Good morning. Colossians chapter number 2, Colossians chapter number 2, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Chapter number two, continuing with some things about false teachers. Now, it's important for you to see these things. There's a lot of people, believe it or not, even Bible believers, who think that the Bible is just a list of rules and regulations of do's and don'ts, and there's some of those things that are in there, but there's a lot more in the Bible than just do's and don'ts. And there are certain warnings that are in the Bible that are not sounded very often that have a tendency to lean toward our own inability to understand things as well as we might think we understand things. The Lord always cautions us about our human nature. and telling us that we're more susceptible to deception than we think we are, and knows how we're susceptible to that, and that has to do with fair words, and it has to do with vain words, and things that have a tendency to appeal to the nature of your flesh. Your flesh is at enmity with God. There is nothing in your flesh that's any good. Your soul has been cut away from your body, and so as a result, your soul is a different entity than your flesh. Just because you got your flesh here this morning and just because maybe you read your Bible this morning and prayed this morning and you're in a church service this morning, don't let your flesh fool you into thinking that your flesh is now under control. The only time your flesh will ever be under control is the minute it hits the box or the rapture. But until then, it'll never be under control. And to see it any other way is to not give the proper, I guess you would say, leeway to understanding that even after you're saved, your flesh is gonna derail you if it's given one opportunity to do so. And when it comes to hearing, that's what's important. Now, I'll try to explain this to you in a way that doesn't come across as too offensive. Somebody said the other day, you just seem so dogmatic about some of these things. And I guess when you get immersed in it, you may become across that way. I don't intend to be offensive in coming across that way, but I am dogmatic about it. and that is that your ears are corrupted because you watch so much of the television, you listen to so much of the news, and you may not be watching our things that are pornographic in nature, and you might not be doing that, but listening to all the talk shows, listening to all the politics, listening to all the slant of everybody's internet sites and all these other things that go on, it has a tendency to creep in and corrupt your ability to hear truth the way it's supposed to be presented. And truth is supposed to be presented straight, but you don't ever hear it straight anymore. What you hear is, is there's always an angle. A lot of the people that are talking nowadays could fall through a barrel of fish hooks and come out on the other side and be unscathed. Like a friend of mine used to say, they're as messed up as a pile of coat hangers. You have to realize, ladies and gentlemen, that that stuff's done intentionally to corrupt how you hear truth. So, if we were to use the analogy, say for instance, of a filter. If your filter is clogged, then what comes in, bits and pieces get through, but because the filter is jammed up, depending to what extent the filter is jammed up, as to how much of that stuff manages to get through. it's sort of sifted down. So if you only get bits and pieces of the truth as it begins to come in, then you get a distorted view of the truth. Like in the old days, they had the fair downtown, they used to call them carnivals, and they would have this thing called a house of mirrors. And you can walk in there and you can get any kind of view you want. If you want to look skinny, they put you in front of one kind of mirror. If you want to look fat, they put you in front of another kind of mirror. If you want to look like you're shattered in a million pieces, you go in front of another kind of a mirror. And that's why the Bible's likened unto a mirror. Because it should give you the correct view. But if you have a distorted mirror, then you get a distorted view. So if the Bible you have is not correct, then you get a distorted view. But if your vision is distorted because your heart is distorted, then what you do is, is when you hear something that's true, you filter it by what you're proliferated with all the time, meaning what you're constantly have pounded in you all the time. There's no way that a couple hours of preaching on a Sunday and on a Wednesday is going to be able to offset you listening. The average right now is, for newscasts, the average is three hours minimum per day per person that people listen to news broadcasts. Well, think about it for just a minute. Three hours a day, well, that's an hour in the morning when you're getting ready and then at lunchtime, you're having lunch or whatever it might be and you come home, watch six o'clock news, then you got to watch the evening news to see what's going on in the rest of the world. All that stuff is done to keep ratings up. Don't ever misunderstand that the reason for the news broadcast is to broadcast things for a monetary reason. If they were just giving you straight up news, ladies and gentlemen, they wouldn't be doing anything as far as advertising is concerned. That's all done to keep the ratings up so that they can sell advertising at a higher price. I don't know what you watch, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, it don't make any difference. Whichever one is in the top can charge the highest amount for the ratings for what you want to do with advertisement. Example, Super Bowl comes in. I don't know, some of you probably would know what the number is, but something like a million dollars for a minute because they know they're going to have the biggest audience that can never be had because it's the Super Bowl. They don't sell that same thing for a losing football team. a losing football team, they realize people are not going to watch it. I mean the diehard fans will watch it and that kind of a deal like that. But the difference of millions and millions and millions and millions of people watching and a few hundred thousand watching or 30 or 40 thousand watching is a big difference. So it all becomes a matter of crunching numbers. They're giving you news and the reason they're giving you news is because it boosts ratings, but they're giving you their slant on what the news is. they give you their opinion. So now what that does, how does that play out into the church, preacher? How does that play out? Well, when you get inundated with that stuff all the time and you listen to that all, it changes your ability to hear truth the way it's supposed to be, unadulterated, not perverted, not twisted, not turned with modern reasoning and modern thoughts. Nowadays, you get hit with so much stuff about transgender or something like that that you feel guilty about having, well, you have now transgender phobia. I don't have a phobia about it, it's just knows wrong. I know the Lord created Adam, the Lord created Eve, the Lord created male and female, created He them. Go back to Genesis. Well, you're just a Bible believer, you're just a complete idiot. I want you to listen to me, ladies and gentlemen, that has nothing to do with intellect, that has to do with common sense. What happens is, is intellect perverts you. See, it plays to your flesh, is the point I'm trying to make. Well, if you're smart now, and you got a degree in philosophy, or psychology, or psychiatry, if you get a hold of those things, what you wind up realizing is, is, oh well, Now that I've learned some of these things, I've learned about, like one lady said, I did believe in God until I went to college and I learned about all of the truths of evolution. And so now I have quit going to church and I quit reading the Bible because I realized that was just religion and that kind of a deal. She got education. Now, the Bible is real simple. The Bible is real simple. Trust Jesus Christ, go to heaven. Don't trust Jesus Christ, you go to hell. You don't go to the dirt. Your body goes to the dirt. Your soul goes somewhere else. If this is all we got, let me just say this to you. If you're only being saved from dirt, ladies and gentlemen, You're not being saved from anything. You're being saved, not just from hell, but from having to pay for the penalty of your sins in hell. Otherwise, you just get, well, just live and let live, and then when you die, you just cease to exist. What difference does it make anyway? Well, would you rather have heaven or dirt? Or would you rather have heaven or hell? I'll take heaven, thank you. Now some people won't. You say, why? They get educated. So what I want to try to point these things out to you is to show you the devil's very smart. The devil's not in the movie theater. He's got all them. He's not at the nightclub and stuff like that at night. He's not in the heroin addict's needle and in the dope smoker's joint and blunt and all the other kind of stuff like that. The devil is a religious being and he seeks worship. And so what he wants to do is, is he wants to pervert. He appears as an angel of light, his ministers as ministers of righteousness. You don't see ministers of righteousness at the movie theater. You don't see ministers of righteousness coming through the filth on your television or your internet. It's in pulpits. So the warning to Christians is, is that your deception can come even after you're saved. Your deception can come through the hearing gate by individuals that appear as ministers of righteousness. And the Lord warns you or cautions you because it'll be appealing to your flesh. Your flesh will like it. You'll say, well I like that. It appeals to me. He talks like he's intellectual. He talks like he's very smart. He doesn't holler and rant and rave and spit and snort and scream and act like I'm some dumb stupid redneck fell off the back of a turnip truck. I mean, he speaks to me like I'm educated, like I'm somebody special instead of the sinner that I am. This is what leads to all kind of things like Calvinism and hyper-dispensationalism and all those kind of things. You say, what is that? It's man trying to eradicate his nature. Meaning that after I'm saved, that nature is still there that wants to sin. Now I believe, I firmly believe that you get a reward for resisting, fighting sin. And God could have eradicated that when you got saved, but he didn't, did he? If you're honest, did he? Well, you know, you get older, you may not have some of the problems that you used to have when you were a younger man. But you still got problems. You have problems with envy and jealousy. And he says in the book of Psalms, not to envy sinners. Why? Well, I can't, but if the kids were here, I would say to the kids, I understand why they envy sinners. I mean, you look at the people that are successful nowadays. They're wicked and they're ungodly. They're making boatloads of money. They're not sick. Their health seems to be good. They don't have any hospital bills. They're living in multi-million dollar shacks and things like that. They got big, nice, fancy cars to drive. They got all the men, all the women they want. They got prestige. They got power. They got money. They got everything you can imagine. And then the Bible tells you don't envy them. Well, they look successful to me, but God's got a different way of defining what success is. Now, you live in a different time, ladies and gentlemen, and what I'm trying to say to you is that you can never not pay attention to your flesh and realize it can deceive you. And that's why God warns you all through the Bible, but especially even in the Pauline epistles, He's constantly warning you about false teachers, false preachers, false teachers, false preachers, and how they're going to come in. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Okay, so if you were the devil, how would you corrupt it? You'd take the Word of God and spin it to make you think you're being spiritual, but it's something that will be compatible with the rest of the world. Example, evolution or creationism? That's a rhetorical, I hope. Evolution or creationism? All right, creation, right? Well, unless you're a theistic evolutionist. And a theistic evolutionist, like Brother Dobson, that's out west and whose focus on the family has thousands and tens of thousands of followers, who says, now we understand clearly that God is the creator of all things, but we must learn how to be able to take science, Though the Bible says beware of science, falsely so called, we must be able to take science and we must be able to take the Bible and make them compatible and see what that does is it makes us all get along and the evolutionist is right and the creationist is right. No, the evolutionist is wrong and the creationist is right. But if you listen to enough of that spin, see, it's like, well, but see these good godly people say these things and they have all this education. No, no, you're missing it. You're saying that's why you're listening, but the truth is it makes your flesh more comfortable because it makes you more compatible with more people. So what we say is, is that, well, I believe that God created all things and I also believe the scientists approach to things. I mean, after all, the scientists have found out through certain things with carbon dating and all this other stuff that we've learned certain things. And so, let's be the better of both worlds. Why? Because it makes me feel more comfortable. That's what you have to caution yourself about. You have to constantly check that stuff on a regular basis because almost always it will not be the devil. It will be the devil that is using your flesh to make you feel more comfortable. Now, you live, like I said, in a strange time where if you believe anything dogmatically, you're considered something's wrong with you. They're ready to put you in a jail cell nowadays because, you know, you're just old-timey, you're just old-fashioned, and you won't change about anything, you're not up-to-date, you're not modern, you're uneducated, you're stupid, you're a cult, all the names that follow. Whenever anybody resorts to calling you name, it means their position is weak. If they ever come to you and you say, I believe what the Bible says in Genesis, and the first response they have is, where did you go to school? You got them on the ropes already. You know more without going to school than they know by going to school. They're intimidated by you because you know the Bible. And you believe the Bible and the Holy Spirit's given you light they don't have. Where did you go to school? Where do you live? All that other kind of stuff. What difference does that make? We're not talking about that. We're talking of creation and evolution. Now, if you believe in evolution, then you're a fool. You can't say that. Well, how come you quit coming from monkeys? Not only that, if you're continuing to evolve, how come we're living less than we used to live and how come we're falling apart faster than we used to, if you're evolving? It doesn't even hold any… But see, you're intimidated by that. Well, they really study. They really, so? Have you ever studied the works of, say, Mao Zedong? Have you ever read Hitler's Mein Kampf? You should sit down, it's a boring book. It's a book about himself, but have you ever, you say, why would you read that stuff? To show you what can happen to an individual that gets caught up in their own mind and their own theology. But they're not ignorant. They're very intelligent. He wrote that book and led an entire nation astray. caused two world wars, one and two. He wasn't an idiot. Demon possessed though he might have been, he wasn't an idiot. He convinced people to murder over six million Jews. That's pretty convincing, right? Because he convinced individuals that the Jew were vermin and so on and so forth and it wasn't just the Jews. It was everybody who wasn't like him. Everybody. First thing he did, he went into the nursing homes and places like that and people that were unable to do anything. You might not know this about him. He went in and he put all them people to death. He killed them all. They were in a wheelchair, they couldn't get around. He went in all the mental institutions and took all them people out and he eradicated every one of them. He either turned them loose in society for them to just eventually die on their own or he killed all them. He killed black people and he killed queers. He killed anybody that was not of that race, though he had Jewish blood in him too, which is kind of humorous, but that's one of those facts they kept covered up for a long time. I guess he got it straightened out along the way. What I'm trying to say to you is, is that he appealed to a bunch of people's flesh. What's in it for them? What's in it for them? What's in it for them? And if being in it for me means somebody else has to die for me to live, then let them die as long as I'm not the one dying. That's the epitome of the flesh. That's the Bible. Skin for skin, all that a man hath he'll give for his life. I have pictures in the library. I have pictures of Jewish men putting to death Jewish women and children. Putting them in the ovens and burning them alive. Killing them and then taking them out and burying them. You say, how could he do it? Skin for skin, all that a man hath he'll give for his life. How could somebody do that to stay alive? They justify it. I don't know how they live with their self, but they justify it. All right, Colossians chapter number two. Now that has to do with, I'm gonna show you this, and Lord willing, I'm gonna show you, it has to do with false teachers, false preachers, but always remember in the back of your mind, if it's appealing to your flesh, most likely, most likely, it's not the Lord. Preaching should make your flesh crawl. Biblical teaching should make your flesh uncomfortable. That's not what's taught nowadays. Well, I feel guilty. Good. You're supposed to when you do wrong. But you shouldn't stay under that guilt. Get it right, put it under the blood, and then move on. Now you got this false sense of guilt where I did something wrong. Okay, good. Join the crowd. It'll keep you from walking around with your head too high up in the air. Everybody's messed up. Okay, well I messed up. Okay, good. Fess up. Take the responsibility and repercussions for what comes and let's move on. And don't let the devil put you under guilt and keep you under guilt and people want to remind you of your past all the time and all that other kind of stuff. They're trying to control you. No, I'm not doing that. Well, you've been married or you've done this or you did that and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, thank the Lord I'm not that way anymore and he forgave me and I'm moving on. Don't let the devil hold you down. You have to watch the stuff that, oh, you know, preacher, I came there, I felt worse than I did. Okay, well, why don't you get right about what you felt worse about? Instead of, well, I don't think that's what church is about. No, that's what modern churches aren't about, but that's not what a biblical church is about. This is about you getting a relationship with Jesus Christ. And He warns you. Colossians chapter number two, verse number four. And this I say, lest any man should beguile you. How? With enticing words. That's words to try to get you, like a car salesman. You need this car. You gotta have this car. This car is the best car. Boy, this car really fits you. Boy, you really look good in that car. Boy, I bet the chicks would love to see you in that car. Boy, I bet it'd really be something for you. I mean, after all, isn't the car you drive a representation of who you are and the success that you have? No, it just means I got good credit. Or it just means that the bank hadn't found me yet. They don't know where I'm living because I'm all over the place and they hadn't been able to find me to repo the car yet. It don't mean nothing. You say, what is it? It doesn't mean anything. In the day's day and time, ladies and gentlemen, you can't tell the substantialness of somebody's wealth by what they drive or where they live. They might just have really good credit. And there's nothing wrong with them having that. And God help you if you're on the back side of that and you're trying to put on some kind of an air because your car's a rolling rust bucket and you won't wax it and won't wash it and won't take care of it and won't keep it clean and won't do things right in the name of being spiritual. No, you're just lazy. You don't want to work and get a car that runs. Then take the bus. But that having or not having doesn't make you spiritual. Enticing words. Notice this. For though I be absent in the flesh, verse five, yet I am with you in spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ, Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. We covered this a little bit on Wednesday night. Rooted and built up in him. Establish what you say. The main focal point of Paul is in him, in him, in him, in him, in him. It's all through that. If you look over there in chapter number 1, you'll see verse 15. You'll see through His blood in 14. You'll see who is the image. You'll see 16 by Him. You'll see for Him, by Him and for Him in 16. Verse 17, for He and by Him. Verse 18, for He is. Verse 18, He might have the preeminence. Verse 19, in Him. Now you see how contrary? Verse 20, by Him. Verse 21, He reconciled. Verse 22, His sight. And it comes on down through that whole thing. You see how contrary that is to your flesh? You see how contrary that is to most preaching nowadays? Most preaching nowadays is you, you, you, you. What's in it for you? What's in it for you? That's not biblical preaching. Biblical preaching is, it's supposed to be a reconciliation of you in fellowship with the Father through Jesus Christ. Well you can't have fellowship with the Father if you're not having fellowship with the Son. So your relationship with Jesus Christ is the most important thing in your life after you get saved and keeping things between you and Him the way it's supposed to be is the only protection you have against all of a sudden somebody coming in and saying, well, this is about you and we're going to preach to you about you. No, it's by Him, by Him, by Him. The main theme of the Bible, of Bible preaching, is Jesus Christ. The main theme of modern preaching is people. All right, now notice what he says. Rooted and built up in him, verse 7, established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy, vain deceit, tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world. And notice, not after what? So he is the one that winds up setting the example. 2 Thessalonians chapter number 2. 2 Thessalonians 2. You never hold up a man as your example. You hold up Jesus Christ as the example. You never say, well, the preacher, or the pastor, or the deacon, or the trustee, they might be good people to follow after, or good examples to follow, or something like that. But you never hold them above Jesus Christ. You don't preach a sermon on the preacher. You don't preach a sermon on the pastor. You don't preach a sermon on the orchestra, or the piano player, or the organ player, or the Sunday school teacher. You preach sermons about Jesus Christ and your relationship to him. That's all that matters. When you hit eternity, if you were to kick off today, die today, whatever you want to call it, no disrespect, if you were to die today, you'll be absent from the body if you're saved and present with the Lord. Now, it's got to be a tremendous feeling to be able to get up there and all of a sudden be in the presence of Jesus Christ, but then to have the momentary thought of, well, how come I didn't spend my life making it about Him instead of me? Selfishness, pride. You know, sin is actually worse than the devil itself. Because sin is what made the devil. What was the sin? Pride. Made it about him, made it about him, made it about him, made it about him, made it about him. That's a dangerous thing to do. Any church that makes it about you instead of Jesus Christ is not going to be pleasing to your flesh. You have to learn to discern that. No, my flesh didn't like it, but there's something inside me that said, boy, that stuff was right. You know, yeah, it made me mad as a hornet, and yeah, I got frustrated, but that was my flesh that got mad. Inside, the Holy Spirit's jumping up and down saying, praise the Lord, hallelujah, glory to God, boy, ain't this a blessing. Aren't we having a good time? And the flesh is going, no, I ain't having a good time at all. Well, shut up and have a good time on my behalf. I'm gonna make you speak up for Jesus Christ. I'm gonna make you shout for Jesus Christ. I'm gonna make you praise the Lord. I don't wanna make you praise the Lord. Well, I'm gonna whip you till you do. I'm going to drag you down there to that altar and I'm going to make you get down there and humble yourself and bow your head and bend your knee. I'm going to make you get down there and you're going to do that. Why? Because it's pleasing to the Lord. That's why. But don't ever thank your flesh, you know, when you grab it by the nap of the neck and drag it down there and it gets up. And thanking your flesh is like, okay, we're good now. That's just your flesh saying, don't do that anymore. I didn't like that. 2 Thessalonians chapter number 2, I gave you this on Wednesday night also. He says, let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, the man of sin be revealed, son of perdition. He's warning you again. There's going to come a falling away. Do I have to fall away? No. How will I fall away? I'll be led astray by the words of men through vain philosophy, through vain deceit, through things that are appealing to my flesh. And in this case, it has to do with all power signs and lying wonders. Why? It's appealing to the flesh. Heal me now. Fix me now. Straighten me out now. Take care of my financial problem now. Take care of my marriage now. Take care of my family now. Take care of my divorce. Do something for me now, now, now, now. in preaching, biblically, is not worrying about so much the now as it is the hereafter. What about then? What about then? What about then? For we know all things work together for good of them love God, them are the called according to his purpose. And the Lord puts you through different things like that to still make you close. Listen, listen, if all there was to being in Christ was joy down here, there'd be no point in going to heaven. You know what the Lord does? He makes this place sometimes a veil of tears for you, makes this place so miserable you don't wanna hang around anymore. You get a few people on the other side over there, you go through different troubles and difficulties and problems. You might be on the top of the heap right now, but trust me, you ain't gonna be there forever. Sooner or later, you're gonna come tumbling down. A family member's gonna die, a family member, something's gonna happen to them. You're gonna be back and you're gonna be thinking, well, boy, that sure was good while I was up there, but I would rather not have this. If I get to have that, I'd rather just get out of here. your eyes on eternity. Paul says, set your affections on things where? Above. Set your affections on things where? Where moth and rust doth not corrupt. He says, set your affections on things above. Why? Because that's what's important. Amen. Keep you living right down here to think about where I'm going thereafter. Now, modern preaching doesn't do that. Modern preaching promises to get you out of trouble now. You come here and the preaching goes something like this. You're a mess. And if you fix the mess today, you'll be a mess tomorrow. And you're always going to be a mess. And no matter how good you do, you're still going to mess up. You need Jesus. Prepare to die. It's like, well, fix me now. I can't promise you. The Bible says you're going to have tribulation in these days. You're going to have things going good now. Enjoy it while you can. Smoke them if you got them. But I hate to tell you, it ain't going to last forever. Really? A preacher's job is to prepare you for when it ain't going good. Anybody in here have it go good all the time besides the babies? The babies got it made, man. All they do is cry. Somebody's changing them or stuffing a bottle in their mouth. I mean, it don't get no better. They cry. Somebody holds them. Somebody wraps them in a blanket. Somebody fans them and cools them off. I mean, babies have got it made. But after you get past, you get a reality of life. After a while, it's kind of like feed yourself. And now wash your own dishes. And take care of your own business in the bathroom. You mean somebody's not going to do all that for me? You know, nope. Welcome to life. Dress yourself. And now go out and get a job. And you're going to have to go out and work. You mean somebody's not going to provide it? No, no, we're not. And then if you don't get saved, you're going to go to hell on top of that. Well, that's not very positive. Yeah, that's why nobody wants to preach it. They don't care if you go to hell, they just want to build another building. I realize we may get to a point we need a building here, but I've said before, Preacher, what's the need around here? What's the need around here? We gotta pay off what we got. I'm not putting up there. We'll put a tent up if we have to. We'll have three services if we have to. But I'm not gonna do anything to bankrupt the place. We got stuff to pay for. You got a soundboard right now that's about to go on the blitz. You got people that depend on this stuff. Brother Brad will read you a letter that are all over the country. They depend on the broadcast thing or whatever the deal is. Stuff wears out. That's been up there 10 or 11 years. It's wore out. It's not big enough to do whatever it is we need to have done to transmit it some kind of gigabyte thing or whatever to get it to where it's got to go or it cracks and it moans and it whines and all that kind of stuff. It's held together with duct tape and all that other stuff. Well, what do you got to do? Well, we take care of that and then take care of the responsibilities around here. Once it's paid for, then we'll put it before you again and say, okay, here's the building plan. We'll say, well, what are we doing in the meantime? We're enjoying parking on blacktop. I don't know if y'all enjoy that or not, but I like it. And a lady out the other day, she's taking pictures. I said, sister, what are you doing? She said, I'm taking pictures of my parking space. I said, well, that's a blessing. And she said, yes, it is. And after parking in rocks all the time, it was a real blessing to have that with strike parking lot. They're proud of the parking lot. Good, enjoy God's blessing, but we got to pay for it. What do we give the money for? To pay for the stuff we got. But we ain't going to go stretching out no more. If you're looking for another mausoleum to be put up or a monstrosity, you can forget it until there's enough in the bank to pay for what we got. Pay off the mortgage. I want to have a mortgage burning. I really do. I'm not kidding you. I'm not joking. I'm saying it publicly so you can hold me accountable. We'll take care of necessary items, but I'm not gonna put up another stick out there. Get you somebody else that's gonna put you in $2 million worth of debt. I ain't doing it. We'll get somebody else to put us a bill. Get them. Fine. I'll go find somewhere else, but if I'm here, we're not building. You say, why? We got bills to pay. Pay it off. The sooner you get it paid off, the quicker we'll do whatever else is next. You might build a tabernacle. I don't know. Alright, 2 Thessalonians. I already gave you that one. 2 Thessalonians 2. 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. Preacher, what's your vision for the church? Pay off what we got. You still got a mortgage on this place. And you got a parking lot. Pay it off. A preacher, if we can take the finances and we can work this and do that, then we can wind up the, okay, well you do it however you want to do it, that ain't the way the Lord's leading me. We got all we're gonna have until the rapture, death, or payoff. The rest of us just maintaining what we got. We'll keep it clean, we'll keep it nice, we'll do the repairs that need to be done, we'll keep it weeded and chopped and cut and all that stuff, but until then, payoff. So relax. You don't have to worry about me putting no box. Give if you got it. If you don't, sit on it. Do whatever you want to do with it. I don't care. See, I got no pressure at all. I don't believe I can handle it. I don't think I'm spiritual. Some of you folks think I am. I don't think I can handle the pressure of two millions worth of dollars over my head worrying about whether or not people are giving or not giving. I couldn't handle it. I'd be calling him every day, probably three times a day. Any money come in? Any money come in? We got enough money to come in? We have enough coming in at the end of the month? And people say, well, you know, you just have to learn to trust God. Well, you trust him. Go out and buy a million dollar house and make the first few payments and then see how that works out for you. That's a long term commitment, man. 30 years? I don't have 30 years left. I'd hate to spend 30 years of the remaining part of my life, 30 years trying to pay off something. Right when I get it paid off, I kick off and go to heaven. What a drag. I'd rather leave it in somebody's hands in good shape out of debt. Give them the liberty of being able to do what needs to be done. I'm telling you my vision for the future. Pay it off. Pay the cotton picking thing off. First Timothy, if you will please, chapter number 3. First Timothy 3, verse number 6. Oh, make it 5. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into condemnation of the devil. Now you want to pay particular attention to that, not a novice. What is not a novice? It's not somebody that hasn't been properly trained. Now some people are going to get upset at what I'm about to say here, but I'm not generally let that stop me in the past. You wouldn't take your car to be worked on, especially if it was a nice car, to a mechanic that has not been trained. I wouldn't go get my hair cut unless somebody had been to school and knew how to cut hair. or put the straight razor on you. I wouldn't go up in an airplane, especially a big one, but a little one, unless somebody had been to school and trained as a pilot. How come it is when it comes to the Bible, it's like, well, we don't really care, the guy's got a Bible under his arm, he's got on a suit and tie, we're good. You need to know where somebody was trained. You need to know what they believe. You need to know why they believe it. Just because they got a whole bunch of followers on YouTube, that doesn't mean they're not a novice. A novice, you say, what is that? That's somebody that has no experience. It doesn't mean just knowledge. It means experience. It means time in the battle. It means time in the captain's chair. It means time doing more than just working down in the pit down there in the, what do they call the little thing, I forgot the name of it, down there when you're on a fishing boat and you're working in the, what's the thing down there? know where you make the bait and stuff. First mate, when you're working down there is the mate. You're the one always making up the bait and stuff like that and you're throwing out the bait and you're hand lining the fish coming in and stuff like that because they yank on it too quick or they don't yank on it quick enough or whatever and you're trying to get the fish in and send all that other kind of stuff. You have to not just be the first mate, you have to have time in the chair. experience, experience the rough seas, experience when I can't find the fish, experience what it's like to pay the bills, to have the gasoline to run the boat, to have the money to buy the bait, to be able to update the fishing poles and the fishing lines and all that other kind of stuff. All you are is just somebody that shows up for work and you get up there and you swab the deck and then you make the bait up and then you You take care of all the guys out there and you clean their fish and that kind of a deal. And then you go to the house while the captain's sitting there sweating over the log book and figuring out how much money he's got to make the boat payment, to bid all the fuel at the dock, to be able to buy the bait, to be able to buy the leaders, to be able to buy the fishing poles, to be able to drum up business, to be able to get the marketing. You don't know nothing about that. Well, I've been first mate for 10 years. Really? How come you're still the first mate for 10 years? because you don't know anything about it. That's a novice. Somebody that doesn't know anything about it. Now, you don't trust it when it comes to medical stuff or dentist. I don't even let nobody work on my teeth that hadn't been to school. You say, well, anybody can work on your teeth. Okay, you trust your teeth. My teeth hurt when somebody messes with them. I can't stand it, especially when they get that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz And somebody's gonna pull your teeth and all. Well, back in the days, you don't live in the days of the Wild West. You know, back in the day, yeah, they used to knock them out with hammers. Well, ain't that a blessing? Oh, well, you got some roots there and some abscess. Well, what are you gonna do? I don't know, take your jaw out, I guess. I mean, you know, I just know I've seen, I saw somebody doing it. I figured that's how you did it. You hit it with a hammer and chisel. No, that's what you do when you're spelunking for rocks. That's not what you do when, oh, I thought they were the same, you know. You got a cavity, what do you do? You just pull the tooth out. And the next thing you know, you're a toothless wonder all the time. You know, you got all kind of problem. No original thought can find its way into your brain. If it did, it'd get lost in there and die of loneliness. That's funny. Laugh at yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, but here's the thing. He's warning you that if it's going to be somebody to teach you, they're not to be a novice. Somebody that's been around some people, somebody that's learned some things, you say, why? You may not get what I'm about to say, but they're given the responsibility of watching for your soul, not your flesh. They're given the responsibility of watching out for your outcome at the judgment seat of Christ. That's a serious responsibility. That means when you preach, you have to be preaching to souls, not to flesh. And you've pleased the flesh, you ruin them in eternity. Well, you know, preacher, you know you upset people. Well, we'll see. The thing hadn't been played out yet. You wait till you get to eternity, you get to the judgment seat of Christ, and you'll realize, okay, well, he was right, and I was wrong about that. But that's what he warned you about. Not a novice. Not just anybody. Pay attention to who you learn from. You might pick up some fleas. You might pick up some wrong teaching, some wrong doctrine. You want to be real careful about that kind of stuff. All right, 1 Timothy chapter number 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4. You're all familiar with this passage here. Verse 1, Spirit speaketh expressly, in a latter time some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, doctrines of devils, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meat. It's all that stuff's fault. Now watch. Verse number 6. And there's your verse on dietary laws in verse 4. Somebody asked me that the other day. I thought I had given it out, but at any rate, there it is for you. Every creature of God is good enough to be refused if it be received with prayer and thanksgiving. You know what he just said to you? You're not under the law. You don't have to worry about dietary laws. In the Old Testament, if you didn't keep the law, you could die because you ate shrimp and lobster. All right, now notice verse number six. If thou put brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ. Did you see what a good minister is? It has nothing to do with how many people. It has nothing to do with how many buildings. It has nothing to do with how much recognition. If you put people in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ. How? Nourished up in the words of faith and of what? Oh, how about that? Who would have thought that's in the Bible? He said, good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. In other words, he's saying success in his eyes is, is you give the people the words and you give them doctrine. Now, again, it's bad to make comparisons all the time, but you don't hear doctrine preached anymore because nobody is definitive on anything. We had a couple of kids came in. We were here pretty late on Wednesday night. They were doing some work around here and stuff and I had a couple of meetings and I'm in here and a couple of kids come by and they want to invite all you to a special presentation of something in September downtown at the the big deal about the Christmas play and so on and so forth. And so I listened to them. I was kind. I took their packet of information and stuff like that and they had a handful of free tickets and all that kind of a deal and it's a free concert but the people that are putting on the concert travel all over the United States so it ain't free. You come there and take it out of your local church but give it to them because they're going all over the place. Some of you got it and some of you didn't. You come down here and it's a free concert. Okay, then why are you making me feel bad for not putting something in the play? Well, you know, they have responsibilities and they have travel expenses. I thought you said it was free. But anyway, they got down, they got to talking to me and that kind of thing. And I said, can I ask you a question? And I said, what denomination are you? Oh, we're non-denominational. I said, OK. So what denomination did you come from? You didn't start off non-denomination. Well, I think we're independent Baptists. I said, you're independent Baptists, or you're non-denominational? Or you're independent Baptists because you came to an independent Baptist church, and then if you go down the street, you're Southern Baptist. You go down the street, you're Catholic. I said, what does that mean? Well, I said, do you know what an independent Baptist is? Well, no. I said, well, then how do you know what you are? I said, you're non-denominational. What is a denomination? No doctrine at all. Don't know anything about what they believe. Their pastor has them on a Wednesday night going to churches because, quote, we know that some people still gather on a Wednesday night and we have a chance to get into their churches and see them. They didn't come to church for the service. They didn't come for the preaching. They came after the service. You say, well, they were just soliciting you to a free concert. Soliciting is correct. Free is not correct. They're out here passing it out so that they can get a bunch of people to come down there in the name of putting out the gospel to give money to the people to go all over the creation. Now you do with that whatever you want to do with that. No doctrine. No doctrine. No doctrine. There's no way you can put on a Christmas story play and not have doctrine in it. Not do it right. And the place down south, you know, they have this big shindig where they have all, you know, you come through, and I know, absolutely know from the horse's mouth, they don't want them giving a definitive gospel. I have all that big conglomeration, but they don't want to tell anybody they're going to go to hell if they don't trust Jesus Christ. What is that? Doctrine. But preacher, look at all the people they're drawing. Outhouses draw flies too. I don't mean to be offensive to you, ladies and gentlemen. I've sat at many a shindig, especially over in Alabama, and they got coconut cake there. I mean, it looks covered up with flies. You'd think it's got raisins on it. And you go over there, like that, and they all, like, and they fly away. I've seen flies on a coconut cake, and I've seen flies around the outhouse. You never determine a substance by the amount of flies gathered. If that's the case, there weren't many flies gathered around Jesus. I talked to you about that last week, didn't I? You guys going to go too? You also offended? You all going to leave me too? Because they didn't like his W-O-R-D-S. How dare you? He lost over 5,000 people in one church split. That passage starts off with him feeding 5,000 just men, not counting women and children, folks. And by the time he gets done talking, there's 12 of them left. One of them's a devil. That's mentioned in John 6, 7. You know what he says to them? Y'all gonna leave me too? Because of what I said? I'm trying to educate you. You say, why preacher? To at least give you the choice. That's my job. Educate you, give you both sides, and then you decide. It's not to persuade you against your own will. The Lord gives you a choice. Jesus Christ is hanging on a cross. You want to go to heaven? You trust Jesus Christ. If you don't, okay, fine, you have to go to hell. His job is to present himself to give you a choice. Free will. You don't want to go to heaven? Don't trust Jesus Christ. Go to hell. It's that simple. I don't know why people make it so difficult. You want to go to heaven, you trust Jesus Christ. You want to go to hell, trust your religion, trust your stars, trust your astrological sign, trust your mother, your grandmother, trust your daddy was a preacher, trust somebody in your family was so and so. Here's a good one for you. Trust you're a good person. In the eyes of who? You got the morals of an alley cat. Verse number 7. but refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto what? Well, how about that? Refuse those things? That's what he said to do. Do you see it? Well, my grandmama believed in that. He said refuse it. Let me give you one more. I'm going to cover that a little bit more tonight. 2 Timothy chapter number 1. 2 Timothy chapter number 1. I realize that this is somewhat offensive to some of you. I understand that. I realize some of you, you know, you just get bored to tears with this stuff because you've already decided, you're so smart, you don't need anybody to tell you what to listen to. And when I make a statement like that, you get frustrated. Who does he think he is to tell me that? Well, why aren't you listening? Why aren't you listening? Because you already know it all? I got a friend of mine right now, and he's got a real mess going on. And in that situation right there, I said, well, brother, what's the problem with so-and-so and so-and-so? And he said, well, you know, the guy that's teaching is so-and-so. And I said, OK, well, what's the problem with that? And he said, well, this particular individual just don't like him. I said, you sure it's just he doesn't like him, or he don't think he can teach him anything? And he said, well, he thinks he knows more than the guy teaching. I said, well then there's no way to fix it. I said, the guy's envious and jealous of the guy that's doing the teaching and he thinks he knows more so he shows his distaste for the guy that's standing up there teaching because he thinks he knows more than them so he doesn't come whenever the guy's teaching. The reason he doesn't listen is he can't be taught. And then he lets everybody in the congregation know I don't come when they're teaching. They can't teach me nothing. I already know all that. I'm not letting some kid teach me anything. Okay. Well, you can learn something about humility and pride, can't you? Can you learn some things about Christian character and learn to sit down and shut up? No, I guess not. You're too smart for your own britches. 2nd Timothy. Sometimes you have to learn lessons that are not taught out of a book. Alright, 2nd Timothy, chapter number 1, verse number 14. That good thing which is committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me. Hmm, wonder why, of whom are Phlogia, Phlogelos, excuse me, and Hermogenes. Well, who are they? They're purveyors of false doctrine, all millennial teaching. They turned an entire continent away. They're good teachers. I'll show them to you. Look in 2 Timothy chapter 4. Same thing happens in 3, Janus and Jambres. Then notice in verse 10, chapter 4, verse 10. For Demas hath forsaken me, why? Loving this present world, and departed unto Thessalonica, Corinthians to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Luke is only with me. Look in verse number 16. It becomes epidemic. Make it 14. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works. Of whom be thou where also? For he hath greatly withstood our..." Well, preacher, you know, you shouldn't be worried about that. I mean, you know, live and let live, no big deal. You know what he's saying? Somebody destroyed him, not with actions, with words. Verse 16, at my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. I don't know whether I could be quite that spiritual, but he's saying that people lead others astray with the wrong words. That's why he cautions you. What are the words? Words that are appealing to your flesh. Words that are appealing to your own sensitivities. Sometimes you say things that have shock value to them just to find out how closely related people are to the world. Like you make a joke, say, for instance, about, oh, the boy that used to be on the Wheaties box, Bruce Jenner, is now on a box of Froot Loops. The correct response to that is laughter. When I'm a preacher, he just really can't help it. He's been struggling. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. No, he has not been struggling. He wasn't struggling when he was a gold medalist in the Olympics. He wasn't. Somebody put that thought in his mind. Somebody kept working with that thing. Somebody kept messing with that thing. And he kept tweaking it and tweaking it and listening and listening and watching and watching and listening until his mind became subverted. and twisted, and then the next thing you know, he starts justifying himself and saying, well, maybe I'll find... What's he looking for? What I'm going to preach on this morning? He's looking for happiness. He's trying to overcome the guilt. So now he wants you to accept him. I don't accept you. Well, that's not the way Jesus would be. What kind of Jesus you got? I didn't say I would do anything to him. I have, I have, I respect his right to do whatever he wants to do. He wouldn't do it in any other country but here. He wouldn't do it in Saudi Arabia. They'd solve his problem. They would sever his brain problem from his head, from his body and say, you're fixed now. But does it over here? I respect that. But I don't have to go along with it. Now see? Now see? Your flesh is saying, well now preacher, you can't be definitive about that. Well, you go ahead and raise your kids that way. And now you know what you got? You got a Congress and a Senate and a President and everybody else that's saying, don't say boys and girls anymore. Let them decide who they are. And we let anybody in whatever bathroom they want to go to. Your whole nation's headed down the tube. You say, why? Because we want to make sure we don't upset anybody. You can't live life without upsetting somebody. I don't understand this. I don't understand why it is that we're all of a sudden supposed to be worried about somebody getting their feelings hurt and somebody getting bullied and somebody getting upset and all that other kind of stuff. There's this bully alert all the time. Let me fix your bully alert on the internet for you. You ready? Don't get on there. Then you don't have to worry about being bullied. What are you attacking the bully for? Stop going on the internet. You want to have a problem, get all the drug dealers. Stop using drugs. Why do you make it about the drug dealer? It ain't the drug dealer's fault that you're a dopehead. You're a dopehead because you keep going to the drug dealer. Well, if you take the drug dealer, you still have a dopehead. Brother Woodard will let them in in a minute. I don't understand, ladies and gentlemen, I don't understand why, when I went to school, people made fun of me. They mocked me, belittled me, made fun of me, laughed at me, joked about me. They said all kind of crazy stuff. I mean, I was redheaded, man, my hair was so red, it looked like I was on fire, man, just flame on, you know, that thing would get red. And they automatically assumed I had a bad temper because I was redheaded. Now, all redheads have a problem with temper. And I actually was quite timid and I was quite shy. And I had freckles on me and I was as white as a sheet of notebook paper. And they made fun of me. And when I played ball, they laughed at me. And they joked about me. How come these people nowadays, don't anybody make fun of anybody and hurt their feelings? Why? Well, how come they get protection? I didn't get no protection. Nobody protected me from that stuff. I got up in school, you know, and I got a few zits on my face and things like that, and people made fun of me about my zits on my face. And nowadays, if you do that, you're in the principal's office. They expel you from school for talking about that. Man, I had it. They didn't do nothing to me. They made me go home and scrub my face harder. I got sandpaper out one time. I figured if I can't get, you know, the bumps off, I'll just knock them down and make them smooth. When you're a kid, man, you get desperate. You'll do anything you can, including going to get the bondo out of the cabinet and try to, you know, fill in the holes and things like that. I don't understand your society nowadays. This touchy-feely, I'm never supposed to be offended. And now you've grown up into the church. And so now when a preacher gets up and preaches the Bible, you get your butt on your... pardon me, you get upset and you get mad. I should have said, I'm in it. And you walk out the door because something, somebody said. or somebody didn't shake your hand, or somebody didn't speak to you, or somebody didn't do something. That's a generation right now of spoiled, stinking brats. Mom and Daddy can't spank a kid anymore because, you know, it might warp them or something. You're supposed to warp them. They're whacked out. You say, now you're advocating spanking. Stop that. You do whatever you want to do. I'm saying you've raised a generation of spoiled brats that are now in the church now. And so now if a preacher speaks with any kind of definitive words at all, then all of a sudden it's like, they're not supposed to offend anybody. We're not supposed to be offended. I'm supposed to go through. So now you can't make... Listen, when I was going to school, if you were effeminate, you didn't show it. And if you were a butch, you didn't show it. I'm giving you Bible. We made fun of them. You say, why? Because you're making fun of them. They ain't making fun of you. I don't know where they get this special pass nowadays of, you know, you don't get to be made fun of. If somebody came in when I was going to school and had purple hair, we'd laugh at them. Tell them to go get some purple haze or something else or, you know, go get some bleach and get that stuff off your head. What's wrong with you? But nowadays, you don't do it. Nowadays, you come to church and you've grown up now that way, except for you older people. And nobody can say anything, and nobody, you know, and they send you to HR classes all the time to learn how to deal with people and how to cope with people, and then send you to classes, and when you stop somebody, may I ask you, would you like to be called ma'am or sir? I'm not kidding you. What do you mean, would you like to be called ma'am or sir? Your license says David Peacock, doesn't say Davette. I'm calling you sir. Among maybe some other things if you act whacked out. What's this I don't want to be offended stuff? I see old people getting that way now. You were raised up in a tough generation. Some of you folks came through World War I or World War II. I mean you came through a hard time and you're so easily offended because somebody talks straight to you anymore. You hear a joke and the response to your joke is wrong. Your response to the joke is almost defensive of the individual that's doing something that's not right. And the truth is, is that you're manifesting yourself over them and you're not upset at that about that. You feel like you're being picked on. Well, maybe you need to get picked on. The guys I came up around, they picked on me unmercifully. You came in, you were praying it wasn't your day in the barrel. If it's your day in the barrel, they'd embarrass you in front of everybody at roll call. They didn't care. They didn't care. Nowadays, how do you have military nowadays? You're so worried about somebody offending somebody in the military. But I'm not kidding you, man. In those days, you would just sit there and say, oh man, I hope today's not the day. And you loved it if it was somebody else's. You might even jump in there and help them out a little bit. Yeah, you should be talking about them. You say, wow, you knew your day was coming. You get in the gym and stuff like that and you couldn't do something, they'd laugh at you until you're just about in tears. And make fun of you and call you everything you can possibly be called. I'm going to turn you into the sergeant because you're making names and making faces at me. They just sit there and watch you. Let the bar sit on your chest a while until you learn you ain't going to make it in this life without me so you better suck it up and take it every now and then.