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🎵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🎵 🎵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🎵 So we have some really nice Bibles if you'd like one of these we have some gift cards here and then also we still have all of the designs of our shirts so if you want you get to pick which one you want okay so you can pick one of these Bibles on these gift cards or if you just want another one of the shirts all you have to do is email brother Dylan so if you completed Revelation chapter one and you want a shirt just email him don't worry about coming up here if you would like to at least look at one of these Bibles or get one of these gift cards you can come now and you can claim your prize alright so let's give everybody a round of applause those who completed Revelation chapter number one and if we run out of something I think we have more so just FYI alright the greatest prize is that you have Revelation chapter one memorized of course so on the inside of our bulletin we also have our service times our soul winning times and our church stats on the right we have a list of expecting ladies and so I continue to pray for them that that list keeps growing and so that's definitely a huge blessing we're excited about that also we have our prayer list that we go over in the midweek service but also just keep your bulletin with you and you can use that to pray for our church family throughout the week if you'd like to be added or add a prayer request to our list just please email us and we'd love to update that we try to keep it up to date every single week so if you do have continual prayer requests or updates please just let us know so that way whatever information we have in our bulletin is very accurate also if you'd please add Ms. Naeem for health to the prayer list and then also upcoming events Pastor Anderson is going to be preaching for us July 12th and so that's coming up really soon that is going to be a Wednesday night service it's our regular scheduled service time 7 so even if you guys don't normally come to Wednesday nights you don't have to hear me preach so you can come and you can hear Pastor Anderson come and preach and he's a great preacher really good friend I'm excited to have him come out here he's really excited to be in Texas he loves Texas you know he just doesn't want to say it out loud or admit it but I know that he loves it alright so and he'll be here excited for that also August 17th to the 19th is the mighty men's conference so we have a sign up sheet we would you know encourage all the men 18 and up to attend if you have an older son if he's 16 to 18 and you would like to you know sign them up they're still welcome to attend they just need a parental guardian to be there with them just someone to be responsible for them so they still are able to attend if that is an option also our fire breathing Baptist fellowship is October 12th through the 15th and we have a lot of great preachers lined up for this we'll be having preaching Thursday night and Friday night and then we'll have a lot of fellowship activities throughout the week on Friday and Saturday we also have some of our guest preachers coming on that Sunday as well and so I'm excited for this event to have it again and so if you can please try to attend on the back we have church reminders please please look at those also the greatest announcement congratulations to the Goodwin family on the birth of William Thomas Goodwin brother Goodwin told me that everything went really smoothly for the birth and so that's that's great news and brother William is born on the 29th to 37 a.m. they never come whenever it's convenient you know just randomly in the middle of the night or whatever you know 22 inches long and weighed 11 pounds 10 ounces so wow congratulations to them and that's a healthy baby all right so we'll go ahead and sing our third song for this morning and we're doing our psalm of the week is it 147 yeah 147 it's in your separate handouts all right psalm 147 psalm 147 crazy the law to sing praises on to our God for it is pleasant and praises Jerusalem he gather together the outcasts of Israel he let the broken in hardened by number of the stars he call it he call it by their great is our Lord the Lord lifted up the meat he cast it down to the ground sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving sing praise upon the harp unto our God who cover it the heaven with clouds who prepareth rain for the earth who maketh grass grass to grow upon the mountains he giveth to the beast his food and to the young ravens which cry he delighted not in the strength of the horse he did not pleasure in the legs of a man the Lord take it pleasure in them that fear him and those that open his mercy praise the Lord oh Jerusalem praise the Lord strengthen the bars of the gates he by children within me he made peace in my borders and in filthy with the finest his commandment upon earth his work run it very swiftly he gave it snow scatter it the whole frost my ashes scatter it my cash he cast it for his eyes like more souls who can stand before his gold he send it now his word and melted them he caused his wind to blow and the waters flow his word unto Jacob it is that you said his judgments unto Israel not all right as the offering plates are being passed around please turn to 1st Corinthians chapter number 11 1st Corinthians chapter number 11 1st Corinthians chapter number 11 1st Corinthians chapter number 11 the Bible reads be followers of me even as I also am of Christ now I praise you brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I deliver them to you but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God every man praying or prophesying having his head covered dishonor with his head but every woman that pray it or prophesy it with her head uncovered dishonor with her head for that is even all one as if she were shaven for if the woman be not covered let her also be shorn but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven let her be covered for a man indeed ought not to cover his head for as much as he is the image and glory of God but the woman is the glory of the man for the man is not of the woman but the woman of the man neither was the man created for the woman but the woman for the man for this cause off the woman to have power on her head because of the angels nevertheless neither is the man without the woman neither the woman without the man in the Lord for as the woman is of the man even so is the man also by the woman but all things of God judge in yourselves is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered doth not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him but if a woman have long hair it is a glory to her for her hair is given her for a covering but if any man seem to be contentions we have no such custom neither the churches of God now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not that you come together not for the better but for the worse for first of all when you come together in the church I hear that there be divisions among you and I partly believe it for there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you when you come together therefore into one place this is not to eat the Lord's supper for in eating everyone take it before other his own supper and one is hungry and another is drunken what have you not houses to eat and to drink in or despise the Church of God and shame them that have not what shall I say to you shall I praise you in this I praise you not for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he break it and said take eat this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me after the same manner also he took the cup when he had stopped saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood this do ye as often as he drink it in remembrance of me for as often as he eat this bread and drink this cup you do show the Lord's death till he come wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's body for this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep for if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world wherefore my brethren when ye come together to eat tarry one for another and if any man hunger let him eat at home that ye come not together unto condemnation and the rest will I set in order when I come. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father in heaven we thank you for the morning service at Steadfast Baptist Church and also for Pastor Shelly and his family. I pray that you fill in with your spirit now and just help him to thunder forth the message you've laid on his heart. Give him clarity of mind Lord as he preaches to us and help us to apply the message so that we can be edified but also Lord so that we can be more complete Christians and serve you to the best of our ability. We love you and in Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. It's great just hearing the Bible read out loud because this chapter would probably trigger just about everybody in America already. So but at the very beginning of this chapter it kind of discusses some really important doctrine. It's not necessarily the main context of First Corinthians chapter number 11 but it's establishing some really important principles about how God has organized the authority structure in the world. And I started a sermon series last week where I kind of was using a more modern documentary to kind of teach some biblical truths. The documentary was called shiny happy people and I think I asked for a raise of hands maybe about 50 percent of the people here had heard about it. But essentially the documentary is just focused on a family called the Duggar family which is a very large family. They had a TV show on TLC. It kept changing the name but I think it eventually got to like 19 kids and counting and that's about the end of the road for them. They ended up having 19 total children and now they can't have any more natural children and they followed their family from I think somewhere around 14 15 children all the way up to 19. They were on TV for a long time but they would claim that they're independent Baptist or independent fundamental Baptist. And they were yoked up with an organization called the IBLP that stands for Institute and basic life principles. And they're not necessarily a Baptist organization but many independent Baptist or independent fundamental Baptist would attend such conferences. But the reason why I kind of decided to talk about a lot of these subjects is a lot of people from the outside world or just non-Christian world or even Christian world would think that the Duggar family and the IBLP and maybe our church are the same basically because we're both conservative. We have large families. We believe that women should dress like women. Men should dress like men. As this chapter clearly articulated that men would have short hair women would have long hair just just basic traditional values. And so they would assume that we're all the same. Honestly you could even throw other weird categories in here like Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons. But those are demonic cults. OK. They have nothing to do with the Bible. They believe in such a weird strange false religion. But of course the devil wants to try and imitate what's real or what's true with a fake substitute kind of like aspartame a fake sweetener that now even even the government's admitting causes cancer. Right. And this type of movement the IBLP and the Duggars they have a lot of truth to them but they also mix in a lot of error. So a documentary was made and this documentary was not made by fundamental Baptist either. OK. It was made by what they kind of refer to themselves. Many cases are deconstructionists who's heard about this deconstruction movement or that terminal. OK. Three people. No I'm just kidding. Essentially there's a lot of people that have been raised as an independent Baptist or independent Baptist or just some kind of conservative Christian. And they've decided that it's all fake and it's all bad. And so they're deconstructing Christianity and they're realizing what they've been taught and led to believe their whole life is wrong. Basically they're just reprobates. OK. Let me explain it in a terminology you guys understand. They're just God hating atheists and reprobates and just despise the Bible. So in an effort to expose some of the actual errors with the Duggar family or the IBLP they end up just throwing the Bible in the trash. And really this documentary series is not something that I recommend watching from a sense of you're going to learn a lot of great things from it. I honestly I disagree with the documentary series almost entirely because it's written and directed and produced and promoted by basically Antichrist and God hating atheists. OK. So of course their perspective is warped and most of the things they attack the Duggers and the IBLP for are just things that the Bible says. They just literally just take biblical doctrines and things that we believe and they just trash them. And they use these individuals because sometimes they'll take good doctrine a little too far. They'll take certain aspects a little too over the top or go beyond really what the Bible is actually saying. And then they try to use that to undermine biblical doctrines. And so I'm giving you a little bit of a foundation so I don't have to keep saying this for every sermon series. But you know I don't believe that this documentary was good. It was bad. A lot of horrible lies told in it. And they try to attack a lot of really important doctrines. Now of course in the series I think they do expose some things that are pretty bad about the Duggers or about IBLP. And so we want to kind of have a balanced view here. But we don't want to then throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want to look at all the problems they have and then start trashing biblical doctrines. And one of those that's really emphasized in this documentary that they attack is biblical authority. Biblical authority. And they really just hate authority in general. People that have deconstructed or decided that no longer they don't believe in Christianity. But what does the Bible actually say? Because that's the only thing that matters. It's not my opinion. It's not your opinion. It's not their opinion. It's not the government's opinion. What does the Bible say is the right authority structure? Well look at verse 3. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ. And the head of the woman is the man. And the head of Christ is God. So the Bible actually just already gives us the proper authority structure that exists in the world. And what is authority? What is authority? You know you kind of have an idea of what authority is. If you look at a dictionary. I really like this definition but it says this. The power or right to give orders. The power or the right to give orders. It also says to make decisions and to enforce obedience. So when we think about authority what is it doing? It is making decisions. It has the right and the power to do so. And of course it has the power and the right to enforce such decisions, rules, giving orders, giving instructions unto people. Now I brought this drawing board up here because I want to talk about three different institutions that God has given us and the authority structure. Now what you have to understand is that who at the top gets to give orders? Who gets to make decisions? Who gets to enforce their will upon everyone else? It is God. God is at the top of the food chain. Notice when we look at this that it says the head of Christ is God. So in fact if you were going to look at the proper authority structure at the very top is just God. And we have right underneath Christ. Now I am not going to write Christ just for sake of the purpose of this drawing but what is another thing that Christ has alluded to in the Bible is the word of God. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. So Jesus Christ is the word of God and we understand that that is the Bible which is the spoken word of God. And so all authority on this earth emanates from a top down structure and this is the top of the food chain. This is where all the authority is coming from in the Bible. In fact Jesus even talking to Pilate is telling him that he would have no power, he would have no authority if God had not given it to him. Nebuchadnezzar makes it abundantly clear in the Bible that God sets up whom he will and in fact some cases he sets up the most base men on this world called Joe Biden. It is called Rick Levine or whatever. It goes by Rachel now or whatever. It is all the people that are basically in our government are some of the basis men on the planet. Some of the worst people to ever live. I mean you could argue in other countries. Macron in France. This guy Justin Trudeau. This guy is one of the scummiest people that has ever lived and is the leader of Canada which is funny why anybody even cares what Canada thinks about anything. I mean they just syrup and drinking. That is all they do, right? But we have in this chapter a top down structure that is giving us and in this side I have kind of three things I want to talk about but we want to talk about the family unit. When we talk about the family unit which is being described here in essence we had God being over Christ but Christ is over someone. Christ is over the man and from a family structure the husband is at the top of the food chain when it comes to humanly speaking. Humanly speaking the husband is in the top position. He is in complete authority. What is authority again? The power and the right to give orders. To make decisions and think about this. To enforce obedience. To enforce obedience. Who is under the husband according to the Bible we just read? It was the wife. And then under the wife is the children. Sorry. Getting hasty here. Children. If I spell it wrong you better tell me, alright? I am testing you. So when we look at a biblical structure we have God at the top. We have the Bible. We have the husband, the wife and then the children. And you say well who do the children have authority over? No one. You don't have any authority, alright? You have to get some authority by getting a wife or something, okay? And if you want authority as a woman you have to have some children, alright? So this is how you are going to get your authority in life. Really I mean young single guys they are still in this category. So they still have no authority whatsoever, alright? Now this is important. Now of course is this saying that husbands should just be jerks to their wives? No. Is this saying that wives should be jerks to their children? No. Of course is Christ a jerk unto us? No. But is he still supposed to be the head of us and he is supposed to lead us and guide us? Of course and we are supposed to submit unto that power structure. Go to Ephesians chapter 5. I want to go to several different places here in the Bible this morning. And you know when you think about the word God it is a very complex word. So don't take what I am going to say out of context and I am not trying to oversimplify the word God. But in some ways the word God simply just means ruler. It is kind of synonymous for a ruler. He is a ruler, ruler, ruler and it just goes down. And the meaning of God is the ruler. He is the one that makes the rules. He is the one that gets to decide what the rules are. He is the one that gets to decide how they are enforced. He is the ultimate authority when it comes to this world and this life. The Bible describes God as the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the God of Gods. What does that mean? He is the ruler of rulers. Everyone answers to God period. Joe Biden answers to God. Justin Trudeau answers to God. Gigi Ping answers to God. Every single person has God over them as the ultimate ruler. Now of course when you understand how business works everyone answers to the CEO but probably not directly. You might have lower level managers or different individuals that are over you from an authority structure. They give demands, they give instructions from a top down system. This is similar to how God has actually organized the universe that he is in his essence kind of like the CEO. He has already given us the policy, the work policy and procedures. Good thing it doesn't update. And there is no gender inclusion nonsense or whatever. No affirmative action. He is not a respecter of persons. So he gets to decide what is right. And he has already decided what is right and it has always been this way. The authority structures that we are going to talk about today, they didn't change from Old Testament to New Testament or in any different time. It has always been this particular structure. Ephesians chapter 5, look what the Bible says in verse 22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. So according to Ephesians chapter 5, further proof and further evidence of the husband being the head of the wife. Look at chapter 6 verse 1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor thy father, notice this, and mother which is the first command with promise. So notice that children, they don't just obey mom, they obey mom and dad. They don't just obey dad, they obey dad and mom. Both are in authority above the children. Now of course, when both parents are present, who gets the final say? Dad does. The husband is the one that has the ultimate rule, the ultimate power, the ultimate authority. When dad is not present, mom is completely in charge. But of course, even though dad is not physically present, shouldn't she still be doing her husband's will? Just like if Christ isn't physically present with me, he is in heaven. Shouldn't I still do his will as a husband, as a father, as a leader, as a pastor, whatever position I'm in? Of course. And so we always want to do the will of those who have empowered us, those who have given us the authority structure that we have. Go to Hebrews chapter number 13. So this is one particular authority structure and it's important to also realize how these authority structures are connected and not connected. And when we talk about the church, which was referenced here in Ephesians chapter number 5, it talked about how Christ was the head of the church. So you ask this question, who's in charge of steadfast, Baptist church? God. And then what comes after that? Christ, which is what? The Bible. The King James Bible is the next authority structure. What would be the next authority structure and what's the first human authority structure in the church? It's the pastor. So you have God, Bible, pastor. Then, and I'm writing this for my personal beliefs as far as how our church structure is going to be, it's going to be your evangelist. Beyond the pastor is going to be the evangelist. Beyond the evangelist is going to be the deacon. And then after the deacon is going to be the church. All right? So this is our authority structure in the local New Testament church where we have God, the Bible, the pastor, the evangelist, the deacon and the church. And of course, it's important to understand how this authority structure works. The word deacon simply means servant. So obviously he's not as high up on the authority chain. And we have we have two ordained evangelists, even for Steadfast Baptist Church. One is Brother Tana Fur in Oklahoma City, who's helping lead that church. And we have Brother Duncan Urbanic, who's been ordained by Steadfast Baptist Church. And he's currently at Pure Words serving them and assisting them and doing the work of an evangelist there. Of course, the goal for both of those men is to help that church grow, to preach the gospel and to provide leadership until they have their own individual pastor just for that particular congregation. And at that point, what we would like to do is to then transition them to where they're completely autonomous and they're their own church. And that pastor doesn't answer to me. That pastor answers to the Bible. That pastor then now has the structure. Now, you could have other pastors. You could have assistant pastors in a church and there's nothing wrong with that. There could be some level of authority even within pastors or evangelists or deacons. But this is just generally how this authority structure is going to work and operate. Now, in Hebrews chapter 13, where I had you turned, look what the Bible says in verse 17. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they must or for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and now agree for that is unprovidably. So notice the Bible is telling us that there's somebody in the church that's over us. Well, if there's someone over us, that means there's authority structure. And if there's authority structure, the Bible must give us some indication of what that is. Go to 1 Peter. You're really close. Just turn to the right to 1 Peter chapter 5 and look at verse number 1. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 1, The elders which are among you I exhort, whom also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory, shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God with which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Neither is being lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. So according to the Bible, they're describing the elders, which is a synonymous term for pastor, as those who have the oversight. Meaning what? They have the authority. They are the ones that have the power and the right to give orders. They're the ones that have the power and authority to make decisions. And they have the power and authority to enforce obedience. Now, of course, when we talk about these structures, though, and we're talking about the church, the pastor only has authority in the church. He's not a lord over God's heritage. Meaning what? The pastor is not over this structure. The pastor doesn't have authority over the family. Okay, the pastor has authority over the church. So what is the church? Us gathering together here. Us being gathered here together and having church service, what songs we're going to sing and what Bible we're going to use and what we're going to read and what the sermon's going to be and where we go do soul winning as our church is, you know, what the pastor's going to decide. Okay, and of course that pastor should make these decisions along with what the Bible says, right, in accordance to the Bible. And the pastor is not, though, have the ability that once we dismiss, once church has been dismissed, and you say, you know what, I'm going to go to lunch to a McDonald's. And I'm like, you're not allowed to go there. You know what? I don't have that. I can tell you that as my personal opinion, but I don't have the authority in that matter. What was the authority? Well, to give orders, to make decisions, and to enforce obedience. So what did he say? Well, I'm going anyways. Ushers get him, you know, hold him down, he's not allowed to go. No, no, no, that's not going to happen, right? But, you know, if someone's disrupting the church service, you better believe that our safety team and ushers, they're going to take care of that problem. And I'll give those orders and we'll enforce obedience in the church. Okay, so we have to understand that there's a proper role for these authority structures, there's a proper place, and they don't cross over. Also, the pastor is not the head of the wife. I'm the head of my wife, but I'm not the head of your wife. You know what? Your husband is the one that's over you. I'm not over your children. You are simply, as the husband, you're in charge of your family, you're the top dog. The pastor is the one who makes the ultimate decisions in the Bible. And of course, as a pastor, you're not supposed to be in it for the authority. That's a bad reason. If you want to be a pastor just to have a little bit of power or authority, you're the worst person to have that job. What did the Bible even tell us? That you're supposed to be an example. You're supposed to try and help people and assist people. And my definition of a pastor, what I think of it, is that it's just my goal to help people to serve God better. So whatever decisions I make, they should always be aimed at helping the congregation serve God better. Whatever that looks like, whatever that means, to my detriment, to your selfish desires detriment. It could even be to your embarrassment. It could be to my embarrassment. It doesn't matter. Whatever is going to draw us closer to Christ is always the right decision. And that's why someone should be a pastor, is to help people to do better and to serve God. That's the only reason I want to be a pastor, is I was living in an area where I wanted to go soul winning, and I wanted to learn soul winning, and I wanted to help the gospel to go forward, and I just couldn't even find a church like that in my area. And I was frustrated, and I said, you know what, I guarantee I'm not the only person that wants soul winning to be better and to go forward more. And so if I could potentially help assist that or maybe one day be a pastor and go to an area where there's not a lot of soul winning, where there's not people doing a great work, I could go and assist in that area. And of course, when I wanted to plan a church, I picked Houston, and at the time I couldn't even find a church that was advertising soul winning in the entire area. Eight million people. There was a handful of churches that claimed to do visitation from talking or calling and doing some research, and it seemed like there was almost nothing. I'm sure that there was, but it was very hard to find. And I'm thinking if I can't find it, I'm sure it's very difficult for other people also in order to find some kind of a church. And that was my desire. That's still my desire, is to provide a church. If every other church in the world is kicking our butt at soul winning, and we're just failing, you know, maybe I shouldn't even be a pastor anymore. But until we're just getting creamed and we knock on every door, and it's like, well, 30 other Baptists already talked to us and got us all saved, what are you guys doing here? It's like, until that happens, we're going to keep going, okay? Because that's my goal, and that's my desire, and I want to see as many people saved as possible. But also, you know, church is not just evangelistic. It's also supposed to edify the congregation, to help people. And of course, to serve God with your life, you need a good marriage. I see a lot of people, their marriage drags them out of church. It stops them from reading the Bible. It stops them from making good decisions. They become very apathetic in life. And having a marriage to work on makes you actually do things like, hey, maybe I should actually get up, and maybe I should actually work on myself, and maybe I should dress nice, and maybe I should work on my personality a little bit. Also, having children just makes you a better person. And having lots of children will challenge you and stretch you. But the Bible tells us that keeps people out of trouble. And it's important to have these structures. It's important to have church. Go to Titus chapter number 1. Go to Titus chapter 1. I love church, and church makes me a better person. I would be a much worse person if I wasn't going to church, and especially if I wasn't going regularly. I would be probably also having a worse attitude in life. I'd probably feel a lot more apathetic. I'd probably be a lot angrier of a person. Because this world, as disgusting as it is, it just makes me angry. And I can see how the anger of this world just keeps rising, isn't it? People are a lot more hostile. There's a lot more road rage. There's a lot more violence. There's a lot more escalation. There's just a lot more hatred, more racism, and a lot of things that are going on in this world that are just not a positive move. Whereas you come to church, and you kind of decrease on some of that. You decrease on some... Because if you just look online, you'll find all kinds of posts online that will change your view on people, right? If I just go on TikTok or Twitter, or I just go on Gab, I might just start hating certain demographics. Because they get highlighted on the internet as being the worst people in the world. But you know what? I come to church, and I have every demographic you could ever imagine, and I like all of them. Because God's not a respecter of persons. Also, I start giving up on humanity. Because I think, is everybody a brain-dead idiot? But then you come to church, and you talk to other normal people, and it's just so refreshing to hear someone else say the same thing you've been thinking all week. And you know, we all do that. We all just say something like, man, I've been thinking about the same thing. Or I've been reading the same thing in my Bible. And you know, it just edifies, and it helps the congregation. But it's important to realize that while church is fun, and we enjoy it, it's serious, and there's a serious authority structure here. We're not just playing church. We're not pretending here. This is a real institution that Jesus Christ really died for, and really cares about. And the authority structure is really important. Because when you start messing with this, you know what it does? It ruins church. When you start going to these deacon-run churches, you start going to these deacon-wives-run churches, and you know what I'm talking about. When you start going to the committee-run churches, you go to the one where they're just swapping in pastors here and there. I was part of a Facebook group, and I was looking online, and I saw this group's called, like, in search of independent fundamental Baptist pastors or something. So it's like all these churches going out there saying like, hey, we're this congregation. We need a pastor. And sometimes in the posting, it's like this just giant paragraph of all the things that the pastor has to do. And I'm just thinking like, what person would ever want this job? They're basically just already ready to fire you before you even sign up to be their pastor. And I'm thinking like, how is that leadership? Imagine if your children wrote out a whole piece of paper, this is what mom and dad are going to start doing from now on. You know, ice cream before dinner, and they're going to let me stay up as long as I want. And they're like, mom, here's my demands. And I'm like, I'm throwing that in the trash. Just like, that's getting the tail wagging the duck. Look, the church shouldn't run the pastor. And the deacons shouldn't run the pastor. And the evangelists shouldn't run the pastor. The pastor should run all of them. And you know what? The church doesn't run the pastor out. The pastor runs the bad church out. I saw this stupid post. It was an independent fundamental Baptist pastor. He said, I recently had to quit church. I recently resigned from church as pastor because of liberalism. I'm like, what a weak pastor. What in the world? Your congregation is too liberal for you? Why can't you preach them out? Hey, this book will fix that problem real quick. Just start opening it up and preaching what the Bible said. You can't be liberal and be preaching this book. You know what? What a weak coward. And then he's saying like, who wants to have me come to their congregation to preach? Me? You failed your own church? It became too liberal after your preaching? Why would I ever want you to come and infect my church with your cancer that you were preaching? I mean, it's just insane how people have this so backwards. And of course, the same with the family. There are families where the children run the household. That is not going to happen in my household. The children don't get to run anything. They don't get to tell me to do anything. And anytime they do, I get to enforce obedience, all right? My wife doesn't tell me what to do. My wife isn't in charge of me. I'm in charge. And when you start having households where the wife's in charge, well, that's the whole reason we're here, folks. It's called Adam and Eve. Do you remember that Bible story? Didn't work out so hot, did it? That's when you get Ahab and Jezebel. And in fact, Ahab was wicked. But you know what? His wife made him worse. And I'm not here to rag on women, but what I'm telling you is when you get this structure out of whack and you have a wife leading your husband, it always ends in disaster. It always just is terrible. Children running the family, total disaster. The church running the pastor, total disaster. It never works and never will work. And we ultimately, what many people are doing is they're trying to tell God how to run things. Because when you don't want your husband to lead you, you're telling God I don't want you to lead me. When you're saying I don't want the pastor to lead me, you're saying I don't want God in the Bible in order to lead me. And look, when a church doesn't have a pastor, it's missing something. Look what it says in Titus chapter 1, verse number 5. For this cause left by the increase that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordained elders in every city as that appointed thee. So notice the church is lacking something. It needs a pastor. It needs to be someone that's been appointed and ordained. Go to Acts chapter 20. I want to look at one verse there real quickly. And we'll kind of move on. But this IBLP teaches pretty much the same concepts that I'm teaching you right now. And they use it like an umbrella structure. They kind of like draw little umbrella wings over here. And they act like the husband covers the wife and the wife covers the children. And look, I don't even have a problem with that. And generally speaking, that is kind of true. If there was someone threatening my family, I'm going to shield and protect my family. If someone's attacking our church, I'm going to do my best to shield and protect the church and to try and make sure that no one's going to hurt or harm our church. And so, of course, these umbrella structures make a lot of sense. But this documentary series wants to attack that structure. Okay, provide me your structure that's better than it. Show me. Because look, there's plenty of people. I mean, there's millions of people in America not doing this. Show me how wonderful that's working. There's plenty of churches not doing this. Show me the amazing churches that are being run like this. They don't have that example. They'll say, yeah, this is terrible. Okay, well, what's better? They don't have a better solution. They just want to tell you that it's bad. Because they're basically just I hate everything, destroy everything type of an attitude. And these people we want to get away from and not harken to and not listen to. I'm always willing to hear how something could be better, but don't just tell me that it's bad. That doesn't benefit anything. Oh, this is bad. Why? This is bad. Well, it's better. If you don't have a better solution, then there's no point in even talking about it. But here's a fact. God already gave us the best solution. So I don't have to wonder. It's not like, well, you know, maybe there is a better way to do this. No, no, there's not a better way. It's already been established. It's already been proven. And if there was a better way, people would be doing it. But there isn't one. Acts chapter 20, look what the Bible says in verse 17. And from Miletus, he's sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. So the apostle Paul has been traveling for quite a while now. He's traveling back and in kind of rebellion, he's wanting to head back to Jerusalem. But on his way, he stops and he wants to talk to those in Ephesus and he gathers all the pastors, all the elders, all the shepherds, all the leaders. And, you know, if you think about it, all those things are the same word. Bishop, pastor, shepherd, elder. So we're talking about the pastors specifically. You could think of it another way. In 1 Peter, we talked about how Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd. Why is he the chief shepherd? Because there's more than one shepherd. You know, the pastors are kind of like an under-shepherd under his authority and he is the chief shepherd, the ultimate pastor. The Bible calls him the bishop of our souls. So, of course, Jesus Christ is our bishop, he's our priest, he's our chief shepherd. But then we can have bishops underneath him. And these elders are very clearly in charge. Look at verse 28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. So according to the Bible, the elder is the overseer. So you could call this the pastor, shepherd, bishop, overseer. It doesn't matter. It's the same person and I think the synonyms help us get the clear picture of this position. What is the role of this position just over and over? In charge, oversight, oversee, and feeding. So, of course, he's the provider, the one that's taking the oversight and checking things. What does the shepherd do? He leads a group of sheep to an area to eat, to feed, to give them pasture. The great Psalm, Psalm 23, about the Lord being our shepherd and he's leading me to still waters and he's taking me to green pastures and that is what a pastor is supposed to be like, as one who is leading, guarding, beating off the wolves, destroying the wolves. Look at the next verse. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things that draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch. So if we really think about the instructions given to a pastor, what is some of the most important aspects of a pastor? He's in charge. And why is he in charge? So that he can beat off the wolves. So he can watch for problems. So he can make sure that the flock is eating correctly and, of course, that they're eating this book and that they're being fed this diet regularly. Where it seems like a lot of pastors, they're not really in charge and, you know, a lot of times they're not even preaching all of this so they're really just failing and that's one of the most important aspects of being a pastor. You know, but we can't strip away the authority from a pastor because that's a huge component that's being mentioned in the Bible. Some people say, oh, the pastor just preaches. Oh, the pastor just, you know, he just kind of tells people what to do but he doesn't really have any authority to enforce that. Well, you know what, then you're stripping away the whole point of the shepherd. You know, the shepherd has a rod and, you know, that rod, while it is used to destroy wolves, it also can give a loving tap to some of the sheep. You know, it can every once in a while help guide the sheep into the right direction as well. His sheep are dumb. Now, I'm not saying you guys are dumb, all right, but I am just saying the animal, a sheep, is kind of a dumb animal and he'll just jump into a ditch. There's even funny, like, meme videos where there's a sheep. He, like, just jumps into a ditch and his kid pulls him out and just immediately just jumps in the ditch again. He's just like, what's wrong with you? And, you know, again, sometimes as a pastor it feels like some sheep do that every once in a while, all right? And you're just thinking, like, what are you doing? I have one more that I want to go to. Go to Romans chapter 13, one more structure that we want to talk about here. And, again, it's important that we're separating these powers. But what about our government? So we have our family, we have the church, we have our government. Now, what I'm going to put on the board today is the theory of American government, okay, the theory of American government because other countries may be different. They may have a monarch or they could be ruled in different facets. But how is America set up and how are we, what authority structures are we under today? If you're from America or you're a citizen of America, well, you would have the Constitution. And then you would have federal, you would have state, you'd have local, and you'd have citizens. Now, for sake of this drawing, I'm not going to go into the complexities of our government. But generally speaking, this is the authority structure of America and how God would expect us to behave and the attitudes that we should have. Now, notice, though, again, the Constitution, where does the Constitution derive its power and its authority from? It's from the Bible. And even our founding documents will even give lip service to the Creator. And how some of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights from our Creator, meaning that the Constitution has no right, has no power, has no authority to take away things that God has already given us. Okay? And so that's why we have things like the Bill of Rights. We have a Constitution that outlines how the government is supposed to be structured and specifically from a federal perspective. From a federal perspective, you know, our founders and what I would consider is still probably the right thing is to have a limited federal government where they basically have just the most bare bones, just the smallest amount of necessary cooperation from all states at a federal level. Things like national military, national punishments, and just running a country from a national perspective. Obviously, this is absolutely needed and necessary. We can't operate as a country effectively without some level of federal government. You know what? Now our federal government is so big and is in so many different areas of life that it really has ceased to be the ideal that it was set out to be. It wasn't purpose to talk about education and to go into all kinds of different other avenues and all these special alphabet agencies that it has. It's really overreaching at this point. But generally speaking, it still has legitimate authority. On top of that, we have state government. Your states also have authority and their authority in some cases is trumped by federal, but not in every case. It's kind of an umbrella system again. Then you have local governments and then you have your citizens. Now, what does Romans 13 tell us as far as how we should approach these particular individuals? Well, look at Romans chapter 13 verse 1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Doesn't that just triple confirm everything we've been saying? Hey, there's no power except for coming from God and the things that he sets up in the world. He's the one that's allowing that to have the power or the authority that it has. That says whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. So we're supposed to obey the higher powers. So what happens if your local government violates your state orders? As a Christian, if you were to be biblical, you would obey the state. What if the state is disobeying the federal? You would obey the federal. What if the federal is not obeying the constitution? You would obey the constitution. What if the constitution is in violation of the Bible? You obey the Bible. And you obey God. So that is the authority structure that is supposed to be in place. Now, think of it again this way. If I, as your pastor, tell your family you're not allowed to eat at McDonald's after service for lunch, do you have to obey that? No. What if the federal government is in violation? They're outside of their umbrella of what the federal government is allowed to do and they're telling you to do things. Do you have to do them? The answer is no. You don't have to do them. If they're saying, hey, inject your children with poison, you don't have to do that. You're not forced to do that. You're not forced to do things because they don't have a right to even do that. Praise God, we actually have a constitution that, for the most part, is pretty good. And a lot of the constitution falls within the purview of the Bible. Now, I have problems with the constitution because the Bible does not afford for atheism to have all the rights and the liberties that our country kind of pretends that it should have. But I guarantee our founders didn't have that in view either since they literally are quoted saying we should never let atheism creep into our nation. And the states had rules against such practices. In fact, some states didn't even allow you to be Catholic. Tell me about the freedom of religion when states aren't even allowing people to be Catholic. In Georgia, you couldn't be Catholic. It's Baptist. So we've fallen pretty far from that. But you know why they didn't want to be Catholic? Because they just came from Europe where the Catholic church was, this guy was over here. And really, really this guy was just up here. It's called the Pope. And he decided whatever every decision. He was above the family, he was above the church, and he was above the government. And you know what, that was a bad authority structure and it failed. Okay, because it wasn't in its proper place. Now again, is the IBLP teaching some radical heresy on this authority structure? No, I don't think so. I think they're probably almost exactly what I'm showing you here. Does the documentary say, you know what, let's find some legitimate criticisms of authority. Let's tell you what authority should really look like. No, they just say it's bad. How dare men tell their wives what to do. You know, they're screaming that, women, okay. I've never found a guy that has a problem with his doctrine, you know. It's always women that have a problem with his doctrine, is it? Feminists. Feminists and liars or faggots or something like that, you know. Go to Proverbs chapter 29, go to Proverbs chapter 29. But I never seem to find a God-fearing, red-blooded man that has a problem with that doctrine. And their whole reason why we even lost that doctrine is because they stopped being vocal about it. And they stopped enforcing obedience in their family. Why can't we bring back enforcing obedience in our families and being the leaders? Now go to Psalm 91, go to Psalm 91. Here's where they criticize some of the IBLP teachings and things. And you have to take everything in this documentary with a grain of salt. But I think a lot of things they're saying are provable. But they'll say, you know, if you step outside of this umbrella, children. If you step outside of your parents' authority structure, you could suffer consequences. God may punish you. There's danger out there that they're shielding you from. And if you get away from them, then you could be severely harmed or damaged. And it's like, I agree with that. But then they give examples of stepping out from under their authority. And they'll say things like, listening to music with drums in it. Or a syncopated pattern of music. It's just of the devil. You know, and it's just like this over-the-top, just like everything's of the devil type mentality. But wait a minute. Show me in the Bible where drums is sinful. Or a particular, like, beat of music. I mean, unless, even if you could prove to me it's like, it's 666 beats per second. It's like, I, you know, I still probably would just be like, I don't care. You know, like, whatever. You're, that's stupid. Okay. You know, we don't want to become Puritans. All right. Puritans got so extreme that like circles and squares and triangles are sinful. You know, that's extreme. Okay. We don't want to go to the extreme of microwaves are sinful. Just because, just for existing. You know, lemons, you can't have lemons in your water. You know, women have to cover their elbows. And it's like, you just start getting this over-the-top, like, authority structure. And then what people do is they criticize the authority structure. Oh, well, you know, we, look at that. They're making their women cover their elbows. It's like, is that really the worst problem in the world anyways? No. But no guy in here has ever looked at a woman's elbow and thought like, wow. I bet if we just lined up like ten different women's elbows and you could only see the elbow, I wouldn't even know who was who. You know. It's like, who cares, right? But are we going to really, we're going to take Christianity down to like, hey, this song has drums in it. Or are we going to say like, hey, this song is glorifying adultery. This song is glorifying murder. This song is glorifying fornication. You know, maybe that's the problem with the music, not the drums. Okay. Now, of course, you know, we don't have drums in our church service because I'm trying to be very traditional. But you know what? If someone did, I'm not going to be like, heretic! You know, the problem with the liberal churches is not that they have drums, folks. It's that they sing really bad music lyrically. Hey, if they sang the hymns with drums, you know, if they're singing, you know, the marching of the Lord and they've got a drummer boy up there, I'm going to be singing with them. You know, I don't care. You know, you really think that in the battle, I mean, they have instruments that are similar, the big cymbals and they have the tambourine and they have instruments that have some level of drum aspect. Is that really, you know, bad? No. But again, for our church, we probably will never do that. I don't want to do that. I'm not that interested because they're so loud and anybody can be a drummer. I mean, everybody can be a drummer. But you know, it's like, not everybody can play the piano. Not everybody can play an instrument. Now, I'm saying, you know, there's drummers out there like, it's real. It's an instrument. Look, I understand that being a really good drummer takes a lot of skill, okay? My brother was a drummer and he had drums and he would pound in the house and maybe that's why I don't like him. I don't know. But, well, I'm trying to sleep. But here's the thing. You know, we're not going to devolve Christianity into your personal preferences. You know what? If you want to eat McDonald's, you know, in your household, you put beans in your chili, okay? You want to make mistakes? Go for it, you know? I can't tell you what to do in your household. And I don't want to tell you what to do in your household because you'll learn from that mistake, okay? Lots of hot air in your household, all right? But it is true that God is a shield and these authority structures are shields unto us. Look what it says in Psalm 91. And this is a really great psalm. It says, verse 1, He that dwelt in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God and Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snail of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His feathers and under His wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the tare by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee because I didn't get COVID-19 vaccine, all right? Verse 8, Only wilt thou in eyes, shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Pastor Shirley, this can't be on YouTube. We're not streaming on YouTube anyways, okay? So screw YouTube. Verse 9, Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation. So you could read the whole verse, or read the whole chapter, but isn't it making it clear like He's above us, He's the shadow, He's putting His wings over us, which is the same as what Jesus Christ said about Jerusalem, how He said He was like a hen and He would have taken them under His wing, but they would not. They refused. They didn't want to be under His authority. They didn't want to be under His guidance. They didn't want to be under His roof, and so of course you're going to suffer the consequences, just like some children. They say, you know what? I don't want to live with Mom and Dad anymore, but then they realize, oh, you know, paying bills isn't fun. Oh, when a thief comes to break through at night, Dad's not there with a shotgun ready to meet him. You know, they start realizing, hey, there was some benefits to being with my parents. Now, of course, once you get married, move out, okay? Don't stay. But at the same time, we have to realize that when your children live with their parents, they afforded you some benefits, some coverings, some blessings. Even a lot of people are on their parents' insurance policy. That's a literal covering that's helping you, and you have to go to the doctor. They're paying for you, and that's a benefit. We don't want to get so far and extreme to say, well, I can just disobey, and there'll be no consequence. This is wrong. Go if you went to Ephesians chapter 6. Go back to, well, no, we've already read it. Go to Romans chapter 1, actually. Go to Romans chapter 1. I watched, it was either an interview or in the documentary. One of the Duggar children is expressing how she was so fearful that if she ever disobeyed God, that God would just kill her or something. And she went so extreme to say, I was in the car riding with my friends one time, and they turned on music, and it had drums, and I thought we were going to die in a car accident. And so she's trying to use as an example of how bad, you know, this teaching of biblical authority is, or maybe they're taking her out of context, but that's what's alluded in the documentary. And, of course, that's pretty extreme to think that just as soon as drums come on the radio, you would die. I think everybody would have died by now. I mean, like, I would venture to believe almost every single person in this room has probably at one point listened to music or heard music with drums in it. Even if you don't even listen to it, just going to a store. I mean, just walk into a store and they have it. I mean, is God just raining fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah because of drums, folks? No. Okay? It was something completely different. Now, of course, when we hear things like that, they undermine the actual biblical doctrine of the fact that when you rebel and disobey your parents, there is still a consequence. Does that mean that God's just going to strike you with lightning every single time you do something bad? No. Our protesters are evidence that that doesn't happen. I mean, look how far people are able to take rebellion to God and not get an immediate punishment. Because why? God doesn't always just deliver an immediate punishment. Sometimes he allows someone to build an ark first. But, you know, when that punishment comes, there's no escape. It's sudden destruction. You're going to be thinking like, oh, wow, I wish I had gotten on the ark. I wish I had gotten that covering. I wish I had been under that authority. And let me be honest with you guys, you children, you wives, you church members, you citizens, you can often get away with something for a long time. You can be rebellious for a while, but when the hammer comes, you'll wish you had never stepped out. You know, as a citizen, you could probably get away with not paying taxes for a while. Take a long time for the government. I mean, the government's pretty stupid and slow. It could take them a while to figure it out. But you know what? When they finally figure it out, oh, boy, is that hammer coming. And then you'll be like, wow, I wish I had never, I wish I had just paid. You know, I wish I had just taken care of that. You know, as a wife, you could rebel against your husband, you could leave your husband, you could divorce your husband, and you could just live however you want and probably not even experience necessarily anything negative immediately. Oh, but that boyfriend is coming. That boyfriend who got drunk and is going to come home at night and beat you half to death, oh, yeah, it's coming. You thought you were going to get away with it. You thought your husband was terrible. Oh, you just wait. Hey, your children will eventually one day say, I hate you, and get out of your presence, and you'll be dying in a nursing home and nobody cares about you. Look, it's not that there isn't consequences. The Bible's abundantly clear. You reap what you sow. But let me tell you something. When you sow seeds, you sow them in the spring, and you don't reap until fall. A lot of the consequences that you experience from disobeying God are not an immediate consequence. They come so much further down the road. And you say, well, I don't know if that's true. It is true. Just look at your life. Is there something negative in your life? Is there something you don't like about your life right now? And you can think, you know what, that's kind of based on a decision I made five years ago. That's kind of based on a decision 10 years ago that I'm suffering from this right now. You know, people that have a lot of issues right now, they're like, you know what, that didn't happen yesterday. You know, someone didn't become 500 pounds yesterday. That was a lifetime of decisions that slowly added up. You know, I could eat like 7,000 calories today. I could eat 10,000 calories today, and I won't be giant tomorrow. You know what, if I do that every single day for a really long period of time, then later I'll suffer the consequences for that, won't I? If I never work out again, you know what, if I don't work out today, I'm going to be basically probably just as strong as I am today tomorrow. You know what, if I never work out again ever, then pretty soon I'll look like Bill Nye the Science Guy, you know, just a weak, emaciated, you know, I'll be like Obama, President Obama, who worked out with five pound dumbbells to show how much of a man he is. A guy's a faggot is what he is. But you know, some things take a lot of time. You know, in marriage, you could just give up on your marriage and not suffer immediately. You know, I could take all the money out of my bank account, I could take all the money out of my bank account, I could charge all of the credit cards that I have, and I could have a lot of fun for a while, for a few weeks or a few months, but then pretty soon, I'm not going to be paying any of my bills because all my money's gone. And you know what, they won't repo my house tomorrow. They won't repo my house two months from now, three months from now, but a year's going to come and boy, the bank comes hard. The local government will come hard when you're not paying your property taxes. Hey, you're going to suffer the consequences. So don't think, oh, you know what, I disobeyed Mom and Dad today, but nothing bad happened to me. Oh, well, you know what, honor thy father, thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise. You want to have a long life, children? It's with obeying your parents. And you know what, there was 42 children that didn't really care about how rebellious and evil they were, and they went out and made fun of the man of God, and guess what happened to them? Bears came out of nowhere and tore them up. You know, that's in the Bible. That's not like just a story that I came up with on my own. This is what God said. God said, hey, these rebellious children just tore up. I've seen a lot of videos lately of children just running into CVS's in stores, stealing, and we're talking about young children, eight, nine, 10, 11, just running around on the streets, stealing, vandalizing, breaking things. They better be careful that bears don't come out of nowhere, because you know what, you're going to reap what you sow, and you children think I can just disobey Mom and Dad and nothing bad will happen to me. Well, you're just lying to yourself. Your day is coming, and what I've noticed is the people that hate authority the most are reprobates. Just like the makers of the stupid documentary series, they're just these wicked reprobates, and there's a common theme with all reprobates. They hate their parents. They hate obeying. They hate authority. Don't be children that disobey. Be the best children. Be children that honor thy father and thy mother, that do everything your parents say, because you're doing what God said. And the Bible gives harsh punishments to children that are disobedient. But look at Romans chapter 1, look at verse 30. Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents. Notice that the same people that hate God are the same people that are disobedient to parents. So hey, children, how you treat your parents is how much you love God. If you love God, you're going to do exactly what they say when they say it. You're going to say, yes, sir, and yes, ma'am, and you're going to obey them, and this is right. Why am I telling you this? So you can live long, so you can be happy, so you don't destroy yourself. You say, well, I didn't do it past the cell, he said, and I've had fun. But you know what? You're going to suffer later. Don't think you're going to get away with it. No one gets away with it. And in fact, you know, our country as a whole should stop letting children get away with so much evil. They need to be punished. 2 Timothy 3 tells us the same thing, disobedient to parents. 2 Peter 2 tells us they're despisers of government, dignities. Jude 8 tells us that they despise dominion. And look, your lifespan is attached to this. I want you to go to Leviticus chapter 20. Go to Leviticus chapter 20. This is what, you know, upsets me, is that people don't realize how important authority is, so then they lie about or misrepresent the Bible. But authority is so important, because if you as a child won't even obey mom and dad, how are you going to do in these parts of society? You just don't fit in into God's planet when you just won't obey anybody, and especially not your parents, because this is your most primary, basic, and important institution to obey. And the Bible had strict punishments on children that would go so far as to rebel against these authority structures. Look what it says in Leviticus chapter 20, verse 9. You know what? That would solve a lot of the protest issue in America. That would solve a lot of the Antifa problem in America, because these people are those people. And you say, well, I don't like that. I don't like that law. That law's mean. Well, you know what's mean? Antifa running up and down the street destroying stuff and hurting people innocently, and just looking at someone wearing a Trump shirt and shooting them for no reason. Now, look, I don't love Trump, and there's no reason to kill people for wearing a Trump shirt. There's no reason to just destroy someone's business because they're a white person. Do you realize the worst people in our world are white? Joe Biden. Not the local pizza guy. Not the local print shop. Yeah, Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, Hillary Clinton. Sure. But isn't it so funny that they talk about how bad white people are, and they're not talking about themselves, because they are the worst people. Look, I'll put it on, I'll agree. White people are the worst. Joe Biden, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush. Yeah, these are some of the worst. Jews, they are the worst people. But you know what? Some of the greatest people are white, too. But you know, it's not about skin color. It's not about some kind of a racial purity. You want to know why some people are great and some people are awful? Well, some people obey their parents and some people don't. And the people that didn't obey their parents, if we took care of them properly, you know what, we wouldn't have the degradation of society that we have today. Now, of course, people like Ted Cruz, again, another one of the worst people ever, they mock this verse in the Bible. So I have tweets from Ted Cruz, and he was called out by a pastor for saying how horrible Leviticus 2013 is. Now, he didn't say that directly, but he just basically said, hey, if you've gone to law, criminalizing homosexuality is the worst abomination, a horrible law, everybody should condemn it. More or less, this is what he said. And so a pastor called him out and said this. He just quotes Leviticus 2013, which I'm like, praise God. And then he says, was this law God gave to his old covenant people? Horrific and wrong? So this is Ted Cruz's response to that. Pastor, I don't know you, but I honor your ministry. What a flattering devil. No one likes your flattery, Ted Cruz. Shove it. Your biblical analysis is an error. You know, it's so funny how everybody's smarter than the pastor. You know, the one profession that everybody's smarter than, right? Your biblical analysis is an error. Jesus told us to, quote, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. How does that have anything to do with Leviticus 2013? It isn't so funny. A politician's favorite verse is pay taxes, isn't it? Yeah, I'm shocked. Okay, well, that's, you know, God is the one that's in charge of your government, buddy. And you know what? God told us in Romans chapter 13 that, you know what? They're a minister of God to revenge and to execute judgment on the evil. So why don't you wake up to the Bible? Fraud. He says we're talking the laws of man, not the Old Testament laws of God. He's bringing up the law of God, folks. I wonder where the Ugandan president got his laws from. Oh, yeah, from here. That's where everybody gets their authority. He says, do you really believe that the U.S. government should execute every person who is gay? Yes! I literally mean it. You're like, well, you don't really want that, do you? Yes, I do. You know, some people are out there and they're saying, hey, they're advocating. There's these Christians out there advocating for the death penalty. And then conservatives would be like, no one's doing that. And I'm like, I'm right here. Do I not exist? Am I nothing to you? I need that meme. I'm like, am I nothing to you? I'm on every single headline you can think of. It's like, good night. I feel like it's clear. The message is clear. Ted Cruz's second tweet. Leviticus also tells us, for anyone who curses his father, his mother, shall surely be put to death. Yeah, yeah, and? Should the government execute every child who's disrespectful to his parents? Oh, way to completely switch the narrative. Look, everyone's disrespected their parents. That's stupid. You know who he's mocking? God. And I'm pretty sure the children of Israel literally had that law. When did they literally execute every single child for disobeying their parents? Oh, yeah, they didn't. I forgot. Because that's not what the Bible said. It said someone who's actively cursing their parents. Look, cursing is saying like, I hope you die and go to hell. Or I, you know, God damn you or something like that in the sense that they're cursing their parents and wishing evil upon their parents. It's saying someone that goes that far to wish for God to curse and to hurt their parents, to do harm under their parents. How does that person fit to live in society? They're not. And let me tell you something, Ted Cruz, I've never cursed my father or my mother. God forbid. And let me tell you something. Hey, those children that were mocking Elijah, what happened to them? Oh, yeah, God sent some bears to kill them. So I'm pretty sure God really thinks that this is important. And he also attached your lifespan to your obedience to your parents. You know what he didn't attach it to? Organic food. Because there's plenty of people that are really old and they smoke and drink and eat garbage. And you're thinking like, what in the world is wrong with you? And they're like, why obey mom and dad though? It's like, we're so concerned with lifespan of all these different things. And it's like, you know what's the most important? Obeying mom and dad. Being obedient. God can make people survive on any kind of food. Have you seen Asian diets? Man. But you know what's about the Asian culture? Horrible diet, weird food, okay. But don't they have a strict culture in obeying mom and dad? And aren't they the ones that live the longest? You look at any statistic. Look at any chart. Oh, this is a coincidence. No, it's not a coincidence. This is also what Ted Cruz said. That ignores grace and the New Testament as our savior taught us. Well, you know what? You're the one ignoring grace. Because think about it. If you just get rid of every single law, you can't even give grace to anyone. The only way to give grace is for them to deserve some kind of a punishment. Hey, is there a case where someone maybe cursed their parents and they could have been extended grace? Sure. But you know what? That needs to be the law. That needs to be the standard. And the exception is the grace. You're the one that got rid of grace. Then he says this, quote, Let he that is without you sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. So are you telling me to cast a stone? Are you advocating violence or what? You know what's so stupid about this? Is he saying we're ignoring the New Testament? Okay. Let's see if we're ignoring the New Testament. Go to Mark chapter 7 in the New Testament. I'm pretty sure Mark is the New Testament, folks. And it's idiots and fools like Ted Cruz where conservatives claim like, Oh, I love Ted Cruz. He's so wonderful. Look, he's a devil. Now, I'm sure he'll still get elected by the machine. But I, you know what? Every single person in Texas should never vote for Ted Cruz ever again. Never. Now, I wonder why he has such radical views. Maybe it's because his daughter's a lesbian and making fun of her father online and trying to kill herself. Maybe that's the reason why he has stupid views. Maybe it's because he's a false prophet. Maybe it's because he's a Zionist sheil and he just does whatever the Jews tell him to do. But you know what? I don't like Ted Cruz at all. I don't know if that was clear. I just want to make it clear on the record. You know, he acts like this law is so horrific. I'm not going to go through that. I ran out of time. But I have with me the laws of Connecticut, an exact reprint of the original 1673. And you know what it has? That exact law has the law of the land in America. You know, in the UK, they had that law from the 1500s all the way into the 1800s, the exact law we're reading here in the Bible. Not only that, the Code of Hammurabi, which goes really far back. It goes so far back, it's technically, according to their dating, before Moses. Probably is, because I'm sure that civilizations before Moses had laws. And if you look at their law, it's not the Bible, but it says if you would do this to your parent, you strike your parent, they would cut your hand off. Now again, I'm not agreeing with that because the Bible is different. But you know what? At least they had some punishment. So you know what Ted Cruz is saying? Every single person before me was wrong. Virtually, I mean virtually all of human history has had this as an ideal, had this as practice. Many Christians in the New Testament believe this. And you want to know why New Testament Christians believe this? Well, let's see what the Bible says in Mark chapter 7 in verse number 10. For Moses said, honor thy father and thy mother, and whoso curseth father and mother, let him die the death. And you know what the context is here? Jesus Christ rebuking the Pharisees for not believing the Old Testament, for not executing the Old Testament, for not practicing the Old Testament. So don't tell me that Jesus Christ didn't believe in the Old Testament law or exonerate the Old Testament law. He said, hey, this is what should be happening. But you guys have made this of none effect by your traditions, is what he rebuked them. They wouldn't even give their parents a dime, let alone the fact they were cursing and striking their parents. And that's what he rebuked them. Many people, this is what people think. The Pharisees were just these really strict, godly people. And they were just a little too strict. No, no, the Pharisees were liberals. The Pharisees didn't do any of the Bible. They're the Joel Osteens. They're the transformation church. They're the ones playing basketball on stage and then pretending about how righteous they are. You know who they are? They're the Ted Cruises out there that don't believe the Bible. Ted Cruz is a Pharisee. Ted Cruz is wicked. Ted Cruz is, I believe, a child of the devil. And you know what? I need to get back to biblical authority and saying, you know what? God decides what's right and wrong. I don't care what they decide. Hey, if you're out of whack with this, get back in shape. Bring back Leviticus 20, 13. Bring back verse 10. Bring back the whole chapter, folks. I don't like incest either, New Jersey. This is a radical sermon. Well, you know what? I don't really care what your opinion is, because did you look at this chart? You're down here. And I'm right here. And you know what? This is right here. And if you have a problem with anything I say, you come bring me my boss and we'll have a talk. I'll have a talk with my boss. And if my boss says that I'm doing something wrong, I'll fix it. But you know what? I'm not willing to change on what your opinion is. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us the Bible, for giving us such clear instruction, for giving us these great institutions like the family, like the church, like government. I pray that we would continue to educate this world and educate Christians to understand the importance of these structures and that we wouldn't balk at these structures, that we would uphold these structures, we would see the importance of these structures, and that people would embrace them but not abuse them, that people would appreciate them but not take advantage of them. And I pray that you would help our church to be a great model for the world, that the husbands would model what it's like to be a leader of the home, that wives would be an example of how to submit unto their husbands, that a church would be a model of how to submit unto the pastor, that this church would be a model of how a pastor should serve and be an example unto the church. I pray that you would help us to influence the culture and influence our country so that our country could become more biblical and appreciate the authority structures that you have given us. I pray, if possible, you could change men's hearts and you could bring us more biblical laws in this country, you could help wake people up to the realities and the truths of the Bible and how your authority structure and your laws are always supreme, they're always the best course of action. And I pray that no matter what happens in our lives that we would be willing to submit to your authority in our lives. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We smashed our record this morning, so we are going to have ice cream after the service. What was our count? Did we get it? Wow, we really smashed it. 214? 212. All right, we don't know. It was more, okay? It was an innumerable... 216. All right, 216, all right? So we'll have in the fellowship area ice cream treats and Coke or root beer floats, so you can pick between whatever you guys want. Just try to be patient with us. Please grab one before you go and we'll sing our last song. All right, for our final song it's going to be 401, set my soul afire. 401, set my soul afire. Song 401, set my soul afire. Set my soul afire, Lord, for Thy holy Word. Burn it deep within me, let Your voice be heard. Millions grow in darkness in this day and hour. I will be Your witness, fill me with Thy power. Set my soul afire, Lord, set my soul afire. Make my life the witness of Thy saving power. Millions grow in darkness, waiting for Thy Word. Set my soul afire, Lord, set my soul afire. Set my soul afire, Lord, for the lost in sin. Give to me a passion as I seek to win. Help me not to falter, never let me fail. Fill me with Thy spirit, let Thy will prevail. Set my soul afire, Lord, set my soul afire. Make my life the witness of Thy saving power. Millions grow in darkness, waiting for Thy Word. Set my soul afire, Lord, set my soul afire. Set my soul afire, Lord, in my daily life. Far too long I've wandered in this day of strife. Nothing else will matter but to live for Thee. I will be Your witness as You live in me. Set my soul afire, Lord, set my soul afire. Make my life the witness of Thy saving power. Millions grow in darkness, waiting for Thy Word. Set my soul afire, Lord, set my soul afire.