to have our seats. We're going to go ahead and get started to this morning.
We're going to get started on our first hymn.
Song number 266.
Song 266. My faith has found a resting place.
Song 266
My faith has found a resting place not in device nor creed I trust the ever-living one
His words for me shall plead, I need no other argument, I need no other plea.
It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. Enough for me that Jesus saves, this ends my fear.
sinful soul I come to him he'll never cast me out I need no other argument I
need no other plea it is enough that Jesus died
Salvation by my Saviour's name, Salvation through His blood.
I need no other argument, I need no other plea.
It is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.
should for me his life he gave I need no other arguments I need no other plea it
is enough that Jesus died
Enrique, if you don't mind getting some bulletins and gentry. Thank you guys.
All right, today's May 25th. One more week and I think next week's already June 1st.
Something like that. Yeah, like we're already almost halfway through the year.
Right here on the left, we have all our contact info and then services, service times are Sunday
Soul winning is every Sunday at 2 p.m. Sunday evening 4 30 p.m. And then Wednesday services at 5 30
Pray for our expecting mother Cynthia Garcia, and then we have our last year's totals right there on the on the left-hand side
And then year to date souls one we have 144 souls one for the year
And we will be changing up even the bulletin a little brother mo was here all week he helped me out a ton as you guys can see we have some new audio equipment.
So if you see me point over this because we're trying out some new stuff but we'll actually do the memory chapter and then we'll we'll dole out some prizes for whoever memorizes stuff.
And then on the back just the prayer request pray for your sister Karen.
She's usually here. So if she's not here, something's up. And then I don't know if there's any updates on any of these
Are there any updates to the prayer list or the prayer requests that we need to add?
Pastor Cobb, is there anything that we need to add? I added Carl Evian Shelley
Okay, so we'll go ahead and remove that one
Okay. Yeah, we did add her and it's just as a real quick as a way of announcements, I mean, I kind of have to repeat myself because we have different groups. I'll repeat a little bit, but a couple of things.
I know, I didn't realize this, but the baby...
Whatever the baby room back here just try not to close that door because apparently it locks on itself
So just then we have to go into the other side and everything like that
And then you don't want your kids in there screaming and doing I'll tell you guys a story later about how my son
Locked my wife out of her house the first time we moved when we moved into our new house many years ago
And then he fell asleep while she waited for somebody to bring a key
That's a whole other story for the day, but and then the only other thing is back there
We cleaned up the rooms a little bit
but if the kids could just, I don't mind the kids playing, but just keep them away from the markers.
I think for right now, you know, we're starting to get a little bit of marking up on some of the
furniture and stuff like that. And what we're trying to do is actually remove access to that.
But if you see your kids with anything, just let me know and we'll put them away.
I mean crayons or crayons, that's a lot easier to take off.
And then of course, you know, just like anything, we have this area right here, the baby room
in the back.
So if your kids are, you know, just, I don't mind preaching through loudness, but if they
get a little bit too loud, then I have to scream really loud, so, you know, just work
on that.
But, and that goes for, for my family too, because my daughter could get my little two
and a half year old, she has a little bit of an attitude.
So that being said, if there are no other announcements, then we'll have Brother Moe
271, and I'll get that over for you real quick.
Take it out loud.
Alright, song number 271, Welling and Bula Land.
The voice of strife upon my ear is falling Then I know the sense of earth be set on every hand
Down in fear and things of earth and vain to me are calling
None of these shall move me
Underneath the cloudless sky I'm drinking at the fountain
That never shall run dry Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manner
From a bill to full supply For I am dwelling in Bula then
Sons of men in battle, long the enemy would stand,
say
sheltered here, protected by God's hand. Here the sun is always shining, here there's
not-can-harming. I am safe forever in Buchlauland. I'm living on the mountain underneath the
I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry, oh yes, I'm feasting on the bina,
from the bountiful supply for I am dwelling in Bula-Lan, viewing here the works of God
And boys I see the way he plans Dwelling in the spirit here I learn a full salvation
Gladly will I tarry and view the land I'm living on the mountain underneath the
more song before we get into the preaching we're going to sing song number 315 song 315 bringing in the
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing
the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, sowing in the sunshine, sowing
in the shadows, fearing neither clouds nor winter's chilling breeze, by and by the harvest
and the labor rented. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves.
the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves bringing
in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves going forth with weeping sewing
He will bid us welcome. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
if you would turn in your King James Bible to the book of Jeremiah we're gonna
be in Jeremiah chapter number 17 we'll read while the while we pass the
offering plate that's Jeremiah chapter number 17
The Bible reads, the sin of Judah is written with the pen of iron and with the point of
a diamond.
It is graven upon the table of their heart and upon the horns of your altars.
Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the
high hills, O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures
to the spoil and thy high places for sin throughout all thy borders.
shall discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee, and I will cause thee to serve thine
enemies in the land which thou knowest not, for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger which
shall burn forever. Thus saith the Lord, cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh
his arms, and whose heart the heart is from the Lord, for he shall be like the teeth in the earth,
and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness
Blessed is the man that trusted in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is, for he shall be
as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not
see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year
of drought, and neither shall seeest from yielding fruit.
I of the Lord search the heart, I try the reigns, even to give every man according to his ways and
according to the fruit of his doing, as the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not.
So he that giveth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days,
and at his end shall be a fool.
A glorious high throne for the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.
O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart
from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of
living waters.
Heal me, O Lord, and thou shalt be healed.
Save me, and I shall be saved.
For thou art my praise.
Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the Lord?
Let it come now.
Neither have I desired the woeful day thou knowest, that which come out of my lips was
right before thee.
Be not a terror unto me, thou art my hope in the day of evil.
Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded.
Let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed.
Bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with a double destruction.
Thou said the Lord unto me, Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people,
Whereby the kings of Judah come in, And by the witch they go out,
And in all the gates of Jerusalem.
And say unto them, Hear ye the word of the Lord ye kings of Judah,
And all Judah, And all the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
That enter in by these gates.
Thou sayeth the Lord, Take heed to yourselves,
And bear no burden on the Sabbath day, Nor bring in by the gates of Jerusalem.
neither carry forth a burden and out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work,
but hallow ye the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers, but they obeyed not neither incline
in their ear, but made their next stiff, that they may not hear, nor receive instruction."
And it shall come to pass if ye diligently harken unto me, sayeth the Lord, to bring in no burden
through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day to do no work therein.
Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes, sitting upon the throne of David,
riding in chariots and on horses. They and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and this city shall remain forever.
And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places of Jerusalem, and from
the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south,
bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing
sacrifices of praise unto the house of Lord.
But if you will not harken unto me to how low the Sabbath day and not to bear a burden even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem
On the Sabbath day then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof and it shall devour the places of Jerusalem
And it shall not be clinched. Let's have a quick word of prayer. Dear Father God
Thank you for this day. Thank you for getting us all here safely Lord
I pray that you too a pastor and recay with your spirit
Hope in a preachable necker and sermon Lord and I pray that you bless us with your spirit
Help us to receive the message today Lord. Not afraid that you bless the soul wing and Jesus name of free. Amen
All right, keep your fingers there the book of Jeremiah, we're gonna we're gonna spend some time there
Oh should have prepared my microphone
Just give me a real quick second here guys. Sorry about that
We we're moving
I don't know if you guys know this, but we got rid of a pew back there and we're trying to make the sound
System better or whatever so I'm getting used to a new method of doing things but
Keep your yeah, just keep your fingers there in Jeremiah in the actually just stay in the book of Jeremiah if you want to
We're gonna come back to the book of Jeremiah
But the part of scripture that I want to focus on is right there in verse 16 where the Bible says this for me
I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow the neither have I desired the woeful day
Thou knowest that which came out of my lips was right before thee
Be not a terror unto me, thou art my hope in the day of evil.
Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let me, but let not me be confounded.
Let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed.
Bring upon them the day of evil and destroy them with double destruction."
And the title of the sermon this morning is the New Independent Fundamental Baptists.
New Independent Fundamental Baptists.
You guys have heard me throw out this term in the past and maybe some of you know what I mean
and some of you don't and then you wonder like what is going on. I use this term a lot and I
reference some of the pastors in that movement including us and things of that nature. But
the reason I wanted to really preach on it is because the main purpose of today's service that
basically let you know how I arrived at this conclusion
and why I will always arrive at a conclusion
that is closest to the word of God, right?
First of all, we always want, you know,
to have some kind of distinction.
We call ourselves Baptist, right?
I mean, but not all Baptists are created equal,
unfortunately, right?
I mean, we go out a couple of weeks ago,
we went out soul winning right here,
just across the street.
And it turns out we ran into a bunch of Baptists
that are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
But that would be about all the fellowship we could have with them, right?
They're probably not King James only.
They're not thinking, you know, they're not aligned in some of the doctrines that we believe
in.
They're not doing the things that we live in.
And when I'm going through the book of Jeremiah, you know, Jeremiah talks a lot about the pastors
and he talks about both, you know, pastors that were given for a specific reason and then
to do with the Word of God, right? And when I think about just like my life and the things
that I wanted to accomplish in Christianity, I always look at the groups of people that I
want to associate with that are aligned as close as possible to the Word of God. But then when I
became a pastor, it wasn't just about me aligning with those people, but aligning our church as
close as possible to the Word of God. That being said, whether you agree or disagree, I don't,
This is just something that helps us differentiate. If you don't want to consider yourself an independent
fundamental Baptist, if you don't want to consider yourself a new independent fundamental Baptist,
if you just want to be a Baptist, be my guest. Do what you need to do because you and your family,
like Joshua said, is for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. It's your duty to decide for
we have to have some kind of battle cry, right? We have to have some kind of thing that differentiates us.
We don't have a Batman signal sitting out there, you know, every time we're going to have church,
we turn it on and everybody knows who we are, right? What we have is the King James Bible.
We have certain doctrines that separate us from the rest of even other Baptists.
I mean, today, just right now, there's Baptist churches all over Houston that are having church,
way different, and they sound way different, and they're teaching way different than anything
we're teaching here at Spring Crest Baptist. And you say, well, Pastor, you're saying that what
you teach is better? I'm saying as long as I'm teaching the Word of God, it's better, right?
And what I'm saying is as long as we preach to the King James Bible, it's going to be better.
Now, if I give you my opinion, then that you guys can decide whether you think that's better or not,
there's no chili with beans, right? I've heard other pastors in our movement who
say that chili should be without beans, but I'm a Mexican, right? And I'm a Texan,
so I like beans in my chili sometimes, you know? I just can't help it. Being a
beater, you know, growing up with beans in my house, there's nothing like adding
beans to your chili, but I'm probably looking out at some people in the
audience and they're like, beans with chili is like, you know, immortal sin in the
to differentiate that opinion, I'm okay with that. But when it comes to doctrines of the Bible,
if you disagree with the Bible, well then I'm going to just have to disagree with you, right?
And it's a church. If there's churches that disagree with the Bible, well, we're just going
to have to disagree with them and separate and be sanctified from that. So...
I really just wanted folks to go back to verse five there in Jeremiah 17.
And the first part of the sermon, just like I've been doing lately, I don't know why that's
been my thing, but we're going to go fairly quickly through it.
And then I've got just a couple of points for you.
But there in verse five, it says in verse seven in chapter 17, it says, Thus saith the
Lord curse be the man that trusted in man and make it flesh his arm and whose heart
For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when the good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabit it.
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope,
The Lord is for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the river and she'll not see
When the heath cometh but her leaves shall be green and she'll not be careful in the year of drought neither
She'll seize from yielding fruit. My heart is deceitful. I mean the heart is deceitful above all things
Well, yeah, my heart right all our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked who can know it I the Lord search the heart
I try the rains
even to give every man according to his way and according to the fruit of his doing.
So there's a couple of things to stand out here. The Lord searches the heart,
but how do we know how the Lord is searching our hearts? It's through the Word of God, right?
It's through the Word of God that we realize, hey, you know what? The Lord's actually searching me
out and I need to clean this up in my life or I need to correct this thing or I need to put
my trust in this. And what does it say? He says, put the trust in the Lord and then we'll be fruitful.
And I'm not just talking economically, just in everything.
Right now, I would say that in America, we're headed towards a drought.
There's still good Baptist churches in America.
There's still good preaching.
There's still churches that aren't necessarily new FB, that go out soul winning every week.
But we are definitely headed in a downward spiral, right?
I'm looking out and I see some people who, you know, Pastor Cobb's been preaching.
For over 50 years just here. I mean 48 years just here at Spring Crest
Right and I guarantee you if you sit down with Pastor Cobb and you ask him how was church when you were growing up
It's totally different than what it is now, right?
It's actually less people are showing up to church and less people really care about the things of God and less people are
Actually make basing their decisions in life on what on the word of God people just make decisions all willy-nilly
You know, they just whatever
floats their boat that's what they're gonna do but as a way of introduction I just want to focus
you know when I first got saved there was no no such thing as a new IFB
What was the what was the thing when I first got saved?
I got saved when I was 25 years old in 2005 and the big thing that was around was the independent fundamental Baptist
You know, I did the same thing back then than I did now. You know, what you see is what you get with me
I don't change much. I just get a little bit more annoying. I think as I get older, right?
but
When I first got saved I wanted to
Find the group that represented the Bible as close as possible and when I did my research back then
It wasn't as easy as it is now because you can ask
I mean literally you can go on Google or chat GPT or GROC or Gemini
I mean every everybody has an answer right but back then we actually had to do a little bit of research
I think Wikipedia was about to start come
Either it was in its infant stages or it had just kind of started to take off so you couldn't even find information like that
But you know, I went down the the YouTube rabbit hole and I read some books
There was a good book
Called the trail of blood that I spent some time reading and it was talking about like the Baptist history
Because I wanted to find out who who were the truth, you know, you have all these denominations
I'm a new Christian. I just come out of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and I realized man some of this stuff doesn't line up
And what I ended up was landing on something called the Independent Fundamental Baptist, right?
And the reason that they were named as such or they named themselves as such was because
they based it on the Bible. And I'll give you Bible verses to back this up.
But basically, it's a group of independent churches that don't belong to any association
or any major religion, you know, like the Catholics, they all have to do what the what the Pope says,
If you go to the Southern Convention, they literally have a convention every year.
That's why it's called the Southern Baptist Convention, because every year they have a
convention to tell you exactly what you should believe.
based on their opinions, not necessarily the Word of God.
As a matter of fact, one of the reasons that we stayed at Springcrest when we first moved here to serve
was because Pastor Cobb and I had a conversation and he's like,
look, when I was a young pastor, my pastor came to me and said,
hey, we are disassociating from the Southern Baptist Convention
because they've strayed away from what? The Word of God.
Right. I mean, so this is not a thing that's been this is nothing new even though the term that I used is new
It's been going around since the beginning of of time, right?
Baptists were called what Anna Baptist and they had other names the Bible says in an Antioch. They were called what Christians first
This is the first time they were called Christians. It wasn't a nice term
It was a derogatory term, you know why they called them Christians because they followed Christ
They were making fun of them. They're like, oh, you're such a Christian
You're such a, you know, you just love Christ, everything the Bible says you're going to do,
right? What, in my generation, they called us what? Well, I wasn't saved till I was 25,
but we, I probably made fun of people. They were called what Bible thumpers. All you're such a
Bible thumper. You just go around carrying your Bible, telling everybody how they should
live their life or do things. And nowadays, you know, you have different terms, but the one we've
But we've kept some of the stuff as independent Baptist. What is independent Baptist?
It's just a a group of churches, right? That are basically it's a Christian congregations the January whole to what?
The fundamentals or conservative views of Christianity, right? Baptist beliefs and if you don't know what those are
I have a whole series. I did a four-part series actually during COVID of why we're Baptist and I went through all of that
I encourage you to look at it if we're missing parts because during COVID it was weird
you know, Brother Moe's downloading some of the stuff we can upload, whatever we're missing,
right? But as a history, you know, the modern independent Baptist movement began in what,
in like the earliest 20th century. And among local Baptist congregations whose members were
concerned about the advancement of what modernism or theological liberalism,
basically everything that was straying away from the word of God. If you go today to Second Baptist,
They have what they call, like, what do they call it, the traditional service, like really
early in the morning, and then the rest of the services are all contemporary services.
But the preachy is the same.
That pastor gets up and preaches the exact same sermon three or four times.
Just one has hymns, like we sang today, and then the other ones have like rock music and
purple lights and smoke.
And I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not.
I literally saw a clip of Ed Young Jr. who's the son to Ed Young, Ed Young serves here at
Second Baptist. He's the head pastor. He's 88. Pastor Cobb says, are you two weeks older?
Is he two weeks old or something like that? You're a little bit older, right?
Oh no, Pat. Ed Young is 11 days older than Pastor Cobb. But Ed Young has a son who's probably in his
probably late fifties or early sixties and he he went off to start a church in Dallas and this thing's just like
Talk about a liberal fund center. They literally had a church service where he's staying there quiet and he has a full-size
regulatory
basketball court
90-foot court with two baskets on each end and he's playing basketball and then he brings out a bunch of people to play basketball
I have no idea what he's even trying to teach. I have I mean there
I didn't even watch the thing because the whole time and they're just playing basketball and people are cheering
It was just the weirdest thing in the world
But and then back in like in the 1930s a guy by the name of Norris
Organized the group of what he called independent
premillennial Baptist churches in the, you know, and they basically moved out of the Baptist movement.
Like I said, I'm not going to give you, there's a lot of history here. I'm not going to touch on it.
I just wanted to give you like the bullet points. And why did he do that though? It was in response
to concerns that some local Baptist churches separated from their former denominations and
reestablished their congregations as independent churches. In other cases, the more conservative
members of existing churches withdrew from their local congregation and established
new independent Baptist churches. So this thing of new is not new. You know, the way
we're using new and I'll touch on that here briefly. I'm going to get ahead of myself is
the another definition of new is just to be refreshed. Right? It's just like
you haven't heard about it a while. That's why every few years or every few months or every
few weeks, depending on the, on the company, you get what new and improved, right? But us
have been around a long time or like, this looks just like the old one. You just changed the color.
right? Or you just changed, you added a little bit more sugar or something, but it's always new
and improved. You know, and then right here, the World Baptist Fellowship, originally the
Premillennial Missionary Baptist Fellowship is a fundamentalist independent Baptist organization
founded by J. Frank Norris, which by the way, J. Frank Norris was one of the hardest preachers
in our modern day. I mean, literally the guy called out a bunch of Catholics,
And one of them said, hey, I'm coming to kill you.
And he said, well, you just come on down.
And we'll just get this thing taken care of.
And the guy showed up.
And you know what he did?
He killed him.
And you got to quit for it like this is the kind of preaching the kind of pastors we need in America today
I'm not telling anybody to come down because I'm not even packing
But what I'm trying to say is you stand on the word of God
He preached against a false religion and the guy got offended
He's like I'm not backing down and if you want to have it at if you want to go at it
Let's just do it. I mean, that's the kind of preaching. I mean and it's famous right there in Fort Worth, Texas
So at least we have some good things in Texas. I love Texas by the way, just as a side note, but
He started in Fort Worth, Texas in 1933 and actually he ended up
starting another church like in Indiana and he flew back and forth. He had a big congregation
for a long time there and then
basically through the the 50s you ended up having a bunch of different
like spinoffs off of that, right?
But really, what's the thing that really made them stand out?
Well, the denomination of beliefs are strictly Baptist.
As Christian fundamentalists, they believe right
in the in-inspiration and in-arisee of the Bible.
I literally just got back from what we call
the King James Bible Conference,
literally speaking on the fact that we only believe
the King James Bible to be the inerrant
and infallible word of God for the English-speaking people.
We don't read the new non-inspired version, we don't read the ESV or the NASV, where they
remove verses, where they don't talk about hell, where they don't even talk about Christ.
We believe in the Word of God to be preserved in 2025 because God said He would preserve
it.
As a matter of fact, I was reading yesterday in the book of Deuteronomy and He said, look,
at some point when you go into this new land, God said, and I'm paraphrasing this long chapter,
And I said, if you do, they need to do this thing.
And one of the things they need to do is they need to get a copy of the book of the law
and lead by the book of the law, right?
We lead not by the Republican Party, not by the Democratic Party, not by the Constitution
of the United States.
We lead by the King James Bible, right?
We're guided by this book, by the Word of God.
We believe this to be the Word of God.
You're right here, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,
right? The Bible tells us. And so we believe that the same things, right, in that thing.
And then it says, a great emphasis is also placed on literal historical interpretation of Scripture,
and they also, other beliefs are like separation of church and state, young earth creationism,
cessationism, dispensationalism, which I'll clear up here in a little bit. It's historical fundamentalist.
Independent Baptists are opposed to theological liberalism, ecumenism, Catholicism, the charismatic
movement, the ordination of women pastors, homosexuality, evolution.
I mean, this has been going on.
This is like in the early 1930s, they've been dealing with this stuff.
We're dealing with the same thing today, right?
They also usually oppose like neo evangelicalism because they believe it airs by failing.
to practice separation sufficiently, rejecting its perceived
economical attitudes in some modern evangelical circles.
And you know what's going to happen?
I'm calling it, you know, I titled it,
this group of pastors is called the new FB.
But over time, even this will decline.
It's just the way that it is and what our goal should always be is if you notice a decline
where you're serving, you need to find the church that's not in decline, but is serving
the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not the number of congregate people in the congregation.
It's the fruit, right?
It's the fact that they're out there doing the work of the Lord.
The fact that they're preaching God's word.
You know, you hear Jeremiah and he says, Hey, protect me because I didn't stray.
Right. I mean, I'm paraphrasing this big time, but what did he say as for me?
I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee
Neither have I desired a woeful day thou knowest that that which came out of my lips was right before the you want to serve
In a church where what comes out of our lips is right before who the Lord Jesus Christ?
not before men not before
Dignitarious, but before the Lord Jesus Christ
And so basically, you know, this, this attack's been around for a long time.
And let me just touch on the similarities and then I'll touch on the differences and
then I'll give you the verses for today.
But there's a lot of similarities.
I mean, I got saved in what they would consider nowadays because you have new independent
fundamental about this, what's called an old independent fundamental or old IFB, but it's
just the old guard.
I got saved by Pastor Johnny Pope.
He's still a pastor today up at 1960 and champions for us.
Bible believing, saved by grace to Jesus Christ, one saved, always saved, church.
I mean, he preaches, I mean, some of the best sermons I've heard as a young man were by
Pastor Pope, right?
The challenge, the reason we separated was because there was other things that we just
didn't line up on, right?
And what I mean by that is, I kept looking at the Word of God and it just didn't match
what they believed on.
You know, they, as a matter of fact, if you were to go to their church today and you didn't
know all the other doctors that they believe in, it would feel very similar to our church.
As a matter of fact, it's a nicer building.
Pastor Pope is the old guard.
So he wears like the suspenders, you know, for his suits and he's always got the nice
suit with a little, you know, pocket.
I'm not that fancy.
Very old IFB, very old independent fundamental Baptist, right?
Very dynamic preacher very just like in your face. Just not just not we don't agree on every doctrine, right?
But they're both independent fundamental Baptist. What you know, what does it mean to be independent means?
We're not part of a denomination. We're totally autonomous
I mean, one time I made the mistake of just saying that we belong to the ABA and when
we don't, but the, you know, when I first started serving here, like our missions are
tidying would, would go there for the missions thing.
But Pastor Cobb was like, he, and I don't even, well, this is back in the day.
We don't, we don't do any of that anymore.
And, but Pastor, he's even, he always clears me up cause he always said, and that's what
I love about spring crest.
He's like, we are independent.
Nobody.
You know, Pastor Cobb never even told me what to preach or what to do behind the pulpit.
Actually, he did tell me one time, well, I think I ran off some Catholics and he came
to me and he's like, Hey, brother, I want to tell you there was a Catholic couple in
the back and they got offended about you preaching about the Catholic.
You keep doing what you're doing.
That was the best advice I ever, he said, you keep doing what you're doing.
So he did tell me what to do, but in an independent, fundamental way, he said, you keep preaching
We don't have financial ties to other churches.
We stand on our own two feet
as independent fundamental Baptist, right?
We're not members of any kind of club
or denomination or convention or anything.
So when I say we're part of the new IFB,
we're not necessarily part.
These are just a group of guys that I like to be friends with
and associate with.
That's it.
I don't call anybody to get opinions
on what I should preach on Sunday morning.
Nobody tells me how to spend our money
or where we should send it or what we need to do.
Nobody tells me how to give advice to the congregation
or not give advice to the congregation.
If I want advice, I pick up the phone
and I call the two people in leadership in the church,
I'll call Trey or I'll call Pastor Cobb.
And now there's a few more men in the church
that I might reach out to and that's about it.
If I don't like their answers, I'm like, God.
I don't know if I agree with your answers give me an answer right like clear it up for me
But you know for the most part obviously you want to be the Bible says in a multitude of counselors there is safety
Right, and so we have good men that we can reach out to
We're both Baptists, right? Like this this the original independent fundamental Baptist, right?
We believe in the Trinity salvation by faith
Eternal security of the believer we're King James only we believe in the verbal and heresy of scripture
We go out soul-winning now. That's not every independent fundamental Baptist Church anymore
But still there's a lot of independent fundamental Baptist churches that go out soul-winning every Sunday
There's a church called West Baptist Church. We've actually when we were looking for a church. We visited it
And again, we just didn't agree with some of the doctors, but they have on their church
website.
I think it's somewhere in Katie.
They go soul winning every week.
Amen.
I have nothing against that.
Like, I think it's great.
We don't just leave a door hanger, right?
We believe in heart preaching.
Not just screaming and yelling, but like actual heart preaching, right? That it's like a biblical. It's corrective
It's specific, but if we have to yell we will you know
I actually don't yell as much as some other preachers
But if I if the Lord leads me then you know, I'll let let out a yell here and there
We believe in clothing standards men should look like men and women should look like women
right
Period. I don't want to be confused about what I'm looking at. I was at the airport on the way back from
From Washington and there was this thing sitting there in the airport
I literally prayed for for the span of an hour and I said Lord
Because, you know, they're going to change that now, but now it's a sign, you know, you
could pick your seat on Southwest.
I'm like, Lord, let this thing not sit next to me because I will say something and I will
throw up.
It was disgusting.
This guy was like six foot two.
He was wearing literally pantyhose with flats and then a sweater.
He wasn't full one way or the other.
Like it was a mix.
Like you could tell it was a guy because there's no makeup or anything
There was just like this one little earring dangling, but then you had hair like right about to hear
Blonde hair with all kinds of colorful streaks
Like purple and pink and blue and green and I'm thinking to myself this thing is disgusting
Like I I'm not and when it got on the plane. I was just like Lord
Keep it away for me
Keep it. I'm not kidding. Like it was what I would rather sit next to like a disgusting
Like just stinky person that just got off of work and earned a good day's keep and I just have to deal with it
Then that thing like that's how bad it was like I just anyway
We didn't sit together, but just saying men need to look like men and women need to look like women, right?
We believe in traditional hymns and Psalms. I mean, we just sang in them, right?
We we went through the like my wife was saying though one of the songs we sang is the like a Baptist anthem, right?
Yes, Lord, we know and we're preaching that now. What's the differences?
Why am I no longer or why do I like not to associate with the what it's called the independent fundamental Baptist?
And why even preach the sermon? Well, I think it's a good sermon for you to evaluate
Why you serve at Spring Crest Baptist Church? Why your family serves in any capacity anywhere?
Right? Because the reality is, don't do things just for the sake of doing them, don't be like Catholics who, you know, basically punch in a clock every Sunday, and then they're like, okay, well, I'm good for the rest of the week.
No, do things because you want to serve the Lord. Right? God gave pastors for a specific reason is to lead the congregation and feed them to grow.
Look, if you're not getting fed at Spring Crest, then go eat somewhere else. That's really the truth.
don't think that's the case but if it is you need to go serve at a church where
you can be fed. The reason we left the church where I got saved was because we
just weren't being fed. We would hear sermons and I'm like this pastor's about
to get to the good part and then he just skip over the hard preaching and I'm
like just give it give it to the congregation we need more of that.
But when I came here, I mean, Pastor Cobb doesn't know, but I tell this story all the
time.
Pastor, I'm going to tell on you a little bit.
I hope I don't embarrass you.
But Pastor, some of his preachies are a little graphic sometimes.
It's a little bit in your face.
And he's done some, he was telling this sermon one time about somebody in his family that
committed suicide, and the brains and everything blew up on the face.
And I'm thinking, there's kids in the audience, but you know what?
that people are not just, it's not all honky-dory,
it's not all bluey and what are the shows that are out there?
There's a reality to the fact that people suffer
and do crazy things and they're going to hell in a handbasket.
We were listening to some preaching on the way up here,
and the guy that was preaching said that he got saved
as a young kid at six years old
because he was afraid to go to hell.
And my wife, not my son, my wife started laughing
because my wife got saved at four years old,
which is a very rare time to get saved.
But the reason is because her older sister
had just gotten saved and her older sister
was going around for, I don't know the period of time,
but say basically, you need to get saved
because you're going to hell.
And you need to get saved because I mean, there's not a better preacher than a five
year old older sister telling her younger sister, you're going to hell.
And every day you're going to hell and you need to get saved because you're going to
hell.
Think about it.
You're four years old.
I mean, poor little four year old mind just thinking, this is, I don't want to go to
hell.
Nobody wants to go to hell.
And so she got saved.
Because of her five-year-old sister, right? That's what we want. We want to preach those those hard
Doctrines. So what are kind of the differences? I'm just gonna go through these real quick, you know, things that really got me like
Uninterested in church was their pre-trip
Whereas we're post-trip, right? We believe that we're gonna go through the tribulation now
Is that something that I'm gonna separate from from somebody feel like came not necessarily but it is a doctrinal thing that if I want to
Strengthen my my my belief in the Lord. I think it's important for you to learn why we're post-trip
The only reason we're post-trip is because actually the Bible is clear
It says after the tribulation but number two
I don't want to live in a in a world where we have a cop-out
We're not doing the hard work for the Lord because well, I'm not gonna be here for that
You have no you have no idea how many times I've heard from a pretriber saying oh well
I don't worry about that because I'm gonna be raptured out
I'm not gonna be here for that. I always think to myself. What if you are here? You're not just you're just not gonna be prepared
Like, you know, I I have a gun. I hope I never use it
But just in the off chance that I need to I have one right
I'll probably never use it, God willing, but that doesn't excuse the fact that why wouldn't
I have self-defense if I can afford it, if we live in a country where it allows us to
do that.
You know, in Mexico, you can't do that.
People get shot and killed all the time because they have no form of defense.
You're not going to defend yourself spiritually.
We're in a spiritual battle, but you're just like, I don't need a sword or a shield or
armor because, well, I'm not going to be here for that.
Right, we don't believe in separating the family in church services when we started thinking about having children
My wife and I were never comfortable with the fact that we're gonna drop them off in some nursery
You know scan them with their little barcode leave them there and then come back later
Who knows what happens? I mean this has happens at churches right now
We're family integrated my children don't need a dumbed-down version of the Bible. They read the King James
You know, we have mornings. I don't do it every morning because I'm just so busy some times
But we get up in the morning and my kids are eight and seven and they can read their King James Bible with me
We'll go through the book of Psalms. I'm like Lucy your turn and Rike your turn
My daughter was saying that she didn't want it my two-year-old was saying don't go to hell in the car because she's repeating everything good
We wanted to know what hell means right? We don't want to use some new uninspired virgin
That says shale or Hades and nobody knows what that means
They'll you know, the other things is like they're now more tolerable to like the LGBT community. We hate them
Like we despise them
They're condemned. We don't want to do anything with the queers or the facts
We don't need any of them in here at all period like I don't want that disgusting thing next to me
I don't want it near my children
It's gross
We're not pro Zionist or pro Jewish in the sense that hey, we're not pro anybody who hates the Lord Jesus Christ
and they hate Christ, then I hate you.
And that's biblical, by the way.
That's another sermon for another day, right?
We don't believe in just hiding stuff.
Like if there's a scandal, of course, we're a small church.
I don't know that we've ever had a big scandal,
but if there was one, you know, we're gonna expose it.
We're not pro-Republican.
There's literally churches, I mean,
that are just pro-Republican
that are independent fundamental Baptist.
We're pro the Bible.
Right if Trump is is a whoremonger and adulterer. I'm gonna call him out for being a whoremonger and an adulter
Right. I don't care that the Trump is a Republican. That's gross
It's anti biblical. It's anti Christ
Right, we're not for war. We don't think we just as a country used to just be meddling in everybody's business and
Making wars and not making wars and just fixing everybody's problems
The president of our country should worry about one country, the United States of America, period.
Just like the pastor of this church should only worry about one church,
Spring Crest Baptist Church, and as the husband of your house, you should only worry about one family, your house.
Look, if you're actually leading your house, that's the only family you have time to worry about.
Just letting you know.
You know, we're against birth control and contraceptives, like the Bible says, be fruitful and multiply.
We, when we preach, we preach a lot of Bible.
Like, I don't know if you guys ever notice, but if you count, there's always a lot of
verses at minimum.
There's like 20, 30 verses or references that we're making in the Bible.
You know, we believe in training the preachers and the deacons locally.
Pastor Cobb, I didn't even know I was under training, but you know, just one day he showed
up, he's like, I think you're ready to become an evangelist.
And I was like, okay, well thanks, Pastor.
And I was like, oh, okay, great.
And I got ordained in the church.
I didn't have to go to Bible college
and learn all their stupid stuff.
Now I'm not against, like if you go to college
to learn stuff, but that's not where you get ordained
in the local church, right?
We are more, that's not, and I'm not saying that
for everybody here, but I preach it from here.
I think in the age that we're in, we're pro homeschooling
because they're just pushing all kinds of agendas
that I didn't even, I went to public school
and they didn't push the stuff they're pushing now.
I mean, we played smear the queer, now that probably has a whole other meaning.
I mean, we literally played that game.
I, you know, some of you remember where I'm 45, I'm from the 80s.
That was like not, I'm not saying that to be even offensive.
That literally was the, the, the, the playground school game we played was, hey, who wants
to play smear the queer?
And then we just beat up on each other.
It was the word.
I didn't like it.
Cause, you know, everybody pile up dog pile, remember that?
You know, when you're like 80 pounds and everybody's, you feel like you're running out of air.
It's a miracle more kids didn't die.
I mean, we were kind of crazy.
And then the last thing is that, you know, we're just not just going to accept everything as a fact, like mainstream media, mainstream medicine, we're going to search the Bible, we're going to scrutinize the scriptures and say, what do we need, when do we actually need to pay attention to, right?
So really all that the new IFB is it's just a group of people that wants to just retighten
What was originally the separation right in the 1930s and even after where there's always gonna be a group that says
Hey, you know what we're getting a little bit too loose over here. Let's just tighten this like I've played guitar
I don't play it anymore
But when I played guitar you could always tell when you were off and what would you do?
You just tighten the strings a little bit to get that clarity you write that sound doctrine
We're just tightening the string so that everything sounds in harmony with what?
The Word of God. We want to be in harmony with who? Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what you think,
it doesn't matter your opinion. What we want to do as a church is just always sanctify ourselves
in the Word of God, right? And just, I'm just throwing this out there just in case you guys
ever heard or you want to do the research. People that were popular back in the day, Frank Norris,
Lee Robinson, Lester Roloff, Patrick Cobb talks about Lester Roloff a lot. Peter Ruckman. Now I
didn't say all these guys are good. This is just part of the movement. You'll see like Peter Ruckman
is actually not a good guy, but they came out of this movement. So you're always going to get good
and bad. You're going to get the tears with the wheat, right? Jack Hiles, probably he at one point
They what I heard a sermon from him one time where he's like hey the local town next door told us not to go
So winning so he's like you know what I did I called my pastor friends
And we're about to go in a thousand people and go so went in in that town
We think we're good at so I mean they were they were out and door knocking in the thousands
Can you imagine that how great it'd be if all of a sudden we had a thousand people show up at spring crest
We're like, we're gonna bombard Houston, Texas with soul winners. That'd be so amazing
Curtis Hudson David cloud Clara Sexton Chuck Baldwin Ken Hovind Paul Chappell
I didn't say all these guys were good right out of the new FB. There's been
preachers if coming and out
You know a lot of bad preachers have come out now or you know, I don't consider preachers anymore or whatever
Mally Perry
Joe Major Joe Jones Dave Bursons Jarrett Przansky Grayson Fitz Michael Johnson Tommy McMurtry
Patrick Boyle these guys are just kind of like they've they've gone off the deep end. They're preaching weird doctrines. I
Don't need anybody to tell me I would listen to this stuff and I'm like I don't want to associate with people
Who are not gonna preach the word of God?
You know how we got so we started so winning when I got saved
You know what let me not get ahead of I have that in my notes
Let me not get ahead of my notes
The first point I have for you turn over to John 13 turn over to John 13. Like I said, this is
We're already like halfway through so this will go fairly quickly
but
The first point I have for you is that what is this thing of new?
Because obviously the Bible tells us that there is no new thing under the sun in the
book of Ecclesiastics, right?
So what is the thing of new?
Well, if you look at the definition of new, it can mean different things, and there's
like about 13 definitions on dictionary.com.
You can go look those up.
But what I'm looking at is like, fresh or unused, right?
We're new because we want to reuse what was left behind.
You know, for some of you I'm preaching, you're like, I already heard this stuff or, you know,
I've seen this come through, but there's younger people, you know, most 23.
Sometimes I make references to Mo when we're working because he's been working with me
a lot.
And he just gives me this blank stare.
He doesn't know what the heck I'm talking about.
You know why?
Because he's not of my generation.
So for him, you know what it is?
It's new information.
It's new. It's fresh. It's a physical or moral quality, different or better, right?
We have a new Testament, a new covenant. The Bible says that Jesus is the same yesterday,
today, and forever. So what is it? It's just that he refreshes things, right? Jesus came
to make the new covenant a better Testament, the new Testament, and I don't know, he made
Other than the former or the old like you know when when we learned to school what about the new world?
Was it really a new world? No, but it was a new world to them, right? When Christopher Columbus and all the explorers showed up
they were like wow, this is
This is not what we thought this is a new world that that's why they called a new world
But you're there in John 13 verse 34 the Bible says
A new commandment I give you, this is Jesus speaking, that ye love one another as I have
loved you, that ye also love one another.
And this is, is this a new commandment?
No, not necessarily, but it is in principle, right?
It is in the way that it was presented in pattern.
Because if we were to go back to Leviticus 1918, you don't have to turn there for the
sake of time, but it says, thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children
of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, I am the Lord.
So both of them are talking about loving your neighbor, but the new commandment is what?
Right, so the difference is you don't just love your neighbor as yourself anymore
Because that could get a little selfish you love him what as Christ loved the church
Right, that's actually better. I love my wife as Christ loves the church
You know, that's why we do things for Jesus Christ because it it is better because then I don't have to trust on my
Arm like Jeremiah said I trust who on the Lord. I trust on the Lord Jesus Christ
You don't have to turn there for the sake of time
I'm gonna give you a transition verse but go over to John 8 go over to John 8, but in 2nd Corinthians 5
Verse 17 the Bible says therefore of any man be in Christ
He is a new creature all things are passed away behold all things are become new
Now, was I a new creature when I got saved?
No, not in the physical flesh, but in the spiritual I was.
I was refreshed, and I can't wait to get out of this old, stinking body, because then it's
going to be way better, right?
Because I have sin that dwells in me, and I hate the way it dwells in me, because it
impedes me from doing the great things for the Lord at times.
I have moments of weakness where I just fail the Lord and then I'm like Lord
I don't even know why you use me. Thank God that you know why he uses me because it's not of me
It's because of Jesus Christ. That's why it's good to read the Old Testament and the book of Deuteronomy
I love the book of Deuteronomy because he's basically calling out the children of Israel
He's like hey, you're gonna go conquer this promised land, but let me just remind you. It's not because of you
It's not because you were great. It's because of me
Because you know he didn't want him to think that they were gonna win all these battles and they were all like gonna be great
It's like when my son broke the boards, you know in karate at his like karate camp
And I saw the guy kind of help him bend the board
I said son don't think you could break boards because of you it was because of your professor
He helped you along right because the last thing I need is my son to break his arm going to look he's gonna go to the fence
Ah, you know, he's not gonna break anything right. He's not gonna do it
but
The second point I have for you that's right there in John 831 is that we're independent
And this is just a good reminder of why we are the way we are, right?
We're independent Bible says there then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him if you continue in my word
Then you're my disciples and you shall know the truth and the truth so what make you free
They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and we're never in bondage to any man.
How sayest thou ye shall be made free?
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily I say unto you, Whosoever committed sin is a servant
of sin, and the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the Son abideth ever.
If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Why are we independent?
Because Christ said we're independent.
That's why we don't belong to a denomination that's why it's hard for us to you know
That's why America was founded on Christian principles. Why are we so free thinking America doesn't have some new idea on freedom?
It came from the Bible
God gives us free will now there's consequences to that free will but he gives us free will nonetheless
You know, why did I decide a long time ago whenever this thing, actually, I decided
to, to want to be friends with some of these pastors long before that term was ever used,
the new IFB.
But it was the same process that I had done before when I joined a Baptist church and I was IFB, Independent Fundamental Baptist, right?
And what was it? It's because I wanted to just follow people. I want to surround myself with individuals that are on the right path, that are preaching the Word of God.
You know, in business, they tell you the books you read and the people you surround yourself with will determine the person you become in the next five years.
Well, if I hang around with a bunch of liberal Baptist, what am I going to become?
A liberal Baptist.
So much so that when I moved to Dallas, that's where I met my wife at an independent fundamental
Baptist church.
It's called LeVon Drive Baptist Church.
And that pastor, man, he married us.
He's a great preacher.
I think he's still alive.
He's probably in his mid 90s.
It is in and look it and sound it and feel literally literally literally they have purple lights
Literally like I couldn't make this stuff up. You know, I say that all the time
The main theme of the the sanctuary they spent millions of dollars was to bring in purple lights
and pink lights and they have a coffee shop where they charge you money look
the Bible Jesus turned the tables over anything that's in the church is for
consumption for you guys I'm not gonna send you a bill you know we don't have
a coffee shop I don't have Moe wearing a barista apron saying hey welcome to
spring crest here's your spring latte you know
Had five dollars and don't forget a tip isn't just a piece of advice
You know as our something something corny like that. He's waiting for his tip
No, you just we might not have the best coffee, but we have good coffee, right?
Like you can enjoy a good cup of coffee
But here's the other thing when I first got saved at the age of 25. I wanted to lead people to Christ
And Trey would tell you like we had these cleaners
We would work really late and they would come in late at night
And I wanted to preach the gospel to them, but nobody taught me how to sew in so I literally would go online
And I would literally type the Romans road and I would print it up
And then I would go to those people and I would lead them to Christ in Spanish, right?
You know the cleaning guy or the cleaning lady or Trey would started and then he would hand it off or vice versa
We would preach to them, but it was like a one-off chance of people. We didn't we knew that they weren't safe
but nobody taught us or taught me how to go soul winning door to door.
You know, I mean, it's just more effective. It's much more beneficial to lead more people to Christ
and pull them out of hell than one person every few years, right? And when, when all of a sudden,
you know, Pastor Anderson on YouTube started getting wind and he would preach about soul,
and I was like, what is this thing he's preaching about?
And right around 2016, I went and I met him here in San Antonio and that was the first
time I experienced door-to-door soul winning and I thought to myself, this is great.
Because I have a business mind, as a business mind, you want to analyze things as the most
effective or efficient, so you do things in business like, how can I make this better
or how can I get more profit?
Well, man, talk about getting more profit for the work of Christ.
If you go door knocking every week, you're just going to, just by sheer numbers, you're
going to get more people saved.
Even in your conversions are bad.
Let's talk a little marketing.
Well, that's 20, 30 people you're going to personally get saved versus talking to like
five people in a year and hoping one of them gets saved.
Right?
Because this is not what we want to do.
We want to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.
Not just physically with children, but spiritual children.
Go over to Galatians 5.
You know, that's why we're independent.
I made that decision even before I served here that I was like, I like what this guy's
I want to learn this thing because people will poo poo the idea that you want to associate
with certain people, you know, just, just by the sheer fact that you're independent doesn't
mean that you're separate from the whole world.
We're not preppers here.
All right.
I'm independent, but you know, I like to have friends if that was a matter of fact, anybody
who's known me for a long time and I'm looking at some of the people that have known me for
over 20 years, they know that I like being a social butterfly.
You know, if there's a party, I'm going to be there till the three, four, wherever people
are staying out the latest, I'm going to stay out the latest with them.
Now we do Baptist parties, so we just talk in Scripture, but I'll stay out late.
You know, I was really tired when I came back.
You thought it was supposed to be a easy trip, but you know, all these guys, all these pastor
friends of mine were staying out late.
It gets to staying out late with them.
And of course I'm on central time, so it's like three o'clock in the morning for me when
I'm going to bed and then waking up.
fast, therefore in liberty, wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. That's the liberty and independence I want. I want to be surrounded by
people who are like, Hey, let me preach on sin so you can clean it up.
Down in verse 13 it says,
The flesh lesteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary to one to the other so that you cannot do
The things that you would but if you be led of the spirit you are not under the law
Hey, I don't want to be under the law
So I want to find like-minded people that are going to engage the spirit more than they're going to engage the flesh
Period and you should do the same thing
And when, and they that are Christ, verse 24,
have crucified the flesh with the affection and lust,
if we live in the spirit, let us walk also in the spirit,
let us not be desires of vainglory,
provoking one another and being one another.
Look, there's people that are going to separate for different things.
But if someone separates themselves out of envy, I don't want to deal with them.
I remember when we first started soul winning, it was 2018, like door to door, soul winning.
We were preparing, it was the end of 2017, and we were preparing for the mega soul winning
marathon, the first one in 2018.
And I told Pastor Cobb, I want to lead the charge, he was like, go for it, let's do this.
You know what he didn't say? Well, why are you gonna? Why are you what are you trying to do?
Because you know how it is in some churches people get all
Up like get annoyed and envious because somebody wants to lead the charge and do something great for the Lord
No, he's like go do it as a pastor. I don't I don't run any finance, but would it be okay if we just bought the lunch
I didn't know what the financial situation would it be okay if we did whatever you need brother
Anyways, long story short, we get a group of soul winners.
We do the whole thing and then after that, there's a little bit of controversy and the
pastor that originally had sent a bunch of soul winners here called me and I was down
in the valley and he called me and he's like, Hey, I had sent a lot of the pastors at the
time.
I was making a lot more money than I'm now and I had sent them just some little gifts.
It wasn't anything major, but he called me to thank me for the gift, which is whatever.
That's fine.
He's like, Hey, brother, I just want to thank you for the gift.
like, oh, that's great. I'm glad you're enjoying it. He's like, and by the way, you know, I
just want to tell you that pastor so and so, and I, I literally hung up on the guy. I was
like, I'm not going to, I don't want to hear gossip.
I didn't give you, you know, a nice accolade.
I didn't thank you with a nice gift
so that you could have an open year
to just gossip with me about things.
Like, that's not why I did it.
I did it because I was sincerely thankful
that, you know, people showed up
and we were able to participate
in the soul winning marathon and we got people saved.
That's all I cared about, right?
And ask me when was the last time I spoke to that guy?
Literally then, like,
Cut off. I don't because I want to remain independent and I want to surround myself with people that are doing great
things for the Lord
Right that are doing things for Jesus Christ. I want to be independent go over to
First Corinthians first Corinthians 3 but in 1st Peter 2 the Bible says submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake
Whether it be to kings and supreme or unto governors is unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers
For the praise of them that do well for so is the will of God that with well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as free
and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. See,
I don't want to use my independence to be malicious. I want to do it so that I can do it
as a servant of God, of Jesus Christ, right? Honor all men, love the brotherhood,
fear God, honor the king, servants, be subject to your masters with all fear,
not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. For this is thank worthy, if a man
Suffering wrongfully go over to 1st Corinthians. You're there in 1st Corinthians 3 and we're gonna be in verse 9
Then I you know, I analyze this is the way I analyzed it. Why are we fundamental because I don't want to just take a like a
Moniker if I don't know what it means, right, right? We're fundamental
Now, that word fundamental is not found in your King James, but you know what it is?
Foundations, which is basically a synonym to fundamental, right?
Fundamental means that you're looking at the way things are done the right way, right?
I'm not going to go too deep into it, but I've told you many times when I go out with
Brother Trey in the construction world, I'm just a grunt.
You know why?
And as a matter of fact, I've learned in my hastiness to just even be even more reserved.
Because I have a tendency to just like knock down a wall that's about to fall on my head or like hammer something
That's about to cut my finger up because I have no fundamentals. I just like want to do things like crazy
Oh, we're knocking this wall down. Yeah, let's he's like, whoa, what a second there, buddy
You know, there might be electricity running through that wall or there might be a pipe or some gas
You know, have you checked for any of that? No, this is knocked down the wall and the next thing you know
You're blowing up the house
Thank God I don't do that, but we want to have fundamentals, well same thing in church, right?
I don't want you to just show up to church or any church or even our church
and not scrutinize the fundamentals. What are the fundamentals of Christianity,
the Word of God, right? Am I preaching based on the Word of God or am I preaching my opinion?
Now of course I'm going to give you my opinion at times, but we want to be based on the Word of
God, right? 1 Corinthians 3 verse 9 the Bible says, for we are laborers together with God.
year God's husbandry, year God's building, according to the grace of God, which has given
unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon,
but let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. Hey, when I showed up and Pastor
Cobb passed the torch, I got to take heed that I build and continue to grow when he started,
And now it's a mere shadow of its former self.
You can't even recognize it.
This is now if any man built upon this foundation,
gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble.
Every man's work shall be made manifest for the day she'll declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
If any man's work abideth, which he hath built upon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer a loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so is by fire."
You know why I picked these verses?
Number one, it's talking about the foundation.
Number two, hey, what does it say?
What saved always saved look even if you don't do anything great for the Lord
It says there your works will be burned and you'll suffer a loss
But you him but he himself shall be saved as so by fire
We that's a pretty important doctrine to remain independent
We don't we don't believe in this weird doctrine. Well, you know so and so Joe got saved
But he's a bad out of hell. So, you know, is he really saved?
If he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, he saved, yeah, but how can that be?
Well, you know, there's a book in the Bible called Hebrews, there's a chapter in there
called chapter 12, and in there it talks about how the Lord will chastise his children.
So poor Joe is living like a bat out of hell.
You know what?
He's also getting whooped, being reminded that he's no longer going to hell, right?
So don't think that we're just going to preach some light version of the gospel.
Right first Timothy six. I'm just going to read one verse for you there
It says laying up in store for themselves a good
Foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life
And if we were to read I just for the sake of time and I'm going to read all those
But you know, what is it the love of money is the root of all evil and people get all sidetracked
Why why has there always been separation? Why are you back to separate because we're not concerned about money?
Right when pastor Cobb separated from the Southern Baptist convention
I think it was two cents of every dollar that was going out into the mission field
Four cents four cents of every dollar was going out into the mission field. Oh
2.4. Sorry about that. I always get it wrong pastor two point four cents of every dollar was going out into the mission field
This is back, you know, 50 60 years ago
If the Southern Convention's not gotten better, it's gotten worse, it's probably like zero's
going out into the mission field now, you know, I mean, obviously they have missionaries
so it can't be zero, but it's probably less than that.
You know what percentage goes out into the mission field from our church?
After expenses, everything.
All we spend money on is things to spread the gospel.
That's that's all like to edify the brothers and sisters to make us better. Like that's it. I
Mean, we obviously were a church. We have to have some expenses
So I would lie to you if it said a hundred percent. That's like a that would be also, you know
That's also a nice thing about being an independent Baptist. You find balance in the Word of God. That's dumb, right?
Like people say oh, I'm only gonna you have to have a balance
We have bills we have to pay the electricity none of you would sit here if it was a hundred degrees in here as a matter of fact
Brother Trey gets the call as soon as the AC goes out. Hey, man, it's hot in here, right? Like nobody likes to sit in here
So go over to Jeremiah 2. This is where we're gonna close out go to Jeremiah 2 but in Romans 15
Verse 20 the Bible says yeah, so I have strived to preach the Grop gospel
Hey, I'm striving, I want you to strive.
I know some of you are striving more than me
to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named,
lest I should build upon another man's foundation,
but as it is written to whom he was not spoken of,
they shall see, and they that have not heard,
shall understand.
One of the things I like about being independent
is that I don't, I have a group of friends,
but you know what I like about the group of friends
that I'm preaching to?
They don't want to preach to the choir
other than in their congregations.
Right?
I don't care if other people follow us.
What I want is new people to listen to us that have never heard the gospel, that never
heard this kind of preaching, so that then they can get on board.
You know, one of my desires is to really get a lot of content in Spanish because there's
not good doctrinal content in Spanish.
So we get a lot of Hispanics out there preaching the word of God correctly and leading people
to Christ because you need to have the right foundation.
So I mean, I'm glad you guys are here and it's fun to preach to the choir, but you're
not my main audience.
The reason I preach to you is so that you can then go out there and help me spread to
I want to clean your life up, just like I'm cleaning my life up.
I want to remind you that you're a sinner, just like I'm a sinner.
I want to remind you that there's consequences for your sin, just like there's consequences
for my sin.
I want to improve your life and in the process, hold myself to our standard so I can improve
my life.
But I'm not trying to lead you to Christ.
I mean, if you're here, you should be saved.
If you're not saved, you need to get that thing right.
Meet me after the services, but we're not, you know, that's not the purpose of what we're
Go to Jeremiah. Did I have you turn to Jeremiah? I did right go to Jeremiah, too. Now. We're only gonna stay in Jeremiah
I'm gonna go through these quickly
There's other terms the Bible uses elder Bishop, you know all these for pastors
But I just wanted the folks on the verses and pastor because most of them are found in the book of Jeremiah
And you saw the Jeremiah is like hey Lord this pastor
There's only preached your word, you know, don't hold me accountable, but Jeremiah calls some people out. This is a very negative
Section here. It says in Jeremiah 2 verse 1 says moreover the word of the Lord came to me saying
Go and cry in the years of Jerusalem saying thus say the Lord
I remember thee the kindness of the youth the love of thine espousals when thou wentest after me in the wilderness in the
land that was sown
Israel was holiness unto the Lord,
and the first fruits of his increase,
all that devour him shall offend,
evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord.
Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob,
and all the families of the house of Israel.
Thus saith the Lord,
what iniquity have your fathers found in me,
that they are gone far from me,
and have walked away after vanity, and are become vain.
Hey, the Lord saith.
What have you what's wrong with me that you've gone off the beaten path?
Right neither said they
Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt that led us through the wilderness,
through the land of the deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of
death, through a land that no man passed through and where no man can dwelt, and I brought you into
a plentiful country to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof, but when you entered,
you defiled my land and made mine heritage and abomination. The priest said not, where is the
The pastors also transgressed against me and the prophets prophesied by bail and walked after things that do not profit
Hey, there's a generation of pastors today that are literally this description
They're getting up there and they're preaching
doctrines of devils and they're like, you know, what do they say it says here and there's priests that say where is the Lord?
They don't care
And there's people that handle the law that didn't even know God.
You know, there's people today that are translating the Bible, right?
They don't even care about God.
They don't know God.
It says in the pastors also what transgressed against me.
They're committing sin and they don't care.
And who's affected? The flock, the congregation.
Jeremiah 3, go over to Jeremiah 3 real quick.
What is, you know, in verse 6 it says,
The Lord said, also unto me in the day of Josiah the king, has thou seen that which
backsliding Israel hath done, she has gone up on every high mountain and on every great
tree, and there hath played the harlot.
Verse 8 says, and I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed
adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet her treacherous sister
Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also."
Verse 11 says in the Lord said unto me the backsliding Israel had justified herself more than the treasurer's Judah
Go and proclaim these words towards the north and say return about backsliding Israel
Sayeth the Lord
And I will not cause my anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever.
Turn, go to verse 14, says, turn no backsliding children, saith the Lord, for I am married unto you, and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you design on.
And I will what? And I will give you pastors according to my heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. Hey, how do you know you're serving at a church?
the correct church, one that's feeding you with knowledge and understanding.
Look, I don't have to be the oldest guy in the congregation.
I just got to preach the word of God.
There's nobody older than Christ.
I can give you eternal wisdom from the book of God, from the Bible, right?
Go to verse 22, it says,
Return ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.
Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord of God."
Hey, we don't want to be backslidden,
and if we are, we want to find pastors who will feed us with knowledge and understanding,
and then we want to return, so then he'll heal us.
God is merciful.
We went through just recently we were going through the Psalms and it's one of my favorite Psalms because every verse is ends
How for his mercy and earth forever
For his mercy and earth forever
Blah blah blah blah blah his mercy and earth forever
I've memorized half the half the chapter because half the chapter is for his mercy and earth forever
God is merciful, but he also is you know our father. He's gonna chastise us
We need to find the right pastors and the right leaders
And I mean, it could be a, you know, a detriment to me,
but I'd rather preach the truth.
If this is not in the church for you
and I'm not trying to kick anybody out
and there's no drama here, there's nothing going on,
I'm just telling you the truth.
Every once in a while, you just gotta get up and preach.
If you're not being fed, like I said, go eat somewhere else.
We live in America, right?
Like you can go to McDonald's
or you can go to Taste of Texas.
And you know what?
You can walk into the Taste of Texas
and order a glass of water
and you're gonna be like, this place sucks
or this is too expensive.
But you know what you can do?
You can go somewhere else.
Nobody's going to stop you because water's free unless you order sparkling water, then
pay for it and then leave.
How many of you have ever done that?
I remember when I was a kid, we went with my dad to a restaurant a couple of times and
we didn't want to eat there and we got up and we left.
It's the same thing in church.
Don't come to church to clock in.
Come to church hungry, be ready to be fed.
And don't just expect milk and cookies.
Right? We're Texans. We love steak. Go to Jeremiah 10. Like I said, we're going to go through these quickly.
I've got a couple more and we're basically done. Go to Jeremiah 10. Verse 21 says,
For the pastors are become brutish, and I'm not sought the Lord, therefore they shall not
prosper, and all their flocks should be scattered. Look, the Lord's blessed us because we're preaching
A bunch of you guys came over from another congregation and the reason I don't even mention the congregation
is because the words of the Lord are pure words.
We have a pure congregation, it has nothing to do with that congregation, right?
But some became brutish and sought after the Lord.
Look, if the flock leaves you're in trouble.
I'm sorry, if the flock leaves you're in trouble, if they leave because you're not preaching
the Word of God, if you're preaching the Word of God and the goats leave, let them leave.
That's actual growth.
Right?
You know how many goats have left our church?
A ton.
And every time they left, they got better.
We're not a huge church. So obviously these other churches have had more people. But Pastor Cobb came up to me when I remember
I guess he could just see it in my face. I maybe was a little dejected. Maybe, you know, feeling a little
Frustrated all the hard work and just a small congregation. He's you know, brother. I just stopped chasing
Congregants a long time ago
That's why I don't call any of you
I mean, I'll check in on occasion like just to make sure you're okay, but I never call anybody be like, hey
We're worried at church
except for Moe, I'll call him Moe, I'll call him Moe.
But, you know, I will say that in verse 22 says,
behold, the noise of the bruit is come
and great commotion out of the North country
to make cities of Judah desolate and a den of dragons.
Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself.
It is not in man that walketh to direct the step.
Oh Lord, correct me, but with judgment,
not in dying anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.
Hey, I wanna be judged by the Lord, so I am something.
Right go over to Jeremiah 12. He's got a few verses there Jeremiah 12 and verse 10 says many pastors
Have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion underfoot
They have made my pleasant portion of desolate wilderness
They have made a desolate and being desolate in mourneth unto me the whole land is made desolate because no man layeth it to heart
Why do I associate with other pastors that refer to themselves as the new independent fundamental Baptist?
Because I want to be surrounded by people who are preaching the word of God who are doing great things for the Lord.
The way that I look at stuff is, you know, what's getting done for the Lord?
Oh, number one, they're leading people to Christ. Number two, everybody hates them.
I had a really good mentor before I got saved. He said,
if people don't hate you, you're not doing anything.
You're just being lazy.
And this is before I got saved.
This is us in business.
He's like, if nobody hates you in business,
you're not doing anything great in business.
The same, that principle applies everywhere.
Jeremiah 22 verse 22 says,
And the lover shall go into captivity.
Surely then shall thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.
Not all pastors are created equal."
Right?
Not everybody's preaching from the King James.
Not everybody's preaching salvation by faith through grace, right?
One saved, always saved.
Not at works.
Listen, he mentioned both.
You can tell you go out there you talk to like somebody who got saved as a young person
But they're in some liberal church and they get offended. They're like, hey, do you mind me asking what someone has to do to get saved?
Oh, I'm good. I'm saved. Yeah, I know but it just just for my clarification
What do you think you need to do to go to heaven? Oh, I just believe on Jesus
What do you think you could ever lose the wolf course not of course not I don't have time. I got it
Look if you ask me, I'll glad don't even ask me because then I'm gonna be like now I want to clear up your salvation
Let's talk, you know, I get excited about this thing of salvation
Don't ask me biblical questions because I want to talk to you all day long
If you don't want to talk to me don't ask me a Bible question Jeremiah 23
Jeremiah 23 and then after that we're gonna close in Ephesians. That's it Jeremiah 23 in verse 1
The Bible says woe be unto the pastors woe is not a good thing in the Bible
It's a judgment, it's a bad thing that destroy and scatter the sheep of my
pasture saith the Lord therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the
pastors that feed my people you have scattered my flock and driven them away
and have not visited them behold I will visit upon you the evil of your doing
saith the Lord and I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the
countries whether I have driven them and I will bring them again to their fold
Increase and I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed
Neither shall there they be lacking
they be lacking, saith the Lord. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice, this beginning of Jesus, by the way, in the earth, in his days, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is his name, whereby he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness, hey, the Lord's going to put shepherds, but those shepherds are going to follow who?
The shepherd Jesus Christ
Right we want to be
Surrounded and associated with people that love the Lord Jesus Christ
That's number one, but number two if they
profess Christ, but they're not making an effort to sanctify. I don't want to have anything to do with them
What does that mean though because I don't want you to guys think I'm being judgmental
The way that I judge people in the church, because I do judge you just so you know, and let's get that out of the way
I'm judging everybody all the time, right? Judge, judge, not unless you be judged and with whatever judgment you should judge
You should be met like and I think I butcher the last part
What I'm saying is the way that I look at life is not somebody will come to me or say something or I'll notice something
And I think to myself, where is that person like from the time I met him?
Is there a life in the direction towards God or is it away from God?
If it's moving in the direction, 99% of the time I probably won't even say anything
because we're all in a different walk of life.
You know, if I think about my, when I first got saved,
if a pastor would have looked at me, especially these pastors, they're like,
oh, there's no outward change.
They would have just written me off as someone who didn't get saved.
because I just wasn't living for Christ. I was living worldly.
I got saved and then I just went back to doing the things that I was doing as a worldly man.
Right?
So I don't look at you guys as, oh, like, ooh, you know, they, they did this or they
said that.
I'm just like, where has, where, where's their life been and where has it headed?
And of course, everybody's life, I mean, I know some of you better than others.
So it's easier to do that.
And even when I want to instinctively judge, I just jump to the conclusion that as long
as God's moving in you and you're moving in the right direction, well, God's doing the
work.
My job is to, if I want to really address an issue, I'll address it from here.
Unless it's like something like you guys are gonna burn the church or I don't know kids got in a fight
I mean unless it's like really egregious
I'm not gonna say anything because I'm not Lord over your house
Just like I wouldn't want you to tell me anything about me because you're not Lord over my house
Just you know and I know I have three kids my kids are not perfect
So I know everybody has an opinion right like I'm just it's just the fact you know my kids aren't great
Go to Ephesians 4 last place. I'll have you turn
verse 11
the Bible says there in Ephesians 4. So why do I associate, why are we new independent
fundamental Baptist? Because that word new just means that we want to bring back the
old ways, right? And it's not even the old ways, it's just the right way, the godly way.
If it's biblical, I want to associate with it. And even in these churches or our friends,
if there's something that doesn't line up or I just don't agree with, I'm just not going
Our church is independent. We are filed with the state independent of any other church
I've had to update all that paperwork. Believe me. There's no other association other than ours
The only dues we pay us to the state and federal whatever we have to do like the dues are to tell people that we're incorporated
right
Fundamental because I want to just be based on the foundations
We were talking earlier with
Sylvia's brother about foundations about this building not being set on proper foundations
And you guys can tell right when the kids run on that side of the building we can feel them over here
It's like it's like thunder
Because it's just not set on concrete or vice versa who you know
We were true we're worried about this a little section right here because you walk and you can feel the the floor bar
You know, it's like a root because it's not a good foundation
Right, and then we're Baptist because I mean if you just study the history of Baptist, we are not Protestant
We did not come out of the reformation the Protestant reformation nothing like that
We are established by the Lord Jesus Christ himself
Period and the story people want to argue that all day long
I mean if you should get mad about anything that should be the one that you should get mad about and then just closing
Right there, you want to find pastors that are after God's will.
But in Ephesians 4-11, it says that He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists
and some pastors and some teachers for what?
For the perfecting of the saints.
You guys should be wanting to perfect yourselves with these individuals for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
You know, my entire goal as we move is that we would just do more work for the Lord.
That we would edify each other much better. I don't know if I accomplish that
Every time I get up here to be honest with you. I don't think I do I mean, it's just
The nature of being a human but that's my prayer. That's my goal, right? When I look out in the audience
I don't look at people but thank God they showed up
I'm like thank God they showed up and thank God that we're moving in the right direction
Right, we have 144 souls won this year last year. We only had 28. Amen. We're moving in the right direction
You know what, but we shouldn't sit back and kick up our feet. I want 144 in the next three months
How about we break that record?
How about we try to go for a thousand before the end of the year? That'd be great, right? We need laborers
Hey, I can't be the only one praying for stuff. And by the way, I'm not woe as me. I know you guys are involved
I know it because I see it
I'm just talking for myself.
I can't be the only one doing this.
I can't be the only one showing up.
You guys need to show it.
It's your church just as much as mine, right?
But you also need to know why you're serving here.
You need to sit down and examine yourselves and look at the reasons that you do this,
and it's for the edification.
At the end of the day, the Bible is very clear.
We came with nothing, and we're going home with nothing.
I'm going to take three minutes just to, here in, I think it's in Temple or in Abilene.
I'm telling you because this is where my heart is.
They're building the largest AI, who's heard of that?
The largest AI facility, open AI, it's signed into office by President Trump.
They're building this huge AI facility where they're putting all the servers basically
to advance artificial intelligence.
Right?
I'm not being a conspiracy theorist, this stuff's already out there.
In the last 48 hours, Google released something called VEO3, and I don't know if you've seen
some of these clips.
You can't tell, like it's able to reproduce movies or clips with sound and background
noise and everything.
There's going to become a deception that's coming towards us, right?
And if we're not ready, we're going to be deceived.
And so the goal is, I'm not trying to scare you with that stuff, we'll be ready, like
as Christians, but the rest of the world isn't ready.
So we need to be able to stand fast when people get deceived so easily.
We need to be able to stand on Christ's word when the antichrist comes and when tribulation
comes and when persecution comes.
And we're not only that, but we also need to say, hey, not only we're going to stand
fast, but we're going to keep trucking.
We're going to keep soul winning.
We're going to keep preaching.
Throw me in jail.
Threaten to kill me.
Do whatever you need to do.
That's the goal of today's sermon, right?
We're going to keep on trucking.
Nobody's going to slow us down, even if the deceptions are coming.
Right? So let's close in order prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for today.
Thank you for your blessings, Lord. Thank you for the opportunity to preach.
Thank you, Lord, that we can just sometimes come up with terms so that other people know how to
recognize us. Today might be the new independent fundamental Baptist. I mean, if you want to
remove all that, we just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the inerrant infallible Word of God.
That you are the Word, and for the English-speaking people, it's the King James Bible.
We believe in one saved, always saved, the eternal secure of the believer, confrontational
soul-winning, and so much more, Lord.
But Lord, help us to just have a good week and remind us, Lord, that we want to surround
ourselves with an army of soldiers that are not afraid to fight.
I know there's a lot of save that are fearful,
but you only need a small army to do great things, Lord.
Help us to just come to you, Lord,
knowing that we preached your word
and that we need your mercy and your grace
to execute the greatness that you have in us.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.