- Good afternoon, everyone,
and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
Great to see everybody here.
If we can find our seats, we will get started.
Once we've found a seat, let's go grab a hymnal,
and we will go to song number 53
for our first song this afternoon.
Song number 53, song number five, three.
Lullaby.
Song number 53, sing that out.
Thank you so much for this great church.
Thank you so much for the opportunity
to go soul winning and all this afternoon, Lord.
We love you, and we just thank you
for everything you do here,
and we just ask you now to fill us with your spirit.
Bless the service, and it's in Jesus' name that we pray.
Amen.
Our next song, let's go to song number 276.
It's with it this morning.
Tell is a little bit newer to most people here.
Song 276, Where He Leads Me.
At our best this afternoon, Where He Leads Me,
song number 276.
♪ Can hear ♪
- It's Baptist Church.
If you need a bulletin,
you could lift up your hand nice and high.
One of our ushers can come by
and get you guys a bulletin.
On the front, we have our Bible memory passage.
Again, Romans 10 verses seven.
On the insides are service and soul winning times.
I try to make sure to update our stats
if you have any soul winning things to report
or email addresses.
If it is Spanish only, please indicate that.
We do have a separate list for Spanish emails
and English emails, so we send that out.
On the right is a list of our expecting ladies.
We have a couple events coming up.
If you RSVP'd to our workshop for the marriage event,
it's gonna be, there'll be like a follow-up email
in the next day or two just about the exact location,
details, parking, all that kind of stuff.
So some people asked about it,
but we'll be sending that out here shortly.
Also, we have a group going to the Philippines
at the end of the month, so please be in prayer for them.
Back is our prayer list.
That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements.
We'll go straight into our third song, Psalm 11.
It's in our binders, Psalm 11.
- Psalm 11.
Psalm 11 in your special binder, together.
Bibles to the book of--
- 1 John chapter number two, the Bible says,
"My little children, these things right I unto you
"that ye sin not."
"If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
"Jesus Christ the righteous,
"and he is the propitiation for our sins,
"and not for ours only,
"but also for the sins of the whole world.
"Hereby we do know that we know him
"if we keep his commandments.
"He that saith, I know him,
"and keepeth not his commandments is a liar,
"and the truth is not in him.
"But whoso keepeth his word,
"in him verily is the love of God perfected.
"Hereby know we that we are in him.
"He that saith, he abideth in him,
"ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
"Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you,
"but an old commandment which he had from the beginning.
"The old commandment is the word
"which he have heard from the beginning.
"Again, a new commandment I write unto you,
"which thing is true in him and in you.
"Because the darkness is past,
"and the true light now shineth.
"He that saith, he is in the light,
"and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.
"He that loveth his brother, abideth in the light,
"and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
"But he that hateth his brother, is in darkness,
"and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth,
"because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
"I write unto you, little children,
"because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.
"I write unto you, fathers,
"because you have known him that is from the beginning.
"I write unto you, young men,
"because you have overcome the wicked one.
"I write unto you, little children,
"Because ye have known the Father.
"I have written unto you fathers,
"because ye have known him that is from the beginning.
"I have written unto you young men,
"because ye are strong,
"and the word of God abideth in you,
"and ye have overcome the wicked one.
"Love not the world,
"neither the things that are in the world.
"If any man loved the world,
"the love of the Father is not in him.
"For all that is in the world,
"the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes,
"and the pride of life is not of the Father,
"but is of the world.
"And the world passeth away and the lust thereof,
"but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
"Little children, it is the last time.
"And as you have heard that Antichrist shall come,
"even now are there many Antichrists,
"whereby we know that it is the last time.
"They went out from us, but they were not of us.
"For if they had been of us,
"they would no doubt have continued with us.
"But they went out, that they might be made manifest
"that they were not all of us.
"But ye have an unction from the Holy One,
"and ye know all things.
"I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth,
"but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
"Who is a liar, but he that denieth
"that Jesus is the Christ.
"He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.
"Whosoever denieth the Son,
"the same hath not the Father.
"But he that acknowledgeth the Son, hath the Father also.
"Let that therefore abide in you,
"which ye have heard from the beginning.
"If that which ye have heard from the beginning
"shall remain in you, ye also shall continue
"in the Son and in the Father.
"And this is the promise that he hath promised us,
"even eternal life.
"These things have I written unto you,
"concerning them that seduce you.
"But the anointing which ye have received of him
"abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you.
"But as the same anointing teacheth you of all things,
"and is truth, and is no lie,
"and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
"And now, little children, abide in him,
"that when he shall appear, we may have confidence
"and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
"If ye know that he is righteous,
"ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness
"is born of him."
Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for the word of God.
Thank you for the souls that were saved today.
Thank you again for Steadfast Baptist Church
and the great fellowship and unity that we have here.
Please bless Pastor Shelley
and help him to deliver your word to us.
Please help us to be attentive
and to make changes to our life in Jesus' name, amen.
- Amen.
We've been doing a doctrinal series
and we are in a new section that I wanna talk about.
And I've kind of labeled this evening sermon
based on this clumping of worldly philosophies.
And so I'm gonna be preaching against worldly philosophies
and we're not gonna necessarily go a deep dive on each one.
We're just gonna kind of cover several that are mentioned.
Our doctrinal statement lists explicitly,
it says all worldliness, modernism, feminism,
formalism/legalism and ecumenicalism are sentence.
We're gonna talk about these, but really at a base level,
these are just worldly philosophies.
These are just ideas of man, his interpretation
of how to live your life in the world,
how to understand different things.
And the Bible explicitly tells us here in our text,
1 John chapter number two, look at verse 15 again.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man loved the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.
The Bible talks about the wisdom of God
is gonna come down from heaven,
whereas the wisdom of this world is earthy
and it's from the earth.
And the Bible is telling us explicitly here
that we're not supposed to love the world
or the things that are in the world.
And that if we actually love the world,
then we don't love God.
You can't really love both.
You can't have the same kind of love,
the same kind of affection for these two things.
It's incompatible.
It says in verse 16, for all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the pride of life is not of the Father,
but is of the world.
And the world passeth away in the lust thereof,
but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
Now, I think it's important to get a little bit of context
when you're reading some of these verses,
because the idea of love not the world,
I think could be misunderstood if just taken by itself.
I do not believe that the Bible is saying
that you can't enjoy God's creation,
you can't enjoy things that are in God's creation.
Obviously, we love things like the Bible,
that's part of the world in the sense
that it'll exist literally in the world.
We can love nature, and we can love our family,
if we love that God gave us a wife,
or if you're a wife, if God gave you a husband,
or you can love the fact that God gave you children,
and we love the good food that he gives us.
That's not really what's in view of this particular passage.
Obviously, the most famous verse in the Bible
says, "For God so loved the world."
How could you then reconcile that idea with this idea,
depending on how you interpret it, that's what's important.
So when it's talking about the world,
I think we have to use the definition it's giving us here,
and we have to see this in verse number 16.
It says, "For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the pride of life, that is what's not of the Father."
That's what he's preaching against
when it comes to the world.
I heard some people say this,
and I don't think it's necessarily
a terrible way to articulate it,
but this is like being against world systems.
Obviously, we live in the world physically.
There's a world that's physical.
Then there's a world which means the people,
but then there's just the system that we live in,
the way the world thinks, the way the world acts,
the culture and the ideas of the world.
When you're in high school,
especially if you go to public school,
there's just this world that you live in.
High school is this world,
and it's hard to see anything outside
a high school world vision, but then when you graduate, you start realizing like high
school is not necessarily how the real world works, and so when we use these words of,
you know, high school versus real world, we often kind of understand how there's different
parallels.
You go to college, it's a different world than even high school was.
You have the high school world, then you have the college, university world, then you have
the real world, you have the business world, so you have this word world being used sometimes
basically to describe a system or describe an environment or describe just kind of the
philosophies and the ideas that are behind what's going on.
This is what the Bible is just saying is that like worldly philosophy, worldly mindset,
this is not of God.
So mankind has created in a sense, if you think about it, its own way of just basically
acting, behaving, thinking, just kind of their culture that's apart from God's word.
And the Bible is saying we should not love that.
We should not love when man is basically created and elevated.
And it gives three categories here, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the
pride of life.
And we all live in this world where these things are common temptations, common things
that are happening around us, where people are giving themselves over to the lust of
the flesh.
What would this look like?
I think, you know, it's going to be broad.
These are broad ideas, broad categories.
So anything I bring up, I'm not trying to limit the definition, I'm trying to give
some application.
So when you hear me describe these things, don't think that that's exactly what it means.
It's just something that encompasses this idea.
But some of the lust of the flesh would be things like fornication, adultery, drugs,
which is essentially gratifying your flesh, the physical feelings that you have, and just
self-indulging in those particular areas.
Why do people take drugs?
Why do people commit fornication?
Why do people commit adultery?
Why do people do all these things that exist in this world?
Because there's physical pleasure involved.
It's the lust of the flesh, and they want that high that comes from taking drugs.
If drugs didn't feel good, no one would want to take them.
They're super expensive.
In many cases, they're illegal.
There's a lot of problems that are associated with them, consequences.
Why in the world do people become meth addicts?
Why do people do these kind of things?
You never run into a meth addict thinking like, "Wow, I want to be like you."
Thinking like, "What's wrong with you?
You're messed up."
You know why they take it?
Because they get that little bit of high.
They get that feeling, and the Bible is definitely condemning you trying to just gratify your
flesh.
Well, you'll just be like the Hollywood celebrities.
You'll just be like the celebrity elites and the politicians where they're just constantly
snorting cocaine and doing drugs and committing rampant fornication and rampant adultery.
Why?
Because they're just trying to satisfy their flesh, and you cannot satisfy the flesh.
This is not of the Father.
It is not of God, and you cannot love that and love God.
You cannot be chasing fornication and adultery and drugs and all the things that satisfy
the flesh and also serve God simultaneously.
Now praise God.
You know what?
You can have the natural jug of just being happy, eating chocolate, of getting married
and having a wife and having a natural boundary where God still allows us to have pleasurable
feelings and still enjoy some of that aspect of our flesh.
But you know what?
You shouldn't just be loving the flesh because when you do this, you're going to go way overboard
and unhealthy, illegal boundaries of God's word, and the Bible is condemning this.
Then it brings up the lust of the eyes.
This is just simply the things that you like to see.
And so many people, they're caught up in the lust of the eyes.
They want to have the fashion of this world.
And what is the fashion of the clothes, the car, the house?
Everybody's obsessed with their self-image, looks maxing, you know, just working out to
these weird extremes, cosmetic surgeries, all kinds of makeup, and just hair, I mean
just all the eyes, just the lust of the eyes, and then of course you have beyond this, just
people love to engorge themselves on just TV, movies, their phone, the internet.
I mean you can't just even satisfy your eyes, honestly.
You could just watch movies and see beautiful houses and see beautiful people and see beautiful
colors and you still won't be satisfied.
You want to see more and more and more and the eye cannot be satisfied with seeing, as
the Bible says.
And so what is the Bible saying?
That's a bad philosophy.
That's a bad idea.
You just love the lust of the eyes where you're just so interested in fashion.
I mean, look, the modern up-to-date fashion runway, they're walking up and down with trash
bags and stuff.
They're walking up and down with the weirdest stuff because they've already just got normal
clothes.
They're not cool anymore.
So then they just have to keep inventing the weirdest stuff, strangest stuff.
And it's a disease of the mind.
It's a disease of the mind where they're just going after the lust of the flesh.
And of course, we're taking some of these things to an extreme.
Talking about Paris runway is one thing.
But even in our current struggles, even in our current society, a lot of people are trying
to keep up with the Joneses.
And they're always just chasing just the next thing they can set their eyes on, whether
that be a purse, whether that be a house, whether it be a car, whether it be whatever
it is, just something that they can get to the next level, the next layer.
And you know what?
We shouldn't love those things.
It also brings up the pride of life.
This is especially more important probably in 2026 than ever before where just any single
person can have a social media account and try to get "followers."
I mean, prior to the social media, I don't even know if this follower thing really existed.
Maybe someone can correct me.
And I know there's no new thing under the sun.
So obviously there's always been variations of this, but I'm just saying on the scale
that it exists in a social media world where people are trying to get people to follow
them and like them and post about them and just get attention.
I mean, this is just being in high school, just getting, you know, having friends, being
the popular kid in school.
Now it's like just the popularity contest has expanded the entire world on social media.
We're now everybody just competing to become the Mr. Popular.
How many influencers, you know, can exist in the world?
Everybody's an influencer, micro influencers.
I mean just just like everybody's just so obsessed with just the pride of life.
Just this is how many followers I have and this is how many likes I get and this is how
many.
And look obviously people that are involved in marketing and business and whatever, sometimes
you have to involve yourself in these things.
But some people just get so obsessed with loving that they would rather be a social
media influencer than just be a humble church member serving God.
If they don't want to work just a normal job and go to church and serve God, they would
way rather just be a social media influencer and they care way more about the pride of
life.
Or perhaps they're embarrassed to come to a church like ours.
Maybe they actually have money or status in society and to come to a church like ours
would just be too low grade for them, it would just be too embarrassing for them.
They have to go to the fancy church, they have to go to the rich church, they have to
go somewhere where they're not going to be "embarrassed" by other individuals.
This can happen.
People have this pride of life where they care more about what people think about them
than they care about what's right and wrong and what the Bible teaches.
And the Bible is telling us to love not the world.
So we should not love any of these things in this world.
We should not care for getting attention, we should not care about the fashion of this
world and we should not care about chasing just that feeling of self-gratification or
whatever comes from drugs and fornication.
This is wrong, this is unbiblical.
The Bible is forbidding these things in our lives.
And if you really think about the word love, many times the word love just simply means
like a choice, depending on what kind of context we're talking about.
Love can be a feeling, love can be an emotion, but in many cases when the Bible is talking
about loving, it's choosing to set your affections on something, that's kind of what's being
described.
You're choosing to set your affections towards something.
You know, if you are dating someone and you're going through those early stages, it's like
a big deal when someone finally says like, "Hey, I love you."
And we kind of think about it like, what are they saying when they say that?
They're kind of saying like, "I'm choosing to set my affections on you and not other
people."
By choosing something, you're often also not choosing other things.
You take a multiple-choice test, you're choosing one answer and rejecting three answers.
And so you can't love everything equally because their choices, in a sense, will often dictate
what you really feel.
That's why the Bible says you can't love God and mammon because you can't pick both.
You can't just spend all of your time chasing money and just building wealth and also trying
to build spiritual wealth and serving God and prioritizing God.
You just can't do both.
And you say well how do I know what I chose?
Well what did you choose?
Where were you?
What did you do?
Because that's how we really determine.
It's like oh my parents don't love me.
What did that look like?
It looks like they didn't set their affections on you.
They weren't making any choices to do anything for you.
That's what that would typically mean.
If you say, you know your wife will say this sometimes, she's like oh I feel like you don't
love me.
And you're thinking like well wait a minute, you know, what does that mean?
And again sometimes it's being misused, don't hear me wrong.
But what are they saying?
They're saying that it doesn't feel like you're setting your affections on her.
Let's say it was a legitimate criticism, you know, it's like hey, you're just watching
football all day, you're going out and hanging out with your friends all the time, and you're
never hanging out with your wife, well then what is she trying to say?
What is she trying to communicate?
Well I'm paying the bills, okay, yeah but you're not choosing to set your affections
towards me, you're really kind of setting your affections towards football.
You're setting your affections towards friends, you're setting your affections towards other
things and of course God wants us to love him, meaning what?
We're setting our affections towards him, we're setting our attention, we're choosing
God.
Instead of choosing to gratify our flesh, instead of choosing to gratify our eyes, instead
of choosing to be popular or for people to look well to us, we care more and we're setting
our affections on God.
We're not here to please man, we're here to please God.
Yet most people today, they're setting their affections towards what?
Towards just more fornication, more drugs, more fashion, more money, more pride, more
popularity.
They're elevating that through their choices and their decision making and we really see
who they love.
The Bible warns about a guy named Demas having forsaken me, having loved this present world.
What does that mean?
He cares more about just living this life successfully.
And look, there is a pleasure to be had living this life.
You know, just raising a family and just living your life, there's a lot of pleasure, there's
a lot of fun, a lot of people want to do these things.
You know, and you really unfortunately can't do it all but sometimes you'd like to.
You know, it wouldn't be fun, it's fun to participate in every activity and every event
and do all kinds of stuff.
I'm sure sporting events are a lot of fun.
You know, I would enjoy going to lots of sporting events and I would enjoy playing a lot of
sports and I would enjoy going on the lake and riding on a Sea-Doo or visiting some foreign
area to go to their beach and just have fun and relax and it'd probably be fun to watch
every single movie and hear every single song and just, there's just so much fun that you
can have in this world.
You see, here's the thing, I don't want to live my life just loving what is now.
The Bible says that we're not supposed to set our affections on the things on the earth
but we're supposed to set our affections on the things above and we shouldn't be sitting
here just trying to gratify our flesh and gratify our eyes and gratify the pride that
we have in our hearts.
We should simply humbly serve God and then in due time He'll lift us up.
And we're supposed to enjoy the pleasures of the next life more than what we're supposed
to enjoy here.
We're supposed to set our affections on that which is eternal, not temporal.
And of course this is an attitude, it's a spirit.
You can't love those things and also be loving God.
So the person that's involved in gratifying their flesh in the fashion of this world and
attention is not going to serve God, is not a servant of God, is not interested in the
things of God.
That's why it would always make me nervous, it would make me nervous if we had celebrities
or famous people trying to join a church like ours.
Because you would think like this person just has the wrong attitude.
And it's going to ruin them.
Let me be frank, let me be honest.
People that are famous or celebrities or have a lot of attention in this world, this church
will screw you up.
Why?
Because people connect the dots and they'll be like, "Oh, you go to the hate church.
Oh, your pastor hates faggots."
And then they'll get canceled and then they will be blackballed and people will be mad
at them.
Look, good luck being super popular and famous and coming to our church.
Now look, if you could technically have wealth and have public attention and you're still
putting God first, I'm not saying you can't, but the Bible is just saying it's basically
impractical and it's just not going to happen.
And you can't be chasing both.
It's impossible to chase both.
Now look, if someone, you know, is independently wealthy, it's not like your money's going
to fly away.
But if you're chasing wealth, you can't chase God too.
If you're chasing fame, hey, you can be famous and then serve God later.
Sometimes people do that.
It's rare.
It can happen.
But you know what?
If you're chasing fame, you're not going to be chasing God simultaneously.
You can't chase all these things simultaneously.
And you know, we should preach against these philosophies, against these ideas, and against
worldliness.
If we go to James chapter four, the Bible says in another place about this particular
idea.
Well, you're not going to make people happy with this kind of message.
Good.
Because I'm not trying to win a popularity contest.
I already failed.
I mean, I'm banned on so many social media platforms and I'm like shadow banned at best.
So like, how am I going to get viral?
I only get viral in an infamous way.
But you know what?
I don't really care because if they heard the message, they heard the message, you
know.
And then they, popularity, it's just not what it's, what is it worth anyways?
What is popularity going to do?
It's just going to cause you to want to compromise, cause you to trim the message, cause you to
start caring what other people think.
You know, be leery if you ever become popular, that you start to change who you are, you
change your personality, you change your affections, you care more about influence, you care more
about what people think, you want to make sure that you maintain and hold on to that
little bit of popularity or influence that you have.
You know what, all those things are going to lead you down a path of destruction.
You have to make sure to seek God first and keep Him first because you know what, if you're
pleasing too many people, you may just not be pleasing God.
What does the Bible say in James chapter number four, look at verse four, "Ye adulterers
and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God?
Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
That's what the Bible says.
Oh, I just want everybody to like me.
Oh, you're an enemy of God then.
Oh, everybody likes me, I'm friends with everyone.
So you're an enemy of God.
That's what the Bible says.
The Bible says the guy that is friends with the world and the world likes him and he likes
him back is an enemy of God because these things are incompatible.
The love of the world is incompatible with God.
If you are chasing fame, how will you ever be humble?
You won't.
Jesus Christ did not come to this world chasing fame.
He condescended to men of low estate.
He gave himself a reputation of nothing.
He was born in an animal manger.
Even when he got a little bit of popularity,
he would withdraw himself.
He would leave.
He would hide.
He would get away from people.
He did not use popularity to his advantage.
He tried to stay of a humble stature.
When he did great miracles even,
he would constantly tell people,
don't say anything about this.
Don't tell other people about this.
He was not interested in fame.
He was not interested in fortune.
He was not chasing this world's philosophies,
but rather he was a humble, humble servant.
And the person that's chasing fame and attention
and all this stuff is not the friend of God.
He is a friend of the world.
The Bible says you become an enemy of God.
Go to Ecclesiastes chapter one,
go to Ecclesiastes chapter number one.
Now, again, if you're a great preacher of the Bible,
if you're making a big difference,
it's not that you won't get attention,
but you shouldn't be seeking attention.
Should not be an attention seeker.
You should be one who wants to preach the truth.
Hey, John the Baptist, I mean,
this guy is just so austere out in the wilderness,
but he just preached in a firestorm
and everybody came out to hear him.
It's not his fault that everybody came out to hear him,
but no one could argue that John the Baptist
was seeking for attention.
He withdrew himself from all of society.
He's a voice of one crying in the wilderness.
They came to him because there's no other game in town.
'Cause nobody else is gonna preach
what the Bible actually says.
'Cause nobody else is gonna baptize them.
'Cause no one else is gonna actually call out the Pharisees
and the Sadducees for being the vipers.
'Cause everybody else was afraid
of being kicked out of the synagogue.
He never started in the synagogue, he's in the wilderness.
He's like, oh, you're gonna threaten me
by kicking me out of the synagogue?
I'm out here in the wilderness, good luck.
It's like, oh, I'm not afraid of being banned
when I'm banned.
But you know what?
The guy that's a really big influencer,
he's afraid of being banned.
Why? 'Cause he cares more about attention.
He cares more about people giving him praise of men
than they care about seeking God.
That's why you have to be very careful
with attention when you get it.
You have to be very careful that it doesn't change
your heart and change your mind.
You start chasing after that kind of stuff
'cause the Bible says you'll become an enemy of God.
That's what the text says.
We should be preaching against these philosophies
and these ideas.
Here's the second one was modernism.
Now this is kind of a interesting word.
I don't really use this label that often,
but one of the ideas of modernism is typically
in reference to the ideas of evolution
and Charles Darwin's ideas kind of being mixed in
with the Bible.
But broader than this would just be simply just trying
to say, oh, we need to constantly reinterpret the Bible
with modern technology.
As we get more understanding of science
and more understanding of history
and more, just more modern society,
we have a modern family now, Pastor Shelley.
You know, who wants this old King James way of doing things?
Or you have to understand back then that was the culture,
but now we have a new culture.
And so we have to update the Bible.
And you know, we can't have these ideas
of women not being pastors.
We need to update the Bible with the times.
You know, why would you say that fags should be put to death?
We need to, you know, update the times.
Why would you say that witches, you know,
we need to update the times?
Why don't it be like the Salem witch trials?
Yeah, we just need to execute them
instead of like wasting time.
Instead of it just being a complete failure,
it should just been an execution, no novel written.
How are they gonna write a novel if they're dead?
Now look, obviously if there's no evidence, then move on.
But if there's enough evidence, convict and execute them.
Thou should not suffer a witch to live
is what the Bible says.
But this is again a worldly philosophy
that thinks that the Bible needs to be updated.
Why?
Because man's ideas constantly need to be updated.
We're constantly having to update and change things
and adapt and add all these amendments.
And boy, doesn't that always help?
Didn't America get better with different amendments
as we added them?
How about the 19th Amendment?
Wasn't that a good addition to America?
That's really helping things.
When we updated and modernized our ideas.
Look, if anything, I would rather us go back
to what we had as American law, not the new additions.
Very few modern laws have been successful or very good.
Most of them have been a train wreck.
Same way when it comes to modernizing the Bible,
it's a train wreck.
And again, a lot of their quote science
is that in air quotes because it's not real science.
It's not real knowledge.
The science is always off from the word of God.
So we should reject it.
Now look, if it's legitimate science,
then yeah, we should embrace it.
But what does the Bible say here
in Ecclesiastes chapter one, verse number nine?
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be
and that which is done is that which shall be done.
And there is no new thing under the sun.
This verse is not contradicting the idea
of technology itself.
Rather, again, we're talking about systems.
Saying that when people were young thousands of years ago,
they had the exact same temptations,
the exact same struggles.
There was still women gossiping.
They still had their little high school cliques.
They still had their same pet issues.
Why is it that you can make a joke about marriage
and everybody laughs?
Because there's no temptation taking you
at such a common demand.
Everybody wants to think like,
"Oh, there's something wrong with my wife."
No, it's just women.
Just kidding, it's a joke.
Sorry you didn't laugh, all right.
You'll get it later.
But here's the thing, there's a common temptation to man.
There's a common struggle.
And honestly, even many of our technologies
that we have today, people have forgotten
and don't realize a lot of those things existed in the past.
They were just done slightly differently.
And a lot of times when we modernize things,
that's not even necessarily better.
When we think about clothing, honestly,
a lot of clothing in the past was better
than the clothing that we have today
in the sense that it was more durable,
it lasted, it was well crafted.
Today, we just have cheap labor just throwing crap together
so they can sell it as fast as possible.
It rips, it shreds.
I mean, some of the shoes that I had
when I was in high school, they still are intact.
You know, you look at cars today,
modern cars are designed way different than older cars,
and a lot of older cars are built to last,
whereas modern cars are built to crumble on purpose.
Now again, they say this is safer,
but it's probably contextual because it's like,
yeah, I guess if you get hit in a certain way,
the crumbling car could reduce the impact,
but it's also like when you're in a steel tank
that used to be the Cadillac or whatever,
you could hit a lot of protestors and you'd be fine.
You're just going down the highway.
You hit them in one of these little modern Yaris's
or something like that,
and you're putting your both self at risk.
We used to have this old Buick
that my dad and brother would drive,
and they called it the deer slayer,
because especially living in Texas,
Oklahoma, these places,
deer is a real thing out in these country roads.
And yeah, deer for some reason,
they have a high suicide rate.
And so they're just out near highways,
ready to end it all.
And they're just like, there's the light.
And you know, it's weird.
But man, we killed so many deer in those cars.
And honestly, you know what would be left?
Just a little bit of fur in the front of the car.
Whereas modern cars today, it'd be like total.
Modern cars today, it would just be totally crumpled up,
and it wouldn't be even legit.
But again, is there some things in modern cars
that are nice?
Yeah, there's some improvements.
There's some things that are better.
Don't hear me wrong.
I'm not anti-technology, but we also have to recognize
that not always the technology usurp previous inventions,
previous ideas.
Now things are more cheaply made.
Things are more material.
You know, we look at older refrigerators, older equipment.
Sometimes it runs better than newer equipment.
Because again, back then, they were like trying
to make fridges to just work as best as possible.
And then later people were like, well, if we do that,
no one's going to buy a fridge ever again.
They're like, let's see if we can make this break
in about four years or less.
And so then they just started selling
just crappy stuff on purpose.
Why?
Because they know that they can make more money
by doing it this way.
And look, you're going to tell me
there's never been anybody that said,
let's make it crappier so they'll have to buy more.
That is the world that you live in.
That is the world that we live in, in many cases.
People make all kinds of just terrible products,
even home building.
Everything has gotten cheaper, worse quality,
just quality is just going downhill
in many cases in our society.
But there's no new thing under the sun.
Back then, there was people ripping people off,
making crappy goods.
The Jews are in there ripping people off
when they go and buy stuff.
They're cheating them.
They were the used car salesman in the temple.
They're like, "I got the sheep deal for you."
And it's just like, they're just gonna sit there
and rip you off, take advantage of you,
Hawk Flem or whatever.
It's just men are men, women are women.
Life is life.
There's gossip.
I mean, back then, yeah, they had to go from house to house.
From, in our modern society, they go from page to page.
But you know what, it's the same game, same ideas.
We have Jezebel painting her face.
There's her makeup.
We have, I mean, you look at the ornamentation of women
in the book of Ezekiel, I believe it is,
it is elaborate what those women were wearing.
They had bells on their shoes, tinkling symbols.
I mean, when it describes how they're dressed,
it has ornamentation all over their whole body
and all kinds of bonnets and hats and jewelry
and all kinds of things.
I mean, they had fashion back then.
You know, it's like you look at old movies
and old TV shows where they're not necessarily the time
when it was made, but they're talking about previous times.
A biblical timeline movie.
And they're just all wearing like burlap sacks
or something like this.
It's just like, that's not really the picture
that the Bible paints.
Because think about it, why would the Bible even be warned
about fashion police thing
when everybody's just wearing a burlap sack?
It's not talking about that.
You even look in these pictures in the Bible,
Israel and these nations, they had the fashion.
They had all the clothing.
They had all kinds of crazy things that we have today
just in obviously different styles.
I get it.
Obviously different ways.
But look, music existed, you know,
drinking alcohols existing,
all kinds of drug ideas are existing.
While we have modern changes,
it's the same ideas, same concepts, same philosophies.
We're not gonna update.
The Bible doesn't update.
The Bible steadfast.
The Bible is just always the same.
Go to Malachi chapter number three,
Malachi chapter three.
A lot of people even took the miracles of the Bible
and they tried to reason them out
and try to make modern understanding of these things
and stop making them supernatural.
Oh, well Jesus just found a high spot
when he was walking on the water.
No, he's just walking on the water.
Think about this.
Peter is walking on the water and then sinks
and then comes back up.
It didn't like magically high spot, low spot.
He literally lost faith, started drowning in real water
and then came back up and is walking on that same water
through the faith of Christ.
And so, yes, the miracles of the Bible are real.
Yes, Jesus Christ really died.
Yes, Jesus Christ really rose again from the dead.
Yes, Jesus Christ was really born of a virgin.
Yeah, I mean, our faith is founded on miracles.
If you don't believe in miracles, you can't be saved
because the most crucial element of our salvation
is believing in being raised from the dead,
which is impossible.
It defies modern science and modern technology
and modern understanding.
No one's rising from the dead, yet Jesus Christ did
because of a miracle, a supernatural act.
And that's what we have to put our faith in,
is in the supernatural, in what the Lord Jesus Christ did.
I'm not gonna modernize, then, my Bible
to try and match modern technology and think like,
no, the miracles didn't really happen.
You know, Moses was just clever.
And look, I've thought about this too.
I'm like, you know, when you kind of see a pattern
in Egypt, you could try to excuse away
what's happening with the plagues
as being like just kind of a coincidence.
'Cause it's just like, well, when you have a bloody pond
of water, I mean, when all the Nile's is blood,
fish are gonna die, right?
And then if the fish die, well, what comes?
Bugs are gonna come in there.
And so you can kind of like sit here
and just try to say like, oh, I just think, you know,
it was just kind of this trick.
And then like, obviously some fish died
and there's a blowing out of proportion.
And then just like, then you had some flies.
And then of course frogs come in there
and she's like, they just try to like twist
the whole narrative and just being
like a modern understanding.
No, no, no, it was miracles.
Why would Pharaoh be begging for it to change
if it wasn't a miracle that was happening?
How about darkness, which can be felt everywhere?
How do you explain that?
How do you explain just every firstborn
just dropping dead the exact same night,
including all the animals?
That's not a natural event.
That is a supernatural event.
How about the, they would literally try
to use a naturalistic explanation.
Like there was actually a powerful enough wind
for just the water to just kind of move a little bit
for the children to find a low spot
to just kind of walk through.
It's like, okay, then how do the Egyptians drown in it?
You know, they're like, sometimes they'll say like,
oh, it was like ankle deep.
And it's just like, how did the Romans just trip and fall
and drown in ankle deep water or whatever?
You know, it's just like, it says that the water was a wall
on both sides of them.
And it's a picture of baptism.
This was some serious waters that they walked through
on dry ground, mind you.
How's that not a miracle?
How could you be walking through a river on a dry bed
instantly?
I mean, overnight, it's dry all of a sudden, randomly.
And yeah, did God use some natural elements
in aiding this miracle?
Sure, the Bible talks about there being wind
that came and separated the waters.
But at the end of the day, it's still a supernatural act.
And we're not gonna modernize the Bible
to try and accommodate some modern understanding
of technology or science.
Sometimes it's just a miracle.
Now the Bible says in Malachi chapter three,
look what it says in verse number six,
for I am the Lord, I change not,
therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.
A lot of people also talk about social issues
and they try to say we need to update the times.
And we're saying, hey, you know, we've identified,
you know, there's this intersex person.
So there's not actually male and female.
And it's like, no, there's male and female, just Bible.
Yeah, is there eunuchs?
Sure.
Are there people that have just weird abnormalities
that, you know, get a little bit confusing?
Sure.
It's got a why, it's a guy.
If it doesn't, it doesn't.
Pretty simple.
And the Bible doesn't afford for this third category.
The Bible also doesn't teach that there's no difference
between men and women.
The Bible teaches there are clear difference
between men and women.
Go to 1 Peter chapter number three.
Yet it's like the modern update.
Oh, we'll just, whatever you say you are,
now you're male or female.
Being male or female is not a physical distinction.
It's a mental identity.
How's that working when it comes to the sports, right?
They wanna allow men identifying as women
to play in sports.
And this is still happening in America today.
This is happening in high schools in America today
where you have trannies playing in sports.
Which is what's so silly.
We as a society created women's sports.
Why?
Like, why is it that there's not just basketball?
Why is there men's basketball and women's basketball?
Why is there not just football?
Oh wait, there is.
Why is there no women's football?
Probably 'cause they literally can't really compete in that.
They couldn't even do that.
If you had women just like tackling each other and stuff,
it would just, the injuries would just be off the chart.
It just wouldn't really exist, okay.
Now I'm not saying
that there's never been women to play football.
I'm just saying we don't really have the WNFL.
You know, why do we have ladies golf?
Why is there a ladies tee box in golf?
And why is it like hundreds of yards
in front of the men's tee box?
Why isn't it sometimes behind?
Why is it always in front?
Why is it that we have these different categories for sport?
Because there's an obvious difference
between men and women that we all understood.
So then when you're gonna throw men into it,
you are misunderstanding the creation of it
in the first place.
It's like this exists as a separate entity
for a real reason.
We didn't just randomly create an arbitrary second group
of sports athletes that are on the same level.
It's like, oh, well we just have this other league
that's same level, same skill, same everything,
it just happens to be women over here and men over here.
This is so unfair because of the pay.
You know, we should pay the WNBA the same as the NBA.
You know, we should pay the women basketball players
the same as the Brawn.
Yeah, except for how many women
are wearing WNBA shoes today?
How many women are out there championing some woman's shoes
that are like this women's basketball shoes?
How many men are going out
and championing women's basketball shoes?
Yet, how many people are wearing a pair of Jordans?
How many people are wearing a pair
of whatever little bronze shoes are?
I don't know what it is.
I'm sure a lot of people are in Ohio.
I mean, there's gotta be at least some market there.
It's like, oh, why do we pay this guy so much money?
Well, maybe 'cause he brings a bunch of people in.
Maybe 'cause actually people wanna watch him dunk
and they don't wanna watch a woman miss a layup
three times in a row.
It's like, they're not as interested in watching that.
Maybe there's a skill difference.
Because look, do you think that people are genuinely
that discriminatory against women
that wouldn't watch it if it was just super awesome?
The answer's no, because look at Caitlin Clark.
A woman that came out that was way more talented
than a lot of people, her predecessors,
an incredible shooter, she brought tons of people
into her arena and plenty of people
into that particular genre, and a lot of people
started paying attention to it for the first time.
Why, because she had some skill.
Now, is it gonna pay off as much as the NBA?
No, because you have one girl that can just make a shot
every once in a while that shocked people,
and they were just like, we wanna see this.
You're telling me a girl can shoot a three-point shot
and make it?
I wanna watch this.
And so they were like, dang.
I'm using some hyperbole, okay?
They can shoot at least 10% or something.
Look at 1 Peter chapter three, look at verse seven.
The Bible says, "Likewise, the husbands dwell with them
"according to knowledge, giving honor under the wife
"as under the weaker vessel,
"and as being heirs together the grace of life
"that your prayers be not hindered."
Look, the Bible explicitly states
that the woman is a weaker vessel.
Why can't we just accept that?
Oh, well, that's not modern.
Women can do everything that men can do.
Biblically false.
It's also false with just reality.
We've never observed that.
This is not the case.
Yeah, sometimes we have exceptional women
that do exceptional things and nobody's against that,
but just as a general rule,
women are the weaker vessel in comparison to men.
There's this obvious difference,
and we're not gonna update our Bible.
We're not gonna say, "Oh, well,
"some women can be successful in the workplace.
"Now let's have men be house husbands."
False.
No, we just need to have men be the leader,
men be the provider.
I mean, think about this.
Why is the Bible just putting all of the onus on men
that have any provide not for his own,
and especially those of his own house,
he had denied the faith and is worse than an infidel,
if it's like, actually you should have been a house husband.
No, men are supposed to be the providers.
They're supposed to be the bread winner.
They're supposed to be the one taking care of the family.
And we're not gonna modernize the Bible.
Women guide the house.
Oh, that's sexist.
No, it's Bible.
And we reject feminism.
Look at Titus chapter two, Titus chapter two.
So point one was worldliness.
Point two is modernism.
Point three is feminism.
And feminism kind of stems out
of a lot of modern ideas as well.
There's probably a lot of overlap
when it comes to these particular concepts.
I'm not gonna belabor this point
'cause I preach so many sermons against feminism.
You're probably sick of it
and you probably need some more of it.
But that'll be a different sermon
all dedicated to itself, all right?
And a documentary and a t-shirt, all right?
There you go.
Titus chapter two, look at verse five.
This is what women are supposed to be.
Discreet, chaste, keepers at home.
Good, obedient to their own husbands
that the word of God be not blasphemed.
A couple of years ago I visited the University of Texas
and we had a booth and I just had a sign that said,
"Women should stay home and not go to college."
And boy, I mean, they lost their mind.
They're flipping me off and screaming at me
and yelling at me and acting like I was a horrible person.
But I'm like, "Sorry."
I mean, the Bible says to be keeper at home.
Now look, I'm not against a woman being highly educated.
I'm not against a woman learning.
I can't say it's like,
it's a sin to walk around on a college campus.
But at the end of the day,
if she's dedicating her life
to become someone that's not a keeper at home,
that's wrong.
Not what the Bible teaches and I'm against feminism.
And they'll say like,
oh, well, how do you expect her to pay the bills?
Marry a guy that is gonna pay the bills.
It's that simple.
Oh, well, there's not any good men.
Not at the bar.
Oh, well, you just expect me
to just marry one of these goody two-shoes
that's gonna take me to church and pay all my bills?
Yes, I do.
Oh, well, I don't wanna live that lifestyle.
Okay, well then die childless with all your cats.
I mean, you don't think that,
we're headed towards a crash course
'cause there's gonna be a lot of women that nobody wanted
that are just destroying themselves and harming themselves.
Yeah, but I'm chasing a career.
Guys don't care about your career.
It's kind of funny, it's just like guys could care less
about anything that has to do with a career
when it comes to a woman.
In fact, I would argue that a career
only makes a woman less attractive.
The more career, the less attractive she is.
Because if you're like, if you were on the dating market
and you're looking at a lady and she's like,
I just stay at home with my parents
and I just babysit and cook meals for my mom and dad.
You're like, she's like, I'm a middle manager
of a fashion magazine.
You're like, no.
You know, I'm the HR director, no.
You're like, I don't want that.
You'd be like, you'd rather have the lady at Chick-fil-A
that's like, it is my pleasure.
I'm a cashier at Chick-fil-A.
You're like, great.
We're gonna apply this pleasure thing at home, all right?
You're gonna quit, but you're gonna keep that attitude.
Isn't that funny?
Women are not offended when a man that they don't know says,
you tell every single person it is my pleasure.
Then a pastor gets up and say, hey, tell your husband
it's my pleasure at dinner.
And it's like, ah, you sexist!
What, do I need to be a Jew wearing
a Chick-fil-A manager uniform?
All right, welcome to Chick-fil-A.
Show up on time or you're gonna be fired.
Follow all the rules or you're gonna be fired.
Every single customer's always right or you're gonna be fired.
If they do something you don't like, be kind.
You can't complain, you can't murmur to them,
you can't be mad at them, you can't get icy.
If they ask you a question,
you can't just say, "Whatever, I don't know."
You have to always say, "It's my pleasure."
It's like, "Oh, that makes sense."
Over here, it's like, "Hey, tell your husband,
"it's my pleasure every time you serve him,
"do whatever he wants,
"wear the outfit he wants you to wear."
It's just like, "Oh, you sexist pig."
It's like, you can't even get fired over here.
And look, we all know,
if we just looked at your credit card purchases,
Chick-fil-A salary is not covering that.
Hey, you're still making out like a bandit.
You know, it's crazy how the world thinks like,
"Oh no, this is a superior idea."
Is to go put women in the workplace
and make them these career boss babes.
It's a fool's errand.
And frankly speaking, men hate it
when they have a woman boss.
We all hate it.
You know what I've never heard?
I've never heard this in my entire life.
I've never heard a man come up to me and say like,
man, I just love my girl boss.
They just assigned me a new woman at work
that she's my manager and she is awesome.
Now, of course, never say this
'cause you wanna stay married.
But I'm just simply saying like,
they wouldn't even say that because it's never true.
You're like, oh, I got the worst boss.
She's the witch, you know?
And it's just like, we just hate it.
They're just so annoying.
And this is the common complaint.
If you get a female boss,
it's like she has no idea what she's doing.
They're never like, oh man,
we got this new software developer, female.
She is coding a storm, man.
She understands logic like no man I've ever seen before.
It's like, it's like the code says fail.
And she's just like, no, it works.
And the code just like, you're right.
Yes, ma'am.
I don't care about zeros and ones anymore.
I don't care about true or false.
Your truth, honey.
It's like, they're gonna have to design AI for women.
It's gonna break.
Okay, they're gonna break it.
Look, you can't be a software developer
and care about feelings.
You have to care about truth only and logic only.
It's the only way it works.
You can't go to the construction job.
My fingers hurt.
Well, now your back's gonna hurt.
You just pulled landscaping duty.
I mean, it's just like, hey, this is not the place
to be putting highly opinionated, emotional people.
It's like, we put you with the kids, all right?
Why?
Because no one can survive that.
That's why God made y'all a little crazy.
You know, he made y'all crazy
so y'all can survive all the kids or whatever.
It's just a perfect match, okay?
Y'all are sensitive, they're sensitive.
I don't understand what they're saying.
I mean, my toddler says stuff and I'm just thinking like,
how in the world did my wife interpret that correctly?
There was something the other day
one of my toddlers was saying
and the connection that my wife made,
it just made no sense at all.
The toddler is just like saying, you know,
the kid's got some kind of a present or something
and it was like a bank, like a little mini bank
that they have, like a piggy bank, but it's like that.
It's like a little kind of bank and it's loud.
It makes all this noise.
And we hear it.
It's just like really loud.
We're hearing it and it's kind of as ruck as my wife's like,
oh, what is that?
And my toddler's like, oh, it's where the teeth go.
And I'm like, what the heck?
Where the teeth go?
And then my wife's just like, oh yeah,
that's the money banks that they're playing with.
I'm like, how the, what does that even mean?
And she's just like, well, anytime they lose a tooth,
then they get money from the tooth fairy
and they put it in their bank.
And so that's where the teeth go.
I was just like, how in the world did you figure this out?
But then, you get a woman to solve for a coding problem
and it's just like, well, that is not gonna work.
So you have to actually use logic again.
So it's like, hey, everybody has their strengths.
Everybody has their weaknesses.
God created us different on purpose.
And you know what?
Some people call it complimentarianism.
I'll just call it Bible.
Women are to be the keepers at home.
Men are supposed to go out and work and provide.
And you know what?
I don't care what changes the world.
I don't care if every single guy becomes a house husband.
I will preach against you.
I don't know how you would want to come to our church
and be a house husband anyways.
And tell me about your female boss at work
and how wonderful she is.
Well, you know what?
Don't bring your female boss to Steadfast Baptist Church
and think it's safe, okay?
It's not safe.
You're gonna lose all the women's CEOs.
We didn't have them in the first place.
Go through Ephesians chapter two.
We'll finish on these other two quickly.
But hey, we will be against feminism.
This is a worldly philosophy.
Women don't run our church.
Women don't run our houses.
And frankly speaking, whether you realize it or not,
women don't run the world.
So stop pretending like they do.
Everything about feminism is fake.
It's a pretend environment.
The WNBA is pretend basketball.
They're pretending to play these kinds of sports
because if they actually competed
with junior hires, they might lose.
They play against high schoolers,
they would probably sure lose.
College level would dominate the WNBA.
It is a propped up fake little game
just to make girls feel special.
It doesn't even make money, folks.
The WNBA loses money every year.
It has to be supplemented because it's a fake business.
It's a lie of feminism to cause you to think like,
oh, women play basketball too.
Lie, they're pretending and we're pretending to care
because again, still no one cares.
It's fake.
It's fake that women are just so successful
in the business world.
It is for DEI.
Companies are, the Jews are just forcing this down
people's throats.
They're forcing it on major corporations
to just hire women in these high ranking management
positions and it's fake.
It's garbage.
It's detrimental to society.
We have women in our politics.
They don't know what's up from down
when it comes to politics.
There, there is a pretty face to get votes
and to try and get other stupid women to vote for them.
Why do you think they have women politicians?
Simply because they can garner the woman vote
specifically the feminist vote and it's lies, it's fake.
Women in our military is fake.
Women police officers is fake.
I mean, they can't throw some guy down on the ground.
They can't enforce the law.
Women military, no country would be afraid of that.
No one would be like,
even though America is superior to all nations,
if we said we're only gonna let women fight from now on,
then they would just be no holds barred.
The countries would do whatever they want.
Women are not gonna go down into Venezuela
and just take Maduro out of his bed
and bring him back here at will.
That's some Marine Corps unit that's doing that.
Men are not afraid of women.
It's ridiculous.
Feminism's a lie.
It's wicked as hell.
Quit believing in it.
Quit caring about it.
Why do you care about this stuff?
Oh, because mom and dad will look down upon me.
How about your heavenly father?
How does he feel about you?
Well, you know, they're not gonna,
we don't have a modern family.
Modern family has a bunch of faggots in it.
Have you ever watched the show?
It's two faggots raising a kid
and they pretend like they're nice.
They're not nice, they're fake too.
Two guys raising kids are child molesters.
That's what they are.
Predators and human traffickers,
and they should be executed.
Look at Ephesians chapter number two, verse number eight.
What's the last two that I have?
One is formalism/legalism,
and sometimes we get accused of being legalistic,
but most of the true definition of legalism
is believing in work salvation,
which almost nobody within the Christian side of faith
would even give lip service to.
I think Catholics will oftentimes give lip service
to work salvation.
I mean, some of them will say that kind of stuff,
but look, obviously we've never believed in work salvation,
we'll never do it.
We don't even give lip service to it.
Maybe if you go to a church of Christ,
maybe if you go to a church of Nazarene,
they'll actually say works are necessary.
But most of the time, Christians, non-denom,
Baptist, they're not even gonna say works at all.
They're gonna use tricky language
if they teach work salvation.
They would not openly teach it.
And of course, we would never teach it.
The Bible says in Ephesians chapter two, verse eight,
"For by grace, he is saved through faith,
and that noter sells it as the gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast."
So the Bible could not be clearer.
This is the best verse to show people.
Go to Romans four.
I wanna look at another verse or two
on this particular subject,
but obviously we reject all formalism, all legalism.
I also am not gonna teach like a backwards legalism
where it's just like, well, you're not saved by works,
but if you don't have works, you're not saved.
Well, then that means you have to have works to be saved.
I mean, because they'll say, this is what they'll say.
Oh, that faith is my faith alone,
but that faith is never alone.
So then what if you came to somebody who said,
I believe in Jesus, but I don't have any works.
Well, you're not saved.
What do I need to do?
Get some works is what they would say.
And of course, this backwards teaching
confuses a lot of people, messes people up.
And I'm sure there's kind of different variations
and flavors of this.
I think there's probably some saved people
that are mixed up on this issue,
kind of like a Galatian scenario.
But hey, even when someone's mixed up,
I don't want fellowship with that type of person.
We should be, you know, we should be preaching against them.
We should be holding them accountable for what they believe.
I think that this is the more common view
that I've noticed in a lot of evangelical churches
and a lot of Christian churches is that
they kind of teach this idea that salvation's a free gift.
It's just by faith, but you will change.
You will show fruit.
And that it's like, it's impossible for someone to get saved
and not exhibit any kind of outward characteristics
or outward change.
And I think for a lot of these people,
their environment is kind of teaching them this
because they go to a church where people changed.
So obviously to them, they're kind of abstract
from the idea that we go and knock on doors all day long
and get tons of people saved and they don't come to church.
And it's not a shock for us to think
that someone could get saved and not show up at church.
That's every time.
And even when they say I'm coming to church,
I promise I'll be there.
I'm gonna see you at church.
Don't show up.
They'll sometimes come the one time.
Don't come back.
I mean, it's just common that people are not serving God.
And when we talk to these people,
they're rock solid on the gospel.
They're rock solid on what it takes to be saved.
What am I gonna tell them that I didn't already tell them?
Oh, you gotta really believe in Jesus now.
No, it's just, hey, salvation really is a free gift.
If it's not a free gift, then at the end of the day,
it would be works.
If it's free, then you really don't have to have any works.
What does it say in Romans chapter number four?
And I wanna look at the latter section of this actually,
'cause of course the first section is great.
I mean, it says in verse five,
but to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifeth the ungodliest faith
is counted for righteousness.
So even if someone never did any works, they're still saved.
Verse six, even as David also described
the blessedness of the man
in whom God imputed the righteousness without works.
So even in the Old Testament, they had this idea.
Don't be like the hyper-dispensationalists of this world
that would teach, oh, it's work salvation
in the Old Testament.
Liar, like Keith Gomez, who got up and taught
that James, too, teaches work salvation,
and then said, but James isn't written to us.
And then he said, in the Old Testament,
you had to have works.
It's like, what, how, can that,
can someone be saved and believe that?
I don't know, man, that's scary doctrine.
I'm afraid of anybody that believes that or thinks that,
or would go to a church and even tolerate that
for one second.
But of course, those same people, you know, somebody,
I was making like marriage tip videos,
and I made this marriage tip video, I said something like,
hey, you should give your wife like a kiss every day,
or something like that.
And then someone puts a comment on there like,
you should never listen to wife abusers,
like, you know, Pastor Shelley or whatever.
And I'm thinking like, what in the world?
Like, hey, you know, it's not abuse to get a kiss
to your wife or whatever.
And then I click on it and he goes to Keith Gomez's church.
I'm just like, oh, of course, you know,
when you just lie about the Bible,
you just lie as if it's just a general person or whatever.
But of course we are against all work salvation.
And if we couldn't be saved by works,
the Bible says it's impossible,
then how was it in the Old Testament?
Just no one got saved in the Old Testament?
And if it was by works,
boy, they really screwed up pretty bad.
Doesn't seem like they were doing the works very well.
I mean, who in the world got saved
according to the works of the Old Testament?
At which works were they?
Which commandments did they have to keep in the Old Testament?
I mean, this is bizarre ideas.
No, even David.
David said, hey, it's without works.
No works whatsoever.
Good for him, right?
The murdering adulterer,
I'm sure he's glad that he got saved by grace.
We all are.
Says in verse eight,
"Blessed is the man whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Come with his blessedness then upon the circumcision,
only upon the uncircumcision also.
For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham
for righteousness.
How was it then reckoned?
When he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision?
Not in circumcision.
But in uncircumcision,
he received the sign of circumcision
to seal the righteousness of the faith,
which he had yet being uncircumcised.
That he might be the father of all them that believe,
though they be not circumcised,
that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.
And the father of circumcision to them,
who are not of the circumcision only,
but who also walk in the steps of that faith
of our father Abraham,
which he had being yet uncircumcised.
For the promise that he should be the heir of the world
was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law,
but through the righteousness of faith.
For if they which are of the law be heirs,
faith is made void and the promise made of none effect.
Because the law worketh wrath,
for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace.
To the end, the promise might be sure to all the seed,
not to that only which is of the law,
but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of us all.
This is so funny, you like read these passages
and it couldn't be clearer.
What the Bible is saying is that Abraham got saved
before he was ever circumcised,
as an evidence of being a child of Abraham
has nothing to do with being circumcised.
And then the Jews are obsessed about being children
of Abraham through circumcision.
The Bible could not be clearer.
And you'll say, oh, we wanna bless the seed of Abraham.
We wanna get the blessing from Abraham.
And it's like, let's go back to Genesis 12.
Oh, you mean before he's circumcised,
the guy that got saved before he was circumcised?
Yeah, that was him blessing me through Christ
has nothing to do with the law,
nothing to do with the quote Jews.
Jews aren't even the speckle in Abraham's eye yet.
They don't even exist.
They have to wait several generations to even get to Judah.
And then even then,
it's not about being Jewish or something like this.
It's not about ethnicity.
It's about salvation by grace through faith.
That was taught in verse 16.
That was taught in the Old Testament.
That was taught through Abraham.
That's why he's the father of us all.
Verse 17, as it is written,
I have made thee a father of many nations
before him whom he believed, even God,
who quickened at the dead
and called those things which be not as though they were,
who against hope believed in hope
that he might become the father of many nations.
According to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be.
Oh, that blessing was a blessing to Israel.
No, it was a blessing to all nations, false.
Hey, the Middle East is owned to the Jews
because of the blessing given to Abraham.
Nope, all families know that is wrong.
And the blessing given to Abraham was through Christ.
Christ is the seed.
Says in verse 18, who against hope believed in hope
that he might become the father of many nations
according to that which is spoken in social ICB
and being not weak in faith,
he considered not his own body now dead.
When he was about 100 years old,
neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb,
he staggered not of the promise of God through unbelief
but was strong in faith, giving glory to God
and being fully persuaded that what he had promised
he was able also to perform
and therefore was imputed to him for righteousness.
Now, it was not written for his sake alone
that it was imputed to him,
but for us also to whom it shall be imputed
if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord
from the dead who was delivered for our offenses
and was raised again for our justification.
Now, I love this passage is because it actually spells out
what we believe and a detail that cannot be misunderstood.
The Bible actually explains what faith is.
Faith is not following the commandments.
Faith is being persuaded
and putting your confidence in something
and something you can't see.
Think about what it said here
in specifically verse number 21
and being fully persuaded that what he had promised,
he was able also to perform.
What is saving faith?
It's being fully persuaded
that God is able to keep his promise.
And what is his promise?
Eternal life.
And how do we receive that eternal life?
By putting our faith in the son of Jesus Christ.
We are fully persuaded
that when we put our faith in Jesus Christ,
that's what gives us eternal life.
And the Bible says this was written
not to talk about Abraham or Car-
No, it was written to us, for us.
What does it say?
Verse 23, "Now it was not written for his sake alone
that it was imputed to him,
but for us also to whom it shall be imputed
if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord
from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses
and was raised again for our justification."
The Bible is spelling out how imputed righteousness works
with Abraham so that we could read John 3:16
and believe in Jesus Christ and be saved by faith
apart from works, nothing that we do,
just simply being persuaded and putting our faith
in what Jesus did.
And I like this, fully persuaded.
Not 50% Jesus and 50% your works,
no 100% Jesus or you're not persuaded.
You put all of your faith in Jesus Christ
and that's what saves you.
That's what gives you justification.
That's why it says in verse one of chapter five,
"Therefore being justified by faith,
"we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
It didn't say Abraham did a bunch of works
and was justified.
I mean, how did it even start?
Verse one, "What shall we say then
"that Abraham our father is pretending the flesh hath found?
"For if Abraham were justified by works,
"he hath whereof to glory, but not before God.
"For what sayeth the scripture?
"Abraham believed God and it was counted
"unto him for righteousness."
So the Bible in chapter four is telling you
what believe means, what faith means.
It's to be fully persuaded that what he had promised
he is able also to perform.
That is what faith is, is putting our trust
in what the Bible says and what God said
and that's what gives us salvation.
No works.
Even the guy that did zero works is still saved by his faith.
But one more place, go to 2 Corinthians 6 and we'll finish.
Ecumenicalism is also another sin
and a worldly philosophy that we talked about.
And again, when someone is wrong on the Gospel,
they don't believe what we believe in the Gospel,
we should not have fellowship with them.
We should not hang out with them.
And the Bible calls them unbelievers.
We don't wanna be around unbelievers.
The Bible talks about a separation.
And yet, many people today, they don't care about this.
They'll say, "Hey, we need to join up with Muslims
"to try and get rid of the Jewish problem in our country."
False.
I don't wanna join up with Muslims to do anything.
Zero.
I want, the only joining up will be picking them up
and putting them back on a plane or boat to Africa,
to Somalia, to deport them, to get rid of them,
or to execute them if they commit capital crimes.
But you know what?
We should not fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness
with unbelievers.
I mean, what does the Bible say here in 1 Corinthians 6,
look at verse number 14.
Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers
for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness,
and what communion hath light with darkness,
and what concord hath Christ with Belial,
or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel,
and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols.
For ye are the temple of the living God.
As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore, come out from among them and be separate,
say the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing,
and I will receive you.
We should separate ourselves from unbelievers,
from idolaters, from anything that's just not
what the Bible is clearly teaching.
And of course, we exercise a lot of separation
in this church.
When it comes to ecumenicalism,
I personally think that we should take
the more strict definitions
of what this actually looks like and means.
And in modern times and more recent times,
we've even had people quote in the new IFB
get all upset about quote ecumenicalism,
which I think it was kind of preposterous.
So one of the famous examples for me is just kind of funny
is that one of our sinning pastors, Pastor Stephen Anderson,
he made a documentary about the Greek language
and he invited a reformed Baptist to go with him
to Greece and give the gospel.
And this Calvinist reformed Baptist gave the gospel
to multiple people in Greek
and tried to get them saved on this trip.
And then Pastor Joe Major makes a video saying
he has to separate from Pastor Anderson
from being ecumenical.
And it's like, because the guy claims to be a Calvinist.
And it's like, look, I'm against Calvinism.
I think Calvinism is a false doctrine.
I hate all five points.
I think Calvinists are prideful, arrogant, and pricks.
But look, a Calvinist learning a foreign language
to go give the gospel to people in a foreign country
sounds kind of antithetical
to what we hate about Calvinism anyways.
So, you know, why in the world would we be so mad?
I mean, if you actually had a Calvinist coming to our side
to go soul winning and preaching the gospel,
it's like, well, you're kind of still screwed up
and we can make fun of you.
But like, is that really ecumenical?
I mean, is the guy an unbeliever
if he's preaching the right gospel?
No, is he an idolater?
No.
I mean, we're kind of like twisting this to that.
If we're gonna go to that level of extremity,
that just because someone has a little bit different doctrine,
I mean, that's not the principle of ecumenicalism.
The principle of ecumenicalism is partnering with atheists,
partnering with unbelievers, partnering with Hindus,
partnering with Muslims.
That's the main concept.
Then you could go a subset and say like weird denominations
like Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses.
That would obviously be weird and wrong and problematic.
But it's like when you're separating
over what flavor of Baptist you are,
that's where you're taking ecumenicalism
to such a weird extreme that I just don't really like.
And again, it's not like this guy,
it was preaching for him or best buds.
It's just like, he's going soul winning.
Look, I would take an unsaved person soul winning with me.
You know, if I had an unsaved family member
and they were like, hey, what's the soul winning thing?
I wanna find out.
It's like, come on, we'll get you saved
while you go out with this or whatever.
That's not being super ecumenical.
Now, obviously if you have a guy in a dress coming up here
and preaching about the Catholic church,
yeah, I'm gonna probably call you ecumenical
to some degree at that level.
But like, that's just silly.
Say, well, I don't wanna be friends with someone
that's friends with someone that's a Calvinist.
This is a dumb idea.
Anytime someone says I don't wanna be friends
with someone's friends, just immediately disregard
anything they just said after that.
It is, they will always be a hypocrite in that category.
They will always show themselves to be false
in that particular idea.
And look, I am not saying here that we should separate
over every little issue and every little minor thing.
But ecumenicalism is wrong.
We should not partner with other religions.
We should not be best friends with unbelievers.
The Bible says we should be separate,
away from those type of people.
You know what?
Hey, I try to be as friendly as I can to other Christians.
I run into the guy at the Non-Denom Church.
I try to be friendly to this guy.
I try to be nice to this guy.
I'm not like just like, are you not, are you new IB?
If you're not new IB, if you're not ultra new IB,
if you're not ultra separated new IB,
then I can't be your friend.
I can't even be nice to you or whatever.
It's just like, look, when I knock on a door
and the person's saved, I'm not like,
but are you King James only?
'Cause if you're not, I'm gonna be mean to you.
It's like, here, watch this movie.
You know, oh, you're screwed up on doctrine, okay.
You know, we can be nice to other Christians,
but at the same time, I'm not gonna go to their church,
not gonna invite those kind of people
who can preach for our church or something like that.
So there's layers of separation we get.
We should just genuinely just like
all brothers and sisters in Christ.
You know, you should just be positive
towards anybody that's saved.
Does that mean you have to be best friends?
No.
Does that mean that sometimes
it's time for separation? Sure.
But what is the true ecumenicalism?
Unbelievers, false religion,
not another saved person that has
a slightly different doctrinal position than you.
Oh, well they're pre-trib.
They're still brothers and sisters.
That's not ecumenical to hang out with a pre-tribber.
You know that there is a whole group of churches
that will not fellowship with other churches
if they don't do closed communion?
If they do what's called open communion?
You're like, I don't even know what this is.
I thought we just all drank the drink.
It's like closed communion means they refuse communion
to someone that's not a certified member of their church.
So it's like, if you had, think about this.
I'm telling you this logic.
We had pastor Anderson or Pastor Mia visit our church
and we had communion with them.
That is open communion.
'Cause they're not an actual member of our church.
That would be a violation.
Think about it, a church that does that,
you can't even be fellowship with them.
People get weird ideas, okay?
Like, I don't care what your communion is,
you know, as long as you're not drinking booze, okay?
Like the Catholic Church.
It's like, this is a weird way to separate.
But again, we need to just stay away
from worldly philosophies.
We need to not love the world, not care what they're,
their ideas are always inferior to the Bible.
They're always catching up to the Bible.
Don't allow someone to trick you into thinking,
no, no, we need to update things,
or I'm more modern in the Bible.
Look, this is more relevant
than anything's ever been before.
Obviously the main media is not,
mainstream media is not even relevant anymore,
but whatever is relevant, ex, social media, AI,
AI still sucks in comparison to this.
You should ask your questions to this first,
and this will always give you the right answer.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much
for giving us the right philosophies and the right wisdom.
I pray that we will be aware of vain philosophy
and of Greek wisdom and feminism
and all these strange ideas of modernism
that wanna creep into a church.
I pray that it would help us not be worldly
and chasing the pride of life and the lusts of the flesh.
I pray that you would help us to seek righteousness
and godliness that comes from the Bible.
I pray you'd help us to humble ourselves more.
And I pray that you would just help this church
be used in a great way for your honor and for your glory.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
- All right, for our last song,
let's go to song number 116.
Song number 116.
He leadeth me.
Song number 116.
Together.
Hey, buddy, you're all dismissed.