my turn. All right, 2nd Corinthians chapter 2. This might be a little bit more of teaching than preaching. We'll see how it goes, but just for a few minutes here this morning, then we'll fellowship with each other for a few moments before the morning service. Brother Carter's gonna be preaching for us this morning. His young folks gonna be singing for us, and we're excited that they're here today. 2nd Corinthians chapter 2. And verse number 17, I had this verse on my heart a few weeks ago, and I was doing some studying on some things, and yesterday, Brother Coley's church, he's got a part of this verse, really big letters above the baptistry, and I was thinking about it again, I just want to look at this for a few minutes this morning. 2 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse number 17, the Bible says here, for we are not as many which corrupt the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. And that's a very bold statement to make, that we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God. Now that's not just insinuating that people are using a different Bible version, even though that is a part of corrupting the Word of God. If it's anything other than the King James Bible, it's not the Word of God anymore. It ceases to be the Word of God. It's been changed to man's word. It's no longer the Word of God and that's a given thing. But I believe that this here is going a little bit further than just a different Bible version. It's people that have taken the Word of God and they've used it for their own gain. They've taken the Word of God and they've used it for their own gain. They've taught scriptures to their own gain. Private interpretation as the Bible says. And they've used it to gain filthy lucre or to twist it how they wanted to fit their lifestyle. And we're living in a day-to-day where people have taken the King James Bible in some of our churches and they have taken it to make it apply to their lifestyle rather than their lifestyle fit what the book says. And I believe that some of what we're dealing with here in Corinthians. You say, why is that? Because the book of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, was dealing with sexual sins. It was dealing with physical sins. And then thankfully they got some of those things right. As you read on through the book of 2 Corinthians, you find out that they got some of those things right with God. And thankful for that. Amen? Our number one goal when we preach, and the things are preached like what was preached this morning, is not to hurt you. Hard preaching is not meant to hurt you. It's meant for reconciliation. When Paul preached hard, he didn't do it to try to hurt somebody. And I don't believe it should ever be done out of anger. Sometimes hard preaching can come across as being angry. And I don't ever want it to be that way out of here. I know preachers that preach out of anger. And they're hateful. And they preach against sin in such a way that there is no coming back from it. I mean, they preach so hard against sin and against things that there's no room for getting right with God, and that's not right. When Paul gives the qualifications to the preachers and the bishops and those that are pastoring, he told them to be hard, he told them to be straight, he told them to be, we're going to look at some of those verses, but he always said that they need to have some kindness. Amen, there's absolutely place in that for kindness. There's ministries and churches I know of right now, they preach so hard against sin, but man, they preach it angrily. And there's no room for repentance, there's no room for reconciliation. Everything Paul preached, he preached it with the desire that somebody would get right with God. When he preached against those in 1 Corinthians, those sexual sins, and there were some bad things going on in 1 Corinthians. And when he preached that and told them the hard things he told them, and even told them to break fellowship with some people. But he did it to help those people. And if you read 2 Corinthians, they end up getting right with God. The problem is, in a lot of churches, the preaching, there's no room for repentance, there's no room for reconciliation. And then the ones that they do, and sometimes I think we fall in this category, that if there's hard preaching and there's a hard stand against things, biblical stand, that people just don't want to hear it. They just don't want to hear it. And so when he makes this statement, for we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God, you think that during Paul's day there was many people that used the Bible the wrong way. And I don't want to be found guilty of using the Bible the wrong way. I don't want to try to fit my lifestyle to the book. Amen? But that's what's taking place in many churches in many places. You say, Brother Andrew, you shouldn't talk about other places and other churches. Turn with me, or look right there, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 2. Do you realize something? I hear people preach sometimes and they say, in Bible days. I've said that. In Bible days. You know, we're living in Bible days. Amen. In Bible days this happened. Well, we are living in Bible days right now. We are in the church age. Everything that I'm going to read to you today came from Paul, the Apostle. He's our Apostle to the church and he's talking to these physical churches and these men, Timothy and Titus, but they're written to preachers today. They're written to churches today. If we were not living in Bible days, I don't know what we're doing this morning. Amen. If we didn't believe that we're living in the Bible days, the instructions in the Word of God are for you today. If they weren't, then we're wasting our time this morning. We'll be just like every other college and cemetery in the country and just talk about historical application of Scripture. Amen. The things we preach, they're applicable today. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse number 2. Or look at verse number 1. Therefore seeing we have this ministry. What ministry, Paul? As we have received mercy, we faint not. but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. When a preacher gets up and preaches, he might say some hard things, but he's doing it to help you. And if he will not get up and preach the hard things, he's not helping you. And he is handling the Word of God deceitfully, because you're not getting the whole counsel of God. There's a lot of churches I know of and things, and you say, you keep mentioning all this. We're living in, I know you're tired of hearing it, we're living in the last days. And I know of King James Bible believing churches that they're super nice people, but they're handling the word of God deceitfully. When they run across the portion of scripture that gets down into your crawl space and deals with your sin, They skip over it or they sugarcoat it. That is handling the Word of God deceitfully. And we do not want to be as many which corrupt the Word of God. Again, it's not out of anger. It doesn't mean that we hate those people. I don't, man. I love them. Amen. I was at a church last week that was borderline like this. Super nice people. Amen. I want to see him get saved. I want to see God do something. But I'm telling you, the pastors are doing a great disservice if they're not trying to help people. You understand that sometimes, all the time, we try to preach the Word of God and take a hard stance on certain things. You say, well, it's not necessary to do that. Whatever we preach out of this pulpit, most of the homes in this church are going to be several steps behind. It's just the way it is. If we say, hey, we're going to preach this and take a hard stance, most of the time in our personal lives, we're going to be a few steps behind the church. And so if we got lax on the preaching and lax on those things, then you're going to get even worse and worse. That's just the way it goes sometimes. And with every generation, it gets worse and worse and worse and worse. So the things that maybe your parents didn't allow and they took a stand on, maybe now you are relaxed on a few of those things and maybe you don't understand why they took such a hard stance and I don't see a problem with it. Now your kids are gonna take another couple steps backwards. And the next thing you know, your grandkids are gonna be covered in tattoos and piercings and listening to who knows what music. Why? Because every generation took a few steps backwards. Amen? And so, you know, when we preach some of the things that I know it comes across as hard sometimes, I hope it never comes across as hateful. Amen? And I hope the church knows that when we preach the way that we do it, it's because we love you. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11. For those that didn't make it here on time, when we fellowship in a minute, we love you so much we got Krispy Kreme donuts today instead of Dunkin' Donuts, amen? Krispy Kreme donuts. I always said if we had a small group, it would be a Krispy Kreme small group. Alright, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, look at verse number 13. I'm just going to share a few verses with you and I'll be done. You said, what's the purpose of this study? Just to show you that the Bible commands me as a preacher to preach the way that we do. That's it. Amen. I'm trying to obey the Lord. And these other young men, they're preaching some of those things. I'll tell you what, even what Brother Aaron preached would bust some of these churches wide open. I mean, if he got up and preached that in some of these churches, I mean, it would ruin their day. Amen. Alright, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, look at verse 13. For such are false apostles... Go back and read the context later on. Paul's talking about his self-boasting and things like that in here. Alright, verse number 13. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel! For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. You know why we preach against some of those things and call certain folks out and churches out, amen, because we're trying to expose the people that are false. And he just said right here that Satan transforms into an angel of light. It's no big deal that his ministers would transform themselves into preachers of righteousness. But Brother Andrew, they use the King James. No, they carry a King James. And they might read one verse and then preach whatever they want to talk about. Amen? You don't think that Satan's got people that carry a King James Bible? I mean he's fooled some folks to where they'll believe the Message Bible, which is horrible. But then he's got some people that it's harder to convince because they got to have a King James. Amen. We've had people leave our church before and they say, but preacher, he uses a King James. Okay. And he's got women teaching in the church. And he's got women wearing tight jeans up leading singing. But he uses a King James. Amen. You say, what are you getting at? But I'm telling you, we've got to guard against stuff. We've got to be careful. And Satan's really good at making us think different than this book. Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. I have heard since the day we started this church, since the day we started this church, Brother Torn, I have heard, I don't see it that way. I mean, I'm talking about from like three weeks into us, I had a guy come up to me and said, I just don't see it that way. And I've been hearing that for seven years. A couple young men sat in my office a couple years ago and we were looking at some scriptures about men not touching women unless they're married. That's what the Bible says. So I turned to a verse and I said, read that. And he read it and said, I don't see it that way. I said, I didn't say anything. He goes, I know what you're going to say. I said, what am I going to say? I didn't write it. And he goes, well, I just don't see it that way. I don't think that's what it's talking about. Okay. A man should not touch a woman. Okay. What does that mean? Amen. I've, I've, I've heard it from, you know, from day one and again, My instruction to that young man and talking to him was not to hurt him. Amen. At that time, he was a young man who was a preacher in the church and I told him he could not preach because he was posting pictures online of him and a girl all over each other. I didn't kick him out of church. I didn't tell him to leave. I wanted to help him. I said, you can't preach. Amen. So he left. It wasn't to hurt him. Amen. It's trying to help him. And so you don't want to ruin your testimony, young man. And what people don't, and I'm not even going to make the rest of this, I've got to stop. But what people don't realize is right now, that they take all these pictures, they do all these things, and one day God's going to put you, if you stay in church faithful and you want to do right, He's going to put you in a ministry somewhere. And they're going to be able to dig up all these photos and all these things. And you're not going to be used for God like you ought to be because of some of that stuff. Amen? I've told people before, listen, if you're going to get naked and lay on the beach, don't take pictures and put it online. That's between you and God. But don't do that and then talk about, I'm going to church and singing today. Amen? I mean, if you're going to do it, go find a private place and get as naked as you want to get. God will judge you for whatever that is. I've heard people say, me and God got a deal worked out. I'm telling you, if it's opposite of this book, you have no deal with God. Amen? If it says something different than this book does, you don't have a deal with Him. I've got several other verses. You know all of them. Acts chapter 20 verse 20. If you're going to read Titus chapter 1, just read it later. That old chapter is instructing me as a preacher what I'm supposed to do. And it's to preach the gospel and to use this book to call out false doctrine, false teachings. You know how we got to the Laodicean Church Age? People stopped preaching the book. They stop preaching. You know, holiness is God's chief attribute. Above all the attributes of God, holiness is number one. But it's the last on our list. Holy living? I mean, living right? Dressing right? Well, it's not popular. It doesn't matter. That's how we got to where we're at today. And however far you've gotten away from where your grandparents were, your kids are going to be that much worse. The man that was wearing a dress in Denver last week, I'm sure his great great great great granddad wore a suit when he went to work. And his mom wore a dress everywhere she went. Now he's the one wearing a dress. What happened? Every generation. Go look at old photos. I mean, men wore suits when they went to the grocery store. Amen? Now it's rare to see a man in a suit at church. Amen? It just gets worse and worse. So you say, what do you do? We're living in Bible days. You preach the Word. Be instant in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering. But the Bible said that there will come a time when they will not endure sound doctrine. And we're there, we're living in those days. He said, why do you keep preaching the way you do? It's my responsibility. I gotta give an account to God for it. And I'm not trying to hurt anybody. And I've never went to one person in the church and said, hey, I saw you out in public the other day and you know. I'm not doing that. But it's my job to preach. Amen. Paul said in Acts 20 20 and how how I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you. Amen. He didn't say they liked it. He said but it was profitable for you. He said I kept back nothing but I've showed you and I've taught you publicly from house to house in Acts 20 27. He said for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Thank God for Paul. Amen. The Bible said at times he was rude in speech, but not in knowledge. Paul knew God and he knew the book. And I'm going to be honest, sometimes people have to be told, this is what you're supposed to do and this is what you're supposed to stop me doing. Amen? It's like a husband and wife. He never knows what she's thinking unless she tells him. You were supposed to know. How am I supposed to know unless you tell me? Amen? I don't know what you're thinking and I don't ever want to know exactly what you're thinking. Amen? I'd probably be really disappointed all the time. Amen? But how are you supposed to know unless you're told? How shall they hear unless there's a preacher? And the last thing, Galatians 4, 16, Paul asked this question to the church of Galatia. He said, am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? Jesus preached hard at times and he looked at his disciples and said, does this offend you? Many have walked away. Will you go also? Thankfully, Peter said, we have nowhere to go. Amen. And I want to tell you, it's rough out there. Amen. And I thank God for church and I thank God for preaching and preachers. Amen. All right, let's all