. I'm saying if someone's not on this list, they're not really a drunk. I mean it's really hard to point to this person as a drunk. I mean they're not drinking every day. They never go to a bar. They're not mixing anything with their alcohol. They're not drinking and driving. And here's my fifth point. Look at Isaiah 5 verse 1, or 11, I'm sorry. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink that continue until night till wine inflame them. My last one is if you drink liquor. There is no reason to drink liquor except for to be drunk. People aren't drinking liquor to see how sober they can stay. They're drinking liquor so that they can become more drunk quicker. So they can feel the effects of alcohol faster. That's the point of drinking liquor. Now some people will say, well you're saying if I have one beer, I'm a drunkard, Pastor Shelley. Well, hypothetically, no. So you say, hey, I saw so and so have one beer one time. I'm not going to throw them out of the church for being a drunkard. Now do I recommend that? Absolutely not. That's stupid. And you're stupid if you drink any alcohol, period. But if you fall on one of these five, I think you're a drunkard and I don't want you in my church. I don't want you in my church drinking liquor, going to bars, mixing drugs and alcohol, drinking while drunk, you know, driving while drunk, or hey, I drink every day. You say, but I only have one beer every day. Still, I get out, okay. So if someone on private, you know, just decides to do whatever they want and go against the Bible and go against what I teach, I'm not going to just necessarily throw them out of the church. Why? Because I'm trying to follow what the Bible says. I'm trying to be honest and fair. Most people in the world today, they think a drunk is the guy laying in the gutter who can't get a job, who literally has, you know, booze like taped to his hand or something. Like that is not what the Bible defines as a drunkard. I'm going to define a drunkard from the Bible. And we see woeing of the guy that follows strong drink. Look at verse 22, woeing of them that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink. You don't understand, Pastor Shelley. I've been drinking for 30 years. I can, you know, draw back a couple of things of whiskey and be fine. Well guess what? Woe unto you. And you know what? No one starts there. The only reason you can even do that is because you've been a drunk your whole life. And because you've been a drunk your whole life, now you need even more alcohol to satisfy that buzz, to satisfy that request. Get out. Oh, I'm so mighty. I can drink so much alcohol and still be sober. Liar. Get out of my church. I'm drunk. So the person that, once every year I have a little bit of eggnog, okay, I'm not throwing that person out of the church, right? Some spiked eggnog. But should you do it? No. I'm not teaching you to do it. We're just talking, focusing on getting thrown out of the church. But if you fall on this list, hey, I'm buying, you know, Jack Daniels, did you see all my Jack Daniels in the picture of me in my Christmas party? Get out of my church. Okay. Hey, I'm driving home drunk. Get out of my church. You get arrested for a DUI. I don't think to bring, oh, I'm going to come to church on Sunday morning. Now, you know, I'll help you. If you want to repent, you can fix it. And again, this is a lifestyle, is it not? This isn't something that's necessarily, only if you're drunk at church, you're not welcome. No, obviously on Saturday night, when you go to the bar, you're not welcome to come to church on Sunday morning. All right. Let's go to my last point real quick. The last one was an extortioner, okay? What's extortion? Extortion is when you take money from somebody by force or threat. It's basically an unjustified taking of their money. Now, the Bible says that the Pharisees were extortioners. The way I like to look at this, a really easy way to get this in your mind is think of the mafia bosses. They would offer these things called protection. It's called piezo, okay? So they'd come in, they'd say, hey, if you give us 100 bucks, we won't break your legs, you know, every month. It's like, what? Do I know you? Well, you're going to know me if you don't give me 100 bucks on Friday, here's the address, drop the money off. You're like, okay, that's extortion. You're trying to get money from somebody. They don't owe any money to you. They don't know you. You're telling them if you don't give me money, I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to do something bad to you unless you give me money. It could happen a lot of other ways too. It could even happen with knowledge. You know somebody did something wrong on the job and you say, hey, you give me 100 bucks, I won't tell the boss. You're using the information that they have against you, hey, someone's, you know, committing an affair and they say, I won't tell your wife if you make payments. Look, this happens all the time. People are extorting money from people that they don't have any rights to just because they have knowledge or power and influence over the person. I like to think of it as like Robin Hood. You know, in the story of Robin Hood, you had the sheriff of Nottingham and he's supposed to go out and collect taxes, but a lot of times he would collect that which was not just the tax. He's taking over and above the tax and threatening, if you don't give it to me, I'll throw you in jail. That's an extortioner and it's wicked. That's why they somehow justify Robin Hood stealing. Well guess what? Two wrongs don't make a right. But we see that's why people get so angry and we're willing to justify Robin Hood stealing for the poor's sake because that guy was such an extortioner. Now go if you would to Luke chapter 3. Did I have you turn there? Luke chapter number 3. We'll see this in the Bible. The Bible talks about Judas Iscariot in Psalms. It says, let the extortioner catch all that he hath. So they're cursing the Judas in the Bible saying, I want someone to come and take all of his money by force and threat. So this isn't a good thing. This is a grievous thing to do to somebody, but we'll see what would be somebody thrown out of the church for being extortioner. Here it is. Look at verse 12. Then came also publicans to be baptized and said unto them, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, exact no more than that which has appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him saying, and what shall we do? And he said unto them, do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely and be content with your wages. So sometimes the military could be influenced to say, well, you better start giving us some money or we're going to bomb your house or we're going to kill you or we're going to do whatever to you. They're extorting things that are not theirs. So what could this look like? Well, let's say you catch somebody stumbling out of the bar at church and you say, well, I could tell pastor or you could give me a hundred bucks. You're both going to be kicked out. You're both in wicked sin. Don't commit another grievous sin for someone else's. Keep yourself away from that. And we see even the Jews would do this. People would be afraid to be kicked out of the synagogue for fear of the Jews. And so in a sense, they're kind of extorting people because they still want them to be in the church. They're controlling them. They're manipulating them. Again, I'm not going in grave detail on this. Go to Romans 16, last place I'll have your turn. I know I went over a little bit on this one. It's kind of a tougher sermon just because there's so many, you know, different topics are kind of trying to touch here. So it would be better to have like a whole sermon in each one, but just to give you a good sense, you say, Hey, I'm not on that list. Great. You're welcome to church. I hope you're in church. And if you know, you see yourself getting close to one of these lines, this is a sermon to help get you on your mind. I got to get away from that. I better abstain from that because it could actually influence me going to church. It could actually influence me from serving God, from doing that, which is godly. And we're kind of looking at some extreme sins. Now there's other ways that people could be kicked out. That's not an exhaustive list because there's other people like heretics, they'll be thrown out of the church. There's other verses that talk about that. So we're just kind of focusing on verse 15, but look at Romans 16 verse 17. Now I beseech you brethren, mark them which causes divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them. For they are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. So again, here's another example where someone's thrown out of the church for what? Teaching heresy, causing division in the church. And what's the point of causing them to throw them out? Because they're going to deceive other people in the church. They're going to take a new believer and start teaching them some false doctrine privately and they're destroying people's faith. They're making people believe false doctrine. This is why we don't have Sunday school. You know, you go to these big churches and they have like dozens, if not even sometimes hundreds of teachers and they're all teaching different things in different parts of the Bible. There's no way one person can ensure that all doctrine is being, you know, brought forth clearly and presented the right way. So what people get in those positions, they start teaching false doctrine. You got your Jezebel teaching people to commit fornication with her and eat things sacrificed into idols. They need to cast her out. You're not supposed to have women preaching in the church anyways. Now what happens? This is the last thought I will have for you. Okay. I don't want this to happen. That's why I'm preaching a preventative sermon, but let's say it happens and most likely it's going to happen. You know, at some point in time, we're going to have this happen. Someone's going to do this. It's going to, I don't want to, I'm not excited about it. I'm not looking forward to it, but when it happens, they'll be cast out. Now they'll have a chance to repent. Once they repent, if they come back to the church, we're not supposed to mention it. We're supposed to forgive and forget. So they get thrown out for being a fornicator, but they come back married. We're excited. We're joyful. We're glad they came back. We're glad they repented. We're glad that they're married, right? We see somebody's a drunkard. Now they're sober. We're excited. We're not going to keep mentioning it to the person, oh, remember when you were a drunk, idiot loser? Remember how stupid you were? Look, we're going to forgive and we're going to forget. We're going to move on. Nobody is past restitution, okay? We always want you to come back to the church. That's the goal. Now, a heretic that's unsaved, we're not looking to restore that person, all right? But I'm saying we're looking at 1 Corinthians chapter number five. Everything on that list can be repented of. Everything on that list can be restored. And if you ever found yourself in that situation, don't get mad at me and say, why just hate Pastor Shelley? Why don't you decide, you know what, I'm a wicked person. That's what God said. I need to fix it. And pastor wants me back. The church wants me back. You know what I don't want? I don't want fornicators in the church. Even when I was a member, I don't want to bring my family to a church where there's the drunk guy and there's the fornicating couple and watch out for him because he's going to extort all your money if you get to know him pretty well. And we got the covetous person. They're trying to sell you everything under the sun. I don't want to go to that church. It makes church stink and it's all filled with leaven and you don't even enjoy going there. I want you to come to church and be excited. I can't wait to go out and win some souls today and this afternoon and to praise God and to sing songs unto him and to feel safe bringing my children not thinking I got to worry about fixing all the errors after church, saying, well, don't be like them and don't do like them and don't do this. That should be coming from the pulpit, the truth. All right. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, father, so much for your word. Thank you for giving us such great advice and great wisdom. I pray that you would just help me lead this church and that you would help all of us desire to follow your commandments, that if there is leaven in the church, that we could address the issue, that we could fix it to give you honor and glory so that the whole, maybe you know, holy before your eyes, that you could actually have respect unto our services, that we could all desire to serve you with the rest of our lives, not just for the next five minutes. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.