Good afternoon everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
Great to see everybody here tonight.
If we can go ahead and find our seats, we will get started with the service.
Great to see everybody here.
If we can find our seats and find a hymnal, we will start tonight off with song number
405.
Song number 405, The Banner of the Cross, number four, I'll sing it out tonight.
Thank you so much for this awesome church.
Thank you for everybody here.
Thank you for allowing us to sing unto you this afternoon, Lord.
We just ask that you help us lift up our voices and fill us with your Spirit.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
For our next song, let's go to song number 122.
Working on number 122, let's all sing it out together.
To steadfast minority, if you'd like one, just lift your hand real quick.
Church can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
On the front we have our Bible memory passage, Romans 10, 11, and then we're quoting the
entire chapter.
On the inside is our service and soul winning times.
Church stats down below, please keep up the great work on soul winning.
On the right is a list of several expecting ladies.
Please be in prayer for them.
Also upcoming events, Texas A&M College Soul Winning Marathon, February 27th and 28th.
Brother Diego is leading this.
He said that they're going to try and meet around 4 p.m. for those that are going down
there.
I didn't have it in the bulletin, but it's kind of a last minute, same date, February
27th.
We're just going to have a in-house movie night if you want to come to the church.
The movie will be at 8 p.m.
So we'll probably try to do a Baptist bias over here in the fellowship room or something
or maybe on the stage.
I don't know.
So you might see us talking about it, but we're just going to basically set up.
It's going to be though, the movie is going to start p.m. sharp.
So there's really no wiggle room whatsoever.
We're going to try and open a guest Wi-Fi just for the one time if you want to check
out the chat and stuff.
But it's kind of like a live stream premiere.
So that's why it's going to be, you know, rigid schedule.
So if you come in late, you're going to miss parts of it, FYI.
If you are lucky, there might be some cokes and candy and stuff like that.
I don't know, you can see Brother Fur what we're going to have, but it'll be a fun little
movie night.
The movie is called Man of God.
It's pretty much just a movie about my friend Pastor Anderson and just kind of his impact
as far as just his preaching and his life and different things that have gone on.
It's really a kind of a fun project, but it's actually turned out to be a pretty interesting
film, I think.
I think it tells a pretty compelling story and has a lot of good information in it.
So I like it.
So I'm really excited.
It's about 80 minutes.
So if you want to know exactly about how long it is, and that includes all the credits and
the gospel presentation, everything like that.
But fun movie.
If you want to bring a friend, family member, whoever, grandma, you can always bring them.
And grandma's welcome.
It'll be a fun night.
Also we have kids choir practice begins March 1st.
So if you have anybody forward at 17 that would like to participate, we'd love to have
you.
We have a baby shower on the 7th.
I think the details are on the back.
And then Carthage, Texas, the winning marathon.
We're also having another event out there in Carthage.
So winning mega marathon April 4th, Easter Sunday, April 5th.
And then on the back is the details about that baby shower.
There's also our prayer list.
Before I get there, we have a handout as well.
We had a congratulations to the Cheziks on the birth of their daughter, Bethany Olivia.
She was born on the Saturday, February 14th, six pounds, nine ounces.
Congratulations to them.
We'll make sure to announce that on Sunday as well.
And then our prayer list, we are continuing to pray for the Garcias for health.
We've been praying for Brother Suhail's mother, if you pray for her health.
Please pray for Brother Billy's mother who's having surgery, also his cousin, and their
wife are dealing with a death and also some issues with their children.
And then he's also asking prayer for his son, Tatum.
Please pray also for Brother Spurgeon for work, if you'd pray for Brother, well, the
entire Urbanic family.
They've been, you know, dealing with some health issues as well as their grandmother
they've been taking care of, and it's definitely difficult with her dementia.
So if you just be in prayer for them and really thinking about them, that would be a blessing.
Please pray for Mrs. Ginger's niece who has pneumonia.
If you'd pray for Brother Evan for his health, and he actually told me he did get a new job
so that's a praise report.
Just continue to pray for him and that goes smoothly.
Let's also pray for the Canaries brother, Elliot, for his salvation and health.
We've been praying for the Robertsons, for Brother Brian's, he's got a tooth abscess
and so it's definitely very painful.
Please pray for healing on that.
Please also continue to pray for Brother Illy, and then Brother Philip had asked for prayer
for his wife.
So that's pretty much all I have as far as our bulletins, announcements, and prayer requests.
We'll just go ahead and say a prayer as a church family.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for our church.
Thank you so much for this service that we get to have tonight.
I thank you for all these ladies who are expecting in our church.
I pray that you please just be with them.
Please help them with their pregnancy.
Please give them a smooth delivery.
I pray that you would also just help those who have recently given birth.
Please help them just to recover and to do well and that their children's development
would go well.
I pray that you'd also just please be with our church family and friends that are struggling
with these sicknesses and illnesses.
If possible, I pray that you could please just give them health.
Please be with those that have lost loved ones and those who are dealing with serious
issues.
I pray that you would give them patience.
Give them peace.
Please bless those that need work or need favor in their job or with maybe their vehicle
or any kind of financial needs.
I pray that you'd please just bless them.
And I pray that you would just continue to bless the work that we have going in the Philippines
and supporting our evangelists, all our soul winning events.
I pray that you would just continue to bless our work and that it would all be done in
honor and glory of your son's name.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
That's really all I have as far as announcements.
We're going to go ahead and sing our psalm of the week, Psalm 117, Psalm 117, Psalm 117.
As the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and open your Bibles to Deuteronomy
chapter 19.
That's the book of Deuteronomy chapter number 19.
19, the Bible reads, "When the Lord thy God hath cut off the nations whose land the Lord
thy God giveth thee, and thou succeedest them and dwellest in their cities and in their
houses, thou shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land which the Lord
thy God giveth thee to possess it.
Thou shalt prepare thee away and divide the coasts of thy land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee to inherit into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither.
And this is the cause of the slayer, which shall flee thither, that he may live, whoso
killeth his neighbor ignorantly, whom he hated not in time past, as when a man goeth
into the wood with his neighbor to hew wood, and his hand fetcheth a stroke with the axe
to cut down the tree, and the head slippeth from the health, and lighteth upon his neighbor
that he die, he shall flee unto one of those cities, and live.
Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him,
because the way is long, and slay him, whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he
hated him not in time past.
Wherefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt separate three cities for thee, and if the
Lord thy God enlarge thy coast, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, and give thee all
the land which he promised to give unto thy fathers, if thou shalt keep all these commandments
to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the Lord thy God, and to walk ever
in his ways, then shalt thou add three cities more for thee, beside these three, that innocent
blood be not shed in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance,
and so blood be upon thee.
But if any man hate his neighbor, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him,
and smite him mortally that he die, and fleeeth into one of these cities, then the elders
of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger
of blood, that he may die.
And I shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel,
that it may go well with thee.
Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance,
which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or for any sin, and any sin
that he sinneth, at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the
matter be established.
If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong,
then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord, before the
priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; and the judges shall make diligent
inquisition; and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely
against his brother, then shall ye do unto him as he hath thought to have done unto his
brother; so shalt thou put the evil away from among you.
And those which remain shall hear and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such
evil among you.
And then I shall not pity, but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
hand for hand, foot for foot.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, we thank you for Deuteronomy chapter 19.
I pray that you would bless the Bible study tonight and give Pastor Shelley the fullness
of the Holy Spirit as he preaches your word to us, and help us to pay close attention
and learn as much as possible over the course of tonight's sermon.
We love you in Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Amen.
Deuteronomy 19, the Bible says, "When the Lord thy God hath cut off the nations whose
land the Lord thy God giveth thee, and thou succeedest them and dwellest in their cities
and in their houses, thou shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it."
Now this is what we would kind of refer to in the Bible as the idea of having sanctuary
cities and it's addressed in Numbers as well and we'll probably look at that in a minute
but you know, notice here in the text it's saying that once they're victorious and they
essentially are in a peaceful state, that's when they would concern themselves with setting
up these sanctuary cities.
So in a time of warfare, in a time of conquering, in a time of conquest, they're not going
to concern themselves with setting up these, quote, sanctuary cities, this is more of
something that you're going to do once you have established the land, once you're dwelling
safely, once you have this peace time.
So it's not necessarily the most important aspect of a civil society.
And I think that in some ways we have to understand just the carnal applications of what the Bible
is saying as well as the spiritual.
But you know, if you were to conquer a particular area or colonize a particular area or you're
taking large land grabs, you wouldn't necessarily want to concern yourself with sanctuary principles
at that time.
This is more of a peacetime idea.
This is not really a wartime principle and a wartime principle, you're not really concerning
yourself with these type of ideas, meaning it's a lesser or a lesser important idea.
It's not something that's always going to be the case, it's circumstantial.
And so, you know, you want to make sure that you kind of understand this.
If you're in a possession of a territory that's hotly contested and there's war and all this
stuff, you're not so much concerned about these aspects of civil society.
Just meaning that, in general, you have to think about a country, you know, we live in
America where we're very, you know, prosperous, we're very safe, we're pretty much not really
fearing any kind of enemies invading us and attacking us and taking us over.
Whereas some parts of the world, they might have constant threat, their borders might
be shifting a lot.
You know, they talk about the Ukraine war and Russia, borders are shifting a lot, things
are evolving.
You know, you wouldn't necessarily concern yourself with every civil issue when you're
in war.
And I think that's the thing that we should still consider is that when you're at war,
sometimes the priorities shift as far as like what you need to do as a society, what your
government needs to be focused on, what you need to take into account.
So this is more of a peacetime type of structure that you would have.
When you're at peace, when you've conquered, once you have the land dwelt, then we want
to have this principle where we give this kind of a luxury to those who are guilty of
a type of homicide that's accidental.
In a time of warfare, it's just kind of like accidental homicides, we're just not caring
about y'all as much.
Y'all aren't necessarily the most important aspect of society right now while we're literally
threatened with our border and enemies and all the other issues that are dealing with
society.
And so as a society you want to make sure you have these principles in their proper
role in their proper place.
Now they set out three cities in the section that they have that conquer, they're successful,
they have peace, and it says in verse number three, "Thou shalt prepare thee away and divide
the coasts of thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee to inherit into three parts
that every slayer may flee thither."
So he's saying strategically you want to kind of break your area into like three sections
and then kind of have like a city in each section, because you're basically trying to
strategically afford the opportunity that someone that's in this particular situation
that's brought up of an accidental homicide, you have a reasonable chance to reach a destination,
reach one of these sanctuary cities, and you're able to flee to them.
They're not like all in one cluster or on just like one side of the map, that is kind
of like equally distributed and you're trying to make it fair, essentially, is what you're
trying to do.
It says in verse four, this is the whole situation, and this is the case of the slayer, which
shall flee thither, that he may live, who so killed his neighbor ignorantly, whom he
hated not in time past.
Again, we talk about manslaughter, the Bible bring up the word slayer, it's basically the
concept of killing someone, but not intentionally.
That's where it says ignorantly, meaning that there was nothing that they were doing to
try and harm someone.
They weren't even negligent.
Negligent homicides often still carry the death penalty, depending on the circumstance,
but basically you're not being negligent, you're not being careless, this is not like
a drunk driving accident.
This is not you just accidentally firing a gun into the air and it's killing someone.
This is simply you were genuinely just making an accident, and it brings up an example here
of someone working hard and working with heavy machinery or working with some kind of equipment
and there's an equipment failure and that particular person dies, it's a total accident.
But even then, you know, this person has committed a crime and is guilty and is going to have
to flee onto a city of refuge.
Again, I use the word sanctuary city because it kind of makes sense to me, but it is confusing
term in our modern vernacular because the word sanctuary city in America, if you use
that, it's referring to a city in America that does not enforce immigration on a federal
level.
So that's just the standard definition of what a sanctuary city is in America.
So it's a city, typically a liberal city, that refuses to cooperate with the federal
government on ICE and illegal immigration.
Now again, that concept's not really brought up in the Bible.
That's not what the Bible means.
But the word sanctuary is kind of a safe haven.
So a sanctuary city is kind of what's being fit here.
A city of refuge would be another way to word this, but we're just kind of using a biblical
understanding of what a sanctuary city is, that when you're there, you're safe.
In some cases, our country can provide sanctuary to, you know, particular political prisoners
or religious, you know, persecution.
It's possible that our nation would take political or religious refugees into our country as
a safe haven, as a sanctuary, even though they're not immigrating legally, just to
protect them from whatever persecution or harm or danger that they're receiving.
You know, some examples would be some of our friends from Germany, they were being essentially
hunted down by law enforcement for preaching certain parts of the Bible.
And when I say, meaning in the most literal sense, just the fact that they just read Leviticus
2013 out loud or read Romans 1 out loud, they are being investigated, their phones were
being confiscated, and just for saying what the Bible said, not even adding.
Of course they added, but I'm just saying, but not even adding.
They had to flee from this religious persecution into America, and they can't even live in
their home country or a country that they've migrated to just simply for preaching what
the Bible says.
And so America, in some cases, has a good policy of accepting Christian refugees and
allowing them to stay here because of the hostility towards the religion of Christianity
in their home country.
So that would be another idea of a sanctuary.
But in the Bible, in this chapter, what we're talking about is limited to a homicide particular
scenario.
This is the one that's kind of being brought up.
And that's where you kill someone, you slaughter someone, you slay someone, but you didn't
hate them.
It was a total accident.
That's what it means by "ignorantly" here in verse number four.
So you've got to be careful.
You can't even accidentally kill people you hate because then, you know, no one's going
to believe you and they're essentially going to hold you accountable for their death.
You would be put to death.
So you can't kill the people you accidentally hate either, right?
Says in verse five, "As when a man goeth," so this is the example, "As when a man goeth
into the wood with his neighbor to hew wood and his hand fetcheth the stroke with the
axe to cut down the tree and the head slippeth from the helve and lighteth upon his neighbor
that he die, he shall flee unto one of those cities and live."
So it's giving these examples.
Someone's chopping wood and the axe head slips off of the wood piece.
It's called the helve here and it just lands on someone's head and it just by sheer accident,
just a complete total accident.
He didn't do anything weird.
He didn't throw the axe at him.
He wasn't like trying to kind of hit him or something.
It just simply a pure accident and he dies and again this happens in the workplace where
people using heavy machinery, dangerous equipment, you know any kind of thing there can be accidents
and people can accidentally be shot, killed, stabbed, impaled, all kinds of different things
happen.
This is why it's important to not have DEI, all right, where you actually have people
that are working hard and understand, you know, Boeing, you know wants to make sure
that their aircraft actually works well because you don't want people to die on aircraft.
Now of course that would be a different argument.
That's like negligence and it's actually like biblically a serious issue.
But this is a genuine accident.
You're going to have genuine accidents, today vehicular manslaughter is probably one of
the most common examples of people accidentally killing individuals, right?
Someone steps out in front of them in the car, they hit another car, you know just car
accidents are just crazy.
There's a lot of people that are dying in car accidents.
And again a lot of times it's just simply an accident.
I know several years ago we had a pretty bad ice storm and there was like a fast lane section
of the road where you kind of were going up a hill and then down the hill.
Well since you were going up you can't see and it was just so icy just on the other side
and cars are going 50 maybe 60 miles an hour and as soon as they come over the hill it
was all stopped.
Well in the fast lane you're just blocked in, there's nowhere to go.
And so it was just car after car just piling up, semis just smashing into each other.
And I think a lot of people actually died from that particular accident and again that's
a total accident.
You're driving, you come over a hill, you can't stop, there's nowhere to go and unfortunately
a lot of people died as a result and that's just life.
Life is going to happen, things are going to happen, people are going to die.
What would happen if you kill someone in a pure accident?
Well biblically speaking it's still a crime.
Biblically speaking you would have to flee to the city of refuge because if anybody that's
like wants to avenge you of that death that's simply their brother, sister, mom, they're
just mad that the accident happened.
They can slaughter you and God is saying that that person isn't really worthy of death and
so he doesn't want this to happen so he's provided this unique case where they have
to flee under this city.
If the avenger of blood catches them before they get there he can slaughter them.
If he gets to the city though, can't slaughter them.
That's kind of the principle here that you kind of have this cat and mouse chase to get
to that city as fast as he possibly can because someone might want to, you know, avenge you
of that bloodless.
Verse 6, "Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer while his heart is hot and overtake
him because the way is long and slay him whereas he was not worthy of death inasmuch as he
hated him not in time past."
So he's saying if you accidentally kill someone you really shouldn't be put to death but God
kind of doesn't really blame the guy for killing you either so he kind of creates this like
hunger game scenario.
And so you kind of have this opportunity, you've got to flee to the sanctuary city,
to the city of refuge, if you can make it in time you're safe.
If not then you're gone.
In baseball they don't kill you, you're just out.
But in this game they kill you and this is kind of a crazy scenario but this is kind
of how God set this carnal situation up where he gives these two people this kind of an
option.
And he says in verse 7, "Wherefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt separate three cities
for thee.
And if the Lord thy God enlarge thy coast, as he has sworn of thy fathers, and give thee
all the land which he promised to give unto thy fathers, if thou shalt keep all these
commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the Lord thy God and to
walk ever in his ways, then thou shalt add three cities more for thee beside these three.
That innocent blood be not shed in thy land, as the Lord thy God giveth thee for inheritance,
and so blood be upon thee."
So he also made it clear kind of in the previous verse that the reason in verse number six
that he wants these cities is because he doesn't want the way to be long.
He doesn't want it to be so far that this is going to often happen.
He wants there to be enough cities of refuge that it's kind of easy, you know, and isn't
it interesting?
You kind of have like in baseball, you have first, second, third base, you kind of have
like three cities, you know, there's a lot of interesting parallels, right?
But it's like, hey, he wants them to be close because it was really far apart.
Well, then you just have a lot more slaughtering.
And he's saying if for some reason, you know, you all do good, you obey God, and then you
get a lot more land, then you need to add even more cities because you want to make
sure that this is continuing to be kind of a, you know, a small area.
It's easy.
There's a lot of access to this particular safe haven.
He wants as many people to be saved as possible.
And so he's putting in all these extra cities here.
Now it does give a caveat though.
It says in verse number 11, "But if any man hate his neighbor and lie and wait for him
and rise up against him and smite him mortally that he die, and fleeeth into one of these
cities, then the elders of his city shall sin and fetch him thence and deliver him in
the hand of the avenger of blood that he may die.
Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from
Israel that it may go well with thee."
So these first 13 verses are dealing with the scenario of this city of refuge, the slayer,
and it's making a differentiation between what we would consider like a first-degree
homicide or murder versus kind of an accidental, you know, incidental manslaughter.
And if it's accidental, there's an investigation, there's no hatred, then you could flee to
the city of refuge.
But if you go to the city of refuge and they find out that you hated the guy or that you
did it on purpose or that it wasn't an accident and there's proof and there's evidence, then
they would just deliver you straight to the avenger of blood and you'd just be executed.
So the city of refuge doesn't work for everyone.
It doesn't work for all people.
It's kind of like, again, baseball, if you run on a pop fly and they catch it, even though
you got to the safe base, you're not safe because you had to tag up.
And so, in some cases, you're not safe.
So even though you made it to the sanctuary city, if you didn't do it the right way or
if there's some kind of an issue, well, then you're still going to be slaughtered.
You're still going to be killed.
Now I want to go to Numbers chapter 35, Numbers chapter 35, kind of interesting.
It's almost like not a prison colony, but it's like a prison city if you think about
it.
It's like cities where a lot of just kind of, you know, people that are probably not
the best of society, most likely, that are all kind of fleeing into this particular area.
A lot of accidental homicide, you know, people are hanging out.
So it's probably not necessarily the most desirable, but God's allowing them to have
a particular city to live in and to still, you know, benefit society.
Now in Numbers 35, it brings up when the person could leave.
It says in verse 28, this is the same context.
It says, "Because he should have remained in the city of his refuge until the death
of the high priest, but after the death of the high priest, the slayer shall return into
the land of his possession."
Now, it's kind of like in the middle of Ascendants, but it's basically saying if you ever left
the city and the avenger of blood or the avenger of blood catches you outside the city, he
can still kill you.
So you're only safe while in the city.
It's kind of like you're only safe while touching the base, okay?
If you don't know baseball or whatever, sorry, but I'm just trying to help you understand,
right?
You're standing on the base, you're safe.
You take your foot off the base, they tag you, you're out.
Same way, you're in the city, you're safe.
You get out of the city, he can slay you.
Now if the high priest dies though, then everybody in these sanctuary cities are free to just
leave and they can go back and now they basically don't have to stay in this particular safe
haven.
It's like a home run, right, you get a home run, everybody just gets to walk the bases,
right?
Everybody just gets to go, there's nothing they can even do to you.
And so it kind of has these principles.
Now why does this exist?
Well number one, God just doesn't want people who commit accidental homicide to be put to
death.
He wants them to have an ability to basically be restored back to society, okay?
And then additionally, he doesn't want everyone to not have a chance to avenge themselves.
Hey, you had your chance and you should have taken it, you know?
It's not like there wasn't a chance.
If you're really fast and you can catch him before he gets there, you could avenge yourself,
right?
And then also there's complete redemption in the sense that this guy can be restored
back to society, potentially.
So there's kind of like a lot of different elements, but it also just pictures a lot
of spiritual elements, doesn't it?
And I think there's a lot of ways that we could look at this.
Number one, we could look at this from like just a salvation perspective in the sense
that the person who accidentally slays is kind of the picture of the sinner.
And we're all that sinner, aren't we?
We're all a sinner and in a sense we, you know, are living in this life.
It's kind of like once we slaughtered that victim is like once you started sinning.
Once you start sinning, now the timer is ticking and you basically have to get to the sanctuary
city or if you don't and the slayer gets you beforehand, well, then you're going to be
executed.
And the same way that it's like you're living this life and if you don't get saved and the
devil kills you before you get there, well, you're going to go to hell.
You know, there's no redemption.
Whereas if you get into the sanctuary city, there's nothing he can do to you.
Nothing he can touch you.
And then because of the death of the high priest, we'll be redeemed and fully restored.
And of course the death of the high priest picturing the Lord Jesus Christ who is our
high priest.
And so we have that full picture of redemption and how we're saved.
Another way you could look at this is for people that are already saved.
People that are already saved, you know, we're all sinners and yet, you know, trusting in
the Lord and coming under his wings of protection will still prevent you from many times receiving
the consequences of your sin and just the destruction of the devil.
Whereas when you get out of God's will, well, anytime you're out of God's will, well, the
devil can still get you.
And in fact, in 1st Corinthians chapter number five, the Bible makes it abundantly clear,
those who are thrown out of church are delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh.
In the same way that this particular individual could be delivered outside.
And you know, if we take the same picture of church again, because I think that it's
kind of a picture of church, right?
You're in church and you're serving God, it's kind of like you're under God's protection
and the devil really can't do anything to you unless God wants.
But you don't want to be kicked out of church, you don't want to be outside of the church
because then the devil can have free reign at you.
He can come at you as hard as he wants, okay?
So we kind of have those pictures, but if the guy fleeing into church is actually guilty
of first degree homicide, church still doesn't rescue him or save him in the same way that
just because church is supposed to be a sanctuary, it's not a sanctuary for literally everything.
There are limits, there are boundaries still, and yes, Christians who commit homicide that's
intentional or through hatred should still be put to death.
We should still live in a society that has the death penalty even for Christians.
It's not a question of if you're saved or not.
It's just a part of civil society, and civil society should still have limits, they should
still have boundaries, they should still have rules.
We can't tolerate everything, we can't quote accept everything, and when someone crosses
that egregious of a line, yeah, they need to be removed from society, period.
And so there's a lot of different pictures here that we can see in this particular text,
and it kind of has some cool spiritual undertones as well.
Go back if you go to Deuteronomy chapter 19, Deuteronomy chapter number 19.
So God, of course, anytime he puts in his story or any of these carnal truths, there's
always a spiritual truth underlying as well.
And of course, God is a sanctuary unto us.
He's a city.
He is our refuge.
You know, you read a lot of Psalms, the Bible talk about how God is our refuge and that
He's a strong tower and that He's our city and that we're supposed to flee unto Him,
we're supposed to trust unto Him, we're supposed to, you know, be guarded and protected by
Him.
You know, some people like downplay church, but you know, you're downplaying the protection
of God in your life as well.
You're downplaying His refuge and you know, His ability to protect you from evil and from
bad things.
Now again, I'm sure some people could have wandered out of the city and the avenger didn't
catch them, right?
Just by sheer luck, just by sheer chance.
But who wants to play that game?
Who wants to roll the dice?
In the same way, yeah, I'm sure some Christians, some people, they stop going to church and
they stop reading their Bible and they stop serving God.
And just for a while, it just seems like nothing bad's happening and there's just no consequence.
But you just never know when that avenger's going to come out of nowhere and just slay
you.
Just right then and there.
And you know what?
I don't want to risk it.
I don't want to risk that.
I don't want to sit there and live just constantly looking over my shoulder and wondering what's
going to happen.
It's better to just trust in the Lord and be right with God.
And if He slay me, then He slay me and I'll still trust in Him.
But I'd rather God slay me than the devil.
And I'd rather be slain for a cause that God sees worthy rather than being slain for just
being a bozo or just being, you know, just kind of foolish or just, just being carnal
or being selfish.
You know, if I'm going to die, I'd rather die old or die serving God.
You know, I don't really want to die as a fool.
I don't want to die like Abner as a fool.
And so we've got to, we have to be careful on that.
And of course, Abner does die from the avenger, doesn't he?
You know, a lot of these stories, you kind of look in the Bible, there's, there's people
that are avenging each other and it's just kind of this vicious cycle.
And so, you know, it's important to think about these principles.
Look at verse number 14.
This is kind of just a standalone verse here.
It says, "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set
in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee
to possess it."
So again, we're reading a big body of text, obviously we have chapters, but it's just
kind of like going through different bulleted, listed ideas, and verses 1 through 13 is kind
of an idea, verse 14 is just a standalone idea, and it's this idea that you shouldn't
remove your neighbor's landmark.
What does this mean?
Well, again, today we have a lot of fencing, but not always have people had the money,
the means to just have large fencing for all of their property and all of their acreage
and all their land, so sometimes what they would do is they would just take like a big
rock or something that's possibly moveable and they would set it somewhere and they would
kind of say like this is the edge of my property, this is dividing my property from Brother
Rich's property.
But what someone could do, like Rich in the middle of the night come and just pick that
rock up and just kind of move it a little bit and just kind of place it somewhere, just
give himself a little bit more acreage.
And then I come and I'm thinking like man, I don't think that was there, I think it was
kind of like over, I don't know, I think he's moved this or whatever, but then it's kind
of a hard thing, like did he move it, I don't know.
Obviously some landmarks would be a little bit more fixed, rivers, lakes, trees, things
like that would be a lot harder to trick people with, and obviously when you look at a lot
of states today, you look at a lot of countries today, you'll kind of notice that the borders
are typically like a river, they're a river or they're a lake or they're some kind of
body water. Those are really hard to move. Those are really hard to get rid of. You kind
of wonder like why is Texas separated from Mexico? Well, there's water there, right?
You have basically the American army coming to march down, you have the Mexican army coming,
and obviously at some point it's going to be difficult to travel. Where? At a river
point, right? So then there's kind of like on both sides of the river and that's kind
of where borders start getting established. You go to Virginia, you go to all these different
places and you kind of want, like you look at borders and you're like this is a funky
looking border. Like why is this what it looks like? It's just following the river, it's
just following the natural body of water because that's just kind of how it is. But again,
when we're talking about smaller property lines and smaller property divisions, you
don't always have a lake, a river or something that's immovable. So then what do they use?
They use rocks or they use, I don't know, they could use anything, just some kind of
a monument or something. But the ones that are movable, people would come along and they'd
be like, hey, let's kind of pick this up and just kind of like move this over. Let's kind
of shift this over. And they're just stealing people's property by moving the property lines.
Now that would be wicked. Of course, in today's society, you can still have people doing these
things where they're stealing people's property, stealing people's land, changing things up,
doing kind of shady businesses. But we shouldn't, we should not steal from our neighbor. We
shouldn't take advantage of them when they're not looking. And of course, I think the spiritual
principle that we could kind of roll into, or taking the metaphorical interpretation
of this, would be even just like an idea that's a landmark. Not necessarily physical property,
but just anything. Just anything, you know, a tradition, right? Any kind of a tradition
that's held, that could be a landmark. And we don't want to necessarily get rid of traditions
that have been passed down to us, you know, when there's no reason to change it. Now the
word tradition in the Bible is sometimes negative, sometimes it's positive. But, you know, when
we talk about things being passed down, we want to keep the good and we don't want to
change things that don't need to be changed. Go if you went to Deuteronomy 27, we'll see
another verse on this, Deuteronomy chapter 27, you know, what would be something that
should not change? How about what Bible we use? How about the King James Bible? You know,
it's been passed down. We believe in what's called the textus receptus, just, you know,
that just means the text that's been received. That just means the Bible that was handed
down to us, the Bible that was given to us by our fathers. Why would I change that? You
know, there is no reason to change it. For English speaking people, we have a settled
Bible. We have a preserved Bible, the King James Bible, in English. Now, if we're talking
about other languages, okay, maybe we want to move the text into a different language.
But for English speaking people, it's settled. It's done. We don't need to change the landmark.
Whereas churches today, many churches today are removing that landmark. Many Baptist churches
today are getting away from the King James Bible. There are many fundamental King James
only churches that are changing and getting away from Baptist as the name. They're changing
from being King James only. They're bringing in different versions. Many churches that
are, you know, non-denominational Bible churches, they're constantly changing their Bible. They'll
get the new version of the NIV or now they're getting the quote legacy standard Bible, which
came out, correct me if I'm wrong, it's like 2021 or something like that. It's like in
the last five, six years. How can you have a Bible that's five or six years old that
you're calling the legacy standard? I mean, the legacy of five years? The standard of
five years? Like the name doesn't even make sense. I mean, you say like, why is it called
the King James? Well, King James authorized this text, right? That kind of makes sense.
We have the Tyndale Bible. Why? Because Tyndale translated it, right? The Bishop's Bible.
Why? Because it's translated by the Bishops. Legacy standard is stupid. It makes no sense.
There's no legacy. There's no standard. You're just using flattery. You're lying, is what
you're doing. It should be called new garbage translation because it's new and it's garbage.
It is a translation, but it is not a legacy. It is not a standard. If we were to say like
which Bible has a legacy, it would be the King James Bible. If you say what Bible is
the standard that all other English versions are comparing themselves to, it's the King
James Bible. The legacy standard Bible will be the King James Bible. But of course they
have to use this terminology to try and trick people and confuse people by using this flattering
language that's lie and deceitful. And they're trying to remove the ancient landmark. They're
saying no, no, this is the legacy. No, no, this is the legacy. Quit moving the landmark
over here because this is the legacy. This is the standard. You're trying to move it.
And you know what? The Bible says something about these people. Look at it says in Judah
chapter only 27 verse 17. "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark and all the
people shall say Amen." You know what? Cursed be anybody that changes Bibles. Cursed be
anybody that gets away from the King James Bible. Cursed be the people that are trying
to put an NIV in people's hands. They're trying to put the ESV in people's hands. They're
trying to put the New Living Translation in people's hands. You know what? Cursed be
those people because it's not the right text. It corrupts the Bible. It corrupts Jesus Christ
and it's wicked. You know what? We should use the King James Bible and we should pass
it down to our children and we should teach our children why we use the King James Bible
and tell them they should only use the King James Bible. There are a lot of other King
James-only churches today. They never tell you why. They never explain it to their children
why they use that. I've been in churches where it's King James, you know, preferred as I
would kind of word it, where, you know, typically that's the only thing coming from the pulpit
and that's what they'll say. But then most of the people in the pews, they're still using
their NIVs and the ESVs at home and they don't really understand why and they have
no idea what's, you know, the difference between these versions. You know, that's a shame.
That's an embarrassment. We should be making documentaries. We should be writing books.
We should be educating our children on why we use the King James Bible and why it's important
and why there's differences because it's very easy to get confused on this. When people
start moving the landmark, it's like, where was it again? I don't remember. I don't know
what it is. None of the landmark is right here. It's right here and we're not going
to move it. We're not going to shift from it. You know, we're also not going to stop
being Baptist. A lot of churches today, they're moving Baptist from the name. They're taking
it off and they're just changing. You know, I want to stay Baptist. I want to be like
John the Baptist. That sounds like an ancient landmark since he's in the New Testament.
You know, I always want to talk about the Catholic Church being old. Their Catholic
Church started in like 300 AD. John the Baptist is all the way before Jesus Christ even showed
up. He was already Baptist. He was preemptively copying, okay? And you know what? I want to
be like John the Baptist, okay? Ushering in the New Testament. We're a New Testament
Christians. Who was the first New Testament Christian on the scene? John the Baptist.
A voice of one crying out in the wilderness. And he was preparing the way of the Lord.
And of course, Jesus and His disciples baptized as well. And then those who were His followers
post the resurrection also baptized. And that's why we're Baptists. And you'll notice a lot
of dominations today. They don't baptize. They sprinkle. They douse. They do all kinds
of weird things that are not actually even baptizing today. And you know, we don't want
to get away from that ancient landmark of baptizing. But baptizing has become easier
today than ever before. In times past, you actually had to go to a river or go to a lake
or find some body of water. Today, it's like, see, here is water. I mean, we have water
at our disposal. And it's never been easier to get baptized today. Why would we get away
from being a Baptist when it's easier to baptize today than it's ever been before? It's never
been easier to baptize. And you know what? We're going to stay Baptist. I know it's another
ancient landmark that a lot of people have been shifting on, is having women preachers.
And you know what? We don't have women preachers. We're not going to ever have women preachers.
And it's not like, well, what if she puts a puppet on her hand and she gets up behind
the pulpit and starts preaching the Bible? Why would that be okay? Why is it now magically
okay? It's like, my wife's not going to get up and preach a sermon, but she's going to
get up here with a puppet and preach a sermon. Would that be okay? You know, it's funny,
the people that nitpick you for every little thing you do are the ones that are actually
violating clear verses in the Bible. And then I don't really care. If people want to have,
you know, 50 women on stage with puppets, you can go ahead. But you know what? I'm not
going to remove the ancient landmark and I'm not going to let women get up and preach the
Bible to me and get up to tell me how to be a good Christian and how to be a good mommy
and daddy and a little kid and whatever. No, I'm just going to have a man of God get up
and preach the Bible. You know what? Also, another landmark that I'm not going to remove
is spanking your children. That's, I'm not getting rid of that. I'm going to keep spanking
my kids. That was passed down to me. My parents spanked me. I'm going to spank my kids. And
my kids are going to spank their kids. And then they're going to spank their kids. And
we're not going to remove that ancient landmark. But you know, there's a lot of people getting
away from this stuff. And you know, it's not for me. Go to Jeremy 19. We can, we can preach
a sermon on that verse. That verse is a great verse, but we want to make sure that we're
not changing, that we're not evolving in a way that's changing landmarks. Now look,
There's nothing wrong with taking the log cabin on your property and building a concrete
castle.
There's nothing wrong with improving the landscape.
There's nothing wrong with evolving your agricultural techniques, but you don't remove the landmark.
And in the same way our church, you know, we have certain boundaries, we have certain
core beliefs and core doctrines.
We're not changing on those.
Now yeah, we're going to, we're going to embrace technology, right?
We're going to embrace the internet and we're going to embrace new ways of reaching people
and using media and improving the way that we do things.
We're going to write new Psalms and new songs.
You know, we're not going to change the landmarks that are set up for those.
We're not going to start singing the NIV.
We're not going to start singing weird stuff.
We're going to sing Psalms and hymns.
Maybe it's a new Psalm.
It's a new hymn, but we're not going to get away from that.
We're not going to change that landmark.
Hey, we might improve, you know, the Bibles because we went from Tyndale, the bishops
to the King James, but they didn't get rid of the landmarks.
They didn't get rid of the ancient Greek and Hebrew that this was built upon.
They kept with that.
And so in the same way, we make sure that we have certain boundaries and certain principles
that guide our life, and we're never going to change on those.
Just like God said to Adam and Eve in the garden, "Hey, of all the trees, thou mayest
freely eat, but there's this one tree you're not allowed to eat."
Right?
And that's how we should live our lives in Christianity.
We should let God set our boundaries, and we're not going to change on those boundaries,
but everything that's not a boundary, you're free to do whatever you want.
And of course, we should exercise freedom.
I try my best to try and be as vocal where God is vocal, and as silent where God is silent.
And sometimes you always wonder, "Why did God not bring this up?"
Because He gives liberty or freedom in that area.
Instead of trying to enforce all these man-made rules that are not in the Bible, just enforce
what the Bible says.
And look, there's plenty in the Bible to make you mad, so just stick to that.
There's plenty in the Bible to make everybody lose their mind and get frustrated with.
There's more rules than enough to study and to memorize and learn.
Instead of trying to memorize all this stuff that's not in the Bible, we should just be
focused on what the Bible says and whatever the text says.
And we don't want to remove those.
We're willing to remove all of the man-made ideas, man-made traditions, but not God's
traditions, not God's Word.
Now it says here in verse 15, this is the kind of last section of this chapter, "One
witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, and any sin
that he sinneth.
At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
If a false witness rises up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong,
then both the men between whom the controversy is shall stand before the Lord, before the
priests and the judges, which shall be in those days, and the judges shall make diligent
inquisition.
And behold, if the witnesses be a false witness, and have testified falsely against his brother,
then shall you do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother.
So shall thou put the evil away from among you.
And those which remain shall hear in fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such
evil among you.
And then I shall not pity, but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
hand for hand, foot for foot.
So we have an important principle here that's being laid out.
In the first section, it's saying one witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity
or for any sin.
And any sin that he sinneth at the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses
shall the matter, notice this, be established.
Now I think we have to understand, you know, this from a lot of verses in the Bible.
Number one, I don't think the Bible is saying that you cannot hear one witness.
It's not saying that you can't, you know, take one witness account because if you could
never take one witness, you could never get to two.
The only way to get to two is you have to first start with one, right?
You have to take the one.
But here's the thing, the first one is not actionable.
You can't do anything with it.
And the Bible will talk about, you know, against an elder receive not an accusation.
I believe what that's trying to indicate and what it's trying to say is that just because
you have one witness, you don't make that actionable.
Okay, you don't receive it as true.
It doesn't mean that you're not taking in the witness.
It's not that means you don't hear out what they have to say.
It's more that it's not actionable and you will not receive it as true.
You will not do anything with that information until you have two or three witnesses and
then it's been established.
Then once it's established, now it becomes actionable, meaning you're going to change
your attitude, behavior, and there's going to be consequences relating to the scenario
or the situation.
Okay?
So if someone comes to me and says, "Hey, I saw this.
This happened."
Okay.
Anybody else see it?
Is there any other witnesses?
Is there any other evidence?
No?
Okay.
Well, you know, I'm glad you told me and I'm not saying that you're lying, but I can't
do anything about it yet because I don't have anything else to corroborate this.
It's not been established, so it's not actionable, okay?
It has to have at least another witness for it to even become actionable.
Now it's for some reason, it's like so many people just do not understand that verse 16
is another verse in the Bible.
It's like they just read verse 15 and then they forget that there's any other verses
in the Bible.
Just because you have multiple witnesses doesn't mean that it's true either.
Did you notice what it says?
If a false witness rise up, what does that mean?
It means that they lied.
I don't know if this is just to shock you, but people can lie.
If you have a three-year-old, you'll learn pretty soon they can lie.
I mean, you're just thinking like, "I've never even taught my kid."
I mean, how many people in here are teaching their kids how to lie?
You're having a course, you're having an instruction, you're saying, "Hey, when it's really blue,
tell me it's red.
It's fun to lie."
We're not telling anybody to lie.
We're not training anybody to lie.
Of course, the FBI and the CIA, they do that, but I'm just saying like, we as parents,
we're not teaching and training our kids to do this kind of stuff, and yet, they're so
good at it.
They do it all the time, they do it every day, they do it repeatedly.
It's just part of human nature that people lie, that people say things that are not true,
that they testify falsely.
So the Bible's saying, "Hey, you have a couple of witnesses, two people.
Now it's potentially actionable, but it's not actionable just because you have two witnesses.
It's actionable you have two witnesses, and it's true."
This is really, really important to understand.
Just because you have two people even saying the exact same thing doesn't make it true.
But obviously if you have two people not saying the same thing, it's definitely not true.
You cannot put any certainty in anything when you have, "Two witnesses not saying the same
thing, not agreeing one with another."
This is radical stuff.
I know it's really difficult.
But it says, "If any man testify against that which is wrong," so they said something that
was wrong.
Okay?
Now, this is an important principle that happens in the Bible.
Go to Deuteronomy, I'm sorry, go to Matthew 26, go to Matthew 26, who is probably the
most famous example in the Bible of having false witnesses?
It's Jesus Christ.
Now, there's lots of examples of this.
It's not just him.
You know, another famous example in the text is Naboth.
He has two false witnesses against him.
And is it any coincidence that the two false witnesses against Naboth are what?
They're faggots.
They're sons of Belial, according to the Bible.
And you just take it to the bank.
When you want someone to be dishonest or be a false witness, it's almost always a faggot.
Or there's some kind of a fag-related, you know, issue.
It's like fags are just basically just liars.
There's pretty much no truth in them, just like the Bible talks about the devil.
The Bible says about the devil that there's no truth in him.
Now what do they call sons of Belial?
They're sons of the devil.
Why would I think that the sons of the devil would be any different?
There's basically no truth in them.
Look, if anybody is giving a testimony and they're a fag,
you should just basically think that it's for sure not true,
that there's something off about it, that there's something false about it,
because they're just wicked and evil as hell.
I don't ever believe fags for anything.
Now Matthew 26, you have some other reprobates
that are falsely accusing Jesus Christ.
Look what it says in verse number 59.
It says, "Now the chief priests and elders and all the councils
sought false witness against Jesus to put him to death,
but found none.
Yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none,
at the last came two false witnesses, and said,
'This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God
and build it in three days.'
And I, priest, arose and said unto them, 'Answers thou nothing?
What is it which these witness against thee?'"
So what do you have?
You have just scores of people lying about Jesus.
Now go over to Mark 14 because it'll clarify exactly what's happening here.
The text in Matthew 26 is a little bit harder to understand.
Matthew 14 is even clearer.
But it is said they had many false witnesses and specifically they had two that kind of agreed.
They kind of agreed and they're kind of bringing up this temple thing.
But Mark 14 is even clearer.
Look at verse 55.
"And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him
to death and found none.
For many bare false witness against him.
But their witness agreed not together."
So when it's saying that they sought false witness and they didn't find them, it's not
saying that they didn't find anybody to testify.
They found lots of people to testify.
What they didn't find is two people to give the same testimony against Jesus.
It's basically like you bring in one guy and he's like, "Yeah, he stole a bunch of money."
And then the next guy comes in and he's like, "He tripped a blind person."
And then the next guy comes in and he's like, "Oh well, you know, he punched his mom in
the face."
Okay, you have another one come in and he's like, "He threw scissors at his daughter's
face."
You know, or whatever.
It's just like, "What?"
It's like just all these random, weird things, but like no one can agree, none of the testimonies
match up, none of them line up, and you're just kind of sitting here, they're just kind
of getting frustrated because they're like, "Man, we can't get anybody to just nail him.
We just can't get anybody to get it."
Notice, if someone had this principle, two witnesses, four witnesses, well then they
would just put Jesus to death wrongfully, inaccurately.
Just because you have two, three, four, five, hundred witnesses, if they do not agree, you
don't accept it.
It's not actionable.
It's meaningless.
Not only is it not meaningless though, if we actually understand the text, what did
the Bible tell us in Deuteronomy?
If a guy gets up and lies about Jesus, what does he receive?
Whatever the punishment would be for whatever he's accusing them of doing.
So if they get up and they're accusing them of things that are worthy of death, they should
just be put to death right on the spot.
And isn't it interesting, you just have dozens of people potentially, all there ready to
be executed, and what do the chief priests do?
They execute Jesus, the only innocent one in the room, and they let all these guilty
people go free.
Look, the Bible couldn't be clearer that all the false witnesses should have been lined
up and executed right in a row, and Jesus should have been let go, yet what do they
do?
They condemn the only guy that didn't lie, the only guy that was actually truthful, and
they allow all these false witnesses to just do their dirty work for them, because of course
they don't want to be guilty of this particular sin, they're going to get others to do this
dirty work for them and to lie about Jesus for them and to bring in false accusation.
Why?
Because they hate Jesus.
And isn't it interesting, there's always, the religious leaders always try to look for
scapegoats and they always try to look for other people to do their dirty work for them
to try and get, where's the lie that I can kind of prop up to try and justify my hatred
towards this particular person?
Where can I just find someone that lied about him and I can just pretend like it's true
just so I can feel justified in condemning Jesus Christ, right?
And that's what'll happen even today.
Go to Acts chapter number six, go to Acts chapter number six, you'll see another story
like this.
Look, just because people say things, it doesn't mean it's true.
You have to verify it, you have to fact check it, you have to make sure that their witness
agrees, that what they're saying is the same.
And you know what is not acceptable, oh, he's a malefactor.
That doesn't count.
You can't just like, well, five people said you're bad.
Oh, okay.
That doesn't count.
Five people say you're rotten.
Doesn't work that way.
Okay, why is he rotten?
What did he do?
What did he say?
What, you know, it's just so funny.
I mean, I could probably find you 50 people in about a heartbeat notice that would say
that I'm evil and have lied about them.
But then if you ask any of them, okay, what did he say?
He lied.
Yeah, what did he say?
What was false?
What was it that was false?
Well, you know, what he said was wrong.
It's like, look, you can't just believe people, oh, he's a liar, okay.
What did I say?
What did he do?
Right?
You have to actually present the evidence.
And look, when people actually have evidence, you know what they don't do?
Use these general accusations.
They just say exactly what the -- he killed this person.
It's like, oh, what do you have against Bill Clinton?
He's a rapist.
It's like, you're not just like, he's a bad guy.
It's like, what do you have against Jeffrey Epstein?
He's guilty of child trafficking.
You're not just like, Jeffrey Epstein's a bad guy.
Why is he a bad guy?
Because he's a bad person.
You know, you're like, no, he's a child trafficker, right?
You're just bringing up the exact accusation, the exact reason why this particular person
is bad.
Whereas when people don't have a real accusation, they just use broad terminology.
Malefactor.
Bad.
Liar.
Evil.
You know, they don't want to actually bring up what was said or done.
Acts chapter 6, look what it says in verse 13.
Let's, let's, 12 gives a little context, "And they stirred up the people and the elders
and the scribes and came upon him and caught him and brought him to the council and set
up false witnesses which said, 'This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this
holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall
destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.'"
So we have a man, Stephen, who's doing great works for God, getting a lot of people saved,
and then what do the other religious leaders do?
They try to find false witnesses to lie about him and to falsely accuse him.
Now again, you have to be careful with this text.
Did you notice verse 13 says, "And set up false witnesses which said..."
So if the Bible says these people lied and then here's what they said.
You know what you know what they said is?
It's a lie.
It's not true.
So you cannot rely on this testimony.
You cannot believe what they said.
It's false.
Did Stephen blaspheme God or Moses?
No he never blasphemed God and he never blasphemed Moses whatsoever.
They're the ones that are actually guilty and evil and wicked and of course blaspheming
God carries what?
The death penalty.
So these people should have been executed according to the law.
Now again this is just a common theme in your Bible.
Go to Proverbs 6.
We'll go there in a minute.
There's so much on this particular subject but there's another Stephen that I can think
of that was falsely accused and lied about.
It was my friend Pastor Stephen Anderson and is it any shock that you see people doing
good things for God, taking bold stance and then they have false witnesses rising up to
destroy them and the religious leaders seem to be the ones egging on these false witnesses
and siding with these false witnesses and not taking the false witnesses to task.
At any point did they ever take the false witnesses to task?
No, they quote side with the victims okay and in the same way you know my friend Pastor
Stephen Anderson about I don't know what the exact timeline is now October-ish somewhere
in there of 2024 what is that a year and a half or something like that or a year and
a few months or something like that from from today he had you know approximately four of
his children come out and just say all kinds of crazy things about him and you know cause
a lot of people a lot of stress it was like a kind of a crazy tumultuous situation and
you know for a lot of people it's like they just didn't think about any of these verses
in the Bible they just simply thought two witnesses they just like see this phrase two
witnesses or three witnesses and they just lose their mind and instead of actually thinking
about other passages like what about a false witness what about someone that's lying what
would you do if they're lying what if they're not telling the truth you know the Bible is
really clear on how much he hates false witnesses in fact this is a really famous portion of
scripture Proverbs chapter number six look at verse 16 these six things that the Lord
hate yea seven are abomination unto him now if you look at verse 19 a false witness that
speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among brethren this is like in the like the top
tier list of things that God hates if you think about the ten commandments one of the
ten commandments is thou should not bear false witness against thy neighbor so in the top
ten commandments in the top six or seven of the things that God hates the most false witnesses
bearing lies is striking what caused Jesus to be put to death false witnesses what caused
Naboth to be put to death false witnesses what caused a lot of people to get stirred
up and kill Stephen a great man full of faith false witnesses then why would I think in
2026 or 2024 America great men of God would never have false witnesses rise up to try
and harm them or hurt them like that's gonna be a common theme historically in
the Bible I mean look you go back into time great martyrs of the faith we're
constantly have people lie about them falsely accused them bring up all kinds
of accusations against them this is a common theme in Christianity and what we
should do is we should try to evaluate who's telling the truth and who's lying
look at Proverbs 14 and look at verse number 5 Proverbs chapter number 14 verse
number 5 this is an important verse it almost seems too simple but we need to
believe it Proverbs 14 look at verse 5 a faithful witness will not lie but a
false witness will utter lies now you'd almost think like wow did I really need
that like brilliant but but this is what I believe the text is saying okay it's
saying that someone that's being honest in one area is gonna be honest in all
the other areas and one person that's being false in one area is gonna be
false in the other areas so when you have someone giving testimony and you're
catching lies in that testimony you're supposed to just discard the entire
testimony because a false witness will what will lie okay whereas the guy
that's faithful he's not gonna be someone that would lie or easily lie and
so again in this particular controversy this is an important concept that I
implemented where it's like my friend pastor Anderson is just basically never
lied to me yeah sometimes he gets facts wrong sometimes he exaggerates because
everyone does right but I'm just saying like I've never caught this guy in a lie
I've never caught this guy being deceitful I've never caught this guy you
know being shady or misrepresenting in fact most of the time I find that he he's
underwhelming in the communications that he has I tend to exaggerate a little bit
pastor Anderson is almost like he like under he's like underplaying things a
little bit I'll listen to him I think like is that really true and then I'll
look it up like wow it's even worse than you said it's even it's even crazier
than I thought whereas sometimes I'm kind of like you know I'm not going all
the way to 6 million but you know maybe I exaggerate a little bit right maybe
like 300,000 that was my exaggeration right but I'm just saying like you know
we want to be very truthful very honest and you know it's something I'm working
on you know I try really hard to be very accurate and dialed in but no one's
perfect everybody can make mistakes there's a difference between getting a
fact wrong you know just exaggerating a little bit and being someone that's just
lying someone that's just making up false accusations they're just saying
things that are not true whatsoever okay in this particular you know drama as it
were one of the particular witnesses that I wanted to bring up in this
particular scenario is Isaac pastor Anderson's second oldest son now he was
the first person to basically come against pastor Anderson and make some
kind of a public video attacking him and after he'd made this video I'd actually
talked to his third oldest son John and it was that faithful word and John was
telling me like Isaac's kind of a bad person Isaac's backslidden and all this
stuff also John had gone to like Verity Baptist Church and had told multiple
people there that you know Isaac had just lied and made a whole bunch of
stuff up in this like interview about his dad so already it was kind of like
who wants to believe any of this then is then eventually John kind of does the
same interview which surprisingly both of them did an interview with a literal
tranny a literal man wearing women's clothes and dressed like a woman it's
like I'm pretty sure every time there's a testimony of like fags and trannies
and stuff it's always bad and wrong why would you go to the sons of Beelial to
do the work of the Lord to expose someone you know if you're gonna expose
someone for wickedness should be going to God's people to expose them there's
nothing wrong with exposing people there's nothing wrong with whistle
blowers but at the end of the day you know an honest whistleblower is not
gonna go to a faggot to try and blow the whistle this same faggot had
infiltrated pastor Thompson's church and pretended to be a straight man and
secretly recorded all their church and it made like a lot of publicity for
attacking the new IFB and pastor Thompson so it's not like even a quote
neutral tranny even if you could believe that exists okay this was the most
hostile faggoty queer freak he's got like satanic symbols all over his
YouTube channel I mean this is where they're going and getting a testimony to
anyways you know whenever this happened I did contact Isaac and I you know and I
contacted John as well he secretly recorded me and lied to me and flattered
me which is another reason why I'm not gonna trust anything he says but Isaac
specifically just would just tell me like all these crazy things okay in this
particular scenario and sometimes you don't know like if things are true or
not because you can't even fact-check them you can't even verify what they're
saying but I want to isolate one particular thing that he said because
there was multiple things he said that I could fact-check and I fact-checked him
all the things that I could fact-check that Isaac told me were all false it
wasn't like 50/50 wasn't 70/30 it was 100% false and in fact some of them
were just so false it wasn't even it wasn't even like a shred of truth okay
what I'm gonna give two examples the first one is he was bringing up an
example of something that happened to his brother Solomon when Solomon was a
baby now I just want you to think about something for a second okay if Solomon's
a baby and Isaac's the second oldest how old do you think he was he didn't even
exist now what do you think a witness is let me explain to you what a witness is
something that saw somebody that saw something if you don't exist you didn't
see it if I come up and say hey I want to tell you what happened to JFK I saw
it you'd be like you're a liar you didn't even exist bro it's like you
should just throw out testimony when they're telling you something that they
didn't witness because they're not a witness do you even understand what a
witness is okay now the second one is this he made up this lie about Pastor
Thompson and I asked Pastor Thompson's okay if I shared this he said it's alright
all right but this is what Isaac told me he said yeah my parents both hate Pastor
Thompson and they they basically talk trash on him every day and in fact Pastor
Anderson hates Pastor Thompson so much that he told he would complain to Pastor
Jimenez all the time about how terrible person he was and how much he didn't
like him and then when he was gonna ordain him Pastor Anderson went up there
and begged Pastor Jimenez to not ordain Pastor Thompson and just like just even
just more just horrible awful language well here's the thing about this
particular lie is that I can actually fact-check it so you know what I did is
I called Pastor Jimenez on the phone and I asked him lots of questions but one of
them I just said hey I just want to know has Pastor Anderson ever had any
conversations to do about Pastor Thompson that's the first question I
asked him about it and he's like not really and I said has he has he said
anything positive or negative about him and he's like he's only ever said
positive things I said did Pastor Anderson ever ask you anything about the
ordination or like pro or negative he's like no he's only been positive ever
then I talked to another person Solomon his other brother and again I'm not
gonna give these people the answers I just said to Solomon I said hey have
your parents ever talked about Pastor Thompson in the home they're like
pretty much never and I said did they ever say positive things or negative
things he says only positive so it's like okay there's two then I asked
Pastor Anderson I asked his wife I mean it was just a complete lie now what do
you think the point what would you think the goal is in a lie like this how
about sowing discord among brethren right how about just trying to get
people to think negative things and evil things and make it seem like these
people don't like each other look this is what evil people do is they come
around and they say hey they don't like you when it's a lie and then they go to
the other person say hey they don't like you to try and create division try to
create discord and look simple people just believe anything and everything but
look this wasn't even a shred of evidence now someone's gonna just make up
this wild accusation this crazy lie these just totally bogus claims why would
I believe anything else that they're gonna say there was another witness his
daughter Miriam who said that their parents were throwing scissors at her
face and she said she was so worried that her dad was gonna kill her and
throw her body in a swamp now this is the video that pastor Jason Robinson
said made him cry I mean who do you how gullible do you have to be to believe
that pastor is gonna just slaughter his own daughter and throw her body in a
swamp like you know I laugh when I hear that you're like how dare you attack
victims look that's not a victim that's a liar okay now here's the thing what
does the Bible actually say when someone's falsely accusing people these
kind of things what does the Bible say they actually should receive the
punishment of whatever they're accusing this particular person of doing that's
what should happen but you know what did happen people wrote them thousand dollar
checks pure words Baptist Church sent thousand dollar checks to these people
Isaac got two of them one of them in the memo said just for you now now think
about this I mean I would hope you love churches if you have a smaller church
that is a humble means are you gonna just take a thousand dollars from a
church wrongfully are you gonna take a thousand I mean imagine let's just play
a game for a second all right let's just imagine you had the worst parent ever
your dad was really mean to you and your dad hurt you are you gonna now start
taking checks from little churches because your dad spanked you hard one
time look anybody that loves God and loves Christianity would not accept the
check like that would not take money for this kind of stuff like that doesn't
even make sense that doesn't even compute and then people are sitting like
I'm siding with victims like what what is the victim the person getting checks
and getting money like this is extremely evil and wicked you know when you catch
someone lying you don't send them money you don't send them church money God I
mean you think the people that are giving their ties and offerings to the
church want to send it to rebellious kids lying about their parents like like
not only is that illegal not only is that unethical from a spiritual
perspective it's about one of the most wicked things you could do isn't
interesting oh yeah people using church money to harm people that makes me think
someone oh yeah like Judas the Pharisees giving church money to Judas to betray
Jesus Christ oh people using church money to give it to people to harm one
of the ministers of God like it's no new thing under the Sun folks go if you
went to Proverbs chapter 25 Proverbs chapter 25 how dare you not believe them
how dare you believe them and you know ask pastor Anderson ask him say what
person on this planet interrogated you the most asked you the most hard
questions the most difficult things it would be me in fact it was so intense
that he literally at one point just said we're not even friends anymore now I
didn't go around and just you know tell everybody that and just like have a
pity party and act like I'm you know you know gonna be sad about it because I was
thinking you know he could change his mind but at the end of day you know what
faithful are the wounds of a friend is what the Bible says and you know I did
ask him a lot of you know difficult questions uncomfortable questions you
know I was trying to like find the truth of the situation I did ask a lot of
people different things you know I didn't do I just didn't believe anybody I
fact-checked everything because you got five witnesses over here and you got
five witnesses over here you don't just side with the victims who's the victims
it depends on who's true right the victims of who's true because if you
have five people lying about you well the victim is the person that got lied
about I side the victims well that's an easy thing to say I side of the people
that are right I side with truth I side with good I side with what's right I
mean that's a meaningless platitude you know I'm against child abuse who isn't
I mean what group out there is like I'm pro child abuse I don't even know if you
know the sodomites would say that openly and they say some crazy stuff you know
you got to be careful who you listen to and look if you side with false
witnesses you're gonna be guilty with them now I'm gonna talk a lot more about
this on Sunday morning I'm just getting this you know out of the way but I had
you turned at Proverbs 25 look at verse 18 a man that bears false witness
against his neighbor is a maul and a sword and a sharp arrow the dangerous
people you don't want anything to do with dangerous dangerous people go to
Exodus 23 I want to go to a couple more places go to Exodus 23 it's important
that we do not listen and harken unto false witnesses because a false witness
will utter lies and it's interesting that all the people that hitch their
wagon to these false witnesses are just a sinking ship aren't they just
constantly just sinking ship after sinking ship after sinking ship changing
doctrine changing beliefs watering things down they don't preach hard
anymore they don't preach what the Bible says on subjects just weak lame wet
noodles I mean just feminism everywhere look it should be obvious at this point
but I'm just trying to help you like recognize why certain decisions get
made because in the heat of the battle sometimes it's not easy to see clearly
and you know you should always give benefit of the doubt to the people that
have been truthful in your life and be skeptical of the people talking to
faggots be skeptical of a person when you catch them lying you should just
discard that testimony look when you have a court of law and someone gets in
and they can start verifying anything that they said is false they impeach the
witness and that means they literally have to discard all their testimony if
they can if they can start catching them in lies they'll immediately impeach
their testimony and they'll be taken off the stand and then you know what you
end up having you end up having zero witnesses you had four people show up
and they all got in the witness booth and then you impeached all four of them
and now you have zero witnesses what you actually have actually you don't have
zero because you have like ten over here that are saying one story and they did
not get impeached and then all the ones over here got impeached so now it's ten
versus zero but again some people don't like to play that score because they're
just seeking for a false witness because they hate that particular person in
their heart they have bitterness towards that person in their heart they have
envy and their heart towards that person so they want to believe false witnesses
and condemn them and harm them and go against them you know they want to sit
here and say oh I did diligent inquisition I wanted to search these
things out okay how hard did you try to verify these testimonies how hard did
you try to verify the testimony that pastor Anderson was gonna kill his
daughter and throw her in a swamp how hard did you verify that how much did
you fact-check that you know sometimes we'll get facts wrong that's a pretty
you know interesting fact to get wrong okay look you don't just believe people
that just say wild and crazy things what does exodus 23 verse 1 say thou shall
not raise a false report put not thine hand with the wicked to be an
unrighteous witness so what can happen is someone tells you a bad testimony and
then you decide to get up and also join with them and say all kinds of evil and
agree with that testimony and say oh I had something firsthand secondhand that
I kind of said that kind of corroborates blah blah just lies no you know what if
you have an actual if you're an actual witness you can take what you saw
there's nothing wrong with witnessing and testifying what you've witnessed if
you have not witnessed something then shut your mouth and you don't want to
be the person that joins hands with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness
now so not follow a multitude to do evil notice it's a lot of people it says a
multitude there could be a lot of people saying false you know one of the
funniest false witnesses when we were being protested in Hearst this guy drove
by and he's like asking questions about our church he's asking the protesters
they're really reliable witness and they're like oh why y'all protesting
this church and they're like oh because they hate black people and and they were
like what do you mean they're like yeah they teach that if you're black and you
go to the church you have to agree to be their slave in heaven okay it's on video
it's like the funniest thing or whatever it's like what the world it's just so
funny but I mean like of course you ask a fact he's gonna tell you anything he's
gonna tell you have to have black slaves in heaven it's like what are you talking
about this is crazy it's nonsense but that's of course the multitude that was
doing evil and they're gonna speak in a cause and it's gonna cause many to
decline after many to rest judgment so they end up not having the right
judgment they make a bad decision okay says in verse number 7 keep thee far
from a false matter and the innocent and righteous slay thou not for I will not
justify the wicked saying look do you do not condemn someone that has not been
proven guilty verse 8 thou shall take no gift for the gift blindeth the wise and
perverted the words of the righteous look when you're lying and someone's
sending you checks from a church you tear that up you don't accept money
that's gonna pervert you and blind you and think oh now I need to tell even
more like let's see how much more money I can get out of these people let's see
how much more money I go these suckers and these weirdos and these freaks who
are gonna take God's money and send it to rebellious kids I mean what what in the
world this is insane it's insane what people will do with money that they
didn't work for or earn Democrats they'll give it to anybody money they
didn't work for earn they're really good at giving away other people's money and
and giving away God's money too I want to go one more place go to Psalm 27 go
to Psalm 27 hey you need to be careful and look in this church I have to deal
with this kind of stuff and you know praise God I'm not gonna sit here and
just believe every little thing everybody tells me you would I mean I'm
not even I'm not gonna bring it up there's been times people come to me and
tell me all kinds of crazy things about people in this church and most of the
time what's interesting is most of the time people coming up and telling me
crazy stories or telling me about bad things about bad people are acts of the
bad person it's like usually that's the bad person not the person they're
telling me about I have people coming at me telling me people are like
reprobates and evil and wicked and witches and all kind of just like no
like this is not real this is not legitimate and I'm not gonna receive
that now obviously you know you can't forget things necessarily and if you
have like ten people coming to you and giving you the same testimony you know I
had a church plant where multiple people came to me and said this person's a
witch but then it's like okay what's your evidence well so-and-so told me
and then it's like okay what's your evidence so-and-so told me and what's
your evidence then it's just like oh it's just fan and told them okay well
you know whatever Fannin says is a lie anyways cuz that guy's a liar so it's
like your only evidence is Adam Fannin just made this up it's like okay well
that's not a legitimate reason to believe something negative about somebody
or believe this evil thing and think about it how would you feel if you came to
church and everybody thought you were a witch a literal witch not now I'm not
saying like just a mean girl I'm saying like you're doing spells at home like
you're casting magic and spells and doing sorcery at home you know no one
would want to talk to you everybody freaked out people would act all crazy
about you in fact I'm not even joking when I say that the men of the church
were trying to prevent this woman from using the bathroom because they were so
convinced she was a witch but but think about how does it get there because
they they don't have a reliable they don't have a reliable witness they
didn't think like okay I heard this but is it true that you just you just simple
and you just kind of believe things you just receive things that aren't
necessarily true and you don't know what to do with it it's like look we
should not just receive testimony as it's true we want to make sure it's
actually accurate and look in the day and age of AI and and fake news you more
than ever need to fact-check things and make sure they're right I almost feel
like 90% of the information is just outright lies on the internet like that
you see on their news feed or news articles or videos I mean almost every
video is a fake AI video now people saying things are completely fake
headlines are very fake the news media is not honest you know today more than
ever you need to be careful about verifying information getting primary
sources understanding what a witness is it's someone that saw it a blind man can
never be a witness if you're if the person was not born they were not a
witness if you fact-check it with people that were there and actually witness it
and it's wrong don't believe their testimony be very very very careful and
when people falsely accuse you and lie about you because it will happen you know
what it's frustrating but you have to just trust God and be patient because
God is not mocked for whatsoever man soweth that shall also reap and God will
you know exonerate the righteous and he will condemn the wicked but you sometimes
just have to wait and trust God and it can be frustrating there's times where
you kind of feel like no one's in your corner or no one really believes you I
mean the Apostle Paul said at my first answer no man stood with me he felt
pretty abandoned Job felt pretty abandoned you know what God will show
you who's right and wrong in the end so what does it say in Psalm 27 look at
verse 10 when my father and my mother forsake me then the Lord will take me
up teach me thy way oh Lord and lead me in a path plain because of mine enemies
deliver me not over under the will of mine enemies for false witnesses are
risen up against me and such as breathe out cruelty I had fainted unless I
believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of living wait on the Lord
be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart wait I say on the
Lord so what is the Bible saying the Bible saying you know when when there's
someone lying about you or lying about your situation or lying about your
friends you know you just need to just trust God and just wait it out you know
and it can be frustrating you can go to it you go to a good church and people
just lying about oh you're in a cult oh you're a weirdo and it could be
frustrating if he's like I don't want that accusation I don't want that lie
but eventually you just wait on God and he'll turn that whole thing around won't
he? Look I mean I've known people they say oh man your church is scary it seems
like a cult that's what family members are telling this person and then it's
like two or three years later they're like I think pastor Cilley is actually
right on those issues it's like you know you just give people some time to wake
up but even if they never come around you know just just trust God the Bible
is right if people are lying about you don't take you know vengeance your own
hands don't try to harm them back you can rebuke them you can correct them but
don't try to harm them back don't don't get frustrated don't get off the wrong
path stay with God I mean look all the people that have stuck with our church
for the last year plus I mean it's been one of the greatest years we've ever
had we've gotten more people saved we're having so much fun you know we're just
we're just doing you know a lot of great things and so you know how could how
can you believe that just wait on the Lord and when this whole thing you know blew
up you know what I made a video and I had said this I said look no matter
who's right or wrong in this situation time and God will reveal it and if you're
if you're on the right side you know you don't need to worry about you know how
it's gonna turn out God will make sure it turns out great you just want to make
sure that you're not a victim here of falling for false witness false
testimony you don't just believe everything that you hear and everything
that you think you know you want to make sure and verify that it's accurate you
want to make sure that it's true we want to give the righteous the benefit of the
doubt and those that are obviously showing themselves to be wicked we
should not we should impeach their testimony and you know I show you we
should give eye for an eye our eyes should not even pity look this is what's
crazy to me is how much the people that have not been proven to be false have
been taken a task and the people that have been proven to be false have not
been taken a task at all the side that went really hard against Pastor Anderson
has not gone hard at all at the people that have proven themselves to be liars
and proven themselves to say things that are wrong they haven't called them out
taking their they're making documentaries with them how do you do
that how do you how do you how do you believe that like that just doesn't
even make any kind of sense but you know what God will punish these people
severely you know it and like one of the worst punishments that could ever happen
is voluntarily willfully taking a coffee enema you know I'm not even
explained to people what that is but I was just thinking like I would rather be
caught doing almost anything other than that let alone willfully doing that look
that's a that's a punishment in of itself okay you know and the person that
did it that said it was so great did it multiple times a day said they had to
stop because I got a bunch of mouth sores from doing it I'm like I don't
know how that works I don't want to know how that works but he said he got
punished for doing it look stay away from the liars okay stay away from the
false witnesses they're not gonna go and do the great works for the God you know
the guy that says what's right is gonna do the good things and of course we
should always seek the truth we should be loyal to the truth we shouldn't be
loyal to a person we should be loyal to the truth but at the same time it seems
like the same people that are true keep being true and the same people that lie
keep on lying we want to make sure that we are you know judging things with
righteous judgment not hasty envy bitter judgment it's closing prayer thank you
only father so much for your word thank you so much for helping us to understand
that in the world there's going to be deceit there's going to be lies there's
going to be struggles I pray that you would give us a sound mind that you
would help us to trust in the Word of God that we could seek the sanctuary in
the refuge of God's house to protect us and shield us and I pray we wouldn't
change any of our landmarks any of the traditions that we've been given I pray
they would help us to be steadfast and unmovable always abounding in the work
of the Lord that we keep so winning the priority that we keep preaching the
gospel the priority that we wouldn't let the distractions you know get us you
know off course but rather we'd stay the course and we'd hold fast in Jesus name
we pray amen. For our last song let's go to song number 238 song number 238
Christ liveth in me song number 238 let's all sing that out together everybody