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From all who love His glory share, Listening our praise, Harking there we fall, Those who are anchored there. Be it at the cross, Be it at the cross, Be it at the death, Be it at the grave. Be it at the cross, Be it at the cross, Jesus will lead you there. Be it at the cross, Give your idols up, Put the two crowns above. Turn not away, To this work they've done, Trust only in His love. Be it at the cross, Be it at the cross, Be it at the grave, Be it at the grave, Be it at the cross, Be it at the cross, Jesus will lead you there. Oh, let's have love That has rested my faith. Mountains have risen To stand in my way, But no matter the trial, When my path proves so hard, I have walked hand in hand With an almighty God. With God, All things are possible for me, By His grace I can stand, And I claim to be He, That with the Lord on my side, His assurance is mine, Though I walk through the fire in the flood, I will begin, For I walk with Christ. Life holds its truth, Valleys often appear, God is worthy, Is this promise that my God's ever near? When my steps are uncertain, And my strength's almost gone, I can lend the impossible To an upvailing God. With God, All things are possible for me, By His grace I can stand, And I claim to be He, That with the Lord on my side, His assurance is mine, Though I walk through the fire in the flood, I will begin, For I walk with God. I am no longer, To think and charm, By the world's delight, Things that are higher, Things that are number, These have alert my sight. I will listen to Him, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, I am resolved to go to the Savior, He be my sin and strive, He is the true one, He is the just one, He hath the words of life, I will listen to Him, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, I am resolved to follow the Savior, Faithful and true each day, He's what He's saying, He's what He willing, He is the living way, I will listen to Him, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, I am resolved to enter the kingdom, Leaving the paths of sin, Friends may oppose me, Because they be sent, Still will I enter in, I will listen to Him, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Jesus, greatest highest, I will come to Thee, Praise Him so glad and free, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the earth hear His voice, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the people rejoice, Lord, come to the Father through Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory great things He hath done. One day when heaven was filled with His praises, One day when sin was as black as Marie, Jesus came forth to be born a virgin, Well-taught in my example this year, Living He loved me, dying He saved me, Buried and buried my sins far away, Rising in justified, breathing forever, One day He's coming, O glorious day. One day they led Him up Calvary's mountain, He nailed Him to die on the stream, Suffering and gracious, wise and rejected, Buried our sins by redeemer is He, Living He loved me, dying He saved me, Buried and buried my sins far away, Rising in justified, breathing forever, One day He's coming, O glorious day. One day they left Him alone in the garden, One day He rested from suffering dream, Angels came down, all His sins in good measure, Above the hopeless, my Savior is Thee, Living He loved me, dying He saved me, Buried and buried my sins far away, Rising in justified, breathing forever, One day He's coming, O glorious day. One day the grave could conceal Him no longer, One day the Son rolled away with the throne, He was over deadly and hunger, now He's a sinner. Good morning everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. We can go ahead and find our seats, we will get started. Once you find a seat, grab a hymnal and we will go to song number 128. It's going to be a newer song for a lot of us. Song number 128, Each Step I Take. Song number 128, Each Step I Take just leads me closer home. Song number 128, let's sing it together on the first. Each step I take, my Savior goes before me, and with His loving hand He leads the way. And with each breath I whisper, I adore Him, O what joy to walk with Him each day. Each step I take, I know that He will guide me to higher ground He ever leads me on, until someday the last step will be taken. Each step I take just leads me closer home. At times I feel like they begin to waver, when up ahead I see a chasm wind. It's then I turn to look up to my Savior, I am strong when He is by my side. Each step I take, I know that He will guide me to higher ground He ever leads me on, until someday the last step will be taken. Each step I take just leads me closer home. I trust in God, no matter from my pain, for life eternal is in His hand. He holds my key, and opens up the way. And when we meet into the promised land, each step I take, I know that He will guide me to higher ground He ever leads me on, until someday the last step will be taken. Each step I take just leads me closer home. Great singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer. Lord we love you and we just thank you so much for this church. Thank you for everybody gathered here. Thank you for your word and thank you for these awesome songs we get to sing to you this morning Lord. We just ask that you help us lift up our voice and fill this room with your spirit and it's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Alright for our next song let's go to song number 177. Song number 177. When love shines in. Song number 177. Let's all sing it out together on the first. Jesus comes with power to glad and when love shines in every light there hope is added when love shines in love will teach us how to pray love will drive the blue away turn our darkness into day when love shines in when love shines in when love shines in how the heart is new to singing when love shines in when love shines in when love shines in joy and peace to others playing when love shines in the world will flow with you when love shines in and the heart rejoicing with you when love shines in the pride of faith is saved in life and the soul and peace abide by the glory glorified when love shines in when love shines in how the heart is new to singing when love shines in when love shines in when love shines in joy and peace to others playing when love shines in darkest sorrow will grow brighter when love shines in and the head is firm and lighter when love shines in is the glory that will grow by to show us where to go when love shines in when love shines in when love shines in how the heart is new to singing when love shines in when love shines in when love shines in joy and peace to others playing when love shines in we may have a face thundering when love shines in and our friendship true until when love shines in where the flames shall be born and abide with everyone there will be no need of sorrow when love shines in when love shines in when love shines in how the heart is new to singing when love shines in when love shines in when love shines in joy and peace to others playing when love shines in Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not already get a bulletin and you would like a bulletin, you can lift up your hand real quick. One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. On the front, we have our Bible memory passage Matthew 28 and we're working on verse 11. It is February and so we had a New Testament challenge to try and read the entire New Testament in the month of January. Who ended up doing that? Alright, lots of people. Well, we have a prize for you, okay? So if you did complete it, you can come on down and you can pick one of the gift cards from this box, alright? And of course, the real prize is, of course, reading the Bible. On the inside, we have our service times and our soul-winning times. We actually have a separate handout in the bullets. I'm going to go ahead and read a little bit of this, but this is just a missionary update from our evangelist in the Philippines, evangelist Duncan Urbanik, and he ends up giving us a monthly newsletter that you can read the entire thing. I'm not going to read all of it, but in just the month of January, he ended up having 537 salvations. And so he really, he beat us this month, okay? And so we need to see if we can have a month where we beat him. I don't know if that's possible, but maybe when we go to the Bahamas, right? But we had 368 salvations for the month of January for us, and that's honestly one of the best months that we've ever had as a church, just locally here, and so we're really on pace to have a great year for 2025, and we want to keep doing that, but Brother Urbanik, Evangelist Urbanik, has his totals there. He actually, I've been meaning to make a video, but he sent me just scores and scores of pictures with a lot of the groups and the people he's talked to, and a lot of the work that they've been doing over there, and so I'm excited to try and put together like a little video with some of the pictures and the people they've talked to. Evangelist Urbanik also has, Brother James has been out there soul hunting with him too, and Brother James has recently had kind of a disciple who started going soul hunting with him, and he's really gotten plugged in, and one of the people that he got saved is now also a soul hunter and is getting people saved as well, and so he gave me that praise report that one of his converts and one of his disciples is going out there with them, and they're going out soul hunting as well, and so a lot of excitement, a lot of zeal. I know the Plant Brothers that go to our church, they recently have gone out to the Philippines for about a month and a half, and they're going to be doing a lot of soul hunting out there, and so just continue to pray for those that are going over there, out there. Evangelist Urbanik also says in his newsletter around 4,000 students got to hear the gospel, so they were able to team up with Verity Baptist Church, which is pastored by Pastor Matthew Stuckey, and he ended up getting an opportunity to go into a lot of schools, and they preached to thousands and thousands of students, and so you can read all about that if you would like, but he also has on the back a couple of notes about prayer requests, just continue to pray for wisdom and guidance for a new church plant, for soul winning laboring, also just for health for their family and health for his wife's family. He's going to be visiting here in March, so, and he's going to be preaching on a Wednesday night when I, I'm not going to be here because I'm going to be going on a missions trip, but he's going to be here, I'm going to make sure I get the date accurate again. I believe it's March 12th, so March 12th Evangelist Urbanic is going to be preaching for us here in person, so I just highly encourage you, even if you don't normally come on Wednesday nights, it would just be really special if you could still come that one Wednesday and really encourage him. I won't be here, so you have every reason to come, and so, you know, you can show up and see Evangelist Urbanic and support him and talk to him and encourage him, you know, he's going to be coming all the way from the Philippines, the least you can do is come, you know, an hour or whatever it is it takes you to get out here, and I know Wednesday night's traffic's a little rough, but it would just be really, it would be really special if he could have a big crowd and have a lot of people that he gets to see, and so I'd really encourage you to come March 12th for that Wednesday night service, and really you could just come every Wednesday night and then you don't have to worry about it. There was not very many amens there, I'll just tell you what, that was sad and pathetic, okay? You know, Wednesday night's a great service, amen? Yeah, that's right, okay, there you go. Alright, on the inside of our bullets, and we have the list of expecting ladies as well, continue to pray for them, some other upcoming events, our Reynosa trip is coming up February 6th through the 8th, we have Evangelist, our Evangelist here locally, Brother Fur, is going to be going on a cruise missions trip with a couple people from our church as well in February, and then I'm going to be traveling and visiting and preaching in February, also we have a kids choir that's going to be coming up, we also have the spring recital March 22nd, we'll try to get a sign up sheet for that going pretty soon, who's interested in doing our spring recital, just so I have some kind of idea, yeah. We've always had a really good turnout for our spring recitals, and the kids have done a really really good job, and so I'm really looking forward to that as well. There's some church reminders down below, on the back is a list of our prayer lists, so if you have any additional prayer requests, or you need us to update us on any of our prayer list items, please make sure to do so. That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements, we'll go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, which is going to be Psalm 149, Psalm 149. Alright, that was Psalm 149, in your laminated handouts, or the black binder, Psalm 149, Psalm 149, let's all sing it together real loud on the first. The Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in Him that made Him. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their gift. Let them praise His name in the name. Let them sing praises unto Him with the temple at heart. For the Lord, take His pleasure in His people. He will provide the real salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory. Let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and the two vengeance stored in their hands. To execute vengeance upon the dead, and punishments upon the people, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron. To execute upon them the judge will pretend, this honor have hold him. Praise be the Lord. Thanks for singing everybody. Now as offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter number 15. That's the book of Luke, chapter number 15. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Luke chapter 15 the Bible says, Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners, for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. Either what woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I had lost. Likewise I say unto you, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. And he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me, and he divided unto them his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and took a journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father, but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and be married. For this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found, and they began to be married. Now the elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto them, Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in. Therefore came his father out, and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment. And yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad. For this thy brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for the Bible. I would thank you for this chapter. I thank you for a steadfast Baptist church, and the great works that you're doing here. I pray that you would bless Pastor Shelley now, helping to preach this message with the fullness of the Spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Here in Luke chapter 15, we have what's kind of referred to or known as the prodigal son, or the parable of the prodigal son. And I'm not going to reread this section of scripture here, but I just want to kind of go through just a few aspects of this particular story, and kind of notice how this father responds in this story. And really, I want to talk about the idea of shunning the wayward. Shunning the wayward. And I'm kind of using this story to talk about, essentially, how do you deal with people that are wayward? What would be the appropriate action? What's the right way to handle people? And shunning is kind of a negative thing in our society. A lot of people really look down upon this. There's other ways to word it. Being excommunicated. Being cut off. There's a lot of different ways people may describe this particular phenomenon, but shunning is something that is kind of looked at as being a negative thing or something that's not right, but I want to show you what the Bible says on this subject. And when we think about this story, of course, there's always a spiritual significance. When we talk about the prodigal son parable, there's always a spiritual picture here that Jesus is trying to illustrate. But he uses carnal truths to expound on spiritual truths. The spiritual truth in this particular story, I believe, is understood as the younger son picturing kind of representing the Gentiles. And you have the older son representing the Jews specifically. And if you think about them from just a period of history, just basically the big timeline of history, the Gentiles just went off and just lived a party life, lived in the world, not really serving God, just wasting all the things that God has blessed mankind with. Whereas the Jews were the ones that were at least trying to serve the Lord. They had the tabernacle. They had the covenants. They had all the different things. And he's basically foreshadowing how the Gentiles are going to end up coming back to the things of God and actually getting right with God and how Jesus and God are going to be happy with them and how they're going to rejoice and how there's going to be restoration and then you kind of see the envy and the jealousy of the older brother thinking like, why are we treating him better when he's been bad for so long? But that's just kind of the wrong attitude. If someone ends up getting saved, we shouldn't be mad that they get saved or they start becoming Christian just because you lived a Christian life and they didn't. You know, that doesn't make us necessarily better than them. But at the same time, it's not like there wasn't a benefit to it. And the older son doesn't really get this. Notice what he says in verse number 31. And he said to him, Son, thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine. Think about it this way. If you lived in the Old Testament and you were a Gentile and you end up getting saved, you'd have to forsake your land, house, everything and come and move and be a part of the nation of Israel and you'd basically be a stranger and you're starting over. Whereas if you get saved in the land of Israel, you're already there. You've already arrived. You already have everything. Everything's still already yours. And so there's a great benefit and blessing to have already been part of the nation of Israel and already having everything and already been serving God. Just like growing up in a Christian home, yeah, you're going to be better off and better suited to live the Christian life because you're raised in a Christian home. And you wouldn't be like, oh, well, look at this guy. He got to go out and party and he went to college and he was with harlots and he did all this stuff that's sinful and wicked and now he's in church. Whereas I've never done that. I've just served God humbly. I've always done what's right and I'm serving God. And the pastor likes us both. And it's like, well, of course, God likes them both. Like we shouldn't get mad that someone ends up getting saved or getting right with God. And of course, the Jews were mad that the Gentiles are going to kind of get on with the system of the Lord Jesus Christ and with God and actually start serving the Lord because they want to kind of keep it exclusive. They want to keep it kind of a cult, kind of keep it a club, a members only society. Like, no, you aren't with us, so therefore you can't be with us. But it was supposed to provoke them into jealousy to actually get saved is what the Bible teaches in another place. But that's just kind of the spiritual picture. I don't really want to dwell on that point. We could sit here and go through every single verse and talk about that. I really want to also talk about the carnal aspect of this, OK? And when we think about the carnal aspect of this, we notice that when the younger son asks for the inheritance and asks for his, essentially the money that he's going to inherit from his father, his father gives it to him and then he just leaves. Now, when he leaves, we don't notice that the father chases after him. The father doesn't chase after him. The father is not checking in and giving him more money. The father is not, is really just not a part of his life if you really kind of are looking at what the parable is saying. And I believe that this is essentially how we should act and respond as Christians, that if we were to have an adult child or an older child that ends up walking away from church, walking away from Christianity, being backslidden, going out and living of the world, that you're not going to necessarily chase after them. That you're just going to keep serving God, keep doing what's right, and if they're going to go and make bad decisions, well, that's their fault. That's going to be their consequences of what they're going to have to receive. And, of course, do you think a father wants his son to get to the point where he's literally in a pigstyne eating animal's food? I mean, this might still be better than what they serve in India, but I'm just saying like, this, I'm just, that was a joke, okay, sorry. You're going to be offended very easily today, but essentially he's going and eating just garbage food, not even like necessarily suitable for humans here. Did you notice what he said in verse number 16? And he would fain have filled his belly with husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. So, what parent would ever want this to happen? No parent would ever want this to happen. And this is what will happen, though. Children will go out and make horrible decisions. Children will be completely wayward and unrepentant about it, but then they'll call mom and dad and they'll say, hey, can you cash at me 200 bucks? Can you help me with a little bit of money or can you help me with these things? And really, it's just to buy more drugs. It's to go to the next harlot. It's to get drunk again. And, of course, they'll say, no, no, I won't use that money on the harlot. But what they'll do is they'll use that money to get some food, but then they'll use their paycheck back on the harlots. So, really, by giving them the money, you're still allowing them and enabling them to go out and live a sinful and wicked life. And we don't see the father. Hey, the father gave him money. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with the father giving this child money. He chose to make bad decisions with it. But now that he's made bad decisions with it, you know, I think it would be inappropriate as a parent to just continue to encourage your children's sinful behavior and to continue to fund their rumspringa or fund their party life or fund their rebellion against God. Sometimes you have to allow people to hit rock bottom. Because did you notice what it says in verse 17? And when he came to himself, when did he come to himself? When he hit rock bottom. When he started thinking like, wow, I'm going to eat the food that pigs eat. Wow, I'm starving. You know, would to God we would do this to the homeless today is we would allow them to come to themselves instead of just continuing to feed their alcohol addiction, continue to feed their rebellious addiction, or being like the California government and literally giving them needles. Literally funding their drug addiction, literally funding their disgusting habits and bad attitudes and their rebellious nature. You know, that is not the right attitude. The right attitude is to say, hey, if you're going to be an idiot, well, then I'm going to allow you to do that. I'm not going to help you, though. I'm not going to enable you. I'm not going to fund it. And yet we have this thing in society where it's like on TV, it's in movies, it's in culture, it's even in a lot of churches where they act like I will never cut off my son, no matter what. And they act like this is somehow like the most loving thing you could possibly do. They just say, I would never turn away from my son or my daughter. I would never cut them out of my life. I will never give up on them. And, you know, that sounds cool on the surface. It sounds like, wow, you're so amazing. You're so awesome. But you know what it really is? It's just you don't have any standards. It's just you lack any moral character and any standards, and so you're willing to just hurt your children by condescending down to wherever they gutter, going down to wherever they are, and you're enabling sin, you're enabling rebellion. That is not the right attitude. In some cases you have to just sometimes shun the wayward. Now, when the son returns, we notice a few different things about when the son's returning, that immediately the father is there to receive him. It says in verse 20, and he rose and came to his father, but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and rant. Notice for the father to see the son from a great far away and then like come and running to him, it means he was anticipating his return to some degree. And I think what you could look at this as is it's a parent that's hoping for, looking for, and wanting their child to return. It's not that they're shunning their child thinking like, wow, I just want to be done with you. It's not saying I don't want to ever have a relationship with you. It's just where you're at, I can't be with you. You need to change your location. But as soon as you change your location, as soon as you start walking in the right direction, I'll meet you halfway. So I'm not saying, hey, if your child is down on their luck or having a bad problem, that you wouldn't necessarily help them, but they need to start walking in the right direction. When they start walking in the right direction, you say, hey, I'm willing to come halfway and bring you all the way into the fold, but at the end of the day, you need to start walking at least in the right direction. You need to walk towards home. You need to come back here. And so there's nothing wrong with wanting to restore, eager to restore, willing to restore the repentant, but at the end of the day, you're not going to chase after them while they're still walking in the wrong direction, while they're still in the pigsty, while they're still in the harlot house, while they're still on drugs, while they're still drinking, while they're still just living a sinful and wicked life, while they're still backslidden, you're just like, hey, I'm not over there. I'm over here. And if you want to come over here, yeah, I'll help you get over here. But you know what? I'm not going to hang out with you over there. Now, also you have to understand what the son's attitude was. The son was coming home, but he wasn't coming home and saying like, hey, can I get another thousand bucks to go back? Because then it would have been like, no. Bye. What is the attitude of the child when he shows up? He says in verse 21, That's what you call as repentance. That's true humility is saying, hey, I've sinned. I'm wrong. I've shamed you. I've embarrassed you. I'm not even really worthy of being your son. And you just see the humility of the son recognizing his fault, recognizing his sin and wanting to make a change because he was coming to the father saying, I'm willing to just serve so you just feed me. He's just looking for a job. You know, he's not looking for a handout. You notice at first he's looking for handouts. Now he's looking for a job. And when he was looking for handouts, well, he's just out on his own. When he's looking for a job, well, now his father wants to restore him and his father wants to help him and encourage him. So, you know, here's some tips on how to be restored in a situation. Admit you're wrong and look for a job. Look for work. Don't actually look for a handout. You know, it surprises me all these homeless people today, you know what, they never admit that they did anything wrong in their life. It's everybody else's fault. If you've ever been approached by a homeless person, if you've ever been approached by these people, it's anyone and everyone else's fault. Well, so-and-so cut me off. So-and-so hurt me. This tire exploded for no reason. I got a good tire. Someone lied to me. Someone ripped me off. It's not like they are a jerk. It's not like they lied. It's not like they took advantage of people. It's not like they said, hey, I took drugs when I shouldn't have. It's not like, hey, I got drunk and got fired on the job because I screwed up or I broke something. It's not like, hey, I got arrested for stealing. It's just like it's everyone else's fault. And then on top of that, the homeless person is never coming up to you saying, hey, I've really screwed up my life. I'm not a very good person, but I'm really looking for some work that I could do to earn a little bit of money so that I could have some food. Because, you know, if they said that to me, I might try to figure out a way to help them. But, you know, they don't want that. They want to continue being a drunk, lazy loser. And, you know, we should not help drunk, lazy losers and sinful and rebellious people even if it was your own child. You know what? I'll restore my child when they're willing to admit I sinned, I did wrong, and I'm looking for a job. I'm looking for some work to do. Then it's like, all right, let's restore you. Let's figure out how to fix this issue. Go to 2 Timothy chapter 2. Shunning the wayward. I believe that is the biblical ideal when it comes to a negative situation like this. And, of course, this is going to happen. There's going to be people that in your life need to be shunned and, you know, there's other ways to word this, being ostracized, being avoided, separating from someone. According to Wikipedia, shunning is this. This is how it's defined in Wikipedia. Shunning can be the act of social rejection or emotional distance. In a religious context, shunning is a formal decision by a denomination or a congregation to cease interaction with an individual or a group and follows a particular set of rules it differs from but may be associated with, quote, excommunication. So excommunication is more in the vein of, like, this person's a heretic, this person's preaching damnable heresy, this person's causing some offense contrary to the doctrines that we've learned, and so we're publicly marking them and excommunicating them from our church. Shunning could just be a little bit less extreme. It's more like, hey, this person's just kind of a toxic person, they're backslidden, they're causing issues or whatever, and so I'm just going to avoid that person. I'm going to have to stay away from that person. I'm going to have to keep some distance from that person, and I'm not going to go and hang out with them or be around them, and so it's kind of like an aspect of a social rejection, not so much just like this person's a little dangerous heretic. I can't. I don't want to have any relationship with you at all. Now, 2nd Timothy 2 says in verse 16, it says, But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. Notice that the Bible is giving you an idea of shunning. The shunning here is profane and vain babblings. People that are just going to say dumb things, meaningless things, false things, lies, you want to stay away from them, because notice it increases ungodliness, or it has more ungodliness to it. When you're just around people that are saying things that are not positive, that are not Christian, that are not godly, it's going to draw you down with them, and it's going to hurt you and harm you, and so we should shun those kind of people in our lives. Go to 2nd Corinthians, chapter number 6, the Bible says, Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners. So here's a question. What if your child was profane and uttering vain babblings? What does the Bible say? To shun that person. To say, I'm not going to be around you. I'm not going to allow you to fill my head with toxic ideas, toxic nonsense. I don't want to hear your liberal communism. I mean, if my child became a liberal leftist communist, yeah, I don't want to have conversations with them. If they were a flat earther, I'm not going to let them drive me around. Now, it's not possible, okay? They think that these people are dumb, all right? They get it. In fact, if they became, you know, too toxic to some degree, then yeah, I might have to even say, hey, I don't really want to be around you. I don't want to hear these ideas. I'm not interested in talking about this kind of stuff. Because, you know, it's important that we ourselves are not infected with nonsense, with vain babblings, with profane things. I mean, if someone's going to just talk negatively about the King James Bible, talk negatively about Christianity, talk negatively about the Lord Jesus Christ, talk negatively about sound doctrine, you know, that's going to affect you. And so you want to stay away from that individual. What does the Bible say? Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners. Oh, I can handle it. No one can handle it. No one can handle it. We're all susceptible. I mean, even the disciples themselves, hey, when they have devil influencing them, Peter starts saying false doctrine to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's like, you know not what spirit you're of when they want to burn all the Samaritans. And Peter, it's like, get thee behind me, Satan. He's influenced by Satan. And we see Demas hath forsaken me. And we see Peter is caught up in the Judaizing in the Book of Galatians. We see the entire church of Galatia who hath bewitched you. I mean, it's just a constant theme in the Bible of people being tricked, deceived, beguiled, taken advantage of. I mean, you have Joshua and that great generation. They get beguiled by the inhabitants of Gibeon. I mean, you just have constant people just getting tricked and deceived. You have Jacob tricked by Laban. Oh, but I won't be tricked. So you're just better than literally everyone. You're just smarter than every single person in the Bible, right? You can't be beguiled, but almost everybody in the Bible is being beguiled. I mean, the apostle Peter is beguiled. The entire church of Galatia is beguiled. I mean, people are constantly being tricked, led astray, caught in false doctrine. Of the seven churches in Asia, many of them are being led astray by false doctrine. I mean, many of them are being taken advantage of and deceived. So, you know, don't sit here and think like I can handle it. That's a foolish attitude. Hey, I can sit here and watch videos just attacking everything I believe and everything about me, and it won't affect me. No, it always will affect you. That's why you should stay away from that kind of stuff, and you should treat it very carefully. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 says this in verse 14, Look, obviously it would be great if every single person was just raised an independent fundamental Baptist, and your whole family is just a King James only soul-winning fundamental Baptist, but the reality is most people are not in that situation, and that many people get saved out of a Catholic household, and their household is still worshiping Mary. Their household still has idolatry and paganism in their building. There's this restaurant called Buca di Bippo. Who knows what I'm talking about? They have literal Catholic idolatry in the restaurant everywhere. You go just all kinds of different places in America today. You're going to find Mary shrines and all this kind of idolatry. We typically think of idolatry as not existing in America. It's called Catholicism. And, yeah, the Bible is saying you shouldn't be hanging out with people that are idolaters, that are worshiping statues. Oh, yeah, my sister's going to get married in this Catholic church where there's a bunch of pagan idolatry. Yeah, well, I'm sorry. I'm going to separate myself from that. Sorry, I don't want to be a part of your demonic ceremony here where you're going to worship idols, where you're going to have a Mary statue coming down the aisle, and everybody's going to do these séances, and they have smoke. I saw somebody post this thing online. It's like all these guys in a, basically it looked like the black KKK. I don't know. It was like, not black people, but like the garment was black. Like, you know, it's usually the white hood, but it was like a black hood. It looked like the black KKK. And then they have these big boxes that are smoking. Like, there's all this smoke coming out. And then they have this giant, like, 10 by 10 structure with a Mary on top of it. And they're just walking down, chanting, just like, And then the business of the post says, if every church was doing this, all the Protestant would become Catholic. And I was like, no, this looks demonic. Are you kidding me? Like, why in the world would I be enticed to go join this weird satanic ritual, this pagan idolatry? And look, if my child decided, hey, Dad, I'm going to become Catholic and I'm going to go worship Mary and I'm going to bow down to idols. Will you come do that with me? I'm going to say no. You know, in the Old Testament, if you had a family member try to draw you away after other gods and to worship idols, the Bible says your hand will be first upon them to put them to death. Oh, but you're going to shun them. You know, it's so funny how people get offended by the idea of shunning when the Bible says put them to death. I'm thinking like you can't even handle what the Bible really says on this subject. But yeah, shunning is not the worst thing that can happen to you. OK, and what's the point of being shunned? What's the point of saying no? What's the point of separating yourself? Well, number one, it's because you're supposed to be pleasing unto God. But number two, it's to give them a wake up call and say, hey, buddy, you're wrong. Hey, buddy, what you're doing is weird. Hey, what you're doing is satanic. I don't want to participate in this. And maybe it could shake a few people out of their stupidity and they could realize, oh, wow, this is weird. This doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe I am wrong on this. If my family member or this person I care about is so willing to separate from me over this, maybe I should actually consider my position again and really think about, am I right on this? Whereas if you just go along with it, well, then they never have to cross that road mentally. They never even have to think about it. They never even have to be worried about it. They don't have to try and reconcile is this actually true or not. And let me tell you something. Sometimes shunning works. But you know what doesn't work? Just going along with everything. People don't get right when you just go along with everything and tolerate everything and you never separate yourself. Go to Luke chapter 12. Go to Luke chapter 12. You know, the Bible says, for you that will love life and seek good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good. Let him seek peace and so what does eschew mean? It means to shun. To eschew evil. Job was one who eschewed evil, meaning he stayed away from evil. Now, here's the thing. There's not this like magic little box somewhere that just has evil inside of it. And you just stay away from that box. I mean, obviously that could be like the black box where the Muslims walk around it. But I'm just saying it's not like evil is just this item that you just stay away from. You know where evil exists? Inside of people. When it's saying eschew evil, it's talking about people, folks. It's talking about evil people and staying away from certain people and doing good. Not everybody is a good person. I don't know if this is a shock to you or something like that. I don't know if you've ever read the Bible for five seconds, but it says there's none that doeth good, no, not one. Now, obviously that doesn't mean we stay away from literally everyone and become a nun, but there's some people that are just quantifiably, objectively evil according to the text, according to the Bible. And you should stay away from those people. It's called Proverbs. Read it. It'll tell you about the froward man. It'll talk about the woman that flatters you with her tongue. It'll talk about all the different evil people that are wanting to go out and commit crimes and they hate God. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Obviously there's certain people that you just want to say, I want to stay far away from this person. The person that privately slanders his neighbor. That's a person that you want to stay far, far away from. But we need to eschew evil. We need to shun evil people, even if it was someone close to us. You know, it's really easy for us to stay away from people that we never have a chance to even be around. It's like, hey, I'm going to stay away from Joe Biden. Oh, wow. I couldn't hang out with him if I wanted to. Okay. So it's not really meaningful if you say, like, I'm going to stay away from Freemasons. I don't even know who they are. I don't want to know who they are. All right. There's a lot of people that I'm going to stay away from that I'm probably never even going to have a chance to stay away from because I don't even know them. I'm going to stay away from King Jung-ul. Okay. Oh, wow. That's impressive, you know. But you know what's actually important is you're staying away from the people in your life that you actually know, that you actually are around, that are actually evil, that are actually going to cause a downfall in your life. Those are the people that actually matter. And what is one of those people? Maybe a son. Maybe a daughter. And it's not just children. It's everybody. Look what it says in Luke 12, verse 51. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you nay. But rather division from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The Father shall be divided against the Son. Did you notice the absolute number one thing? The first thing mentioned. What is the first division that he brings up? The Father is going to be divided against the Son. That's what the Bible says. There is going to be divisions amongst family members and this is one of the most important relationships as a father and son. But there's going to be division. He says the son against the father, the mother against the daughter, the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A lot of close family relationships and it's saying they're going to be division. There's going to be separation. Go to Matthew 10. Go to Matthew, chapter number 10. The Bible says a friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity. Oh, well, I just think that brothers should always get along and they always will. But what does the Bible literally say? The Bible says that a brother is born for adversity. If you just read the Bible, you pretty much notice that constantly you have one good brother and one bad brother. It's called Cain and Abel, folks. I mean, it's just Esau and Jacob. And in many cases, brothers are trying to kill each other. I mean, Jacob is terrified that Esau is going to kill him. Esau was trying to pursue his brother and wanting to harm him and wanting to hurt him. We see that Jesus' own brethren didn't believe in him and they weren't his biggest supporters, especially initially. Especially at the very onset, they were not his biggest supporters. Joseph's brethren wanted to kill Joseph. I know that we think about Joseph being sold into slavery, but let me just remind you of the story. All the brethren wanted to kill Joseph. Reuben is the one that delivered him. Reuben is basically like thinking like, oh, no, no, no, we can't do that. Like, can we just at least just sell him into slavery? Like, that was the good option, right? Selling your brother into slavery, literally into a foreign land, that was the good option. They wanted to kill him. They wanted to murder their brother. And you know why? Just because Dad liked the brother better. You want to know why he liked the brother better? Because he was a better person. Joseph's just a better person. Joseph has the coat of many colors. Joseph is the son of his younger, you know, he's the youngest, so he's of his old age is what the Bible says. But also they had an evil report. Joseph's constantly coming and talking about their evil report. And of course, you know, as a parent, who do you think you're just going to naturally favor more? The son that's doing right and loving God or the children that are evil and doing wrong? You're probably just going to have a little bit better relationship with the ones that are doing right. It's just natural. It's just normal. You're going to kind of favor that one. You're probably going to give them even more attention. You're going to have a better communication with them. It's just how it works. It's just how life works. And some people, they get all mad about their parents not liking them as much. And it's like, well, be more likable. I mean, have you ever tried that? It's like, oh, well, you know, my parents don't like me as much as this one. Okay, well, do they call your parents? Oh, they call them every day. Do you ever call them? No. Well, maybe, you know, a man that had friends must show himself friendly. Maybe there's a reason why they like that one a little bit more. Maybe you actually spend a little bit of time with them. Maybe you're having a better relationship with them. But of course, maybe they like them better because they're worldly and your parents are worldly and you're not or whatever. But at the end of the day, hey, if my parents are going to favor the worldly children over me, well, then that's their loss. That's their problem because I want to serve God. I want to do what's right. And what does the Bible say in Matthew 10, verse 34? Think not that I'm going to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword, for I am come to set a man at variance against his father. Have you ever read the Bible? Man, that's that's crazy. When you think about it, he said, like, I'm coming specifically. I have a purpose. You know why I'm here? Just to cause a son to be at variance with his father. Wow, that's harsh words. And then and then people be shocked when it happens. They'll think like, oh, this isn't Christianity. How is this not Christianity? I mean, I'm telling you that point blank, red letters, Jesus Christ, gospel, multiple mentions. He's saying, hey, I'm coming to set a man at variance against his father. Oh, but that would never happen in a Christian household. No, it's specifically happening in Christian households. That's Christianity 101. That's what Jesus Christ is saying is going to happen. He says in the daughter against her mother and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. Who does the Bible warn about? Who does Jesus warn about as the biggest enemies is family. Family is the number one foe of the Christian. Yet people want to say, oh, well, in our house, we don't have any issues in my family. Everybody loves everybody. We're all super great. We have all the Christmas cards and we have all the different Thanksgiving meals. And we've never had we've never had an issue. Well, here's my question. Is anybody even serving God in that household? Because I would I would submit you this. I think that if no one's really serving God, if everybody is kind of a fake Christian, you can have a superficial fake family relationship. That seems great. I mean, you can all go drink together. You can all go to the Cowboys game together. You can all go on the lake together. You can all go to your little Southern Baptist church and get the NIV together. And you can have your little Bible study where everybody has their own little opinion. And you can all dress however you want, because you've literally no standards. You can all just have whatever kind of job, any kind of occupation. You can marry whoever you want. You can have 10 mixed families and all. I mean, you can have literally any issue you want. It just doesn't matter because you know what? I'll never cut off my child for any reason. You know, the big push about five years ago, about 2015, you know, the big push was for parents to say they would not cut off their son for being a faggot. It was just exploding everywhere. All these pastors just saying, like, telling these horror stories. And this would be the horror story. It would be a letter that a father sent to his son. And it would be a father writing a letter to his sodomite son saying, I'm sorry that you rejected Christianity and you rejected the Lord, but I want nothing to do with you. And they would act like this parent is the worst parent ever. They would demonize this parent. And then they would, like, do the opposite where they would show this one parent, like, writing a letter to their son saying, I don't care who you love and you're just so wonderful and I just love everything about you and you're just so great and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just love your AIDS and I just love, you know, I love all your pedophilia and everything. It's just so wonderful. You know, it's gross. It's disgusting. Yeah, and God forbid any Christian has a sodomite child, you would just say, bye. I mean, talk about an unbeliever. Talk about a good reason to separate. But you know what? There's going to be reasons beyond that to separate. Hey, if they're not saved, that's a time to separate. What does the Bible say in verse 37? He that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. What did Jesus just say? Point blank. Hey, if you love your child more than the word of God, you're not worthy of being a Christian. You're not worthy of being called a Christian. I don't know. I would never forsake my child. Well, you know what? You're not a Christian. Christian. I mean, if you just read Genesis, you just start out and it's like Abraham going to kill his own son on the altar. Isaac, his only son, the one he loves dearly. That is Christianity 101. And then Abraham's the father of our faith. He's not like, there's this kind of embarrassing character in the Bible who kind of like got crazy at one point. And he drug his son up to the mountain for no reason and was going to kill him. And God just kind of like slapped him beside the head and said, don't do it. No, no, no. It was it was a picture of the gospel. Did you realize that God sacrificed his son for us? I mean, think about what is Christianity? Like, what is just like the most important part of Christianity? Isn't it the fact that God sacrificed his son? I mean, that's just point number one. Christianity. Jesus Christ sacrificed by his own father. The love that the father has towards you is so much that he would sacrifice his son. But then you can't sacrifice your son for him. What in the world? I mean, it's not even a close comparison, because our children, if we had to sever a relationship, would be based on their bad behavior and doing wickedly. God had to sacrifice his son when he did nothing wrong. He had to give up that relationship and allow him to be suffering on the cross and allow him to go into hell for three days and three nights and to suffer all kinds of humiliation and shame and embarrassment. The Bible says he endured the cross. He bared the shame. Hey, he became sin for us who knew no sin. And then you can't sacrifice or sever a relationship that you have in your life. It just sounds like you don't really appreciate what Jesus did for you. Sounds like you don't even understand the essence of Christianity if you wouldn't sever that kind of a relationship. Go to Leviticus chapter 10. Go to Leviticus chapter 10. And here's the thing. What's the point of raising children and then being a productive member of society if they're spiritually dead? I mean, the Bible says faith that works is dead. So if I produce children that have a good job, that get married, have lots of kids, they send me a present on Father's Day, we go hang out on the lake. They like the cowboys. I like cowboys. They like Texas brisket. I like Texas brisket. But you know what? They never serve God with their life. What's the point between that and any other scenario? Like, what's the significance? And I know like most people, they think like, oh, man, I really want that. Look, it's not that you don't want your kid to be a productive member of society. But let me tell you something. That's not the measure of success anyways. There's plenty of productive members of society that are Catholic. There's plenty of productive members. In fact, let's just go to the number one. Let's go to the top of the list. All right. You ready for the most productive members of society in America? It's Indians. If you look at a pay scale chart, they'll tell you the highest paid demographic in America is Hindu, believing, dung, lighting, urine, you know, ceremony on the door, Indians. 7-Eleven, hotel ending, you know, doctors and computer programming Indians. They make the most money in America. They're the most productive members of society. How pleased would you be if you went over to your son's house and he's lighting dung on fire, if he's a Hindu? You know what, Hindus actually, it's kind of funny, but if you knock on a Hindu's door, they usually have a swastika on the door because that's the sign for peace, you know. So you go over, see the swastika on the door, and you walk into the Hindu household. And you know what, almost every Hindu, every Indian that I've ever met is one of the nicest people I've met. I've known tons of Indians. I had to work with tons of Indians. I've worked on, because I'm in software, sorry. Now praise God I don't do Java, so I don't have to see them as much. But boy, if you do Java, I mean, you are going to be inundated with India, okay. And look, some of these people are some of the nicest people. I've gone to church with them plenty of times. There was a guy that was part of, he was a close friend with one of my family members, and they just were trying to be nice to him. They were trying to do the lifestyle Christianity, so they invited him to church every single week. And he went to church with us almost every week. He went to dinner with us every single week. And I would ask him, I'd say like, hey, what do you think about Jesus? He's like, I like Jesus too, along with my other five trillion gods. And you know what, he's not saved. And you know, what's the point of us even being nice to him for years and decades if we never even give him the gospel and never confront him and say, hey, you're on your way to hell, buddy. Hey, you have to reject your Hinduism and actually believe in Jesus Christ. That's how you're going to get saved. What's the point of loving this Hindu and loving this Catholic and loving these individuals straight into hell? And what's the point of me just having children and loving on them all the way to hell or just a backslidden state where they produce nothing for God? And look, I want my children to get saved. That's step one. But beyond salvation, I want them to serve God. And if I'm not motivating them and encouraging them to serve God, what's the point? What's the point if my kid is the CEO of the biggest company in America or is a homeless beggar if they're both not serving God? What does a man profited if he gained the whole world and yet loses his own soul? But some people, they want to sit here and act like, you know what? The most important thing is that my child is just a productive member of society. Where does the Bible teach that anywhere? It's like, hey, I want you to be a Christian. Hey, I want you to serve God. Hey, I want you to go to church. Hey, I want you to become a soul winner. Hey, I want you to actually produce some fruit in your life. That's what's important to me. That's what motivates me. Yet most people, they care more about their child being a professional athlete, being good at sports, making lots of money, having a nice house, having a nice car. They don't care if their child serves God with their life. They just simply care if they can check a box and say, hey, here's a picture of me and so and so on the card. Look at my amazing kid. Yeah, who cares that he's a heretic? Who cares that he has an effeminate haircut? Who cares that he reads the NIV? Who cares that he goes to some non-denominational church and does nothing for God? At least he didn't make a video online attacking me. Oh, wow, you're so amazing. Let's give you a round of applause. What's the point of that? And let me tell you something. I'm not going to hang out with my liberal, leftist, effeminate child and go to some non-denominational church with them and end up doing nothing for God like them. If my child wants to abandon the independent fundamental Baptist, wants to abandon the King James Bible, well, you know what? They can go hang out over there. Because as for me and my house, the ones that are under my authority, we're going to come to this church and we're going to go soul winning and we're going to read the Bible zealously and we're going to serve God. And, hey, as soon as you start walking my way, I'll go pick you up and bring you into church. But let me tell you something. I'm not going to go hang out with you at the NIV church. I'm not going to hang out with you while you do nothing for God. I'm not going to go with you and go to some Zionist church that teaches repent of your sins that doesn't do soul winning. Oh, but they're so good on the family. What does that even mean? Like, explain this to me. How is somebody so good on the family when none of their kids are King James and none of their kids go soul winning? What does good mean? Maybe you don't understand the word good. There's none that do with good, no, not one. Okay, I mean, what is your definition of good anyways? And again, what is their definition of good? Fake. Social media good. Marketing good. PR good. Well, I don't want a PR good family. I don't want a marketing good family. Look, my children are gorgeous. Okay, especially my daughter, Ellie. She's one of the cutest little girls I've ever seen in my life. I'm sure if I put her image, you know, I could have my own little Debbie Snacks or whatever. You know what I mean? I could have my own Wendy's restaurant or whatever. In fact, I was like, I'll just make a company called Ellie Cakes, all right, and my wife makes amazing cupcakes. I'm sure I could sell tons of stuff if I want to. I'm sure I could market my family. I could make them look so polished and so good, and just everybody could just ogle them and just think like, oh, what a perfect little family because how cute they are. My wife has great fashion sense. She always dresses them really nice. But let me tell you something. That is meaningless to me. If my children are good looking, it's meaningless. If my children are dressed well, it's meaningless. You know what? I want my kid to drag his hide to church and go soul winning. That's what I want my kid to do. And you know what? Who cares if they have this little perfect social media online life or whatever. That is not the Christianity, having this perfect. Look, if my child just starts doing something that's not right or not serving God, I will shun them. I will have nothing to do with them. I will emotionally detach from them because, you know, that is a biblical concept. Now, I want to show you a lot of the examples of this in the Old Testament that are pretty much the same. Look at Leviticus, chapter number 10, and we're going to look at Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu. Now, I had planned to read this whole thing, but for the sake of time, we're not going to read it. Look at verse one. And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them a censer and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And they went out of fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. So Aaron's sons just, like, do something super wicked. They're not serving God correctly. And God kills them as a result. Now, from context, it seems likely that the sons were drunk when they did this stupid action. Just because, like, right down below, if you kind of notice, it says in verse 8, And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine, nor strong drink. So it's kind of like a wink, wink, nod, nod. It's like, hey, your sons did something stupid. I killed them immediately. And then here, oh, let me give you a reminder. Don't drink alcohol. And it's like, probably related. Can we prove that? No, but it seems pretty likely that that's what ended up happening. But at the end of the day, this is what I find is kind of interesting in this story. Look at verse 4. And Moses called Mishael and Elizaphan, the sons of Uzziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said unto them, Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp. So they went near and carried them in the coats out of the camp, as Moses had said. And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar, and unto Ithamar his sons, uncover not your heads, neither end your clothes, lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people. But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord hath kindled, and ye shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die. For the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you, and they did according to the word of Moses. So Aaron, his sons die. And Moses says, you're not allowed to go to their funeral. You're not allowed to touch them. You're not allowed to be around them. Everybody else can mourn their death, but you're not allowed to mourn your own son's death. You have to stay here, and you have to make sure that you're making atonement for the children of Israel, for the children of Israel's sake. And here's the reality. In some cases, it's like, hey, you don't go follow your children over here and pay attention to them. You need to go out there and preach the gospel and get people saved. Let the dead bury their dead. Hey, you have an important job to do here, Aaron. You're a priest of God. You're supposed to be doing the service of God. Hey, I know this is sad. I know this is tough for you. I know you probably want to be there for them right now and grieve, but you know what? You're too important. You need to go out there and just serve God right now. And if they're going to make dumb decisions, if they're going to do foolish things, that's on them. You're shunning them, even in death. Look at Leviticus 13. Just flip the page. Look at verse 46. The idea of shunning is a biblical concept in many contexts, not just waywardness, but simply sickness. Look what it says in Leviticus 13, verse 46. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone without the camp, shall his habitation be. I'm not going to show you all the verses of this. When someone's sick, you put them outside the camp. You don't hang out with them. You don't be around them because they're sick. You don't want to get sick with them. You don't want to get their disease. He's like, oh, that's mean. You're making them isolated. What did the Bible say? In verse number 46, he shall dwell alone. Is God worried about people being alone? Is God worried about their feelings? Is God worried about their, you know, mental health? He's saying, put this guy by himself. Put him alone. Get him outside. Put him alone. Don't go hang out with him. Don't talk to him. Don't be near him. Let him heal himself and then he can come back. Let him get healed first, okay? Go to Numbers chapter 5. Go to Numbers chapter number 5. We're going to see this consistently in the Bible. Hey, when someone was sick, you got them outside. You say, go away. Stay away. This is just a health-related issue. I'm so glad when we have sick people, we quarantine them or we put them in the hospital or we put them somewhere else that we're not just allowing them to just be a part of society. A lot of companies, praise God, they recognize this. They say, hey, if you're sick, don't come to work. Work from home or just don't work. That's why they give sick time off so you're not infecting everybody else at your workplace. And if you're sick, don't come and get everybody else sick at work. That's rude. It's unbiblical. It's not Christian. Christians should not go around and get other people sick on purpose. Numbers chapter 5, look at verse 1. And Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel. They put out of the camp every leper and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead, both male and female shall you put out, without the camp shall you put them, that they defile not their camps in the midst of whereof I dwell. So he's saying, not just men, women. Hey, you're sick, bye. We're putting you out. Go to Numbers 12. Go to Numbers 12. Shunning is a biblical practice in all kinds of different contexts, okay? Number one, children, unbelievers. We see here sick people. And, you know, sometimes it's a combination. Sometimes they're even sick because they sinned, because they did something shameful. In Numbers 12, we kind of have a combination here, where it says in verse 1, And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman. This is a sin. They sinned against God. As a result of their sin, God punished them with sickness and illness. Look at verse 11. And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my Lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. You know, you shouldn't speak against pastors and preachers and evangelists and deacons. How dare you say that? How do you imply this verse? Oh, the only person you're never allowed to speak against was Moses? Or you just don't speak against the man of God? Hey, speaking against the man of God is a dangerous habit. It's a dangerous attitude. And, boy, bad things can happen to you when you're just going around talking bad about men of God. He says, hey, I sinned. At least Aaron got it. So did Miriam. It says in verse 12, Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb. And Moses cried on the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee. So Moses is even begging, like, hey, don't punish her with leprosy. She got leprosy. She immediately gets leprosy from God. This is God's response. And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days, let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and after that, let her be received again. Why would God shun Miriam? You know what? Sometimes people need to learn a hard lesson. And, boy, I mean, just think about how much the world would freak out if a father just spit on his daughter's face. That's actually considered assault in America. If you spit on someone, you can be arrested for assault. Well, you know, the Bible doesn't care about U.S. law, okay? The Bible says that a father could spit in his daughter's face if she was acting so inappropriately, so rebellious, talking against her father, talking against her mother. And here's what God did. God says, Get out of the camp. I don't want to see you for seven days. You should be embarrassed. You should be ashamed of yourself. How dare you speak against your father? How dare you speak against your mother? How dare you speak against the man of God? How dare you speak against Christianity? Yet how many children are speaking against Christianity, they're speaking against the man of God, and then parents won't shun them? Oh, you made a troll video attacking preachers of God? I'm going to share that and like that. What in the world? And then brag about how my son's a good son. What part of the Bible do you even believe? Go ahead to 1 Corinthians, chapter number seven. Go to 1 Corinthians, chapter number seven. For sake of time, I'm not going to be able to go to all the verses I wanted to. But here's the thing. 1 Corinthians 5 is super clear that certain people should be excommunicated in church, should be marked and avoided. Romans 16 literally just says, Mark and avoid. It just says, Hey, there's some people that are causing divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrines which you've learned. And it says, Hey, these type of people, we should mark and avoid. Shun them. Shun the wayward. Shun the non-believer. Whoever it is, whoever's, you know, attacking Christianity, attacking the church, you know, get rid of this person. Someone that's sowing discord should be shunned. The Bible says, therefore, put away from among yourselves that wicked person. And look, our church does this, and I have done this many times. And the goal is not because we just want people to leave our church. The goal is we want people to change. You know, we don't want people to be drunk. We want them to be sober. So we say, Hey, stop drinking and then come back. But if they won't quit drinking, stay away. Hey, we don't want people to worship idols. Don't worship idols. You can't come. Don't extort members of the church. It shouldn't be rocket science, okay? And I've heard some people try to say like, Oh, this list is like habitual sins. And I'm like, no, no, no, brah. You extort one person in our church, you're getting thrown out. It's not like, well, I didn't extort everybody. Okay, well, you're not an extortioner then. You know, I mean, I didn't commit fornication with everyone. Okay, well, did you do it one time with someone? Yeah, okay, you're a fornicator. And until you say, I'm sorry, I was wrong and you don't want to do it, you're not welcome here. Now, look, obviously someone could be a repeat offender and whatever, but if they're not repentant, if they're not sorry, then they're not welcome. How about railing? Yes, railers. That's like number one for some reason. Making false accusation. How would you feel if someone makes a public false accusation about you, they're not repentant, they're not taking it back. Do you want to go to church with that person? I don't want to go to church with that person. I want that person to say, you know what? That's not true, you're right, I'm sorry. Before I'm going to allow that person to show back up at church. It's not rocket science. Now, when someone gets excommunicated, I tell the church, you don't have to wonder if someone's kicked out or not, you'll know. All right? You'll know. And when you know, this is what you should do. I'm not going to hang out with that person. I'm going to shun them. Now, everybody gets this from the sick perspective. What if I said, hey, this person has an infectious disease that's highly contagious. Hey, let's go hang out with that person and play checkers. Let's go hang out at their birthday party. Let's go hang out with them at their little quinceañera. Let's go shop with them at the mall. Like, you would never do that in a million years. I don't even have to convince you because you're just not, you're not silly. But then it's like, hey, here's a person that's evil-affected against our church that has a spiritual infectious disease that's attacking the church and negative and evil and saying all kinds of bad things, but you love hanging out with that person. That doesn't make any sense. You should shun the wayward person. Now, look, if someone doesn't go to our church anymore, I don't care to hang out with them. Be their best friend. I could care less. But if someone's attacking your church, attacking your pastor, lying about people, you know what? You should stay away from that person. Now, here's the thing. I am not going to police that. I throw out railers. I'm not going to throw out you for hanging out with the railer. And let me explain this. It's really easy to understand. People who have infectious diseases, they get put outside the camp. Now, what if you, being silly, decide to say, you know what, I'm going to go talk to that person. I'm going to go hang out with that person. And you give them some food, you hang out with them, you go to their birthday party, you give them lots of hugs and stuff. And then you leave, and you somehow didn't catch their disease. Well, then I can't throw you out of church because I can't throw you out of the camp because you're not sick. Okay? So here's the thing. You hang out with this person, they say, you know, I hate Pastor Shelley, and I hate Stadtfast, and I hate blah, blah, blah. And for some reason, you at least have enough gumption to say, well, I don't agree with you, and you leave. Well, you didn't get their sickness, did you? But here's the thing. When you hang out with infectious diseases, a lot of times you get sick, too. And so you start hanging out with railers, and you start hanging out with evil people, people sowing discord. Now you start sowing discord, and you start railing. Well, now you're going to be thrown out with them, too. So it's just not wise to hang out with people that are sick. It's not wise to hang out with people that are spiritually sick. You should shun the wayward and say, hey, bro, you got some serious issues. You need to fix that before we're going to hang out again. Okay? And people act like, oh, you just go around, and you're just policing people, and you're a cult, blah, blah. It's like, show me the person. Testify when I'm policing you, giving unsolicited advice. It just never happens. I just don't really care. But you know what? I don't want you to get sick. I mean, just think. I'm sitting up here saying, like, don't go hang out with people with AIDS. Don't hang out with people with infectious diseases. And they're like, oh, this guy's a cult. He's telling us to not hang out with certain people. Mm-hmm. How dare him say to not hang out with people with AIDS and infectious diseases and high contagious fevers and COVID and stuff. Can you imagine that? What a cult, man. No, it's like, don't hang out with disease. Don't hang out with sickness. Don't hang out with people that are going to drag you down and affect you. Keep some distance and say, hey, man, you need to work on that issue. Stay away from that individual. I can't force anybody to do that. And I'm not going to force anybody to do that. But you know what? It's a bad idea to do it. It's a bad idea, and you'll get sick with them. The Bible tells us to mark and avoid. Now, what happens if this person's your spouse? Because this is kind of a different relationship, because the Bible says you're now one flesh, right? Well, the Bible gives us a little bit of some verses on this about this topic of shunning. Look at what it says in verse 10. I know the myriad I command, yet not I but the Lord. Let the wife depart from her husband. But if she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. Let not the husband put away his wife. The Bible says that you should not abandon your spouse, period. So we should shun wayward children. We should shun unbelievers. We should shun the heretics. We should shun the people that are in church discipline issues. We should shun the sick. But I believe the Bible is saying you shouldn't shun your spouse. I mean, even if they're not saved, even if they were an unbeliever, the Bible still says that you shouldn't shun that person. Look what it says in verse 13. And the one which hath a husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. So the Bible is saying like, hey, even if your spouse wasn't saved, you should still be a good spouse. You should still love your spouse. You become one flesh. So, of course, you're not going to abandon your spouse. You should never leave your spouse ever. You should never divorce your spouse. These are all different things, though. You shouldn't leave your spouse physically. You shouldn't leave your spouse emotionally. And you should never divorce your spouse ever. You should just always, you know, no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherishth it. So even if my spouse was wayward, you know what? I'm not going to shun them. I think that's the wrong approach in marriage. So this is kind of, in my opinion, the one caveat. I want to make this clear because you're hearing this message about shunning. I don't want someone to start thinking like, oh, yeah, my spouse is like this, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know what? No, don't shun your spouse. You know, that's not what I'm teaching. I'm not going to shun my left arm, okay? I'm not going to be like, hey, my left arm is doing some weird stuff, so I'm going to cut it off and leave it behind, okay? No, I'm going to nourish and cherish it. I'm going to approach that slightly differently. But people that are not physically attached to me and people that are not my spouse, hey, you know what? I could still have a relationship with you. Now, what does the Bible say? What if your spouse, though, doesn't have that attitude? What if your spouse literally just runs away? What if your spouse literally abandons you physically? Well, what does it say in verse number 15? But if the unbelieving depart, let them depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage or such cases, but God hath called us peace. Now, here's the thing. It says, unbelieving depart. If you are married to someone that's not saved, and it's not like a question, it's not like, hey, they differ on end times eschatology, I think they're not saved. No, that's stupid, okay? I'm saying, like, they're just literally not a Christian. They're Catholic. They're atheist. They're Hindu or whatever. If they say, I hate Christianity, I want nothing to do with you, I'm never going to stay with you, and they literally run away, then I don't think that you're obligated to pursue them with every fiber of your being. I mean, that's basically what he's bringing up. He's just saying, well, you know, it's a pretty bad scenario. But it's pretty clear, though, that you should still not divorce them ever, that you should not put them away. Maybe you're just not dwelling together, and it's a rocky relationship. But at the end of the day, if my spouse is saved, my spouse is saved. Like, I could never make this excuse. I can't be like Peter Ruckman and just keep saying every one of my wives is an unbeliever and then just marry another one, and then the next one just jumps out of the moving car, and it's somehow her fault. Like, what did you do to your wife to cause her to want to jump out of a moving car? And then he brags about that. It's like, that's weird. Peter Ruckman brags about one of his wives giving her wedding ring back in the middle of a conference. What in the world? That's bizarre, okay? And then acting like he's somehow super spiritual or something. Like, look, that would be embarrassing. It would be shameful if your spouse was that upset with you, if you were having that major of issues. And here's the thing. If my wife literally abandoned me or ran away, let me explain what I would do. I would chase her. I would chase her with flowers. I would chase her with... I would definitely take food, okay? If you're ever in an argument, you have to check if you think... It's kind of like a child when they're crying and you don't know. It's like you first tried to feed them, change their diaper, and then give them a nap. It's like with your wife, it's like you need... Number one, check if they're hungry, okay? When's the last time you've eaten? When's the last time you've gotten a drink? When's the last time you've gotten a drink or a treat? And it's like when they're not hungry or not thirsty and they're still mad, that's when you're in danger, okay? Hey, I'm going to try and figure out, hey, let's go shopping. Hey, let's go hang out. Hey, let's drop everything. I mean, I would quit my job right now if it was going to somehow fix my marriage. I will not compromise, but I will sacrifice. If my wife's saved, I will not compromise, but I will sacrifice for them. Whatever I can do to make it right, to fix things, to repair things, to have them content enough to dwell with me, I will do it. But, you know, if push comes to shove, if I can't win them back, I mean, I'm still going to show up at church on Sunday morning. I'm still going to go to church on Sunday night. I'm still going to take some time out of my schedule, and I'm going to go soul winning. Now, when I'm not soul winning, I'm going to take the jukebox and I'm going to go to her window, and I'm going to play outside and ask her on a date. You know what I mean? Sorry, there's only, like, a few 80s kids in here. I'm just saying, like, I'm going to make sure that I'm doing what I can to win her back because she's saved and I know she has the Holy Spirit and I know she could be convicted and get back with me and get right with me. You know, I'm not going to give up on my marriage ever. But at the end of the day, sometimes you have to just say, well, I'm going to put that on pause, I'm going to go back to serving God, though. I'm not going to say, like, hey, I'll stop going to church for you. Hey, I'll stop reading the Bible for you. Hey, I'll stop going soul winning for you. Hey, I'll stop following God's commandments for you. No, no, no, I'm going to follow God's commandments. No, I'm going to read my Bible. No, I'm going to go soul winning. No, I'm going to serve God with my life. And, hey, I'm going to take care of my kids even if you won't. Hey, I'm going to do the things that I need to as a responsible Christian even if you won't. But at the end of the day, you know, when push comes to shove, even if you had to separate from your spouse as far as a decision, well, you need to serve Christ over your spouse. I mean, some people in Christ's list, he said they even had to forsake spouses, forsake wives or forsake whatever. But I just want to make it clear that the shunning aspect, I'm not going to shun my spouse even if they were sinful. You know, I've had people, like, try to tell me, like, my spouse committed a sin in 1 Corinthians 5, you know, so I can't even eat with him. And it's like, no, you're one flesh, okay? Even if they're in a serious issue like that, you have to stick it out with them. You married them. I didn't. Okay? Obviously, you know, some people would say, like, what about, like, really severe? If your spouse is trying to kill you, yeah, you can get away from them, all right? Maybe, like, David ran away from Saul when he was trying to kill him. If your spouse is trying to harm you or hurt you or trying to kill you, yeah, I think that there's reason to say, like, I'm going to separate them. If the person comes home drunk, you know, and they're going to hurt you or harm you, there's nothing wrong with staying away from that individual until they become sober again or whatever it is. Go to Psalm 101. Go to Psalm 101. We'll finish. But I do not believe you should shun your spouse. I'm just going to try and explain what I taught you this morning so maybe you can walk away and take something from it. You need to have standards. That's the whole point of the sermon. Why would you shun anybody? Because you have a standard. What is your standard? I'm not going to hang out with unbelievers. If there's someone in your life that's not saved, you need to separate from that person. It doesn't matter who it is with our one exception, of course, the spouse, okay? If someone crosses a line of church discipline, you need to stay away from that person and not go hang out with them, even if it was a child. If the child's a railer, if the child's an extortioner, if the child is a drunkard, yeah, you need to put distance between them. And I've known people in my life, they won't do this, they won't separate from their drunkard child, and the child's just getting worse as a drunkard. And I'm like, I think if the whole family would just say, hey, stop drinking or we're not going to hang out with you, they might actually be influenced enough to say, okay, that's important enough for me to change. But until their family does that, they're just on a bad path, and even if they don't, well, I'm just not going to hang out with drunkards. And third, you should stay away from people that are toxic. And this is kind of a broad thing, but the Bible brings up a lot of other scenarios, and if someone fits in this category, even a close person, you should separate. So you need to, number one, have the standard, and then number two, you need to enforce the standard. And you just make it clear to everybody in your life, hey, if you cross these lines. This is what I always hear, and I'm accused of personally, because I've had to separate from a lot of family members, is they say, oh, you're just making stuff up to separate from us. And I'm like, if 1 Corinthians 5 is me making something up, then okay, I'm not making anything up. And they're always like, well, we're just always worried like you're going to come up with a new rule that we can't hang out with you. And I'm like, look, it's the same list. Are you an unbeliever? Are you on 1 Corinthians 5? And then are you into like a really clear, obvious, other portion of scripture? I want to show you like another one that's like this, okay? Look what it says in Psalm 1, verse 3. I will set no wicked thing before my eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside. It shall not cleave to me. A froward heart shall depart from me. I will not know a wicked person. Whoso privily slanders with his neighbor, him will I cut off. Him that hath a high look and a proud heart will not I suffer. My knife shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me. He that walketh in the perfect way, he shall serve me. He that worketh the seat shall not dwell within my house. He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. Look, dishonest people should be separated from. People that are lying and sowing discord and they're slandering people and they're whispering and they're gossips and they're just proud and they don't like the things they've got. You know, just stay away from that person. They're a toxic person. Hey, I don't want to hang out with you. And this is what happens in a society in America today is the vast majority of parents today don't shun anyone. And you know what happens? It makes us where we as a culture have no standards. You know what? God puts people outside of the church for crossing the line of 1 Corinthians 5. If every single church enforced 1 Corinthians 5, then the backslidden would actually have to get right to get back into church. But because there's so many churches today that do not care about 1 Corinthians 5 whatsoever, they will harbor wicked people in their churches. And let me tell you something. If I hear that someone comes to our church and they were thrown out of their last church for a 1 Corinthians 5 issue, they're not welcome at our church. And you say, what kind of church? Any church. If you get thrown out of the Mormon tabernacle for being a drunkard, you're not welcome here. You're not allowed to drink and be a Mormon. At least they have standards. And you know what Mormons will do? They'll separate you from the church. You're not allowed to any of the Mormon churches. Is it embarrassing that the Mormons will not allow drunkards in their churches and they're consistent on that issue, but then Christians will allow that all day long? Hey, you can rail and slander and lie about the pastor, but as long as it wasn't me, you can come to my church. Well, you know what? Shame on you. Shame on you for not shunning people. And you know what? We live in a society that enables bad people. It enables wicked people to just keep doing whatever they're doing. And of course, you know, the big churches are probably the worst about this because you just go to a big church, you can just blend in. That's why people that get disgruntled against our churches and stuff, they always try to find the biggest ones so they can just go and hide. They can just go hide all their sin and their rebellion and whatever because nobody will ever confront them on their issues and confront them on why they're even there. Like, shouldn't you ask that question? I mean, if there's this one church in the whole area that just everybody just kind of keeps coming from to your church, wouldn't you think like, hmm, maybe I should ask why all these people are just coming to my church from this one other church? And then what if I called the phone and I said, hey, I've noticed like 30 or 40 of your members are coming to my church. Why is that? Oh, well, this person's lying, this person's railing, this person's a drunkard, this person's on drugs, this person's just committing all kinds of grievous sin, this person's committing adultery. He'd be like, oh, maybe I don't want these people in my church. But because they don't do that, because they care more about just getting more tithe money or whatever it is and they don't want to ask any of the hard questions, then they just enable people to live in that sin. But if everybody did that, then they would quickly be ostracized from every good church and they wouldn't be able to say like, oh, I love my new church so much. It's so wonderful. No, it'd be like, hey, you actually have to be held accountable for your sin and for your wickedness and for your rebellion. And not every church is like that. I've had a few pastors call me and say, hey, so-and-so from your church came to mine, what's their issue? And I had to be like, here's their issue. And he's like, okay, great, I don't want that person in my church. Praise God for someone that actually has some common sense in their brain. But then they'll just go to the non-denom church where everything, everything's accepted. And that's what people want you to do. They want you to be a non-denominational family. Don't be a non-denominational family. Oh, we're the non-denominational family. One son's Southern Baptist, one kid's going to Gateway, one kid's Catholic, this other one's a Hindu, but we're non-denom, man. We're going to all sing our God's an awesome God later. Our God is an awesome God. And then we're going to take our little Christmas picture or whatever. Ignore the ankle bracelet, okay, you know, or whatever. And we're just such a wonderful family, man. We're just great Christians because I would never separate from my son. I would never separate from my daughter. Well, you know what, you're just not a Christian. And you know what, you're not worthy of Jesus Christ. And if a pastor would get up and say, hey, I was not willing to sacrifice my son for the cause of Christ, you know what, that's a bad pastor. It's not a good leader. It's not someone you want to follow. You know what, I hope that I never have to separate from my kids for one second. But let me tell you something, I already have the standards and I will enforce the standards. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for your Word. Thank you for giving us these clear guidelines. Thank you for trying to help us to not get sick and to be around dangerous and toxic individuals. Also, thank you for giving us this example of how shunning can work. I pray that if anybody ever has someone in their family or their relationships that they have to shun, that they have to stay away from, that that would end up working. They would end up having the prodigal son's heart and they would return. They would say, you know what, I've sinned, I've screwed up, I'm going to get it right. But without the shunning, without separation, without these biblical principles, in many cases, people won't make the right decision. I pray that you give us the courage and the faith that when we have these difficult relationships that we have to sever ties, that we do what the Bible says, and that you would allow that to work in those people's lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Alright, in closing, let's go to song number 124. Song number 124, God Will Take Care of You, song number 124. Let's all sing it out together on the first. Be not dismayed what every time God will take care of you. Beneath his wings a plough of wine, God will take care of you. God will take care of you through every day or all the rain. He will take care of you, God will take care of you. Through days of storm and fog of wind, God will take care of you. With nature's fierce, your path of sail, God will take care of you. God will take care of you through every day or all the rain. He will take care of you, God will take care of you. All you may need he will provide, God will take care of you. Nothing else will be denied, God will take care of you. God will take care of you through every day or all the rain. He will take care of you, God will take care of you. No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you. We, everyone, are born in trust, God will take care of you. God will take care of you through every day or all the rain. He will take care of you, God will take care of you. Great singing, everybody. We are all dismissed.