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

Hey man, sing it out now. Hey man, sing it out now. All the last now. Leave now our helper ever near, A shelter in the time of snow. For Jesus is the rock, we are weary land, A weary land, a weary land. For Jesus is the rock, we are weary land, A shelter in the time of snow. Marvelous blessings we bring, Glorious Pharaoh we sing, Wonderful Word of the King, Jesus is coming again, Coming again, Coming again, Maybe morning, maybe day, Maybe evening, maybe soon, Coming again, Coming again, Oh what a wonderful day it will be, Jesus is coming again, Forest and flower explained, Mountain and middle the same, All earth and heaven proclaim, Jesus is coming again, Coming again, Coming again, Maybe morning, maybe day, Maybe evening, maybe soon, Coming again, Coming again, Oh what a wonderful day it will be, Jesus is coming again, All the last now, standing before him at last, Trial and trouble all past, Out at his feet we will rest, Jesus is coming again, Coming again, Coming again, Maybe morning, maybe day, Maybe evening, maybe soon, Coming again, Coming again, Oh what a wonderful day it will be, Jesus is coming again, What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear, What a privilege to carry, Everything to God in prayer, Oh what peace we often forget, Oh what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry, Everything to God in prayer, That we trials and temptations, Is there trouble anywhere, We should never be discouraged, Take you to the Lord in prayer, When we find a friend so faithful, Who will all our sorrows share, Jesus knows our every weakness, Take you to the Lord in prayer, All are we weak and heavy laden, Numbered with a lot of pain, Precious Savior still our refuge, Take you to the Lord in prayer, May thy friends despise forsaken, Take you to the Lord in prayer, In his arms he'll take and shield thee, Now we'll find a soul to spare, A land that is never to play, And by faith we can see it a lot, When the Father is over the way, To prepare us a crown in Christmas day, In the sweet dying light, We shall lean on you in the shore, In the sweet dying light, We shall lean on you in the shore, We shall sing on you in the shore, The bloodiest song of the present, And the spiritual song of the Lord, Now it's time for the blessing and prayer, In the sweet dying light, We shall lean on you in the shore, In the sweet dying light, We shall lean on you in the shore, To our bountiful Father above, We will honor our traded praise, For the glorious kingdom is come, And the blessings that follow our faith, In the sweet dying light, We shall lean on you in the shore, In the sweet dying light, We shall lean on you in the shore, Have you a heart that's weary, Tending a load of care, Are you a soul that's seeking rest, From the burden you bear, Do you know, my Jesus, Do you know, my friend, Have you heard, he loves you, And that he will abide till the end, Where is your heart, O pale ground, What does your light reveal, Who hears your call for comfort, When not much sorrow you feel, Do you know, my Jesus, Do you know, my friend, Have you heard, he loves you, And that he will abide till the end, Who knows your disappointments, Who does he shine to cry, Who understands your heartaches, Who drives the tears from your eyes, Do you know, my Jesus, Do you know, my friend, Have you heard, he loves you, And that he will abide till the end, Sowing in the morning, Sowing seeds of kindness, Sowing in the blue tide and the dewy, Waiting for the harvest, At the time of ringing, We shall come rejoicing, Ringing in the sheaves, Ringing in the sheaves, Ringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing, Ringing in the sheaves, Ringing in the sheaves, Ringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing, Ringing in the sheaves, Sowing in the sunshine, Sowing in the shadows, 40 40 bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, going forth with weeping, sowing for the master, but who wants to sing our spirit on the breeze. We are thinking so worthy, oh, hear us welcome. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. I will meet you in the morning, just inside Easter day. Then be ready, faithful children. Bless you in each way. I will meet you. I will meet you. Just inside Easter day over there. I will meet you. I will meet you. I will meet you in the morning over there. If your faith stood up to glory, leave her near Easter day. For I'm coming in the morning, so he'll not have long to wait. I will meet you in the morning. I will meet you in the morning. Just inside Easter day over there. I will meet you. I will meet you. I will meet you in the morning over there. Keep your legs all trimmed and burning, for the bridegroom washed away. He'll be with us at the meeting, just inside Easter day. I will meet you in the morning. I will meet you in the morning. Just inside Easter day over there. I will meet you in the morning. I will meet you in the morning. I will meet you in the morning over there. Oh, the joy of that glad meeting, with the saints who all must wait. What a blessed and happy meeting, just inside Easter day. I will meet you. I will meet you in the morning. Just inside Easter day over there. I will meet you. I will meet you. I will meet you in the morning over there. My country is a beastly land of liberty, of thee I sing. And when my heart is dark, and of the field is bright, of every mountainside, let freedom ring. Thy native country be led, the noble free, thy name I love. I love thy rocks and rivers, thy woods and temples, thy heart we pledge to build, like ever above. Let music swell the breeze, and ring from all the trees, sweet freedom's song, that court of time. Good afternoon, everyone. We're at steadfast Baptist Church. If you could all find your seats, we'll go ahead and get started. As soon as you found a seat, go ahead and grab a hymnal. We're going to start in song number 69 in your hymn book. We shall shine as the stars. Song number 69. It's another new one for our church. Sing it out nice and loud if you know it. Song 69. On the first. We may tarry a while here as strangers, unnoticed by those who pass by, but the Savior will ground us in glory to shine as the stars in the sky. We shall shine as the stars of the morning with Jesus, the crucified one. We shall rise to be like Him forever, eternally shine as the sun. We may never be rich in earth's treasures, nor rise on the ladder of faith, but the saints will at last be rewarded, made rich in Emmanuel's name. We shall shine as the stars of the morning with Jesus, the crucified one. We shall rise to be like Him forever, eternally shine as the sun. On the last. We may live in a tent or a cottage and die in seclusion alone, but the Father who seeth in secret remembers each one of his own. We shall shine as the stars of the morning with Jesus, the crucified one. We shall rise to be like Him forever, eternally shine as the sun. Great singing, everybody. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church. We thank you for all of the brethren that are gathered here and all the souls that were saved today out soul winning. We ask, Lord, that you fill the preacher with your Holy Spirit and have him preach an edifying sermon unto us so we can walk out better Christians for your honor and glory. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, next up we have song number 363, Wonderful Words of Life. 363. Song 363, Wonderful Words of Life. On the first. Sing them over again to me. Wonderful words of life. Let me know her beauty, see. Wonderful words of life. Words of life and beauty. Teach me faith and duty. Beautiful words, wonderful words. Wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words. Wonderful words of life. Christ the blessed one gives to all. Wonderful words of life. Sinnerless to the loving call. Wonderful words of life. All so freely given. Wooing us to heaven. Beautiful words, wonderful words. Wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words. Wonderful words of life. On the last. Sweetly echo the gospel call. Wonderful words of life. All for one, peace to all. Wonderful words of life. Jesus only Savior. Sanctified forever. Beautiful words, wonderful words. Wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words. Wonderful words of life. Great singing. Great afternoon. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not already get a bulletin and you would like one, you can lift your hand up real quick. One of our ushers can come by. Looks like we got some hands up over here. On the inside we have our service. Make sure you are putting in your church stat material as far as your salvation in the group app. That way we can track that data. If you have email addresses, you can put that in there. We will try to send them out the emails and put them on our email list. Brother Milstead and his tribe send out material to people. Even if you want to send them extra Bibles or other information, that helps with that. On the right we have a list of our expecting ladies. We also have a prayer list. If you have an additional prayer request, you can email that to us. We will try to get that in our bulletin. On the back is the note about the turkey bowl. We will have a couple different games. One for the younger men and one for the older guys. If you would like to participate, Six and Up can participate. We will get another game as well. We did this last year and it was a lot of fun. I encourage people if they would like to participate, they can. Brother Marcel is helping us with this. If you have questions, ask him. Down below is the ladies Christmas party. There is a sign up sheet in the hallway. It is nurselings only as we have done every single year. We would love for you to participate if you can. If you have any questions about the gift exchange or need help with that, just ask my wife and we would love to help you and allow you to participate in that. Also, there should be a sign up in the chat or the sheet. Down below, other events that we have mentioned next Sunday is going to be the ordination services for brother Dylan Awes in Oklahoma City. It is going to be Anchor Baptist Church. Please be praying for that church, for those services, and that everything would go smoothly. We are really looking forward to that. Brother Awes was a great help to our church. We want to be a help to him by praying for him and encouraging him. I know that a lot of people down here really like Brother Awes and became good friends with him. He is a great guy and will hopefully continue to be friends. December 6th is our ladies Christmas party. December 7th is the turkey bowl. December 9th is the Christmas caroling. That is going to be in the evening. December 25th is our cookie bake-off. Then the first is our men's preaching night and pizza. We have lots of other cool stuff that is going to be next year, but I am not going to tell you, so even if you ask me. We will announce that in the future, but 2025 is going to be awesome. I am really looking forward to that as well. We still have the great part of this end of the season. My wife's favorite time of year is Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the fall. I am really looking forward to having a lot of fun, fellowship, hanging out, and a lot of great opportunities for church. Soul Waning went great today. Just continue to be steadfast and let's continue to do the work. We have got our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 150 with our coda. If you want to use the special handouts, it makes it a little bit easier to sing. Psalm 150. All right, that is Psalm 150. Sing it out all together. On the first. Praise ye the Lord, praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbre, the dance. Praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals. Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that happens praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God the Father. Praise God the Son. Praise God the Holy Ghost. Praise God in three persons. Great singing everybody. As the offering plates are going around, would you please turn your Bibles to 1 Timothy 5. 1 Timothy 5. 1 Timothy 5. 1 Timothy 5. The Bible reads, But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth, and these things give in charge, that they may be blameless. But if any provide not for his own house, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, well reported of for good works, if she hath brought up children, if she hath lodged strangers, if she hath washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work. But the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith. And withal they learn to be idle, wondering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan. If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged, that it may relieve them that are widows indeed. Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. For the scriptures say, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward. Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear. I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins, keep thyself pure. Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake in thine often infirmities. Some men's sins are opened beforehand, going before to judgment, and some men they follow after. Likewise, also the good works of some are manifest beforehand, and they that are otherwise cannot be hid. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for all the salvations we had today, Lord. I pray that you be with Pastor Shelley, fill him with your Holy Spirit, Lord, as he preaches unto us, and help us to receive your word with a humble heart, Lord, willing to learn and apply what we learn. Praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Oh, somebody gave me some honey butter chips, so definitely a win right there, all right? Thanks for that. First Timothy chapter 5, look at verse 19. Against an elder received not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. Now, the title of my evening sermon is this, receive not an accusation. Receive not an accusation. And I want to talk about this, because this is a very important concept that our society is not very good at, and not even just society, even churches and even Christians can be very bad at this particular point that's being made in the Bible here. But of course, an elder in this context is we're talking about a pastor, and we're talking about leadership in a church, and it's saying against one, meaning there's an accusation against an elder, and it's saying receive it not in a context. What is the context specifically, but before two or three witnesses? So what's being implied here, what's being explained here, is that you're not allowed to, quote, receive an accusation by one witness. It's just saying it's off the table. Now, what does it mean to receive, okay? It's not saying that you couldn't listen to someone and hear their side of the story. But think about this. The Bible says in John chapter 1, verse number 12, but as many as received him, to them gave you power to become the sons of God, even of them that believe on his name. So what does it mean in John chapter 1, verse 12 when you receive something? It's not saying that you heard Jesus speak. It's not saying you heard Jesus give the gospel. It means you believed it, because here's the thing. Tons of people received it in the sense that they heard Jesus preach the gospel. Tons of people heard his testimony. Plenty of people heard what he had to say, but not everyone believed what he said. So I believe what it's trying to communicate here is that you should not believe one witness against an elder. It's not saying you wouldn't necessarily say, like, if someone came to you and said, hey, I need to tell you about something, but it's one testimony, you would just say, well, I'm not even willing to listen to it. It's just simply saying, no matter what the accusation is made, you're not allowed to believe it. You're not allowed to believe it until you have multiple pieces of hard evidence confirmed. That's when you can receive the accusation. That's when you can believe the accusation. Now, in this particular chapter, it's describing an elder as the person who's being accused. But frankly speaking, the Bible teaches this concept for everybody. It's not even actually limited to pastors. I think it's just trying to remind us that it's even more important that we make sure that we're abiding by these principles for a pastor because good pastors and people that are preaching the hard truths of the Bible are going to be accused of anything and everything imaginable. If they call the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more are they of his household? And you know what that means? That means if they call Jesus the devil, they're going to call the under shepherds way worse. Whatever false accusations are made about Jesus, he's saying they're going to make worse accusations about men. And they're going to say crazier and more wild things about human pastors, especially considering the fact that Jesus was absolutely perfect, whereas human pastors are not perfect. And in fact, human pastors, let me tell you a little secret, sin. Human pastors can sometimes be carnal. Human pastors can sometimes make mistakes. Human pastors can kind of say things or do things that aren't right every once in a while. And then of course, people love to latch onto little tiny grievances, little bitty mistakes, and then try to blow them out of proportion, twist narratives, make all kinds of wild accusations. And in fact, this is what's so funny to me. Most of the time that I've been falsely accused or people are attacking me, I'm thinking like, you know, I do have some things that you could probably fault me for. And they never bring those up. They're always making wild accusations that have nothing to do with reality, nothing that I even did. But the Bible is making it clear that we should not receive the testimony and the sense of believing one witness against an elder. Now let me go to Deuteronomy chapter 19. I have four points this evening, and I want to explain these very carefully to you because this is an important thing for us to learn. When any time there's someone being accused of anything, we want to make sure that we're not going to believe something until we have multiple witnesses. We should just always, when there's accusations being made, we should not allow it to affect our minds and our hearts until we have multiple witnesses. Now of course that's especially true about a pastor, but the Bible says this about anybody. Deuteronomy chapter number 19 is going to teach this principle. Look at verse number 15. One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or for any sin and any sin that he sinneth. At the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established. So the Bible just goes over and above and beyond to try and make it clear. We would not go against anybody for any sin until you have at least two to three witnesses. That is what the Bible is just saying. Of course we apply this to pastors, but really it should be applied to, notice, a man. And it's not only men, folks. We're saying any person. Literally any person. And if you serve God, if you come to this church, if you try to do the right things, you are very likely to have someone make an accusation to get you at some point. And some people think that I'm the only person that's ever attacked or something, but that's not even true at all. There has been many people in this room, there's been many times, where people in our congregation have been accused of things. And wild things. I mean, I'm not going to divulge too much information here, but I'm just saying people in our church, just our regular church members, get accused of every psycho weird thing you could ever imagine sometimes. And you know what we're not supposed to do? Believe them. Especially when it's coming from one person. Now this is what really confuses people. And I cannot teach this enough. I could teach this a thousand times and people still won't get it. But sometimes this is what happens. Someone is a witness of something. Like, I saw something, I heard something, whatever. Then they tell ten people. And then ten people come tell me. And they're like, we have ten witnesses. And you're like, no? It's like, did you see it? No. Did you hear it? No. You're not a witness. Where did you get it? From person A. It's like, okay. Where did you hear it? Person A. Where did you hear it? Person A. Where did you hear it? Person A. Okay, so we have one witness. Just because ten people are saying something, doesn't mean you have ten witnesses. You still have one witness. Now this is what the media loves to do. The media, the Associated Press, will break a story and literally all these news agencies will copy their exact article and repost it. And then at the very bottom in fine print you'll say like, oh, this is from the Associated Press. But then it'll be like, all the news agencies are reporting the same story. All the news agencies are saying the same thing. Yeah, but they're just repeating one witness again. And then when you read the Associated Press article, it'll say, this is coming from a single source that's been unverified. And you're like, why would I believe that? They're like, there's this one anonymous source that won't be named, that we didn't necessarily verify, but here's the accusation. And then it's just like, all these news agencies are saying this thing about somebody. And of course they're always really careful how they say it. This person is allegedly blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This person is being accused of blah, blah, blah, blah. This person said, this person did blah, blah, blah, blah. But they know the dirty trick that they're playing. They're just trying to poison the minds of people and they're trying to get you to believe in accusation even though it's not true. Donald Trump is like the king of this in the sense that there's been so many false reports made about him all the time that have almost become truth to many people in our country. He's famous for the Russia collusion story. There's all kinds of accusations about him with certain women. And look, you hear it so much that you're like, I don't even know it's true. I don't even know what really happened. And look, there's plenty of things to criticize Donald Trump on, but most of the time the media is bringing up all these things that I'm thinking like, that's probably not even true. That probably never even happened. And we have to be careful that we don't just receive an accusation, that we check, okay, is there really multiple witnesses and do we have two or three witnesses? Because we shouldn't receive any accusation until we have multiple witnesses. That is what the Bible says. You say, I don't like that. Okay, but you're wrong. Hashtag believe all women. Well, you're wrong. The Bible does not teach this narrative that women can't lie or something. I don't know if you've even read like the very beginning of the Bible. There was a woman that pretty much got us in this mess. Her name's Eve. It's like, you don't think that women can lie? Look, men and women lie all the time. In fact, I need to teach another sermon at some point about how 99% of the time people are lying, not telling the truth. Why do you think that the psalmist said, I said in my haste, all men are liars? He didn't say in his haste, I think everybody's a truth teller. How come it is that you've never taught your kids to lie a single time and yet they lie all the time? And let's just be honest, people are liars. People lie. Why do you think it is that they say cretins are always liars? Do you think they got that reputation because they're constantly telling the truth? Or do you think it's probably that they lie a lot? I mean, the Bible says, who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ. He is anti-Christ. The Bible's basically labeling a whole group of people as just liars. Why? Because people lie all the stinking time. But yet we, because we're good, often project our own goodness on other people and so we think, like, why would someone lie about this? But the reality is people are lying all the time. And so we have to be very careful that we don't just immediately believe everything that we hear. YouTube is just like lies. I'm just going to be honest with you. Like, it's just full of lies. Anything that was good or truth, they pretty much just banned it at this point. All the, you know, really great preaching, just gone, banned. Great documentaries banned, gone. Like, the things that are left on YouTube are, like, almost for sure bad. If it's promoted by the algorithm, it's almost for sure bad. And again, I'm not saying there isn't a few things out there that are good, but I'm just trying to tell you, especially on spiritual matters and things that are government conspiracies, those things that are true are not on there anymore. So if you're like, my main source of information is YouTube, I can pretty much guarantee that person believes a lot of lies at this point. Now, in times past, there was a lot more free, open, there was a lot of good stuff on there, but now it's been shut down so hard that it's just tons and tons and tons of lies. And our media lies, people are lying, the news constantly lies, we shouldn't just hear something and just immediately believe it. Now, here's another point that's important, though, as let's keep reading what it actually says in here. Look at, I think, let's just kind of, like, start back. One witness shall not rise up against a man for iniquity, or for any sin, at any sin that he sinneth, at the mouth of two witnesses or the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established. If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong, then both the men between whom the controversy is shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days, and the judges shall make diligent inquisition. And behold, if the witness be a false witness and have testified falsely against his brother, then he shall do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother. So shall they put the evil away from among you, and those which remain shall hear and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. Now, this is important, because when you get this whole passage in context, it's exactly what it's saying in 1 Timothy 5, that it say, them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear. Saying what? Look, if someone's going to make a false accusation against a pastor, and after diligent inquisition, it's proven that that person lied and hearkened unto lies and repeated false accusations, the Bible's like saying publicly rebuke them so that people will stop doing that. Now, again, a couple lessons that we can learn here is that even if you have multiple witnesses, or even if you have people making accusations, they could still be lying, and we have to make diligent inquisition. We have to figure out what's going on with this person. Now, go to Mark chapter 14, go to Mark chapter 14. Just because you have, quote, multiple witnesses does not mean that it's case closed either. We have to make diligent inquisition, okay? Look at Mark chapter number 14, and look at verse 56. Mark chapter 14, verse 56. For many bear false witness against him. Is it possible to have multiple false witnesses? That's what the Bible teaches. For many bear false witness against him. But their witness agreed not together. So how do you know that they're bearing false witness? Because they're saying, hey, he showed up at seven. No, he showed up at nine. No, he showed up at six. No, he said this. No, this person was here. No, this was green. No, this was red. You start getting all their stories and you're like, well, all of this can't be true. There's something wrong with these stories. They're not matching up. They're not lining up. This is not agreeing on these type of important details. You can recognize there's an issue here. He also says this, and there arose certain and bear false witness against him saying, we heard him say, I will destroy the simple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands. But neither so did their witness agree together. Again, they're even trying to quote him. And look, most of the time when someone's making a false accusation against you, there's a little bit of truth in there. Because didn't Jesus say something about this? He said, destroy this temple in three days, I'll rise it up again. But he spake of the temple of his body. He did not speak of the actual temple. And so they misunderstood him. They have the wrong context. They're not even accurately quoting him. And whenever they're asking it, yeah, there's a little bit of truth here, but it's actually not true, and their witness still doesn't agree. And so, oh, well, they mentioned temple, he mentioned temple. Oh, it's all true. No. What does the Bible say here? It's saying, hey, neither did their witness agree. They didn't actually get it right here. They're still wrong. They're still not quite agreeing. Because we're not just willy-nilly here. We're making diligent inquisition. We're trying to find the veracity of their claims. He says this, verse 60, And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, saying, Answers thou nothing, what is it which these witness against thee? And I like this guy, he's just like, aren't you going to answer all these witnesses? And he's just like, no. There's all these people attacking. There's all these people lying about you. Okay. You don't have to answer. You don't have to answer every single false accusation. You don't always have to defend yourself against every weird thing that's going on. In fact, many times it's best to just say, like, it's wrong, bye, or just say nothing. It's like, whatever. I don't even have to deal with that. I'm not going to address that. Because then they basically win by not necessarily getting you guilty of what you did, but wasting your time constantly defending yourself. And we don't have to just go around constantly defending ourselves and constantly doing these things because we should be proven guilty only after diligent inquisition. You should be innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven innocent. Some people don't understand that concept. It's a biblical concept. No matter what sin it was, with one witness, they're still innocent, not guilty. Okay. Now, go if you would to John chapter 18. Go to John chapter 18. We're just trying to see what does the Bible say on this subject because it's an important subject and we're going to all face this. We're going to all have situations like this. This is going to constantly happen in our lives, in politics, in church, in all kinds of areas of life. We want to make sure that we have the same standard, the same principles. And people are going to come to me and people do all the time, and they're like, so and so did this, this happened, whatever. And I'm just like, did you see it? Did you hear it? What happened? Is there more witnesses? And even when they bring, like, I saw it and this happened. I say, okay, well, thanks for telling me, but until there's a second witness or until something else happens, I am not going to do anything. And it pisses people off. I'll tell you what. People are like, what do you mean? And I'm just like, okay, well, the Bible's telling me that I can't just receive one witness or one testimony against somebody. And I'm not going to just violate that, even if I don't like the person. And let me be honest with you, 90% of the time it ends up being true and I don't like the person. But I still give them the benefit of the doubt anyways for that 10%, okay? And I'm just trying to be honest with you. I'm not going to try to violate this. I'm going to try to abide by this for the 10% sake. John chapter 18, look at verse 30, the Bible says, They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. This is all of them saying, he's a criminal. He's a bad guy. So he must be a bad guy. Multiple people said it. That's not how it works, folks. Just because you have a ton of people saying this guy's a bad guy doesn't make him a bad guy. And in fact, depending on who's saying that, it might make him a good guy. Okay? That's what you should really understand. Go to Luke chapter 12. Go to Luke chapter number 12. I just want you to understand the reality of our world. That people lie. Multiple witnesses can lie. When there's a controversy, we have to make sure we even have multiple witnesses. Is that even a reality? And then figuring out, like, do they even agree? Which is kind of my second point. I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but we're going to make another reference that's clear in this. But I'm just kind of showing you this concept of multiple witnesses first, still. Luke 12, verse 52. This is an important aspect. Because this is something that we're all going to deal with. Very likely. Now, if you don't deal with this, God bless you. And you're very fortunate. But for many of us, this is a reality that we have to face. Luke chapter 12, look at verse 52. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. Now, if you kind of read the context, what did he say in verse 51? Supposedly that I'm coming to give peace on earth? I tell you nay, but rather division. Now here's the thing. You have two witnesses versus three witnesses. Who's right? And look, in family drama, you're almost always, always going to have three against two, two against three. And again, this is a household of five. What if it's a household of ten? You could have five on five, six on four, three on seven. You're going to have just this crazy dynamic. And you're going to have houses divided. You're going to have all these things. And look, in family drama and family situations, it's super confusing. You can't always know. But you can't just say like, oh, here's three witnesses. No, it's three against two. So what should we do in that scenario? We should make diligent inquisition. That's what we should do. Just because there's multiple witnesses. Now if there's only one, if it's one v. four, well sorry, the one can't win. It literally can't win. The four could win, but it's also not even guaranteed. Because the four, if their witness doesn't agree, well then it doesn't matter. We have to have multiple witnesses that agree. And I want to talk about a few other aspects of this too. Go to 1 Kings chapter 21. I'm just showing you consistently in the Bible that you can have multiple witnesses and it's not a locked in guaranteed thing. But we do need at least multiple witnesses. 1 Kings chapter 21. So point one is this, multiple witnesses. Point two is that we need to make diligent inquisition. Even when you have multiple witnesses, we need to make diligent inquisition. So point one, if there's an accusation, we need to ask ourselves this. Number one, is there multiple witnesses? If there's not, we already don't receive it. Point two is we make diligent inquisition to make sure that the veracity of these claims are true. Otherwise we're not going to receive it. So basically what we're doing is we're disqualifying accusations. Number one, not multiple witnesses, for sure not receiving it. Number two, if we make diligent inquisition and we discover that the veracity of these claims is not legitimate, then we're going to also discard this. 1 Kings chapter 21, look at verse 8. This is talking about Jezebel. He wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city dwelling with Naboth. Here's a woman who writes her husband's sermons, you know what I mean? And she wrote in the letters saying, Proclaim a fast and set Naboth on high among the people and set two men sons of Belial before him to bear witness against him saying, Doubt this blasphemed God and the king and then carried him out and stoned him that he may die. And the men of the city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city did as Jezebel had sent unto them and as it was written in the letters which he had sent unto them they proclaimed a fast and set Naboth on high among the people and there came in two men, children of Belial and sat before him and the men of Belial witnessed against him even against Naboth in the presence of the people saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king then they carried him forth out of the city and stoned him with stones that he died. Now here's something I'll just admit to you that I recently figured out or understood more in the story is I always thought like, oh this is two witnesses against Naboth. But that's not true. Let's read this carefully. We have to really read this really carefully. Notice what it actually says here and I want to make sure I'm getting the right verse here. Verse 8. Now elders is a plural word. That means at minimum there's two elders. Nobles is a plural word. That's at least two nobles and then there's two sons of Belial. That means there's six people involved in this conspiracy against Naboth. Not two. There's at minimum six. Unless you're going to say the elders and nobles are the exact same people but I think it's actually describing two different groups here and so that would mean we've got a lot of people and it's probably even more than two. I'm just throwing out this as kind of a minimum. This is a lot of people all agreeing together to bring a false testimony and a false witness against Naboth and conspiring against him to kill him. Just like with Jesus they had the elders, which is not a few, all conspiring together to kill Jesus along with a bunch of false witnesses. They had a bunch of false witnesses and they had a bunch of the elders. And this huge group of people, just the same as Naboth, where you have multiple people, leaders, city officials, spiritual leaders, priests, you also have essentially here sons of Belial. Now what are we supposed to do? If we have multiple witnesses testifying against someone, what are we supposed to do? Well, aren't we supposed to make diligent inquisition? Step one, is there multiple witnesses? Yes, there is. But what's step two? It's diligent inquisition. What they should say is, okay, son of Belial won. When did he say this? What else did he say? What was he wearing? Who else was there? What time of day? And you ask him privately. Then you go to Sodomite number two, Pete Buttigieg or something, and say, okay, Petey, when did this happen? What was he wearing? Where was it at? And when you hear the first guy say it was on Saturday, he was wearing a red shirt with a blue hat, this person was there. And then the other guy is like, it was on Friday, he was wearing a green jacket. This happened, you're like, hmm. And then they say, so-and-so was there. Then you go find so-and-so and say, hey, where were you on Friday? Where were you on Saturday? And they're like, oh, I wasn't there. Then you go and you ask Naboth, and you say, hey, where were you on Friday? Where were you on Saturday? And he says, hey, I was with my wife. I was with this person. That's called an alibi. And then they go ask the alibi, and they say, hey, alibi, was this person with you? And they're like, yeah, I was there, he was there, they were there. And then you start realizing, wow, these guys are lying. Because their witness doesn't match the reality of the facts. That's called diligent inquisition. That's what should be happening when there's actually a real controversy. But did they ask these sodomites? No. Here's another really important thing, and this is something I always do. Whenever there's an accusation like this, you know what I do? I go to the person and I ask them, is this true? And honestly, I'll be honest with you, I've judged people and I've dealt with church discipline, I've dealt with situations, and almost, I can't remember, but almost every single time, and I think it's every single time, maybe I'm forgetting one, they admitted to me it was true. And when they didn't admit it to me, I didn't necessarily do anything because I'm like, I don't know if it's true for sure. If you have two or three witnesses, I go to the person and say, hey, this is what's being said about you. Did this happen? Did you do this? Did you say this? And I let them tell me. And when they say, nope, I'm innocent, I didn't do it, I'm going to have to have a lot of really hard, clear evidence to discount their testimony, and I pretty much never have. And usually when I get it, then I just am like, well, I have this, and then finally they're like, yeah, I did it. It's like Aiken or something. It's finally, yeah, I took it. Okay? Usually they'll admit it. But it's like, I don't want to just go hard on people when they're saying that they're innocent. And look, there's people in our church that I've brought, I've said, hey, this is what's being said, this is what happened, and in some cases I kind of thought it was true, but they said it wasn't, and then after more evidence, I was like, yeah, they're right. That didn't happen. You weren't guilty of that, and I just left it alone. But you know what? Many people are doing zero of these steps that I'm talking to you. They hear one person say some weird, crazy thing and they just already believed it because they don't like them, or they just want it to be true, or they're just simple. The Bible says it's simple to believe in every word. And we shouldn't be like that. We should, number one, is there multiple witnesses? Okay, there is. Now, let's see the veracity of their claims. Let's make diligent inquisitions. Let's see if this even matches. What we shouldn't do is just hear two guys and then grab the guy and take him out and just kill him. Aren't you glad that you don't live in a country where you could have just two sodomites say something about you and then you're drug out in the city and killed immediately? Those protests would have been a little spicier. You don't think there would have been two people over there that would have just said whatever and just killed any of us? Absolutely they would. But you know what? You can't just say random stuff. And in a court of law, it'd actually fly. Obviously there's a handful of kangaroo court situations and things that happen in America. But generally speaking, in a court of law, they're going to have actual witnesses, actual testimony, actual lawyers coming and actually checking the veracity of your claims. You get what's called cross-examined. And they can only bring in facts. If you're in a court of law and you say this, well I heard so and so say. Before you can even finish that sentence, they'll say, objection hearsay. And the judge will say, whatever they just said is not allowed to be admitted in evidence. What they just said is not even allowed. Strike it from the record. That testimony is not allowed. Because hearsay is not allowed in a court of law. Yet how many times do people accept hearsay in their daily life? All the time. Because you can't allow hearsay. Now, here's the thing. If you're saying it from a witness perspective, then you can prevent it. If you're saying, so and so told me this and this is the person in the room. Like you can only allow quote hearsay in the context that it's the actual defendant and they get an opportunity to verify that that was actually said. But if it's not you giving testimony to something you actually witnessed or heard and that person's able to actually defend themselves, that testimony is not allowed in a court of law. And I'm not a lawyer, but I'm just telling you this is how it works. And we should do the same thing. We should make diligent inquisition. Go to Deuteronomy 17. I want to go to another passage. Go to Deuteronomy chapter number 17. We should be careful with accusations. We should not be the type of people that just believes anything and believes everything. It looks bad. Some people believe literally every conspiracy theory of every video they've ever watched. It's dangerous. That is dangerous, especially now. If your conspiracy theory has survived the YouTube censorship, you need to get a new theory. Because what I've noticed is all the ones that I thought were true are gone. And all the ones that survived, like Flat Earth, you know, you got to get a new theory, buddy. And I'm just saying that's kind of a litmus test already. Deuteronomy chapter 17, look at verse 1. Thou should not sacrifice on the Lord thy God any bullock or sheep, wherein it is a blemish, or any evil favoredness, for that is abomination of the Lord thy God. If there be found among you within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God in transgressing His covenant, and hath gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquire diligently, and behold it be true, and the thing certain that such an abomination is wrought in Israel, then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman which hath committed that wicked thing unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die. Did they do this in Naboth's story? Did they then enquire diligently? Did they make sure that it was certain? Did they make sure that it was actually true? Or did they skip all three of those steps and just went straight to the stoning? And you know what? We need to be careful that we're actually inquiring diligently even after the witnesses. Point one, is there witnesses? If there's one, I don't believe it. If there's multiple, is it true? Did I diligently enquire? Did I actually check all of the evidence? Did I talk to the other witnesses? Did I consider other evidence? Did I consider all the facts, or did I just listen to one side of the story? You know, I'm not going to get the proverb correct, I don't think, but it's like when a man's in his own... someone can look this up for me and give me the verse here in a minute. It's like when a man... every man seemeth just in his own cause, but his neighbor cometh in search of them. Everyone seemeth right in his own cause. You look that up and I'll get an exact quote for you. But basically the Bible is saying that everyone sounds like they're innocent when they tell the story. And then when you actually look at the facts, what is it? Proverbs 18, so there we go. I like a church that knows the Bible. Proverbs 18, 17. He that is first in his own cause seemeth just, but his neighbor cometh in search of them. Hey, I'm the first one to tell you the story, it sounds like I'm right, it sounds like I'm just. But you know what? Let's listen to the other side. Let's see what other people have to say. Let's look at the evidence. Let's do diligent inquisition. Let's not just immediately believe any kind of accusation or any kind of testimony against someone. Now, I want you to go to Exodus chapter 23. Go to Exodus chapter 23. Point one is that we need to make sure we have multiple witnesses. Point two is that we need to make diligent inquisition. Point three is this, we also need to consider the credibility of the witnesses. When you have two sons of Belial as your star witnesses, any saved person should immediately think like this is suspect. Okay, like we should always consider the credibility of the witness. And look, if you're in a court of law, they always consider the credibility of the witness. They're saying like, what is this person's lifestyle? What is this person like? Is this an honest person? And when someone's not an honest person, they'll literally not even allow them to testify. They've had times where, this is what happens, criminals that are in jail, they'll have dirty prosecutors come to them and they say, hey, we're struggling on this case, but if you lie and say this person said something or did something, we'll cut your jail time. And so they literally have people that are in prison, in jail, come up and they'll just lie on the stand, accusing somebody of something, and then they'll cut their sentence or make a deal or make a plea with them. But if they ever get caught doing that, then they're never allowed to testify in court again. Sounds like a good idea, right? If the guy was already caught being a rat, being this guy that's just making up lies to falsely accuse people, it's like, we're not going to allow him to do that ever again. He's just a proven false witness, so his credibility is not worthy of allowing this person to ever testify again. And so you have to consider the credibility of somebody that's making some kind of an accusation. What kind of person is this? What kind of actions do they have? What kind of lifestyle do they have? And then some people will be like, oh, so you're just not going to believe this person that's doing drugs and lying and doing all this criminal activity? And it's like, no. I want to consider what kind of person this is and what kind of testimony they have. The Bible tells us to do things like this. Exodus 23, look at verse number 7. Keep thee far from a false matter. Hey, maybe you should do that. Keep thee far from a false matter, and the innocent and righteous slay thou not, for I will not justify the wicked. And thou shalt take no gift, for the gift blindeth the wise and perverted the words of the righteous. The Bible is saying that if someone's getting paid to testify, that that hurts the credibility of the witness. And if you actually understand this point, they'll ask this question in the court of law. They'll say, are you being paid to give your testimony today? And when they say yes, you know what that does? It hurts the credibility of the witness. Say like, hey, are you receiving money? Are you receiving funds to say this? And they say, yeah, that looks bad. That hurts their credibility. And that's a legitimate question that's often being asked. Here's a question. If the Bible says who is a liar but he that denieth Jesus, the Christ, right? Who is a liar but he that denieth Jesus, the Christ, who is that? An antichrist? Who is that? Someone that practices Judaism? If you say, like, who's the witness? Someone that practices Judaism, which we call Jews, all right? I'm going to say, I'm not going to accept that witness because he's a liar. I'm going to consider the court. If I say, like, hey, a bunch of antichrists are accusing somebody of something, I automatically think that they're probably lying. That's how I view it. If the Bible says in Proverbs, go to Proverbs 26. If someone's getting paid, I don't know if I'm going to believe that. If someone's a Jew or practicing Judaism, I don't know that I'm going to believe that witness. I'm not saying ethnically. I'm saying religiously, okay? I'm sure that'll be cut out and somebody will be, you know, saying whatever. Here's another person I'm not going to believe, a flatterer. Proverbs 26. The Bible says, let's see, let's just read a lot of this. Verse 22. The words of a tale-bearer has wounds that go down to the innermost parts of the belly. Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross. He that hateth dissembles with his lips and layeth up deceit within him. So this is somebody, dissembles means like trickery or deceit. They're covering, they're covering something up. It's like there's some people that'll go and go to church with you for years and they hate you the whole time. But they're lying about it and they're tricking and they're not telling you what they're really like. They're just hating you and they're just getting mad and they're just getting bitter. But then they go, they're like, you're such a great guy. But they're hiding their hatred, okay? What does it say in verse 25? When he speaketh fair, believe him not. So once you've exposed, oh wow, this guy hated you in the past and it's proven. Now I believe nothing you have to say ever again in the future. Because you've already shown me that you're a deceitful, tricky person and you're not sincere and you don't actually say what you mean. So what does the Bible say? Don't ever believe this person. So once this person has shown to me that they're a flatterer, which one's a flatterer? Saying insincere things. This person had to say insincere things to cover their hatred and to hide their deceit and to hide what they're actually doing and hide their motives and hide their intentions. And now we see that they have no credibility. So from now on, what does the Bible literally command me? Don't believe him. When you find people that are like this saying anything positive, I don't believe you. That's what the Bible is saying. It says, for there are seven abominations in his heart whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation. Meaning eventually, eventually we'll figure out, wow, this guy was a hater the whole time. Verse 28, a lying tongue hated those that are afflicted by it and a flattering mouth worketh run. Flatterers do a lot of damage because we often want to believe people are sincere and honest and yet they trick us, they deceive us, they lie to us, they take advantage of us. And it happens to, it can happen to anybody. The Bible says a man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject. You know, witness I'm not going to listen to? Heretics. I don't care what they have to say. I don't care what Judaism worshipers have to say. I don't care what flatterers have to say. I don't care what heretics have to say. I'm going to consider the credibility of this witness. I don't care what Sodomites have to say. I'm going to ignore their testimony. The Bible says, whoso transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. I'm not going to listen to that testimony. So I'm just showing you there's so many places in the Bible that are saying when somebody crosses a certain line of credibility, we don't listen to them anyways. When someone's involved in grievous sin and doing something that's shady, I'm going to say the credibility of their witness is not good and I'm not going to necessarily believe that. So point one is this. I'm not going to receive an accusation when there's not multiple witnesses. Number two, after there's been diligent inquisition, when I find that it's not true and these things aren't actually adding up, I'm not going to believe that accusation. When I look at the credibility of this person and I find that they have all kinds of issues themselves, I'm not going to believe that accusation. And here's the fourth thing that we should consider is the motive of the witness. The motive of the witness that's bringing the accusation. And this will all help us. Anytime there's ever accusations, are we considering all of these points that are brought up in the Bible? Go to Geronomy chapter 16. Now I've kind of already used one of these points that's an important point, but we have to consider this. When we're considering the credibility of the witness, if they were receiving money, that hurts their credibility. Because why? Because then we have to ask this question, what was their motive? Is their motive just money? And anytime someone has a motive of money or finances to lie, well, then we don't want to believe their witness. When it benefits you financially to say something, we don't want to necessarily believe that accusation. We have to be careful. Deuteronomy chapter 16, look at verse 18. Judges and officers, shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee throughout thy tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. Thou shalt not rest judgment. Thou shalt not respect persons. Neither take a gift. For a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the righteous. What is the gift as a bribe? Saying, hey, when people are getting bribed or getting money, in a case of judgment, in a matter, well, that's going to pervert everything. That's going to skew everything. That's going to cause people to not have just judgment, not say the right thing, not be legitimate. That's a bad motive. There's a lot of verses on that. I'm not going to belabor that point. But there's a lot of people that do this. And probably the most common case of this is actually women making a false accusation of being forced and it's a rich guy. And typically, again, I'm not saying all cases are the same. There's a lot of bad people that do bad things. I think sometimes rich people do do that. But I do believe there's sometimes that they didn't do that. And what happens is that girls will take advantage of a rich guy, lead them on, say all the things they want to have here in their ear, flatter them. They'll have consensual relationship. And then years later, they'll come out of the woodwork and say, oh, he did this and it wasn't consensual and blah, blah, blah. And the only thing they want is a settlement. The only thing they want is for the guy to not have all these… Because here's the thing. Everything I'm teaching you, nobody does. The world does not do what I'm saying. And if a headline comes out, so and so did this to this woman, 90-some percent of people are going to immediately believe it. And it just damages their reputation. It hurts them. Even when it's a complete lie, it's not even true. And so just to avoid that, many people are willing to just say, hey, take 50,000 bucks, take 100,000 bucks or whatever and just leave us alone. We don't even want to deal with this. They just pay them called, quote, hush money. But that doesn't mean that they're guilty even. It just means they don't have to deal with the headache of this. They know that lawyer fees are going to be more than whatever settlement they're probably going to have to pay anyways. And they just want the problem to go away. They don't want the damage to their reputation for no reason. And they're just like, fine, just go away. Here you go. And women know that and so they do this. And why are they motivated to do this? Money. They already proved that they were a whore. What does a whore do? Things for money. And a lot of women are willing to whore themselves out to the right guy to then take advantage of that opportunity. It's kind of like a Samson and Delilah taking advantage to get 1,100 pieces of silver, 1,100 shekels. She doesn't care about this guy. She would just take him and destroy him. The adulteress will hunt for the precious life, as the Bible says. She has cast down many wounded. Many strong men have been slain by her. The whorish woman, whose heart is snares and nets, as the Bible says. It says, who so pleases God shall escape from her. Okay. That woman exists. Oh no, every woman's great. You're a liar. Here's another motive. What about revenge? When somebody is bitter, they're like a psycho ex-girlfriend, and they're just bitter, then you have to say like, is this a really good witness? Like, maybe they're just on a revenge campaign. How about when their motive seems pretty clear that they just want to destroy Christians? I'm not going to believe that testimony. When they want to destroy churches. They want to destroy soul-winning churches. I'm like, what's your motive here? When they want to destroy churches that have nothing to do with the situation. It's like, why is this a credible witness? When they want to destroy a church that has nothing to do with them or nothing to do with their situation. That doesn't even make sense. When their motive is for fame, they just want attention. And boy, do some people just love attention. They cannot get enough attention. You have to ask yourself this question, is this person sincere? Is this person really telling the truth? When their motive is to steal. Because what was the whole point of Naboth? It was for Jezebel to help Ahab steal Naboth's vineyard. He wanted his vineyard, and the whole point of lying was to steal that land. So by that motive, we should have discounted that testimony and that witness. And you should have noticed like, hey, Ahab wanted this land, didn't get it. Random sodomites come out of nowhere, accuse him he dies, and then Ahab immediately takes that land. That looks a little suspicious. Looks like there might have been a little motive there for something to happen. How about spite? And that's an interesting one. You have two harlots. One harlot lays over the top of a child and kills it by smothering. And then she steals the other baby from the other harlot. And then she goes to the king, and she literally lies about it being her child. And you're thinking like, why? Does she love children? No. And in fact, Solomon proves that wrong by saying, let's literally cut the child in half, and she's like, cut it in half. I'm not quoting her verbatim, but she's just basically like saying like, let's do this thing. And it's like, she literally wants the child to be killed just out of what? Out of spite towards the other woman. Not any pure motive, not any good reason. It's like, and then by the motive, by the motive, Solomon realized this is a false witness. And he was considered wise. Why? Because he just didn't believe the testimony of somebody. And in fact, this is a good one because the Bible doesn't say this. Society says this. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Who's heard that? Possession is nine-tenths of the law. But you know what? The possession of this baby was in the wrong hands. The possession was in the harlot that actually wanted to kill it. And Solomon said, no, possession isn't going to win here. Motive is going to determine who's the real baby. And he said, hey, that's the mother thereof. I can discern things by the motive. And you know what discerns motive? It discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart, is what the Bible says. You know, people always say, you don't know what I was thinking. You don't know what's going on. No, no, this does. This tells us. I heard somebody say this, and it's like the dumbest thing I've heard. They said, you cannot tell if someone is flattering or not because you don't really know what's going on in their heart. And I'm thinking, like, what are you talking about? If we could never understand that someone was flattering, then why would the Bible tell us to avoid flatterers? You know how you know someone was flattering? Because they do the opposite of what they said. That's how you know they were flattering. If they say, hey, I like you, and then 10 seconds later they're doing something to hate you, they were flattering you. OK, I don't have to be like, but what did you feel? What did you feel inside when you said that? I don't care what you think you felt. You're a flatterer. OK, we can tell what was really going on in your heart. God can tell what was really going on in your heart. And you know what, when we catch flatterers, when we catch the liars, when we catch these people that are doing things out of spite, or how about this one, envy, then we realize, oh, OK, this is not a very credible witness. So many people lied about the Apostle Paul and attacked him out of what envy? They said that he was coming into the temple, causing a ruckus, causing a disturbance, causing all these problems, and you know what, he had basically all the Jews lying about him. Why out of envy? You pretty much can just see a pattern in the Bible where there's always going to be these multiple accusations and all this kind of stuff. Go to Proverbs 25, and the discerning person, the wise person, does not just immediately believe this stuff. The simple believeth every word. The simple. What's another word for simple? Stupid. Foolish. Ignorant. Dumb. We don't want to be dumb. We don't want to be foolish. We don't want to be simple. We want to be people that are wise, discerning. Proverbs 25, look at verse number 8. Go not forth hastily to strife, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof. When thy neighbor hath put thee to shame. Hey, don't just hear an accusation and then immediately jump to resolving it. Let's make sure that we do this step. Is there multiple witnesses? Have we done diligent inquisition? What is the credibility of this witness? What was the motive of this witness? And then after all of that, then we can deal with the situation. But we don't want to hastily go to strife. I need to immediately make a public statement about this person and attack them. Based on what? Well, I only listen to one side. Now, this is what many people say. Well, I did step 1. Okay. But did you do step 2? Did you do step 3? Did you do step 4? And here's the thing. What happens when steps 2, 3, and 4 are not in your favor? What happens? What does the Bible say? Now you're going to be put to shame. Now, here's the thing. I'm not mad at anybody who doesn't do anything when they're only on step 1. Hey, like I said, people come to me. They're like, so-and-so did this. And that happened. And I'm like, but is there another witness? No. Okay. 90% of the time it's true. But you know what? I'm not going to get mad at me or anybody else that says, I'm still not going to do anything until it crosses this threshold, until we've completed the process. Okay. And we should give people the benefit of the doubt and allow them to be innocent until proven guilty. And we don't want to be this person that's just hastily going forth to strife. We want to stay far away from a false matter. We want to make sure that we're executing judgment when we know things to be true. Is it certain? Is it true? Or is it just likely? Because the Bible says this, judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment. Now, here's the thing. When you know something's true, then it's a shame and a folly when you don't deal with it properly. When you know something is beyond, it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, now we need to just make sure that we're dealing with it appropriately. Okay. We don't want to be a respecter of a person. We want to judge righteous judgment. We want to treat people equally and fairly. We don't want to go too harsh on our judgment. We want to go biblical. But at the same time, we want to make sure that we're following all of these steps and not getting too hasty. What does it say in verse 9? Debate thy cause with thy neighbor himself and discover not a secret to another, lest he that heareth it put thee to shame and thine infamy turn not away. Hey, why don't you ask the person if it's even true first? And if they say no, well, you better have some clear, hard evidence to discount that testimony, because it would be a real shame when you get proven wrong. Let's look at the same chapter, verse 18. A man that beareth false witness against his neighbor is a maul and a sword and a sharp arrow. Confidence in an unfaithful man in a time of trouble is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint. Now, those are a little bit different, but I think they kind of come together in a sense that, look, false witnesses are dangerous. It's dangerous, and we have to be careful. We have to be careful with witness testimony. We have to be careful what's really going on. And what I don't want to do is just put all of my confidence in an unfaithful man. Hey, when this person does not have good credibility, when they don't have a good motive, do you really want to just put all of your eggs in that basket? Do you really want to just say, like, well, I'm just going to side with this person? I don't know that it's true. I'm just going to side with them. You know, that's dangerous. Really, we should all do one thing. We should side with people until it's proven that they're guilty. We should give them the bit of the doubt. Because don't you want that? I mean, if you're saying it didn't happen, if you're saying you're innocent, and you haven't even gone through all these steps, don't you want me to treat you like you're innocent, or do you want me to just instantly hear something bad about you from one person or a church, and then crucify you over it? Or two people. Or not even ask the questions. Not even say, like, did you actually see this? Or are you just repeating what they said? Because it's interesting how many times when you actually ask the person, like, did you see this? No. But. I don't care about the but. Did you see it? No. But. It's like, okay, let's just boil it down. What did you actually see? What actually happened? Like, what are the things that we know that are facts? And then when you start cutting through all the extra, and you start looking at facts, and you're like, okay, well, this isn't the narrative that you're painting. Yeah. This doesn't agree. This doesn't have credibility. This isn't, the motives aren't lining up. This doesn't make sense. Why preach a sermon like this? Well, number one is because most people are constantly spreading gossip because they believe everything that they hear. We should not be that way. We should not be tale bearers. We should not be gossips. We should not constantly going around. And a lot of the times you end up becoming a railer because you're repeating things that are not true. Number two is we should not believe the news headlines. Let's go through this step process. They don't do that. Number three, sometimes you could have workplace drama. This can happen in the workplace, and this does happen in the workplace. And we don't want to just immediately believe accusations, believe things about coworkers, believe things about bosses, believe things. We want to make sure that we're hearing both sides. Family drama. Man, I'll just tell you, so many people do a family drama. And when you start actually doing diligent inquisition, you should just start thinking, like, y'all are all messed up. You know, I'm just saying, like, it's weird. I'll just be honest with you. When I first came to be pastor here, there was a drama in our church. And it involved, like, six to eight people. And it was, like, four or five different families with all kinds of different people. And I remember some people were making some wild accusations. So I confronted the people that the accusation was against. I said it's not true. Then I asked, like, some more people. And then they had, like, a different story. And then I asked a few more people. They had a different story. And then I'm like, well, someone's lying. Then I got some hard evidence. And then I went back to the first people, and they're like, well, we lied. And then I go to the next person, and then I find out that they're lying. And then I go to the next person, and they're lying. And then it's, like, every single person was lying to me. And I'm thinking, like, what do I even do? And I'm like, okay, I can just throw all these people out. But I'm like, that seems harsh. And I think that it was kind of embarrassing. They were uncomfortable. They didn't know what to do. And they didn't realize they were going to get caught in their lies. And so I basically just gave them all grace. But honestly, like, half of those people ended up getting thrown out for railing later in the future. And here's what I want to say, is that when you're in a situation, don't just immediately believe people, because when you actually start doing diligent inquisition, sometimes you'll find out people are lying. It blew my mind. I'm thinking, like, why are all these people lying to me? They know I was going to ask all the questions. They know I was going to go around. And look, it wasn't reprobates. It wasn't bad people. It was people in church, the Ghost Soul winning, that loved the Lord. They were lying. People lie. People in this room lie. Don't just believe accusations. And many people lie without trying. They just repeat things. They exaggerate. They misremember. Whatever. We want to make sure that we believe things that are true. We want to make sure we're putting confidence in things that are true. We want to make sure that we're handling people with justice. We want to make sure that we're judging righteous judgment. That we don't always judge according to the appearance. What is the whole premise of that? Jesus Christ healed somebody on the Sabbath day. Now, you could say, well, on the appearance, it sounds like he broke the law. It kind of looks bad. There's something weird. But you know what? By the spirit of the law, we know he wasn't doing anything wrong. But they're saying, this guy's bad. This guy's evil. This guy's breaking the law. I mean, just think about the headlines from the New York Times at that time. Jerusalem Post. Malefactor Breaks the Sabbath. Everybody's like, put them to death? Because you know what the Bible prescribed for someone that presumptuously picked up sticks on the Sabbath day? Someone that presumptuously broke the Sabbath? Death. That was the death penalty. Malefactor named Jesus breaks the Sabbath. Not only did he say he broke the Sabbath, he says, my father doth work, and I work too. He's saying, I work on the Sabbath. We asked him, and he said that he worked. But you know what? It would be a false accusation to say he broke the Sabbath because Jesus didn't sin. He who knew no sin. Why? Because they had a misunderstanding of how the Sabbath even worked. And they were falsely accusing him of breaking the Sabbath. And yes, he technically broke the Sabbath, but he did not according to the spirit of the law. And that's a little bit of a nuance, but of course these people love to take a situation that you might not understand, shade the appearance, twist the facts, and then they falsely accuse people without actually doing diligent inquisition. But you know what? Jesus is not a malefactor. Jesus was perfectly innocent. Jesus knew no sin. Jesus would have never sinned. And of course, we shouldn't just believe testimony. We should have considered the credibility of those witnesses. Oh, the Pharisees? Yeah. Liars. Oh, what's their motive? Oh, they want to destroy the guy that keeps preaching against them? Hmm. It's funny. It's like, oh, there's all these pastors attacking another pastor. Okay, well let's ask this question. Did this pastor ever call them out for sinning? Hmm. Does that person have any motive to maybe get back at them or to attack them? Does this person have any credibility? Have they been called out for heresy? What are these kind of people like? Hey, are these people committing grievous sin while talking about these? Maybe we should consider that. Maybe we should think about that. You know, we shouldn't just immediately just believe everything that we hear. But you know what? There's nothing wrong with taking time to go through the process. And if you end up getting to the point where, you know what? Hey, we got to condemn the wicked and exonerate the righteous. Let's all do that together. But let's not do it hastily. I don't want to have confidence in an unfaithful man. And think about who you're putting your confidence in when it comes to the testimony, when it comes to witnesses. You know, the Apostle Paul said, you have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. Who do you really want to put your trust in? The guy that, the bozo that came out of nowhere that wants to shepherd you, that's done nothing good for you in your life, that's never actually helped you? Or the guy that got you saved and helped you and blessed you has always been right in every controversy in the past? You know, who should you trust? A random person or your dad? Who's loved you and sacrificed for you and done all these things for you? It's like, who should we give the benefit of the doubt to? The person that's done me good and helped me and blessed me and made my life better? Or this random person that I don't even know that's never done me any good? You know, we should consider those things. When we're thinking about accusations, we're thinking about situations. Has this person ever done me any good? What is this person trying to do? What is the goal of this person? That's always important things. And we want to make sure that we're not just going to receive an accusation, especially against a pastor. Especially against a pastor. Now look, I've heard some crazy, weird, psycho things about pastors that I do not like. And you know what I did not do? Run with those accusations. You know what I didn't do? Make public statements believing random, weird accusations. You know what I'm not doing? Attacking those people based on things that I don't know for sure are true. But I'll tell you, I partly believe some of them. I'll tell you that it would be convenient if I knew that was true. But I'm just saying this, that I don't just immediately run with these things. And we shouldn't. Just because you don't like somebody doesn't mean you should just run with unproven accusations against them. Wild conspiracy theories. Wild ideas. We should give even the people we don't like the same fairness as we would the people that we do like. Hey, do you know this to be true and certain? Or is it just likely in your mind? Because there's been plenty of times in my life where I thought somebody was guilty of something, and then I end up realizing I was wrong. You know? Maybe you thought Osama Bin Laden was guilty. And then you realize you were wrong. OK. Sometimes people, you know, think a certain way and then they realize, oh, wow, that's not who is actually guilty. Now, maybe you still believe that. I don't know. That's for you to decide. All right. Go through our steps. All right. But I'm just saying we want to be careful. We want to be diligent. We want to do the right thing. I think this principle applies everywhere. Please, please try to. Let's all do better in this category together. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us so much wisdom in the Bible. We understand that there's so many liars. There's so many haters. There's so many attackers. There's so many evil workers. There's so many people that want to hurt the cause of Christ. They want to tear down good men. They want to make all kinds of accusation, just like they did against Jesus, just like they did to Paul, just like they did to so many great men of God. And I pray that we would have a heart and a mind of wisdom that we wouldn't just immediately believe false accusations. I pray that you would help us to make diligent inquisition. I pray that you would help us to use the wisdom of the Scripture to check the credibility and the motives of accusations. And I pray that if we ever have to make a difficult decision, even if we have to do condemn people that we do love and like, that we would make the right decision, but that we would always give people the benefit of the doubt until we know the thing to be certain and true. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, for our last song we're going to go to song number 397. Little is much when God is in it. Song 397. Song 397. Sing it out together. Song 397. Song 397. Song 397. Little is much when God is in it. Labor not for wealth nor fame. There's no doubt that you can win it if you'll go in Jesus' name. Great singing everybody. You are all dismissed.