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

Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't have a bulletin or you need another one, just lift your hand real quick and our ushers can come by with another bulletin. If you need one, on the front is our Bible memory passage, Proverbs 31. On the inside, we have our service soul winning times. If you have any stats, make sure for your soul winning to turn that in to your soul winning captains, lieutenants, and also the maps. That way we can make sure we're getting that updated correctly. Please be in prayer for all of our expecting ladies. We also have our separate prayer list. I guess I needed to make an announcement this morning. I had forgotten, but Ms. Ginger had a family member who was on life support and unfortunately passed away. She was asking for prayer for that situation. If you just remember her. Also, upcoming events. Our Texas Chili Cook-Off is this Tuesday. Please, if you're participating in bringing a chili for the competition, be here before 6pm. That way we can get everything set up as quickly as possible. We're going to provide muffins and chips and cheese and stuff like that. If you want to bring a dessert, bring a chili. Just don't bring beans in your chili. Also, November 4th is the Abilene Texas Soul Winning Marathon. We have the Baby Gore Shower on the 11th. We have the Mexico Mission Strip at the end of the month. We have a Ladies Christmas Party December 8th. And then Christmas Caroling on the 11th. The Christmas Recital on the 16th. Cookie Bake-Off on the 24th. And then we'll be dead by dinner. No, I'm just kidding. Then we'll have New Year's Eve party at the 31st. So, lots of events. Sorry, that was an untimely joke. On the back we have the note about the baby shower if you want the details. And then the congratulations again to the Holt family on the birth of Scarlett Ruth Holt. She was born on the 22nd, 8pm, weighing 8 pounds and 12 ounces and measuring 20 and a quarter inches long. Congratulations to them. I spoke with Brother Austin and they're doing really good. So, that's a great praise report. That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements. We're going to go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 119. And so, if you can turn there in your little handouts. All right, everyone. Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my head. Thy air is full of air, thy love is for me, and I believe in my God. I just don't care. Thy love is full of air, thy love is for me, and I believe in my God. I just don't care. Thy love is full of air, thy love is for me, and I believe in my God. I just don't care. Thy love is full of air, thy love is for me, and I believe in my God. Thy love is full of air, thy love is for me, and I believe in my God. Thy love is full of air, thy love is for me, and I believe in my God. Thy love is full of air, thy love is for me, and I believe in my God. The Lord gave a praise before he gave a cry. He said, God, what's good will be. And when He gave a praise, He gave a praise. The Lord gave a praise unto my feet, and a light unto my head. The Lord gave a praise unto my feet, and a light unto my head. The Lord gave a praise unto my feet, and a light unto my head. The Lord gave a praise unto my feet, and a light unto my head. The Lord gave a praise unto my feet, and a light unto my head. The Lord gave a praise unto my feet, and a light unto my head. The Lord gave a praise unto my feet, and a light unto my head. The Lord gave a praise unto my feet, and a light unto my head. The Bible reads, Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord, whom he seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom he delighted. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appearth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like a fuller soap. And he shall sit as a refiner, and a purifier of silver. And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in the former years. And I will come near to you, to judgment. And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless. And that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts. For I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But he said, wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house. And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground. Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord, yet ye say, what have we spoken so much against thee? Ye have said, it is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy. Yea, they that work wickedness are set up. Yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day, when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. Let us pray. Father, thank you so much for this great chapter and all the doctrines that are packed into this chapter. And we thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church, our pastor and his family. And we just pray that you would fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit. Please give him the words that are on his heart to preach tonight. Help him not to hold back. Please give him boldness. Help us to have soft hearts to receive the word that's been given to us, Lord. Help us to make those corrections and become more complete Christians. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So we were in Malachi chapter 3 this Wednesday evening. And I didn't finish the entire chapter. And there was still a pretty important section here that I wanted to talk about. And so instead of just waiting, I just decided I'd just preach the rest of that this evening. If you weren't there Wednesday, you could watch that sermon and you could get the first half. Just to give you a little bit of a reminder of kind of what the chapter was about, what we talked about. The Bible is kind of talking about John the Baptist coming before the Lord Jesus Christ and how the Lord Jesus Christ is going to refine the children of Israel. He's going to purify them. He's going to cleanse them. And it's going to be better than a refiner's fire. It's going to be cleaner than a fuller soap. And that was an allusion to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. How He's going to cause many to be saved and to believe on Him and to be made perfect and in righteousness. And then additionally, we kind of talked about how not only do they get saved, but then they also get purified from their sins. And it talks a little bit about in this chapter how He's going to judge those who are committing very grievous sin. And how the Bible wants us to cleanse first that which is inside our heart. But then God obviously wants us to continue with that purification process and live a life of sanctification where we're constantly washing our lives up and cleaning ourselves up and getting more holy as time goes on. And, you know, He wants them to return back to Him. And He had brought up how kind of the first step in returning to the Lord is the tithe. And it's just kind of a promise that He makes that when you tithe unto Him, He's going to end up blessing you on top of that. But what we've kind of seen is a lot of heart issues. When we talk about salvation, the reason why someone doesn't get saved is because they don't humble their heart. They don't decide in their heart to trust in Jesus Christ. They're too prideful. Then additionally, the reason why many people don't clean up their lives, again, is a heart issue. We see this in the parable of the sower. The Bible talking about things coming and entering in and choking the Word. And that's the part of the person's heart. And when it talks about someone having a good and honest heart, those are the ones that bear fruit. So, again, it kind of relates to that heart issue. And, of course, tithing is something that's very close to many people's heart because, frankly speaking, money is important to all of us. It's something that we need in order to live. And so it takes a serious amount of faith sometimes or trust in the Lord to decide that you want to tithe unto Him. And a lot of reasons why people don't, it's a heart issue. They feel like, no, I don't want to give any money to church or God. Or they're kind of just selfish with their own money. And as we kind of continue going in this chapter, notice what it says in verse 13 now. It says, Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord, yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? Now, it's funny how he constantly brings up the naysayer. He's just like, hey, this is what you guys would say. And then he kind of answers them. And notice they seem to have so much contempt. I mean, he's over and over bringing up how they do something wrong. And then they're like, well, what did we say? And then he just point blank, you know, brings up what they would say or what they would do. And here he's saying, you guys are speaking against me. And they're like, well, what did we say? Verse 14, ye have said it is vain to serve God. And what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? So the problem is, in their mind, serving God is pointless. The word vain is simply meaningless. There's no purpose. It doesn't benefit. It doesn't help in any way. And they're basically just saying, man, we just keep serving God and trying to keep His ordinances, and we even mournfully walk before the Lord, meaning that we're like sorry that we screwed up or that we've done something wrong. And it just seems like there's no real benefit to serving God. Verse 15, and now we call the proud happy. Yea, they that work wickedness are set up. Yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. So he's saying, well, when we contrast us with the world, we serve God, keep His commandments, and even feel sad about the bad things that we do. They don't feel bad. They don't feel sad. They brag and boast about the sin and the evil that they're committing. And not only this, they look happy. Not only that, they're set up, meaning they're set for life. You know, if you're going to hear the phrase in our modern vernacular, it'd probably be like they're set for life. What does that seem to imply? It's that they've got tons of money, they're good, their houses are fine. Like, pretty much everything that they could ever want or need is provided for, taken care of. They don't really have it to worry about taking care of themselves. And it says, yea, that tempt God are even delivered. Meaning, they, something gets caught, you know, the laptop gets discovered, and then just, oh, they're delivered, aren't they? Right? It's like, well, how, you know, we catch them red-handed, and then it's just like, well, but, you know, the judge killed himself, or the guy shot himself in the head twice, self-inflicted gun wound. And, you know, he stabbed himself in the back a couple times. You know, it's like, it's like, oh, how convenient, right? Oh, the guy got fired, or disappeared, or all the witnesses changed their story, or whatever. You know, it's just like, how do they just keep getting delivered? How do they, you know, they're tempting God, and yet, nothing bad seems to happen to these people. Verse 16. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day, when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them, as a man spare with his own son, that serveth him. Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. So, here to kind of round out the chapter, it's talking about the idea of, okay, this is what you think, and in the short term, maybe this is even true, to some degree. Maybe it is true that in some cases, the people of God end up suffering, or being afflicted a little bit, and the people that are wicked seem to kind of have fun, and get away with their evil and their wickedness. But notice what God is trying to say. He's saying, but the people that truly feared me, I wrote in a book, you know, those that feared the Lord, and, you know, I'm thinking about them, and he says, they're mine, and there's going to be a day when evil's going to come, and I'm going to spare them, but I'm not going to spare the wicked. And you could think of plenty of examples of this, right? Noah, in the Bible, is spared of the judgment and the wrath, he's delivered. We have plenty of times, Jeremiah, even when the Babylonians come, Jeremiah himself is delivered. And, you know, that kind of gives us hope that we too, if we do what's right, and we keep preaching hard, that we'd be delivered. Now, for Jeremiah, at the beginning of the ministry, it probably wasn't very good. I mean, he's being mocked, ridiculed, spat upon, punched, thrown into pits of dung, and everybody else is just, you know, living their best life now, right? Albeit in the siege, it wasn't that great anyways. But they were not necessarily getting persecuted the same way that Jeremiah was. Yet, when the Babylonians came to destroy, ends up Jeremiah gets delivered, and they all get wiped out, massacred, and evil happens under them. And so, you know, I think that that could give us a little bit of hope here in America that even if we get to the very bitter end, or the evil that's going to happen in the future, that he could still deliver those that had feared him, and end up causing those who are wicked and evil and compromisers and backsliders and everything else to get destroyed. Even in the book of Jeremiah, there was another great guy, Urijah, who had preached the word of God, but he ended up getting afraid, compromising, and went and hid himself in Egypt. He ends up getting drug back out of Egypt, so he went, you know where he hid? The world. Because where does Egypt? Egypt is the world, right? And couldn't there be a temptation for all of us to just kind of slowly fade away, and then just go hide ourselves in Egypt? Stop posting online, stop talking about the Bible, stop telling people what we're doing, stop soul winning, stop doing all these things. And we think that somehow if we just kind of fade into, you know, irrelevance, that everybody will forget about us. But here's the thing, God won't forget about you. And because God won't forget about you, he's either going to deliver you from the evil, or he's going to deliver you to the evil. And so it's important to just stay faithful, stay on the right course, stay on the right track, so that you have the chance of God delivering you through that evil and through that difficulty. But why are the children of Israel being rebuked? Because they have the wrong mentality about this. They think that if you're not doing well or prosperous right now, that you're not really godly. And notice kind of how he rounds off this chapter, he's saying that in verse 18, Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth not. So what he's trying to say, God's trying to say this. Right now, sometimes we have a misconception of who's actually godly and who's not. Sometimes we're not really keen on whom God actually favors and whom God does not actually favor. And there's a lot of deception out there in this world about who's truly serving God and who's really not serving God. Now, let's go to a lot of places. I want to go to several places in the Bible to kind of keep this in mind. Go to 1 Timothy, chapter number 6. Now, you can see this in the churches in Revelation because one church thinks that they're so wonderful because they're rich and they're full and they have need of nothing. But then God says, hey, you're miserable, poor, blind, and naked. And isn't that kind of peeling back the layer and saying, they think they're good, but God thinks the opposite. And I think that this is the case often where people kind of think one way about a preacher, a church, a pastor, or a Christian. And many times the opposite is actually very true about that individual, how God feels about this particular individual. And I would even say with our church, a lot of people probably look very negatively towards our church, think that a lot of the persecution that we've endured is somehow a reflection of us not being right with God or God doesn't like us. I've personally had a lot of people tell me, not from our circle, just family members, friends, whatever, just say, oh, man, it's so obvious you guys aren't right with God. I mean, look at all the bad things that happened to you. Just look at all the evil that's happened and look at all the problems you have. Obviously, if you were right with God, then you wouldn't have all these issues and you wouldn't have all these problems. And the same people that tell me all this, they have actual real serious problems and consequences from sin. And I'm sitting here thinking, wow, that's interesting that you have that perspective. But they go to their little fun center church where they've never even heard of a problem. Especially when you go to these churches, even if the youth director is caught with tons of children, nobody even finds out. Nobody even knows. They're just like, hey, we've got a new youth director. What happened to the old guy? Who? You know, they don't even talk about it. He just disappears. Just all of a sudden, there's just a new youth director, right? And you don't even know there was a problem. You don't even know that there's issues. You don't even know what's going on. It's just always these cover-ups and shams and everything's just great and fun and they never have protesters and whatever. And so everybody kind of thinks that they're just so wonderful. And this is the mentality that they have. First Timothy chapter 6, look at verse 3. If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and stripes of words, where have cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness from such withdrawal of thyself. So the mentality that many people have is they suppose that gain is godliness. And that's why you have this mentality in the book of Malachi chapter 3 that is saying, oh, it's vain to serve God. Why? Because they're not profiting from it. Because they're not getting gain from it. And as a result of not getting financial gain, as in not getting worldly prosperity, they suppose that there's something wrong with it. And they think that if they go to church and they're getting promoted and they get all this money and fame and recognition, or the church is exploding with money, that somehow that they're godly. They suppose that money is godliness. And you can even see that many people believe this about their own business. Many businesses, they think, oh, well, our business is thriving because we're just so much better than other businesses. We're so much more godly. But you want to know the businesses that are thriving. They're not doing it by godly means, folks. They're holding back wages from their employees. They're ripping off contractors. They're ripping off other businesses. They're in bed with government. They're bribing and they're causing all kinds of evil to be done with their product. They're advertising their product as something that it really isn't. And they're scamming people. These are the ones that are getting filthy rich, that are loaded. I mean, what are some of the companies that have just some of the most money in this world? How about pharmaceutical companies that sell vaccines? And what kind of honest, good work have they been doing? Oh, they're saving lives, right? I mean, they're really helping a lot of people. Ignore all the people that died mysteriously that has no correlation whatsoever to their drugs and the things that they're selling. Don't worry because you can't sue them because they're so godly and so righteous and their morals and their integrity is so good that we would never want to sue them for any reason. I mean, if you sued them, that would question their integrity. That would question the idea. They actually did a study and it proved that it killed people and then they covered it up just so they could put their drugs on the market and still make money. You know, they would never do that. How dare you question their godliness? Well, how do you know they're so godly? Have you seen how much money they have? Have you seen how much money they'll give you? Have you seen? They're on every advertisement. They own every advertisement and they're just so wonderful. They gave $10 million to charity. They gave $10 million to some charity where three-legged dogs get an amputated leg, okay, and they give out free vaccines to Africans and they give out free vaccines to dogs and, you know, they support Israel and, you know, I mean, we all know how godly they are. I mean, how dare you question what they're doing? They all gave a bunch of money to a bunch of union workers telling them they have to vote Democrat, you know, but they're so godly. Okay? And this is the world that we live in where people, they think because the building is so big and the preacher is so slick and he drives a nice car and has a big house that he must be a man of God. And this is not hyperbole at all because I, again, I've had people tell me just verbatim, they say, well, I know that my pastor's right on the preacher of rapture and I said, how do you know? Well, just look at how wealthy and how successful he is. I'm like, what? And it's like, well, obviously, God is blessing him so much and he's so anointed that obviously he's going to only preach the truth on these issues. So, yeah, I mean, just they're right on the preacher of rapture because they drive a Ferrari. Isn't that just perfect logic? Doesn't that just make perfect sense? Just supposing that gain is godly. This guy's just obviously so blessed because look at all the money in the house and the car and I want that. So, you know what? I better align with his doctrine because I want the Ferrari, right? I want the car. I want the whatever. And, you know, they end up thinking, well, I don't want to live your kind of Christianity because that doesn't profit anything. And what you have to understand about the chapter of Malachi is it's not like all the people at that time, it's not like Israel was actually serving God and then complaining about it. They're complaining about how someone truly would serve God, but they themselves are not. So what this looks like is it looks like today is people would look at us and see how we serve God and say there's no profit in that. So they don't want to join us. They don't want to join our efforts. They don't want to do what we're doing because they think that it's vain. They think that it's meaningless. And to some degree, sure, you know, coming to this church, you're probably not going to get the Ferrari. You know, you may not get the five-car garage. You may. I'm not saying that you won't. But you know what I am saying? That showing up here pretty much doesn't impact that really that much. If you're working hard and just doing your own thing, that's going to contribute to it. Now, if you work at McDonald's, you're not going to get there, right? If you start your own business and you're really successful and you work really hard, you could probably have some nice thing independent of going to church or not. You know what? Showing up here and soul winning and reading the Bible and getting plugged in isn't going to help you getting closer to that Ferrari. In fact, it's going to take a little bit of time, effort, and energy away from that and make it even that much harder. So many people, they look at it and say, well, what am I going to get out of it? I'm not here to get something out of church. I'm here to give something to church. I'm here to give unto the Lord. You know, what do you get out of tithing? I just give money to the Lord. It's not about what I get. You know, I think Joel Osteen's wife said stuff like, you know, we show up at church for ourselves and we sing to the Lord for ourselves. And, you know, I guess some people even think that you tithe for yourself like it's a lottery or something. You know, you basically, it's like an investment or something and you're putting money. But, you know, the Bible does clearly teach that God will take care of you and bless you. But even if he didn't, even if it just said, you know what, you're going to give me this money and I'm going to give you nothing in return for it, it's just still right to do. And I'm not sitting here trying to serve God, seeing what I'm going to get out of it. I've never tithed one time thinking, man, I just can't wait to see how that investment explodes. Right? I'm just anticipating that I'm going to get a big check now because that's the wrong heart. That's the wrong attitude. Okay? We don't do things to serve God for ourselves. Go to Luke, chapter number 16. Go to Luke, chapter number 16 for a moment. And this mentality of, oh, well, look how blessed I am. I must be godly is a evil attitude. And it's not, it's not accurate. There are people in the Bible that were really blessed and were godly. And there are people that were really, you know, poor and didn't really have much and they were godly. And then you have the flip side. You have people that were really rich and were not godly at all and people that were really poor and not godly at all. Because being rich or poor doesn't determine if you're godly. It really has nothing to do with it. Okay? What has to do with it is your heart. And you could look at a guy who's living a really successful life and think that everything's going well with him. But eventually you're going to figure out what the truth is. Look at Luke, chapter 16, verse 19. There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. And he believed the preacher of rapture. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know. Verse 20. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. Now, when we look at these two people, if we take this doctrine of supposing that gain is godliness, who in our story would be the godly person? It would obviously be the guy that's faring sumptuously every single day. And we would look at this guy who, honestly, probably none of us would even want to give him like five minutes of our time. I mean, he's gross. I mean, look what the Bible says about his illness is they licked his sores. I mean, this is gross. Like, he probably smelled horrible. No one even really wants to give him any kind of food. You know, this guy has got some serious issues. He's a beggar. He was hoping to just get food from the rich man's table. And really, you know, there's nothing to indicate that he's living a godly life. I mean, he really can't even do anything. He's just laying at the street corner doing nothing. I mean, he's pretty much worthless. But what does the Bible say? The beggar died and was carried by the angels in Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, he lived up his eyes being in torments. So now we can see what the Bible is saying in Malachi. Hey, there's coming a day when you'll be able to discern between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. Who was the person that wasn't really serving God? It was the rich God. And who was the person that was actually saved? It was the poor beggar. And the ones in heaven and the ones in hell. And we see this sharp contrast because to us, we only look through the eyes. We only look through the lust of the eyes and the pride of life and these different things. And many times, our perception is just wrong. I want to go to more verses. Go to Romans chapter number 2. Go to Romans chapter number 2. We need to stop trusting our sight. We need to stop trusting our sight and walk by faith. And when it comes to how we perceive people, I want to say something that none of us know. You think, oh, this guy is the best guy ever and this guy is the worst guy ever. In many cases, we don't really know. And we really should be careful in how we judge things. The Bible tells us to judge righteous judgment. Not judge according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. So if we judge through the appearance, we would see this guy looking nice, having money, and we look at this guy that has sores. But I guarantee if we knocked on the rich man's door and said, hey, what do you have to do to go to heaven? He probably would have said, oh, be righteous like me and fare sumptuous like me and do good and help people and be nice. And we'd be like, this guy doesn't really serve God. And we talked to the beggar, hey, what do you think you have to do to be saved? And he's like, nothing. You just believe in Jesus. And we could have recognized, hey, this guy is the one that's actually righteous. This other guy is not at all. Now in Romans chapter 2, the Bible says in verse 14, For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts, the mean, while accusing or else excusing one another, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. Notice that there are the secrets of men. When do we get to figure that out? We get to figure that out in the day when God shall judge. So in many cases, we don't really know how people are going to shape up for eternity. We look and judge many times according to appearance, but that's not the right kind of judgment anyways. And even if you are very wise and you know a lot of Bible, there's no way to really know. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 4. There's this idea where you think that, oh, this guy is the greatest or this guy is the worst, but we don't really know. And it's a silly idea to try and worry about it. You know, you can only worry about yourself. You can only take care of yourself. But you've got to make sure that the secrets of you are good, because at some point, all of your secrets will be made manifest. Praise God for us that are saved. Our sins won't have to be judged. But you know what will be judged? Our works. And even in that judgment, there'll be shame because the guy who only had wood, hay, and stubble suffered loss. And of course, it's kind of embarrassing. Can you imagine, you know, you're there at the judgment seat of Christ, and you're there, and it's this big church. It's like 500 people. And it's their pastor. And the pastor comes up before the judgment seat of Christ. And it's just wood, hay, and stubble. Wouldn't that be kind of embarrassing? You know, everybody's like, oh, man, listen. And you're like, oh, ugh. Like, ooh, that was rough. You know? I mean, think about these pre-Trib, Zionist, non-soul-winning Baptists out there. I mean, what do they have? I put a lot of Israel flags in my church. I bet that's going to get me a lot. You know, I personally bought some of the bricks to build the Antichrist temple. This is wood, hay, and stubble, folks. Okay? I mean, they're going to think, like, oh, you know, I gave a big check to all these people, and I told everybody about it. Oops. You know, I mean, like, there's going to be a lot of people that, in people's minds, they're thinking, like, oh, this guy, like, man. He's going to really make it out like a bandit. But we don't know. Look what it says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 2. Moreover, it is required in the stewards that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing, that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment. Yea, I judge not mine own self, for I know nothing by myself. Yet am I not hereby justified, but he that judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God. I mean, think about this. According to the appearance, we could have seen Ananias and Sapphira giving, and I don't know the number, I'm just throwing out number, a million dollars to church. And we saw a lady give two mites, and some of them, you know, Ananias and Sapphira died as a result of that, get no reward whatsoever, and the woman who casts in two mites gets a giant reward. But here's the thing. If we did not have the commentary from the Bible, none of us would have probably guessed that right. I mean, if we, if all you had, if they, if the Bible didn't have those two commentaries, where Jesus explains that, or we know what happened to Ananias and Sapphira. You just read in the Bible, hey, some woman gave two mites, and then we read later in the Bible, some person gave, you know, a huge portion of money from selling their land. We would all kind of think like, oh man, they're going to get really, really rewarded for that. But you know, that was wood, hay, and stubble that they gave. And this woman that gave of the two mites, gave some gold, silver, and precious stone, and it's going to be greatly rewarded. And so even the Apostle Paul, I mean, if there's anybody in tune with the Scripture, if there's anybody that has the mind of Christ, if there's anybody that's good at judging, it's the Apostle Paul. And the Apostle Paul is saying, hey guys, I'm not even judging myself, and I don't even care what your judgment is of me. The Apostle Paul is saying, I could care less what you think about me, or what my rewards are going to be, or how God is going to view the work that I've done. And you know what? There's coming a day when everything will be made manifest, right? He's going to bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts. It says, and then shall every man have praise of God. When is the time to celebrate? After Christ has recognized what you did actually means anything. Because you could think that you did something great and be wrong about it. You could think that someone else has done something great and be wrong about it. And we could look down upon other people and think, oh, these people aren't that great, and be wrong about it. So what's the point in us judging these things, supposing that gain is godliness, thinking that we know better. You know, we need to just worry about ourselves. And we need to just serve God. And even when we do some great work, forget about it, not try to think about it like, oh, I wonder how that's, you know, I wonder how that one's going to shape up. I wonder if God's going to be pleased with that one, or, you know, it doesn't matter. Because, you know, it's already happened, so whether it's good or bad, it's going to get judged. And you can affect that, but, you know, you can't affect the future. And there will come a day when we can discern between him that served God and him that served him not. Right? The guy that actually did a lot of great works for the Lord and the one that did. Go to Luke chapter 16. I want to go back to Luke chapter 16. I was there not that long ago, but I want to show you something else here. Luke chapter 16, and look at verse 15 now. The Bible says this, And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination the sight of God. You know, many times what we think is great is that not even great at all. God actually despises that. And why? Because God knows the heart. But here's the problem. We don't really know the heart. And when you read 1 Corinthians chapter number 13, the Bible makes it clear. People could be giving their bodies to be burned, but if they're not doing it out of a sincere heart, it's even meaningless. People are giving money, giving time, showing up at church, doing whatever. We don't really know. And I think another attitude could be for us to look at another church whom we perceive not doing that great or not really doing the works of the Lord or whatever, and we judge them and think that they're lesser. But here's the problem. We don't really know their heart. And even if they're producing less than us, they could have a better heart and be more greatly rewarded than us being prideful and high-minded and thinking that we're so wonderful and lifting ourselves up. You know, everyone that lifts themselves up and everyone that's prideful is an abomination of the Lord. God does not like pride at all. Zero. And we need to be careful that even though I believe that, hey, our church is great, I love our church, I love you guys, I think that we're doing a lot of important works. Obviously, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think what we're doing was right. But what I don't want us to do is get this hottie, lifted up attitude where we think, oh, we're going to be the greatest rewarded, we're the best, we're, you know. Well, that depends on your heart, doesn't it? It depends on what your heart is. Because, hey, Ananias and Sapphira gave way more money to church than that poor widow. But you know what? The heart was the problem. It wasn't the gift. And, oh, I do more soul-winning than other people, but what's your heart like? I read the Bible more, what's your heart like? I tithe all that I possess. You know the Pharisees tithe all that they possess. What's your heart like? You know, God is going to judge us according to our hearts. And you know what? God is after the heart of man. God is after our heart. You know, God doesn't really need our works that much. You know what he needs? He wants our hearts. Like, God doesn't really need our few hundred dollars that we're going to give and tithe. You know what he needs? Your heart. You know, he doesn't really need, I mean, obviously we do work for him, but it's like he could, you know, figure out a way to get that done if he needed to. He could take care of it, right? He has a cattle on a thousand hills. He doesn't necessarily need our money. And, of course, we do it for a practical reason, but what he really just wants is your heart. He wants you to just surrender in your heart to him and to love him and to do it with the right intentions. Go to chapter 13. Go backwards to chapter 13. And, you know, when we look at the world today, the world doesn't understand these things because they'll look at the Catholic. Let's take the devoted Catholic and then let's take the devoted fundamental Baptist. Well, number one, they both go to church. The Catholic's devoted, he's going to church. The Baptist is going to church. The Catholic tithes, the Baptist tithes. The Catholic prays, the Baptist prays. The Catholic tries to clean up his life and confess his sins. The Baptist tries to clean up his life and confess his sins. So on the surface, like if you're just kind of looking at it as a checkbox, it's like, well, aren't they both serving God? And you could even expand this, right? Oh, the Hindu, he goes to his church services and he prays and he gives his money and he tries to clean himself up. And you compare all these different people. But what's the difference between the Catholic and the Baptist? You want me to explain it to you? It's the heart. In his heart, the Baptist is trusted in Christ for his salvation. In his heart, the Catholic is trusting in his works to get him to heaven. And so even though they're doing all the same outward actions in many cases, and even though in the outward appearance it may not even be that discernible who's really serving God, what we can discern is the heart. And the Bible says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. How do we, as God's people, try to discern who's really serving God and who's not serving him? Well, I don't look at their works. You know what I look at? I look at what they believe. I try to look at their heart. I try to look at their intentions. You know, when it comes to leadership in our church or possibly ordaining people and everything like that, you know, what's way more important to me than their physical works is their heart, is their heart. And you know what? How do you judge someone's heart? This, how they speak, how they carry themselves, the things that they say. And you know, when you catch people constantly being prideful, being narcissistic, congratulating themselves, having the kind of issues, you know, it kind of worries you. Because you think, well, this person's doing a lot of great works. On the outward, it looks like they're doing a lot of good things. But you know what is more important than that is the heart. And trying to find someone that, you know what, I feel like their heart is right, that's the guy that you want to empower and that's the person that you want to give authority to. And even when it came to the judges for Moses, you know, he was supposed to try and find men that hate covetousness. Why? Because again, it's about the heart. And it's not so much of a checklist of like they can do all these tasks or they're doing these tasks. It's like what's their heart about? What are they like inside? And you know, when you young single people or you teenagers, you know, if you're dating or you're planning on dating, you know, more important than the person's like physical appearance, more important than how much money they have in the bank, more important than how fancy a car that they drive is their heart. And trying to be like, do I love this person's heart? You know, because the outward appearance is going to change. You know, it's going to change, okay, folks. All right. I don't look like I used to look. All right. None of us look like we used to. Have you ever seen an old person? They look old. They don't look like they did. Have you ever had that moment, you had that moment where you went to your grandparents and there's this picture and you're like, who's that beautiful woman on the wall? It's like, that's grandma. And you're like, dang, that's what you look like. You're like, man, I mean, who's had that experience? Okay. I've had the experience. Yeah. You're kind of thinking like, I didn't realize you could look good. You know, like my grandpa, his ears are giant. Like, you know, he had a big nose. Like for some reason, like men, your ears and your nose, like certain parts of your body just keep growing or whatever. It's just like, whoa, my grandpa's feet. Yikes. Okay, folks. It was the one where you need like the belt sander or something. You know, get in there, the grinder or something. I mean, but you know what? When they were young, they were handsome and beautiful and all that. But you know what stays with a person is their heart, is their heart. And you can love that person's heart. And you know, God, he's not looking down from heaven thinking like, man, that's a good looking person. I want them to be a child of God. You know what he's looking at? He's looking at our hearts and he cares more about our hearts than the outward appearance, than the outward possessions and the things that we have. And in this world, we kind of live in a rat race. In high school, it's kind of a popularity contest. In college, in many cases, it extends that way. If you work in corporate America, it kind of turns into the same game. A lot of just trying to chase your way to the top. Even if you're a business owner, you're chasing other business owners. If you're one of the richest people, you're trying to be even richer than them. And even when you're the richest, well, I'm not rich. I'm not enough rich more than them or whatever. It's like I have one times their wealth, I want ten times their wealth. Or I want to have, you know, 50 times their wealth. It's like you can never be satisfied in this world constantly trying to climb to the top and trying to be first. And there's nothing wrong with competition, striving to be first. But they're trying to strive for it for a corruptible crown. They're going for it in a manner which doesn't really matter. And what the Bible says is in Luke chapter 13, look at verse 30. And behold, there are last which shall be first. And there are first which shall be last. Let me explain something to you. If you feel like, man, I'm one of the last people in Christianity, you know what, you have the potential to still be first. And if you, I'm not really worried about you that are last because you're probably going to do a lot better than you thought. But I'm more worried about you that think that you're in first. In many cases, those who think they're in first are in last. And we could, let's go back to the church. Oh, we're rich and we have need of nothing. But you don't realize that you're poor, blind, and naked, miserable and naked. You don't realize that you're actually in last place. It's kind of the hare and the tortoise. Oh, I'm so good at this race, I'll take a nap, not realizing that the tortoise is going to win the race and the hare is going to lose and he's going to be in last place. And we, as Christians, we don't want to get this attitude of start taking a nap, start saying I'm good, start thinking I'm better than everybody else, start getting a lofty and high attitude and thinking like I've arrived. And we don't want to get this attitude of thinking, hey, going to church and just keep plugging away and doing right, it doesn't really profit me much. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to find out at the end of the day who really profited. This little tortoise, this little turtle, he could do nothing. You know what, people are going to look down upon our church and our works and the things that we're doing and one day they'll recognize, oh, wow, that guy's first. Oh, wow, that guy's my boss. That guy's my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss. You know, he's over me in a lot of ways, okay. And, you know, it's important that we discern these items. Here's another thing that happens in our world is, frankly speaking, the world thinks that a lot of preachers out there are serving God and, frankly, they're the ministers of the devil. I mean, we have to discern between him that serveth God and him that is not serving him. And sometimes this is where it's really tricky. You know, the vast majority of false prophets, we can identify that they're false because they just teach work, salvation, and whatever. But there's even going to be some people that can feign the right answers and they're still wicked as hell. They can kind of give lip service to the gospel, but you can tell this person's a fake, this person's a fraud, this person's not sincere. And let me give you an example of a person like this. There's a guy named Isaiah Salvador, okay. And this guy wants to put himself forward as being some great preacher, some great servant of God. And I watched one of his videos and he gave lip service to justification by faith. And, frankly speaking, like, most everything he said in the video I watched was right. And I'm thinking, like, okay, I can see how a lot of people might listen to this or hear this little part and think, like, oh, this guy's even saved. Or this guy, you know, might be a child of God. But if you do a little bit more research on the surface, this guy is wicked as hell. This guy is a wicked false prophet. And, you know, the more you serve God, the more you can discern who's actually going to serve God and who's not. Now, this is Isaiah Salvador. He gives his own personal testimony as how he got saved, which he grew up in the church and ended up turning into an atheist. And, you know, unfortunately, churches can be reprobate factories in some cases, you know. And it makes sense that a lot of the reprobates we see in today's culture did grow up religious because that's why they have such a special hatred for the things of God. So this guy basically hates God, wants to become an atheist, and he talks about how he was just pursuing worldly things, partying, drinking, all kinds of stuff like that. But he keeps being begged by his sister to come to church, and he's like, you know what, I'll just go one time for the rest of my life. He's like, I'm just going to go. This is my last time I'm ever going to go to church. He says he just goes to church just to appease his little sister. And then he sits in the back, makes perverted jokes the whole time during the sermon. Then they give an altar call, and he says, I'm not going down there. But then he says, I got literally dragged down there. And he's like, sometimes people say, you know, I felt like the spirit drugged me or was pulling me, and it's like a metaphor. He's saying it was not a metaphor. I was literally physically drugged by the spirit down the altar, against his will. Then, when he got there, he was being called to pray at this altar, and he was basically saying, I don't believe in you. This is what he's saying over and over. And he's not just saying, I don't believe in you. He's saying it with special words. Now, if I said them, people would be mad at me. I've done it before. But he's saying, I don't believe in you. This is what he's saying. This is his salvation testimony. I remind you, okay? I'm sure it's very similar to yours, right? Then he finally says, well, you know what? If you're real, just in spite. He's just kind of being spiteful. Well, if you're real, then I'll give you everything. But he's kind of like asking for a sign, trying to tempt the Lord. And then he says this. Then I heard an audible voice. Isaiah, I don't want 99.9% of you. I want everything. I want all of you. Which chapter was that in the Bible again? I forgot. Just this audible voice of God. And then he says that he starts crying literal dirt. And he's like, I'm not saying like my tears were dirty. I'm saying that dirt was coming out of my eyes, okay? And then he's like, now he's decided he's just going to fully surrender to God in this moment. And he's saying like, in this moment, he keeps hearing like all these wonderful things he's going to do, how he's going to be a preacher and he's going to reach people. And this is what he said. North Korea is going to be liberated. Isaiah Salvador is going to liberate North Korea. Now, I am willing to... I will pay his ticket to go there and liberate North Korea. Amen. If he wants... But he's not allowed to come back. I'll pay for him to come back, too, after he's liberated them, okay? So I'm willing to pay Isaiah Salvador's ticket to go to North Korea and to liberate them since he had that call from... I mean, if you have the audible voice of God telling you that you're going to liberate North Korea, he didn't want 99.9%, Isaiah. So I'm ready to pay your ticket. This is your call for you to go to North Korea and liberate all of North Korea. I wouldn't want you to be a liar like the lying, stinking false prophet that you are. So let's go. Come on. Go to North Korea for us. Then he said he was speaking in tongues, I'm shocked, and crying uncontrollably. And he says, I was, quote, born again. Now, who in here had a pretty similar, you know, maybe not exactly the same testimony? Now, I didn't necessarily give you every single word that he spoke, but I'll say this. You know what I didn't hear? Jesus died on the cross. He rose again from the dead. I decided that I needed to put faith in him. I finally realized that I can't trust in myself. No, his entire salvation testimony is him coming down an aisle against his will 100%, crying dirt, speaking in tongues, saying he's going to go to North Korea, cursing at God. What kind of bizarreness is this? And this guy is mega popular, preaching to all kinds of churches, tons of people online, and many people, I guarantee, they look at Isaiah Salvador and say, look at what a wonderful servant of God. And you say, why do they think that, supposing they gain his godliness? Thinking like, oh, this guy must be so awesome and so wonderful. He says not only this, that his little sister, the one that invited him to church, getting saved, she had to be casting demons out of him. Hmm. Now, I said, okay, after that salvation testimony, I'm thinking like, wow, he didn't get saved. But what does he say about salvation? And you know, when you're trying to discern whether a preacher or not is of God, and he has a pretty big online ministry, like that's a big part of what he does, this is what I typically do, I just put their name in, and then I put like, salvation, or how to be saved, or go to heaven, just something like, just kind of see what pops up. Because I believe anyone who actually loves God and is serving God would have plenty, plenty of sermons, videos, clips, whatever, talking about salvation, talking about how to go to heaven, explaining the gospel, like, I mean, how could you be a minister of Jesus Christ dedicated, and you don't have any videos explaining how to be saved, how to go to heaven, what salvation even means, I mean, you should have a cornucopia of sermons, clips, videos, all kinds of information about the gospel and salvation. And it's always a big red flag to me when I see someone with a big online ministry and they have zero videos about it. Now, I typed it in, he didn't have zero videos about it. No, I typed it in, this is the first video, the danger of once saved, always saved. Then the next video, like, why once saved, always saved is false. The next video, stop praying the sinner's prayer. Now, you know what's worse than typing this in and seeing no results? It's seeing all the results literally attacking salvation. I typed in one of these videos, I clicked on one of these videos, the danger of once saved, always saved. It's so dangerous, okay? I mean, I've never been more scared of anything, okay, in my life. He says number one danger of once saved, always saved is complacency. Because once you get saved, you don't feel like you have to do anything else to be saved so you're kind of complacent, you don't really want to serve God. Now, again, let's compare the people that actually believe this and the people who don't. Let's compare the Pentecostal Charismaniacs out there that believe they can lose their salvation. Let's look at their lifestyles versus the litany of people in this room who don't think they can do anything to lose their salvation and let's see who's more complacent. Let's see who's taking church more seriously. Let's see who's taking Bible reading more seriously. Let's see who's taking the commandments of God more seriously. And then you'll start discerning who's really serving God and who's really not. He says number two, they disregard repentance. Well, I'm pretty sure this whole sermon and this whole chapter have been talking about the importance of purifying your life. Now, I might have disregarded it in regards to salvation because I don't believe in a false gospel. He says number three, it reduces good works. Yeah, you know, me getting up and preaching once saved, always saved, all you guys just decided to stop serving God after that, right? People are just walking out of the service like I'm done with Christianity. How dare God save me like that? You know, if He really wanted me to stick in church, He should have threatened me a little bit more or made it seem ominous whether or not I was going to be saved or trying to tempt me whether or not I could lose it or something. I mean, think about this in the concept of your children. You said, hey, you better follow my rules today or you might not even be my son anymore. Oh, you parents, you're reducing the good works in your children by telling them you love them no matter what. How horrible are you? The dangers of telling your children that you love them no matter what, right? I mean, this is the kind of logic that this guy has. He says number four is if you teach once saved, always saved, you're going to reduce or belittle people from keeping the commandments. And I'm just going to read it. He says it downplays grace. Because he says, well, you know, on the surface that sounds contradictory, but because it is, you know, because, you know, it's not that God gives us grace that no matter what we do we're still going to go to heaven. It's not that God gives us the grace to live a life that's pleasing unto Him. How gracious. You know, how wonderful. This is like the Calvinist view of how God gave us the grace to even repent of our sins or something, you know. It's just bizarre. He says it belittles perseverance. So there's no need to persevere anymore. And it belittles growth. Yep, so once you learn once saved, always saved, you're going to stop growing. Well, that's funny because the people that don't understand once saved, always saved, they don't understand any of the Bible. They didn't even grow at all. They have no growth. And the people that believe in once saved, always saved are the ones that know the Bible the best and understand it and actually have wisdom. But, you know, this video in and of itself, you know, is pretty clear to me. Obviously the guy's not even saved and he's a big false prophet. But, you know, he really hones in on a particular ministry that's just insane and it's casting out demons, okay. And I saw a video and it says how to know if you have a demon, okay. And, you know, what he says is some people think that Christians can't be demon possessed, okay. And he says this is a huge problem. And, you know, he says, you know why the reason why we have so much confusion on the doctrine of demon possession and whether Christians can be demon possessed, he's like there's this one just thing that's causing all this confusion. It's the King James Bible. He says because the King James Bible translate in the English that people are possessed with the devil. But that's not what the Greek really says. You know, what the Greek says is that they're under the power of a demon. And so he says technically no one's demon possessed. So he's like, yeah, Christians can't be demon possessed but that's because no one can be demon possessed according to him. It's just we're all under the power of a demon. And he says, in fact, I only do deliverance, and this is what they call their ministry deliverance, I only cast out demons on Christians. He says that he's done it on thousands of Christians. He's done demon possession. And he said the vast majority of them have been on pastors, the pastors that he associates with and the friends that he has. And he tries to prove this and he's like, you know, I can prove all over the Bible about people being under the possession of devils or under the power of devils. I mean, look at Judas. I'm like, yeah, that's a great example of a Christian who has a demon buddy, Judas. And then, of course, he kind of twists a few other passages like Peter, you know, he's kind of the Jesus of talking to Peter. But just think, Peter wasn't possessed with the devil. Peter wasn't like, my name is Legion, you know, we are upset. That wasn't Peter's experience. Peter obviously was influenced by a devil, and, you know, he twists things like in 1 Timothy 4 where it talks about there's going to be seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. And look, Christians can be susceptible to seducing spirits. Christians can be susceptible to the influence of the devil. Christians can be susceptible to being persuaded of evil things. Just like the devil came and tempted Jesus in the wilderness, the devil and demons tempt Christians, okay? But you know what they don't do is possess them. And there's a huge difference between the person that's falling into the fire trying to kill themselves and saying that they're Legion and having a bad satanic thought, okay? Mountains of difference. And when do you ever see a Christian, a saved, born-again child of God, exhibiting the attributes of falling down on the ground, foaming at the mouth, and doing all these weird things? We don't. So he says, well, how do you know that you have a demon, okay? So he says, here's some of the signs to know if you have, you're under the power of a demon right now. You need to have deliverance. You need to have them cast out. Number one, you're foaming at the mouth, okay? I was like, well, you know, that is pretty scary, you know. He's like, he's saying a couple things like this, you know, voices and weird stuff. He says, if you have dirty thoughts. He says, if you have a desire to rip up the Bible. He says, and then he says, if you have perversion. Then he says, if you're experiencing racism, you're under the power of a demon. And then he says, if you have vulgar language, now it's a demon. Irrational crying. All of you ladies are under the power of a demon. It gets worse. Loss of time. You lose track of time, demon. You're showing up late to stuff, demon. Sleepiness, demon. Boy, he's on a rip against you ladies, I'm sorry. You ladies get pregnant and it's just like demon, I'm telling you what. Irrational crying, losing track of time, late, sleepy, unexplainable pain, demon. Lying, you're under the power of a demon. Stealing, under the power of a demon. Can anybody sin? Is that even on the table? Or is it just all demons now? Right? I mean, it's just basically like any sin that anybody ever does anymore, now it's just demon, demon, demon, demon. And you have to have Isaiah Salvador come and lay hands on you and do exorcisms. There's someone that testified as having gone to one of his early churches and they said they would hold her down. One girl would sit, it was like a young lady would come. Young 20s would come and they would put her on the ground, one lady would lay on her arm, another lady would lay on her other arm, then they'd have two guys hold their legs down and then they would just sit there and scream at her for four to five hours, casting out the spirit of Jezebel from her. Screaming at her and saying that she had this horrible spirit. This is the deliverance ministry. And think about this. There are people in this world right now that are casting out demons for four hours at a time on a weekly basis. And then you wonder when you read Matthew chapter 7, who are these people that are saying, hey, Jesus, you're going to let me into the kingdom. Hey, we've preached in thy name, we've cast out devils, we've done many wonderful works. And then to Isaiah, Salvador, and all of his little minions, Jesus is going to say to them, I never knew you. Depart from me that work iniquity. So what is he going to say to these freaks? And we'll be able to discern him that serves God and him that doesn't serve him whatsoever. Go if you would to Matthew chapter number 12 for a moment. I'm going to Matthew chapter 12. Look, there's all these people out there that want to pretend like they're the power of God. You know, Isaiah Salvador, he can speak a thousand words a minute. I mean, the guy's a fast talker, smooth talker. He can just sit there and just rattle all kinds of nonsense off. But you know what it is? It's nonsense. And you go to these charismatic churches, and boy, it is a circus, man. You think that I scream while preaching? Oh, you have no idea, folks. These people, the entire sermon is screaming. I mean, it's just like, you need the power of God in your life, and you've got to come down the altar when you're going to surrender and get rid of that demon of lying and that demon of stealing and that demon of not coming down here and giving that tithe money, and you need to get down here and get delivered right now under the influence of the power of God. I mean, like an hour of that. And everybody's standing up like, yeah, yeah, amen, woo, woo. And then they'll be like, oh, your church is dead. No, it's not demon-possessed, buddy. You have to have a demon to be able to scream like that for an hour straight. I mean, how in the world is this guy getting up there and doing that? He claims, oh, I'm not a false prophet because I haven't committed adultery. That we know of. Maybe with a woman, I don't know. But, look, this Isaiah Salvador is a freak. And, you know, the person that he hates the most, the person that he thinks is the worst preacher ever, Pastor Steven Anderson. I'm shocked. I'm really shocked that the prophets of Baal don't like Elijah. You know, it's really confusing to me why they don't like him. And you know what, he was getting really mad at Pastor Anderson because he preaches against faggots. And it's like, why are you so pro-faggot? Why is it that there's so many... I mean, these people talk so much about sin, and it's like, isn't that a sin? Like, isn't that a big deal? Isn't that bad? But, you know what, it's because many of these people, our fags are worse than them, and so they're so embarrassed about someone preaching the truth, and so they have to call it out. Now, they talk a lot about these deliverance ministries and how they're delivering these demons. And, you know, the Bible talks about in 2 Peter 2 how these people will kind of try to clean themselves up. But because they're not doing it because they didn't get saved in their heart, they end up going back and wallowing in the mire. And this is where I kind of bring back to the story, we talked about that Catholic and the Baptist. Remember, they were both going to church, they were both praying, they were both tithing. But here's the problem. One's saved and one's not. One has the right heart issue and one doesn't. So when the saved person in their heart tries to do right, he's going to actually get cleaned up. And when the unsaved person tries to clean himself up, he's going to always fail, and in many cases he's going to be worse off. And these deliverance ministries, these people end up being worse off than how they started. Let me show you that in a story here. Matthew chapter 12, look at verse 45. I want to, sorry, go to verse 43. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out. And when he is come, he findeth an empty sweat and garnish. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first, even so shall it be also under this wicked generation. Whatever demons that got cast out of Isaiah Salvador from his little sister, they went and found seven other more wicked demons than themselves and came and lived in him. And his state is worse than it was before. And let me tell you something. When you try to clean yourself up with Christianity but you don't get saved, you end up being a worse person than if you had never even found religion. And the worst people to live on this earth are these false prophets, these wicked evil people, and of course they suppose that what? Gain is godliness. They would look at a church like, Oh, well, if you're so godly, then where's all your money? Why aren't you traveling all over? How much money do you get paid for a speaking fee? Zero dollars. You know how many times people have paid me to come speak for them? Never. I get invited to preach at different churches, and they have no promise of any money, and they don't offer me any money. And you know what? I've never had someone call up and be like, Hey, we would love to pay for you to come out here and preach for us. It's never happened. I don't want it anyways, okay? I'm not interested in that. Because, oh, well, if you were so godly, people would be lining you up, paying all this money. You'd have all these fancy things. But you know what? That's supposing that gain is godliness. You know what I care about? The person that comes to preach for me? What they're going to say. What is their heart like? What do they actually believe? And you know, we as God's people, we need to take seriously what people say and have the right discernment on these issues and make sure that we're evaluating the hearts of men, not the outward appearance, not what we think, not what we see. And at the end of the day, we'll never know exactly. But we can certainly tell the false prophets of the day. We can tell the Isaiah Salvador's and discard them. But even amongst ourselves, don't get this attitude, though, where you start judging each other. Let's say, hey, that's a false prophet. Get rid of them. But internally, let's worry about ourselves. Let's focus on ourselves. Let's not get high and lifted up. Let's not get prideful and think that we're something special. Let us humbly serve God and serve Him with fear and trembling. And at the end of the day, all of our motivation, all of our desires should be to just glorify God. You should just ask yourself every time you're going to make a decision, is this going to glorify God? Is what I'm going to do going to glorify God? Is what I'm going to say going to glorify God? You young men that are going to preach sermons, here's a question you should ask, not is it going to go viral on YouTube, which we don't even have YouTube, so good luck. Is this going to glorify God? Is this going to motivate people to serve God better? Is this going to edify them? And there's a big temptation to want to lift ourselves up and edify ourselves, but rather we should look to desiring the glory to go to God. When you raise your children, are you raising your children to glorify God or to glorify you? Oh, look, I have a doctor and a lawyer and an actor. Hey, I have three soul winners. I have three people that love God. I have a young virgin daughter who married a poor Christian man, but they love God and they're serving God together. What is your motivation? What are you trying to do in your life? And we need to motivate ourselves to think about our decisions as from God's view and not what the world thinks because the world's always going to get it wrong. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this chapter and helping us to get a glimpse of how you judge and how you look on the heart of man. And I pray that we wouldn't get a haughty and a prideful and a lifted up attitude, but rather we would humble ourselves. We would realize that serving God has value and has profit. We wouldn't look at serving God as what am I going to get out of it, but rather a desire just to give you honor and glory. And I pray that you would help us to discern all the false prophets that are out there, that we'd stay away from them, that we'd help other people to get away from their clutches, and we could help other people discern who's serving you and who's not serving you. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, everyone. Our final song this evening is going to be song 390. Have I done my best for Jesus? Very fitting song for the sermon this evening. 390, have I done my best for Jesus? Song 390, have I done my best for Jesus? Have I done my best for Jesus? To die a father who will be. Take me to this rich sacrifice at Calvary. I know my home has been so blessed for me. How many are the ones that I have lived in? How many are the things I've loved to free? I wonder, have I done my best to Jesus when he has done so much for me? The hour that I've wasted on so many, the hour I've spent on Christ so few. Because of all my life I've known for Jesus, I wonder if his heart is breaking too. How many are the ones that I have lived in? How many are the things I've loved to free? I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me? I wonder, have I carried down the runners? Or have I left him not alone? I find I've loved a mother who can save her. The seed of righteousness my mother has grown. How many are the ones that I have lived in? How many are the things I've loved to free? I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me? How long have I stayed within the valley? I'll climb the mountain high to fall. But love is not enough for holding someone to tell when all the saints have just won. How many are the ones that I have lived in? How many are the things I've loved to free? I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me? Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed. Copyright © 2017 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved.