(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

So right now she is old enough to like show people, but never she doesn't have an idea. Auntie! No it's not your fault. It's right here. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. 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No it's not your fault. It's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. No it's not your fault. Number 152 security. Number 152. More secure is no one ever than the loved ones of the Savior. Let's sing it out on this first verse. Number 152. Let's sing it out on this first verse. Let's sing it out on this first verse. Number 152. More secure is no one ever than the loved ones of the Savior. Let's sing it out on this first verse. Number 152. More secure is no one ever than the loved ones of the Savior. Let's sing it out on this first verse. Number 152. More secure is no one ever than the loved ones of the Savior. Let's sing it out on this first verse. Number 152. More secure is no one ever than the loved ones of the Savior. Let's sing it out on this first verse. Let's sing it out on this first verse. Partner assistance is no sing offWithout Thank you for this opportunity to be here tonight, and I pray that you feel diamonds and hopefully Amen. Go over to hymn number 149, Trusting Jesus, number 149. Singing all four verses, Simply Trusting Every Day, number 149. Let's sing it out nice and loud until the Lord this evening, number 149. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the Romans fly. Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him, whatever befall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Flying down His sphere and shining into this poor heart of mine. While He lives, I cannot fall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the Romans fly. Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him, whatever befall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Singing if my way is clear. Praying if the path be true. If in danger form in God. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the Romans fly. Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him, whatever befall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting Him, my life shall last. Trusting Him till earth be past. Till within the jester wall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the Romans fly. Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him, whatever befall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting Jesus, that is all. And then we've got the coffee and tea station up and running again. Water stations up and running again. Don't forget that there's no Tucson shuttle again until October 1st while brother Corbin Ressel is up on an Indian reservation up in the Pacific Northwest doing a soul winning trip up there. And from what I hear things are going great. So be praying for him on that trip. And the services of course are happening as normal down in Tucson. But the shuttle will not resume until October. And then on the back we've got the singing class every Sunday at 4 30. Keep praying for our ladies that are expecting that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. We've got the weekly events listed there. The preaching class at 7 o'clock on Tuesday nights. That's for participants only. And then we've got the Spanish night every second Thursday. The next one is on October 8th. Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days. Going back to Monday. Any soul winning to report from Monday? All right. Anything else from Monday? Gotcha. Anything else from Monday? What about Tuesday? Two for Tuesday. All right. Gotcha. Anything else from Tuesday? And then what about today? I know we had two for the church van. All right. Anything outside the van? All right. Is that a one? Okay. Gotcha. Anything else from today? Very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning. And with that let's sing our next song. Come lead us. You should find through tribulation your hymnals. Should be in the front there. Through tribulation we'll sing all three verses. If you need one you can raise your hand and one of the men will get to you with one. Through tribulation though it is dark in this world of sin sing it out. Through tribulation though it is dark in this world of sin though evil prospers it shall not win first tribulation and with a shout will be caught away for his wrath poured out the Lord will come with ten thousands of saints he'll judge the earth for his righteous name's sake through tribulation though we must come there's naught can separate us from his love sorrows increase be not dismayed all must be fulfilled before that day the men of sin we shall surely see the sun in the dark and then we shall be free the Lord will come with ten thousands of saints he'll judge the earth for his righteous name's sake through tribulation though we must come there's naught can separate us from his love we must trust in him though times seem dire these trots purify us with refining fire when he's come to pass redemption is nigh he'll catch us away in the blink of an eye the Lord will come with ten thousands of saints he'll judge the earth for his righteous name's sake through tribulation though we must come there's naught can separate us from his love amen your hymnals if you would turn to number 148 Jesus only Jesus number 148 I walk the path of pleasure I told for earthly treasure number 148 I walk the path of pleasure I told for earthly treasure but peace beyond all measure I found him only Jesus my sins are all forgiven the chains of sin are riven and all my heart is given to Jesus my sins are all forgiven the chains of sin are riven and all my heart is given to Jesus my sins are all forgiven the chains of sin are riven and all my heart is given to Jesus my sins are all forgiven the chains of sin are riven and all my heart is given to Jesus only Jesus God's word I long resisted repenting my implicit with Jesus only Jesus my sins are all forgiven the chains of sin are riven and all my heart is given to Jesus only Jesus oh Christ for love unceasing for blessings there increasing for all my fears releasing I praise and love my Jesus my sins are all forgiven the chains of sin are riven and all my heart is given to Jesus only Jesus All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around as we do, let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 64 right in the very center of your Bibles, the book of Psalms Psalm 64, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1 follow along silently with brother Hesser as he reads Psalm 64 beginning in verse number 1 Psalm 64 the Bible reads, Hear my voice, O God in my prayer, preserve my life from fear of the enemy hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity who wet their tongue like a sword and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words that they may shoot in secret at the perfect, suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not, they encourage themselves in an evil matter they commune of laying snares, privily they say, Who shall see them? They search out iniquities they accomplish a diligent search both the inward thought of every one of them and the heart is deep but God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded, so they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves all that see them shall flee away, and all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God, for they shall wisely consider of his doing. The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in him and all the upright in heart shall glory Lord, thank you for this day, and Lord I ask that you would bless Pastor Anderson and fill him with your spirit as he preaches to us today and open our hearts and open our ears in Jesus name we pray, Amen. Amen. Psalm 64 the Bible reads in verse 1, Hear my voice O God in my prayer, preserve my life from fear of the enemy, hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity so here we have yet another Psalm where David is talking about his enemies plotting against him, conspiring against him and he says in verse 1 preserve my life from fear of the enemy. It's interesting the way that that's worded because obviously he wants his life to be preserved from his enemies and there are a lot of other verses like that in Psalms where he's praying for deliverance from his enemies but here he actually says preserve my life from fear of the enemy sometimes even just fear of the enemy can be damaging to our lives and the Bible tells us that we've not been given the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind we should really only fear God. Now obviously as human beings every single one of us has fear and that's something that is impossible to completely overcome just like you're never going to be sinless. Every single human being with that sinful nature we're going to have fear in our lives realistically speaking but God doesn't want us to have fear we should strive to fear him and him alone and so he says here preserve my life from fear of the enemy. First of all there's kind of a double meaning because first of all obviously he wants to be preserved from the fearful things that his enemy wants to do to him but also just you know preserve me from the fear of the enemy. Help me not to be fearful of my enemies. You know the Bible says what time I am afraid I will trust in thee. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me. So we don't want to let fear of our enemies control our actions. You know what if I became afraid of my enemies and I allowed that to affect my preaching or I allowed that to affect my walk with God where I would start backing off on things because I said hey you know I'm afraid of the repercussions of really getting up and preaching this face ripping sermon so I think I'm just going to back this off a little bit tone this down. You know that's what fear of your enemies will do. It can have a bad effect so we don't want fear to make our decisions for us. We want to do what's right and let the chips fall where they may. So the Bible says hear my voice O God in my prayer preserve my life from fear of the enemy. Hide me from the secret council of the wicked from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. Now this is going to be a theme throughout this psalm that these wicked evil doers that are attacking him they do it secretly. They do not do it openly. This is something that comes up over and over again here. And this is the worst kind of enemy. It's a lot better the devil that you know than the devil that you don't know. And the worst kind of enemy is the one that pretends to be your friend, stabs you in the back. That's far worse than somebody who just openly hates you. The Bible says you know faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And so these people they take secret council and then he says the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. Now what does insurrection mean? Well insurrection is a rebellion. David is in a position of leadership. He's the king of Israel and so there's a possibility of people rebelling against him causing an insurrection, a revolution, a mutiny if you will. And we see that that's something that David dealt with multiple times. Where you have different people that pop up and have an insurrection or a mutiny. Obviously Absalom is the paramount example that comes to mind. And you've got Sheba the son of Bichrai and you've got examples of this. This is something that David is praying for deliverance from. The insurrection of the workers of iniquity. If you remember Sheba the son of Bichrai and people like that, it often says that they had some people following them that were the children of Belial. And what are the children of Belial? Belial, Bel, Bel, Beelzebub. That's talking about the devil. The children of the devil. And whenever you see this term workers of iniquity these aren't just your garden variety sinners. When you see that term workers of iniquity, look it up every single time it occurs in the Bible. It's a special term. It's talking about the worst kind of people. It's talking about the sons of Belial. It's talking about reprobates. The worst scum. So he's saying deliver me from hide me from the secret council of the wicked from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity who wet their tongue like a sword. Now notice the H there when it says wet. This isn't like water is wet. W-H-E-T. W-H-E-T means to sharpen. Who's ever heard of a whetstone before? When you're a kid you get a knife and you get the whetstone to go with it and you learn how to sharpen a knife. At least I did. That's where I learned that word, a whetstone. So he says that they wet their tongues like a sword. So basically they're sharpening their tongue. So he's basically likening their tongue onto a weapon. And they're just sharpening it up, just getting ready to do maximum damage with their mouth. You know, they're gonna run their mouth and cause as many problems as they possibly can. They're wetting their tongue like a sword. They bend their bows to shoot their arrows. And what are their arrows? What are the weapons that they're gonna use? Bitter words. So we can see exactly what the weapon is here. David's not praying to be delivered from an actual physical assault with swords and knives. You know, he's worried about the sharp tongue. He's worried about the bitter words that they're going to use to create insurrection. It says in verse 4 that they may shoot and here it is again, in secret at the perfect. Suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not. Now when the Bible says the perfect here, we don't want to misunderstand this. Perfect in the Bible does not mean sinless. In 2020 when we say the word perfect, we typically are referring to something that is just without flaw, without error, totally sinless. Well if that were the case, there'd be no such thing as a perfect man. But the Bible says that Job was a perfect man. Is that saying he had no sin? No. The word perfect means complete. If you know anything about English grammar or grammar in any other language, you know that the perfect verbs are the verbs that have been completed, right? You've got the perfect participle and you've got the pluperfect and all those other things that you tried so hard to forget for so long. But perfect just means complete. And so when the Bible talks about the perfect man, it's basically just talking about a well-rounded person who has each area in their life in order. Not that they're without sin, not that they have everything exactly right, but think about how our life has different areas to it. You know, we've got our relationships, we've got our finances, we've got our soul-winning, our Bible reading, we've got our prayer on the spiritual side, right? So a perfect man is somebody who's got all the pieces of the puzzle there. It's not saying that he never sins or never makes a mistake or is doing everything just right or perfectly, as we would put it, but rather it's just saying that he has all the components. He's complete, he's a mature Christian, and he's got the components. You know, for example, you know, if somebody doesn't read their Bible at all but they're doing everything else right in the Christian life but they just rarely read their Bible, that's not the perfect man. Or somebody who's got everything else right but he never prays, that's not the perfect man. Somebody who's following all the rules, reading their Bible, praying, but they're not evangelizing whatsoever, they're not doing any soul-winning, they never give the Gospel to anybody, that's not the perfect man. Somebody who reads the Bible, they pray, they go soul-winning, but they've got a bunch of sin in their life, you know, so they don't have a clean life. There's a major flaw there, that's not the perfect man. So the Bible is just talking about a good Christian here. When it says the perfect man, just think of a mature, good, solid, Christian person. And he's saying that that's who these wicked people want to attack. They want to shoot at him, they want to sharpen their tongue like a sword so that they can inflict damage upon the perfect. Suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not. They encourage themselves in an evil matter. They commune of laying snares privately. They say, who shall see them? Now it's interesting when it says they encourage themselves in an evil manner. I was thinking about this, encouraging themselves in an evil manner, and I was thinking about, you know, why would somebody do that? And the thought that came to my mind was that if they need to encourage themselves in an evil manner, it's like they're kind of trying to convince themselves a little bit. Because they know deep down that what they're doing is wrong, but they're kind of wanting to tell themselves that it's okay. You know, areas of my life that don't need any work or don't need any help, I don't sit around and encourage myself in those areas. I don't give myself a pep talk on things that are not a problem for me. If you're encouraging yourself, it seems like you'd have a need for encouragement. That was the thing that jumped out at me, is like, why do these people need encouragement? Because I think that even the most wicked, rotten person, you know, deep down knows that what they're doing is wrong. Something, even if maybe it's just subconscious, even if they've got themselves convinced, and they try to convince themselves that what they're doing is right, and then they get together with other people, because of course the Bible says in verse 2, the secret counsel of the wicked, that implies more than one person getting together and conspiring. And then also it says in verse 5 halfway through, they commune of laying snares privately. Again, commune, commune comes from the same root word as our English word, common. They're in common, working together, communing, counseling. They're getting together and basically encouraging each other, riling each other up. You know, when bad people get together, their wickedness is greater than the sum of its parts. I mean, think about this. You know, sometimes you could have a mischievous teenager, and they're only going to go so far. But then they get together with another mischievous teenager, and what's going to happen? It could become exponential as they rile each other up, egg each other on, and it can get worse and worse. Well, here's the thing. It's like that with all sorts of wickedness. So these people, they encourage themselves in an evil matter. They basically talk to each other, and what do they do? They justify the wickedness that they're doing. That's what they mean by encouraging themselves, right? Is justifying why what they're doing is okay, why they're going to get away with it. And he says that they also say, you know, well, who shall see them? Nobody's going to catch us. We're going to get away with this. Now, people always find a way to justify the wrong that they do. Even the worst criminal will probably have some explanation of why what he's doing isn't wrong. Everybody who steals, everybody who robs or vandalizes, you know, they always have a reason why they can justify. They make themself out to be some victim, and then that's why it's okay for them to loot and pillage and burn it all down, because they're a victim, right? We've seen that before. And so he says they encourage themselves in an evil matter. They commune of laying snares, probably snares are traps. So they want to set a trap for the righteous, secretly. They say, who shall see them? And then it's interesting, in verse 6 it says, they search out iniquities, they accomplish a diligent search, both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart is deep. And then he sort of changes gears in verse 7 there. So these first six verses are talking about who the enemies are and what is their modus operandi? How do they operate? What do they do? Number one, we see that they do it secretly. They creep in unawares. Number two, they justify it, they find a reason to encourage themselves in it and encourage others in it and rile each other up. And then we see that they use their words to do it, they're going to use slander and evil speaking, bitter words. But then lastly, we see that they search out iniquities, they accomplish a diligent search. What does this mean? The Bible talks about a wicked man digging up evil. They accomplish a diligent search, they're searching out iniquities. Basically what they do is they find a righteous person, find a good person, and they just try to find whatever dirt they can find on that person. They'll pull something out from the distant past, they'll pull something out from ten years ago, they'll pull something out from five years ago that has no relevance to that person's character today because they just want to use that as some way to attack the righteous. Look, this is what wicked people always do. Look at the book of Daniel. Daniel's this righteous man, he's doing a great job, and the people around him, they're envious. They wish that they would have his position of authority and his power, and so they decide we're going to take Daniel down. And so what did they do? They searched out iniquities. They accomplished a diligent search. Now in Daniel's case, they couldn't find anything wrong with him. I mean, he was squeaky clean, and so they said, well, you know, the only way we're going to get him is by nailing him concerning his God. You know, we're going to have to get him concerning his God because when it comes to his work performance, there's nothing wrong with his performance. We can't find any dishonesty in his work or any sloppiness, and so we're going to have to use religion to go after him. And of course, that's what they ultimately do. So when they make this search for iniquity and accomplish a diligent search, they're either going to actually find something wrong with you, which in most cases, they're going to be able to find something because rarely is there a person such as Daniel whose record is just that perfect, and they're just that impeccable. So most people, they're going to be able to find something that they can twist or use or spin or blow out of proportion. Or even if they can't find that, then they will just use the things that you're doing right that don't jive with society. And they'll nail you on that. Because think about it, what did they nail Daniel on? Praying three times a day. Well, praying three times a day is a virtue. But in that particular kingdom, at that particular time, with that particular edict, in effect, that they weren't allowed to pray to any god, they were only supposed to petition the king, well then all of a sudden, that's a criminal act. Well, think about this. Think about the virtuous things that we do as Christians that could be considered a criminal act. When the wicked just want to nail the righteous. And so, for example, what are some virtuous acts that could be considered criminal or could be considered wrong? I mean, we're to the point now where sometimes when we go soul winning, the police are called and we have issues with that. And, of course, that's rare that we have to deal with that. But it happens. It's imaginable. You know, there are places in this world where soul winning is a crime, unfortunately. In the Islamic world or even in Russia, they've made laws against proselyting and stuff. I don't know how enforced those are. But the point is that even something good like soul winning could become a crime. Or what about spanking your kids? You know, the Bible tells us to spank our kids. And spanking our kids is totally legal. But could you see how maybe the wicked someday could say, well, hey, we want to nail these Christians. We can't find anything to nail them on. Let's just make spanking illegal. And then we can go after them for child abuse when really it's the libtards of our nation that are the child abusers. Bunch of pervert weirdos sexualizing our children with all their filthy sex education classes in elementary schools and all the smut that they put on TV and all the junk that they show our kids all the time, you know, that's child abuse. But no, no, they'll turn it around. They'll call evil good and good evil. They'll put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet and they'll try to say, no, no, you disciplining your kids in the traditional Christian way that's been done for hundreds of years in this country. No, no, that's wrong. That's not allowed. Would that shock you if that ever happened? Wouldn't surprise me at all if that happened, okay? Not only that, what about just Bible preaching? What about just getting up and preaching hard against the sodomites or getting up and preaching hard against abortion or preaching hard against the feminists or preaching hard against other religions that are leading people to hell or whatever. You could see how those things could become illegal or a crime someday. Folks, all you gotta do is walk to the back of the auditorium. There's a big framed deal there showing where I've been banned from these different countries and it's the letter that they wrote and on one of those letters it has quotes from my sermons where they say this is why we're banning you. These are the things that you said. And if you look at those quotes you'll be pretty surprised to find out what is illegal to say in Great Britain. Because, you know, I can think of some stuff that I've said where you can be like, okay, I can see how that would be illegal in certain countries. Not saying it should be. It should all be legal. But I'm thinking of some things that I've said and thinking like, okay, yeah, that doesn't surprise me too much. But folks, it's pretty sad when they have a quote where I'm just preaching against Islam and rebuking Muhammad and they're like, this is not allowed. What in the world? Or a quote where I'm preaching about fornication and contraceptives and then it's like, this isn't allowed. It's unbelievable. And so, wicked people, they're gonna search out iniquities. They're gonna accomplish a diligent search. And it's gonna be one of two things. They're either gonna find something that you've actually done wrong and use that to go after you or they're gonna find something good that you've done and say that it's wrong and attack you for the good that you've done. Or, of course, they could also just lie and make things up. But, you know, it's a lot more effective to go after somebody on something that has a little kernel of truth in it. You know, if somebody just made something up about me just completely out of thin air, that wouldn't be as effective of an attack as when they actually find a chink in my armor. They actually find some weakness that I have. They actually find a mistake that I made and then just take that, blow it out of proportion and turn it into something bigger than it is, twist it, magnify it. That's gonna be more effective because a lie is a better lie if it has a little bit of truth in it. I mean, think about it. If you're gonna make perfect money, you're gonna try to make it look as much like the real thing as you possibly can. And so the point is that these wicked people, they're out to get good people. They wanna tear down Christians that are serving God and so they're on a hunt, they're on a search for iniquities, making diligent inquiry. Do not become this type of person. We should not be out searching for sin in people's lives. This is the attribute of a wicked person. We should not rejoice in iniquity. We should not make a diligent search for iniquity. I mean, how would you like it if I, the pastor of the church, just started looking for sin in the congregation's lives? Do you think that that would be right for me to do as a pastor? Do you think that that would be a good thing for me to do as a pastor to just start, what if I just got my staff together tomorrow morning and said, alright, we're gonna clean up this church. So let's get, I want a list of every church member, we're gonna figure out what sins they're into. We're gonna accomplish a diligent search. We're gonna watch them, we're gonna follow them, we're gonna troll them on social media, we're gonna figure out, we're gonna talk to their friends and family, co-workers, we're gonna figure out the sin in their life and you know, we're gonna eradicate it. That would be bizarre, wouldn't it? You'd say, what kind of a sick cult is this? What kind of a freak are you? What kind of a weirdo are you? If the pastor of the church did that, you'd think it was super weird, wouldn't you? Like, what are you doing? You know, just trying to find what's wrong with your church members, just hunting for problems. Now look, obviously a good leader is gonna confront issues when they come up. You know, when somebody is found to be in some major sin or something that needs to be dealt with, then we'll deal with it. And of course, here's the thing, when it comes to major sins that need to be dealt with, it's the stuff that's on the biblical list, okay, is mainly what we're talking about. So I don't wanna know about everybody's little sin. Not only am I not gonna go hunting for your sins, not only am I not gonna make a diligent search, hey, I don't even wanna know about your sins. I've had people come to me and start telling me their sins and I'm just like, stop. I am not Catholic priest, you know, I'm not interested. I don't care how many days it's been since your last confession. You know, the more the better. Tell it to Jesus alone. You know, I'm not interested in having people come to me, and sometimes people come to me for advice or they'll come to me for marriage advice or just general advice and they'll start telling me, and sometimes I'll just say like, hey, I don't need to know the details. I don't need to know the specifics. Just give me something generic. Just tell me the gist of what you need. Let me help you, but I don't wanna know. And if I do hear nasty things about people, you know, I try to just forget it as fast as I can, and I'm pretty good at forgetting stuff. I'm, I'm, honestly, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I have a, one of my strengths is that I forget stuff. Seriously. And I, because I've learned the great secret to forgetting things. The great secret to forgetting things is don't think about them. And don't talk about them. If you don't talk about something and you don't think about something, you will forget it. You can't remember it. It's, it's the constant bringing it up and thinking about it and talking about it that keeps it on your mind. I hear bad stuff about church members. I hear about their sins. I try to forget that. I don't need to know that. Okay. Now, look, obviously there is a certain list of sins where if people are involved in that, then we need to confront that person. You know, the Bible talks about how we can't have fellowship with somebody who's called a brother, who's a fornicator, a drunkard, a railer, covetous, extortioner, you know, somebody who's involved in these major open sins that could actually end up affecting the whole church because a little leaven could leaven the whole lump. I mean, imagine if we just had a man and a woman in our church, they live together and they're not married and they're in the front row and everybody knows it and we just treat them like a normal couple in our church and they're just living in fornication. That could set a bad example for our young people. Or if we just have teenagers fornicating in the church and we just look the other way and allowed that. You know what that's going to say is that, hey, we're actually giving a green light to fornication. You know, major stuff like that. If we had people in the church going out and getting drunk and we just don't say anything, don't bat an eye, you know, that sends the wrong message. Those kind of sins are contagious. Okay. And railing. I mean, if we have somebody who's spreading lies and gossip and slander and making railing accusations, then you know, we have to put a stop to that. Those are big problems that we have to get rid of. Okay. But that's a pretty short list of things in 1 Corinthians 5. We're not just out to figure out every sin in someone's life about how they didn't dress right over here, they listened to the wrong music, they watched this movie, you know, it's like, I don't need to know about this. Or he smoked cigarettes. Like, I don't care. I don't want to know. I don't need to know. And look, a lot of people, what they've done is when they find out that somebody in the church is involved in a serious sin, usually the way that that person brings that to me, if they feel like it might be something we need to deal with, they bring it to me as this. They say, hey, listen, there's a person who's doing such and such a sin, do you want to know about that? And if it's not a serious issue, if it's not drunkenness or fornication or something big like that, then I tell that person, no, I don't need to know about that. I don't want to know about that. You know, maybe you can just kind of talk to that person, try to help them a little bit and gently try to restore that situation. But I don't need to get involved in that. I don't want to get involved in that. You know, but if they come to me and say, hey, you know, so and so the person, you know, I saw them down at Mill Avenue and they were just totally drunk and just stumbling around and, you know, then it's like, okay, well, yeah, I need to confront that person and we need to, you know, deal with that. And here's the thing, when we confront people about sin or when we even have to throw somebody out, the goal is restorel, unless they're a reprobate, unless they're just a total reprobate infiltrator Judas, which they're called the workers of iniquity, folks, then we want to restore those people. So look, if somebody's a drunk in the church, we don't want to throw that person in the trash. Even if we throw out the drunkard, our hope is that they will sober up and come back to church. Amen. You know, we've had to, we've had to throw people out of the church for, you know, being drunk and being addicted to drugs and everything. And, you know, we hope that that's a wake up call and we try to show them, hey, here's where you can get help and you need to fix this. And we want that person to sober up and be a part of the church. People that are, look, people that are living in fornication, you know, we give them a chance to get married or separate or, you know, fix the situation in some way, shape, or form. And here's the thing, a lot of people, they're not willing to fix that situation. And so they end up being asked to leave because they're living in fornication. And here's what I always tell that person. When I ask that person to leave, I say, hey, well listen, as soon as you finally get married, you're welcome to come back. You know, if that person gets thrown out for fornication and six, you know, because they're living with their girlfriend, if six months later they get married, I would welcome them back to the church with open arms now that they've corrected that situation. But we can't have people living in fornication as part of the church because the scripture says no. But you see, there's a big difference between dealing with problems as they arise, dealing with a sin that we're confronted with. Not that we went out looking and we're following people around and trying to figure out what they're doing, but where we're confronted with a sin and we deal with it, there's a big difference between that and diligently searching for iniquity. The person who's just hunting for iniquity is a bad person. It's a wicked person. Or people who delight in iniquity and you say, well, how do I know if somebody delights in iniquity? Oh, the person who wants to tell it to every other person that they possibly can. I mean, look, the stuff I talk about is stuff that I like. Stuff that I like, that's what I talk about a lot. And you know what? The person who basically finds out something bad, finds out something sinful about another church member and they just want to go around telling everybody about it and they just can't stop broadcasting it and texting people and emailing people, you know it's because they're a rotten person that's being described in this chapter. And you know what? We not too long ago had an issue in our church a few months ago where there were a bunch of teenagers that had gotten involved in sinful things and all it was, and excuse me, all it was was just talk. It was basically dirty jokes, dirty communication of just talking and saying bad things. And you know what? There were people out there who just they delighted in that. They wanted to just spread it everywhere all over the internet. They were literally shopping around YouTube channels to try to get the right one to release it because oh this is going to be so great. Why do they think it's so great? Because they just think it's so great. Any way that they can harm Faithful Word Baptist Church, they're excited about that. Any way that they can harm Pastor Anderson, they're excited about that. You know they don't care about the ten teenagers or whatever that were involved in these conversations. They don't care about their reputations. They don't care about anything like that. And what they do is they lied and they blew it out of proportion. They made it out that it was way bigger than it was. They twisted it and what did they do? They just enjoyed destroying themselves because you know what? They didn't destroy us because here we are. They didn't destroy me. They didn't destroy my family. They didn't destroy these other families. They didn't destroy our church and they're never going to because you end up destroying yourself when you engage in that kind of behavior. No normal person is going to look at the stupidity of a teenager and just want to rake them over the coals for that and just keep running that into the ground. That's not normal. Let me tell you how a normal person reacts to that. A normal person would say, you know what? I'm thinking about all the stupid stuff that I said when I was a teenager. I'm thinking about all the stupid stuff that I did when I was a teenager and so I'm going to show mercy here. Now look, obviously when teenagers do wrong, they need to be punished. And everyone involved was punished. Everyone involved was disciplined. Everyone involved was sternly rebuked and not only did they get punished, they lost privileges. I mean look, the punishment was real folks but let me tell you something. Remember not the sins of my youth is what the Bible says. Remember not the sins of my youth. That's what David said. How many of us could pray that prayer? Lord, remember not the sins of my youth. But you know what? If you're sitting out there right now saying, you know what? You're probably some of the holier than thou trash that would like to and delight in this kind of scuttlebutt and gossip and you know what? People who love to gossip are trash people. They're the ones that belong in the trash. Not the sinners. You know, Jesus was okay hanging around some publicans and sinners and reaching people but you know what? He had no time for the hypocritical trash. And so the gossiping and the backbiting and the people who privily, secretly attack you while pretending to be your friend are scum. They're workers of iniquity. That's what the Bible says about them. They make diligence. They pretend to be your friend. They pretend to love you. They come to Faithful Word Baptist Church and, oh, we love this church. It's so great. First chance they get to attack the church. They're on it. They're all over it. Okay. And you know what? All of these people, what they have in common is that they downplay their own sin. So you got some guy who's shot up heroin, fathered a bastard kid out of wedlock, fornicated, drunk, done everything under the sun and then he's like, oh, I, you know, I wouldn't have done what they did. Never would have, he wouldn't have told a dirty joke though. You believe that? Some guy who does drunk, people who smoke, you know, he'll smoke pot, but I'd never tell a dirty joke like that. You know, he'll get drunk. He'll father kids out of wedlock. He'll fornicate. Because you know what? It's a trash person who downplays their own sins, but then everyone else's sins are just inexcusable and horrible and unbelievable. Look, did you know that we all have different sins? And it's interesting how whatever sin we don't do is the one we're going to come down on the hardest. Which, believe me, I don't believe for a second that these people, when they say, oh, I didn't do that particular sin. Bullcrap, you didn't do that sin. You know what? You, if, if you've, if you've fornicated, been drunk, taken drugs, you've done, you've done it all, friend, at that point. Okay, you know, you don't fool me for one second, Mr. Goody Two Shoes. But, but here's the thing. People will, they'll pick out one sin that they don't do. You know, I could do that too. I could just pick out one sin that I don't do, and then just come down super hard on every Christian who does that sin, because I don't do it. And then be soft on all the sins that I do. You know, that's stupid. That's hypocritical. You know, there, there are certain sins that might be literally zero temptation for you, but somebody else really struggles with that. But vice versa as well. I mean, think about it. There are some people where they're not tempted to do drugs at all. Like, I've never been tempted to do drugs. To me, it's like, why would I just willingly put some chemical in my body that's gonna harm me and kill brain cells? That has never appealed to me. That never made any sense to me. But you know what? There are other people where that's something that they struggle with. They struggle with drug addiction. They struggle with that. And, and it's something that's hard for them to do. You know, I have zero desire to smoke a cigarette. I have zero desire to do drugs, and I have zero desire to drink alcohol. Zero. But other people right now are struggling with those exact sins. So should I just get up and say, well, I just can't see how anybody could be saved and drink alcohol. I just don't, I mean, if you're actually saved, I can't see how you'd even desire a cigarette. I mean, if you're actually saved, you'd never do drugs. It's like, well, hold on a second. That's, just because I don't desire those things doesn't mean that a saved Christian couldn't desire those things. But look, you think I'm being silly right now? You don't think there are preachers all over America saying, if you drink, you're not saved. If you smoke, you're not saved. If you do drugs, you're not, is that, do they say it or not? Bunch of work salvation teaching preachers. And it's funny, when you'll see just, how about these morbidly obese pastors that are like, bless God, when I got saved, he took away the craving for cigarettes. He took away the craving for drink. I never want another, when I got saved, I got all the way saved. I'm thinking, you didn't get all the way saved. I got all the way saved. Why didn't he take away the craving for McDonald's? You know, it's amazing how he took away the craving for the cigarettes, but why can't he take away the craving for all the simple carbs? Because you're a liar, that's why. Because you're just, you're picking a sin that you're not, we know what your drug of choice is, okay? And look, I'm not trying to get on people that are overweight right now, because guess what? You know what? People right here that are thin or even skinny right now, and they're like, amen, Pastor Anderson, let her rip. But guess what? All you skinny people out there, you've got your own sins. And you know, there could be a brother or sister in Christ that's overweight that doesn't struggle with your sin at all. Maybe you're watching a bunch of garbage that you shouldn't watch, and they don't watch anything. What if, you know, you could have somebody who's super overweight, but they read their Bible, they pray, they go soul winning, and that's like their one problem. And look, I've known godly Christians who are soul winning, reading their Bible, praying, faithful to church, getting the sin out of their life, smoking cigarettes every day, just smoking a pack a day as they soul win, as they read their Bible, as they pray, as they, I'm not saying they're doing it while they do it in that second, but you know what I'm saying? I'm just saying like, you know, and we would look at that like, you're doing everything else right. What are you doing? Why are you smoking? But you know what? Hey, that's just their sin that they struggle with. And my point is, and I'm not condoning any sin, I'm saying everybody's got their sins, and you know what the Bible says? The Bible says some men's sins are open beforehand, going before the judgment, and others they follow after. Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand, and they that are otherwise cannot be hid. So the Bible talks about the fact that some sins are more open than others. So it's easy for us to look at the person with the outward sin and point the finger at them and condemn them and say, you know, hey, I see that smoking that you're doing out in the parking lot after church. I see that gluttony. You know, I see that, but what about all the sins that we don't see? You take it to the bank that every single person in this auditorium, I don't care how good they look on the outside, they have sin in their life. Period. Period. Unless they're Jesus, they have sin in their life. Do you really think that there's anybody in this room, myself included, who's totally without sin? But here's what's funny, we say that all the time, don't we? We get up and say it all the time. There's none righteous, everybody's a sinner, and we say it, and we say it, and we say it, and we say it, and then we find out that somebody sinned, and it's just like... And then you're just shocked that somebody sinned. Isn't this what we've been talking about? There's some kind of a disconnect where we talk about people sin, people sin, people sin, people sin, people sin, and then it's like, somebody sinned? What? Are you serious? A church member? A Christian? They sinned? What? It's like, hello? Yes! And look, I'm not downplaying sin. I preach hard on sin. I want to help you get the sin out of your life. I want to get the sin out of my life. I want my family to get the sin out of their lives. But look, if you are going to go hunting for people's sins and find... Look, if I did a diligent inquiry of every teenager in this auditorium, I'm going to find some sin. But you know what? I could go outside this auditorium. I could go down to Tempe High, and you know what I'm going to find in every teenager's life? Sin. I could go to the grocery store. You know what I'm going to find? In every person at the grocery store's life, if I made a diligent inquiry, sin. But it's a wicked person who wants to dig up every sin and use that as an assault on the people of God. Use that as an assault on Christian people because you're going to dig up and find every flaw. And look, if people look hard enough, they're going to find things wrong with me, Pastor Anderson, because I am a human being, and I am a sinner. You're a sinner. And so anybody who goes after you, guess what they're going to do? They're going to find something because we're not Daniel. Amen? And even if we are Daniel, they're going to find a way to nail us anyway. Okay. So this portion of scripture is very similar to a bunch of Psalms we read several weeks ago. I mean, this is not unique, this Psalm. Do you really think that back in David's day this was going on and it's not going on today? There's nothing new under the sun. The things that were going on back then are the things that are going on now. So back then, you had evil, wicked people sneaking in, pretending to be the friends, and causing insurrection. So why would it shock us if there are literally people who come to Faithful Word Baptist Church with no other reason than to creep in and cause problems. They want to get in, get as close to me, get as close to my family, get as close to the staff, as close to you, so that they can get close to us so that they can find the chink in the armor and exploit it. You think that that's going on or not? Because it was certainly going on in Psalm 64. It was certainly going on in other Psalms. So you know, it might sound paranoid, but you know what? Is this the rantings of a paranoid person here in Psalm 64? Or is this the reality of the Christian life, that there are people out there that are wicked people that when they see a man of God, when they see a woman of God, when they see somebody serving God, when they see you soul winning, when they see you cleaning up your life, they're going to be like, you know what? I'm going to take him down a notch. I'm going to take her down a notch. And you know what? Obviously it's going to happen to me a lot because I'm the pastor and I'm all over YouTube and Facebook and everywhere else, and so I have a big target on me that says, come and mess with me. Come and torture me. Come and harass me. But here's the thing. If you start living for God, you're going to have the same thing happen in your life and you probably have already experienced this, where family members are going to start messing with you and people will start looking for ways to mess with you and they'll think, well, and here's what comes out. It's envy. Their life's all messed up, right? So then they see you doing something for God. They see you cleaning it up. They see you succeeding and they're like, how dare he? Who does he think he is? Well, I'm going to show that he's not what he's cracked up to be, so I'm going to find out what his sins are and broadcast them and exploit them. Do you see what I'm saying? So what is going to happen to these kind of people? It says in verse number 7, but God shall shoot at them with an arrow. Now that's exactly what they're doing. They're aiming their bow. They're ready to shoot their arrows. Well, guess what? It's going to come right back at them, except God's going to shoot an arrow at them. Suddenly shall they be wounded. So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves. You dig a pit, you're going to fall into it. All that see them shall flee away. And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God, for they shall wisely consider of his doing. The righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust in him, and all the upright in heart shall glory. Look, at the end of the day, these wicked people, they can try to cause insurrection. And look, so many people have attacked our church over the years. So many people have crept in. So many infiltrators. It's unbelievable, okay? But they all end up destroying themselves, and those who love God, those who serve God continue on, and the work of God continues, and it doesn't miss a beat. And God is going to bless the people that are righteous, God is going to take care of them, and these wicked evildoers are going to be destroyed. And let me tell you something. People that are found to be infiltrating our church or infiltrating other Bible-believing churches are the worst scumbags. They're not normal. Do not think for one second that these are normal people, because they aren't, okay? Stop and think. You're a normal person, right? If you hated someone, would you go join their church and stalk them and spend months or even years trying to get close to that person, trying to dig up dirt on that person, trying to butter that person up and flatter that person and get in there so that you could do damage to that person or that ministry or that church? I mean, look, I can think of a lot of churches that I don't like. I can think of a lot of pastors that I don't like. I can think of a lot of false religions out there that are bad, and I haven't infiltrated any of them. And I never will. And you know what? If I hated someone, I would never pretend to be their friend. I would never pretend to be their friend. You want to know who the bad guy is? You say, well, I just don't know. Who's the bad guy? Who's good? Who's bad? Who's right? Who's wrong? How can I tell? I don't know what side to be on, Pastor Anderson. Well, let me explain to you some biblical principles on who's side to be on. First of all, the tree is known by his fruit. The tree is known by his fruit. Okay, where's the fruit of these wicked people? They don't have any. Okay, but then the people that they attack have good fruit. That's a good principle right there. But here's a big one. The person who's right is open and tells the truth and speaks their mind. The wicked people pretend to be your friend while they hate you. And let me tell you something. When someone goes from loving you to hating you in five minutes, that didn't actually just happen. That person already hated you. You understand? Because you don't just go from loving someone to hating someone in five minutes. No, you have these bitter people that literally, I know not at this time, but other times in our church's history, there are people in the church, and I'm just thinking to myself, I know that this person hates me. I know that this person is evil. I know that this person is out to cause trouble. And I'm just like, why are they here? And I'm just like, how do I get rid of this person? And I talked to Pastor Jimenez about this a bunch of times. And Pastor Jimenez said that he had a list of people that he prays for God to get rid of them out of his church. He literally had a list where he's praying for God to remove these people from his church. And I'm like, can I get some names on that prayer list for you? Are you taking requests, buddy? You know what I mean? And he and I have talked about this. Because look, he's been pastoring for ten years. I've been pastoring for almost fifteen years. And it's just like, why are these people here? Go away! And when they finally get exposed, and then they go out in their blaze of glory and just reveal themselves to be the trash that they are, it's just like, thank you God. It's like, all the damage that they do is almost worth it to get rid of them. Because they're such scum. Okay? Because, look, I would so much rather have somebody just say, Pastor Anderson, you're the worst preacher in America, and I hate you. You know, if somebody just walked up to me, if I walked out here and somebody walked up to me and said, Pastor Anderson, I think you're literally the worst preacher in America, and I hate you. I'd just be like, you know, alright. I've even had some pastors say, hey, I don't like you, I don't like your ministry. And I say, well, you know what, I like you anyway. You know, if it was someone that I did like anyway. Because, you know, sometimes feelings aren't mutual. There's some preachers that I like, but they don't like me. And vice versa. But I would so much, wouldn't you just much rather have somebody just walk up to you and just say, I don't like you. Than to be giving you gifts, being your friend, just flattering you, coming to church, acting like they like you, and then behind your back talking bad about you. Folks, that is not normal. That's an evil person. That's a seriously evil person. Okay. And look, I'm to the point in my ministry now where I've passed on with the world. I'm not going to put up with it anymore. And I'm to the point now where I've decided that when I see people that are like that, I'm just going to start confronting those people and just come to them and just say, hey, I don't know why you're here. I don't think you belong here. I think you just hit the road. Because it's obvious that you don't want to be here. It's obvious that your heart is not right. And look, any normal person, if they hate the pastor, would just go to a different church. That's what any normal person would do. And look, it's not just me who deals with this. I talk to my pastor friends all the time because they come to me and ask me for advice just because I've been doing it longer and we talk about these things and I call them and ask them for advice with these situations. And so sometimes they'll talk to me and it's like they go through the same thing. They have these people in their church that are just attacking them every chance that they get, lying about them, slandering them, or finding a mistake that they make and exploiting it. Like, you know, they'll make a mistake and then it's just like jump on that, exploit that, go crazy with that. And they're just like, how do we get rid of these people? How do we get them to go away? But you know, I find that the best way to get rid of them is just to confront them. And that's what I'm going to start doing. You know, when there's people that are just obviously here for the wrong reason and they just they come in here. You know, I'm just going to start calling it out and just saying, hey, you know, I see what you're doing. I can see that you're flattering me right now. I can see what you're trying to do and I don't like it. And people, it's frustrating. But you know what? I'm not alone because David was going through the same thing. And so we see in Psalm 64 that this is not a new phenomenon when you have people that want to creep in secretly. They encourage themselves and yeah, we're the good guys here. Yeah, we're the good guys. Of course, I don't see any of their converts in church. But you know, they're, yeah, you know, we're doing a good thing here. I mean, think about it. Let's just, let's name a few names. All right. Think about Tyler Baker. Okay. Think about that piece of trash. He was here for years. Where's his fruit? Anybody here won to the Lord by Tyler Baker? Anyone? Anyone? The whole time he was here? Okay. Who did I win to the Lord that's here? Anybody that I won you the Lord? Okay. There you go, folks. Everybody see the difference? Okay. Tyler Baker was just a total infiltrating, lying piece of trash pretending to love the church. And he's literally on the phone every day talking bad about the church, poisoning people against the church, trying to get people to leave the church. And you know, that's just a perfect example of this. Okay. And just patting himself on the back and literally, I kid you not, this is what Tyler Baker said about me recently. He said, you know, pastor, I love Pastor Anderson. Anybody believe that? But do you see what I mean? Look, see what I mean about this lying trash? Wouldn't you have more respect for Tyler Baker if he said, hey, I hate Pastor Anderson. Because that's the truth. Oh, I love Pastor Anderson. Well, I don't love you, Tyler Baker. And you know what? The difference is that I tell the truth. But you see, wicked people, they flatter and they pretend to be your friend. And so he said, I love Pastor Anderson. And Pastor Anderson has done so many great things for God in the past. But I think right now he's doing more harm for the cause of Christ than good right now. So stop and think about this. So here's Tyler Baker with his Trinity denying false doctrine. Okay. He's got his tiny church in Florida that's not reaching anybody. Okay. He's got nothing going on because he's so lazy. Okay. When he was here he didn't do anything for us. He was the worst employee ever. Brother Segura worked circles around him. He's doing nothing for God. He's preaching lies and false doctrine. He has no fruit. His church is filled with faithful word rejects only. All of his church are disgruntled former faithful word members. That's his fruit, folks. His right hand man would say, oh Pastor Anderson got me saved. That's his right hand man. Okay. So here he is with no fruit, nothing going on. Right. Here we are over in Tempe, Arizona and what are we doing every week? Winning a bunch of people to Christ, preaching to thousands of people, knocking thousands of doors, getting tons of people saved, preaching the truth. All he can do is regurgitate my exact sermons and then add in his own twisted junk that he comes up with himself. The only good sermons he preaches are the ones that he got from me and my friends. Okay. He preaches a bunch of lies and garbage, accomplices nothing and then he has the gall to say, well Pastor Anderson is doing more harm to the cause of Christ than good. You know why? Because I attacked him. That's me doing more harm than good. So basically the cause of Christ is the cause of Tyler Baker. You see how he thinks he's God or something? So basically, we can win a bunch of souls to Christ. So let's get the scale going. We win a bunch of people to Jesus Christ, right? Oh, but we criticize Tyler Baker. I mean, do you really think that that's how we measure the work of Christ? Like, oh, well we won a thousand people to Christ, we baptized hundreds of people, but we criticize Tyler Baker. And he has the gall to attack me, slander me, slander my family. See, he literally slandered my parents. He was literally attacking my parents, attacking my children, attacking my wife, lying about us and calling us racist and everything else. Folks, look around the church. Does this look like a racist church? Folks, anybody who knows me knows that I don't have a racist bone in my body and that lying devil Tyler Baker knows that. And he, by the way, brought a guy into his church to preach who said, I'm a racist. He said he brought an openly racist preacher and then he has the gall to accuse me and my parents and my kids and everybody of being a racist. I don't have a racist bone in my body and everybody knows that who knows me. Okay, I don't even believe in that. But do you see what I'm saying though? I love Pastor Anderson, but he's doing more harm to the cause of Christ than good. I guess the cause of Christ is Tyler Baker. You win a thousand souls, you know, you baptize hundreds, you preach to millions, you know, but you criticize Tyler Baker. See how they encourage themselves and they're evil? So because I'm doing more harm than good, that gives them the right to slander my mom, slander my dad, slander my kids, slander my wife, and talk a bunch of smack. Well, you know what? He's trash. And I'm telling you, that's just one example. I could go on and on. I'm not going to sit here all night and just go through the hall of shame. I'm just bringing that one up because that's an obvious bozo. Okay, but we've had person, folks, I kid you not, there was a family that came to our church in the early days and people who were here back then will know who I'm talking about. This is like, I'm talking 12 years ago. We had a family come to the church and they're like this is our favorite church, this is the best church, where has this church been all our life? I mean, I was just the greatest preacher and in fact, my wife was even made uncomfortable. Like, she's like these people are a little too jazzed about you. And she was warning me, like these people are flattering you, you know, because they were just so into it, right? Well, here's what I noticed. I noticed we'd get visitors on a Sunday morning and she would go to them and greet them, be real friendly and get their phone number and then they would never come back. And I was thinking, man, we're getting so many visitors and so many people seem like they like the church, they seem like they're excited about the church and they don't come back. I don't know why until one of those people told me, they said, yeah, she took my phone number and called me the next day and told me it was a bad church and that we shouldn't come there. So here, just stop, I know it's hard to even wrap your mind around it, isn't it? Folks, just think for a second, just imagine a family going to our church, oh, it's the greatest church, we love it here, it's so great, taking the phone number of a first time visitor so they can call them the next day and talk bad about the church. Is that just next level evil or what? And then once these people got kicked out of the church, once we found out what they were doing, we kicked them out just on a dime, they made an entire website devoted to attacking my wife, calling her a literal witch, they called Amanda a literal witch and they made this whole website and then here's what was funny, these same people, they claimed that they found out about my preaching because of my sermon against Billy Graham and they're like, we heard you preach against Billy Graham, it was the best sermon we ever heard, we loved it, that's why we came to the church. I kid you not, within a week of being thrown out of the church, they said, how dare Pastor Anderson attack Billy Graham. That was supposedly the sermon that got them hooked. And then they're going to turn around and condemn me for that. Within a week, I mean, these are the most gung ho, King James story, within a week they're using another version, posting verse in another version. And by the way, the idiots that we just threw out, the Fosters, she was posting gay pride within two days of being thrown out of the church. Who saw it? Who saw it? And it wasn't one post, it was two posts posting gay pride. You think that that's normal? Do you think it's normal for someone to go to Faithful Word Baptist Church for years and years and then they get thrown out of the church and they're promoting gay pride two days later? Right, but I'm paranoid, right? Folks, I'm telling you, it's real. Okay, these people are evil people. They're out there. Now you say, well, why do you warn us about this? Well, because first of all, number one, it's going to happen in your personal life. To a lesser extent. Obviously when you're the pastor, you're going to get most of the shots fired at you when you're the face that's out there on the internet and everything, bigger target. But look, you're going to go through this, where people are going to attack you, they're going to lie about you. I mean, he didn't just write this song, this isn't a pastoral whistle here. I mean, this is for all Christians. Look, there are going to be people out there that are going to be pretending to be your friend. And look, you teenagers, you need to listen to this. You teenagers, you're going to have other teenagers who pretend to be your friend and they're out to hurt you. And that's why don't just, you know, when you're 13, 14, 15, 16 and you just fall head over heels for that boy or fall head over heels for that girl, you better stop and think to yourself, you know what, I don't really know this person and I don't know what their intentions are. And you better be cautious. And listen to your parents. When your parents tell you, hey, I don't think you should be around that boy or I don't think you should be around that girl or I don't think that's the right person for you, listen to your parents. Because your parents might know something that you don't know. And everybody who says they're your friend is not your friend. How many times have you had somebody pretend to be your friend and they're just trying to tell you something? Trying to rip you off. Lying to you. You're going to go through this. Okay? You need to pray for God to deliver you from this. So that's the number one takeaway I want you to get from the sermon tonight. Look, beware. There are going to be people who creep in. Don't just assume that, oh, if somebody goes to church, they're safe. Everybody at church is cool. No. Don't just, oh, I can have them babysit my kids. I can do, you know, I can go into business with them. It's all, you know, because they're from church. Don't just think that that's just a blanket statement that they're good. Oh, faithful work? You're good. So that's number one. Beware. Be aware of it. I'm not trying to be a downer, but it's true. There are going to be these kind of rotten people. How do you identify them? Just watch out for the flattery. Watch out for the two-faced people. You know, hang around with people who are real. So that's number one is to beware of these people. But number two, don't be like unto them. Do not go digging up evil. Do not go hunting for iniquity. Do not go trying to find other people's sins. And you know why you're doing that? It's to make you feel better about yourself. You know, because if you can find out what's wrong with the person in the pew next to you, you can feel a little better about yourself. And then you can say, well, sure, I snorted cocaine, but at least I didn't do that. Folks, I'm serious. It's so dumb. It's dumb to even say that, right? But it's out there. It's real. Sure, I shot up heroin, but I wouldn't have done that. Well, yeah, I know I've slept with 50 different people, but you know, I never did anything like that, though. Won't see me getting overweight. Hey, I'd rather that you weigh 300 pounds and don't snort any cocaine. Amen? But the point is, look, everybody's got their sins. Nobody's perfect. Don't be shocked when someone in the church turns out not to be perfect. I'm not downplaying sin or condoning of it. But if you find out that somebody's in sin, you know, the best thing to do is to try to fix that with them one on one without even telling anybody. Try to encourage them and help them to overcome that sin on their own. Wouldn't that be the best case scenario? I mean, if I came across somebody and they're involved in a sin that I felt like I needed to say something, I could correct them, maybe even rebuke them, and say, hey, you need to stop. You know, this isn't right. Just between me and them. And then they get right with God. Wouldn't that be the best case scenario? But some people are like, ooh, I have something to go tell Pastor Anderson now. Maybe this is my way in to get close to Pastor Anderson. I can tell him about other people's sins and then he'll think I'm on his side. Or here's the worst thing. My child can date one of Pastor Anderson's kids. Hey, it's already happened. We've had people move here. Their whole intent was that one of their kids would marry one of my kids. That's sick. If I can get one of my kids to marry Pastor Anderson's kids, then he'll be stuck with me for the rest of his life. I'll be over to Thanksgiving. I can go in his house. I can go into the bathroom and open the medicine cabinet and see what's in there. Look under the bed. Get the Wi-Fi password. Folks, it's funny, but it's almost not funny because it's so real. Like if I can just get close to Pastor Anderson, maybe I can take up barefoot running. Maybe I can find my way in. So don't be one of these people. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Don't go digging up other people's sins. Don't go hunting for the workers. Don't be on a witch hunt. Try to resolve things one on one. If you find out people's sins, don't delight in broadcasting and gossiping those things. You know who knows about more sins probably than anybody in this room? It's probably me as the pastor because people come to me and I've heard it all, folks. It all goes down the memory hole when I'm done with it. You know what I want to spend my time dwelling on? What sort of things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and good report? That's what I want to think about. Do not delight in exposing other people's sins to make yourself look better. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for this chapter, and Lord, it's sad that a sermon like this has to be preached, Lord, and that there are people out there that are just this debased. That they would actually pretend to be someone's friend so that they could get close to them, so that they could hurt them, so that they could find their faults and exploit their weaknesses and find the chink in the armor or that people would even use their kids to creep in and get close to people so that they can attack them and exploit them, Lord. But, Lord God, it's a small price to pay to serve you, Lord, and so thank you for the privilege of serving you, Lord, and just help us to be delivered from these people. Just as David prayed, Lord, hide us from these people. Hide us from them, deliver us from them, protect us, Lord, and Lord, I pray that you would just wipe out these evil workers of iniquity, punish them, destroy them, Lord, and bless your people. And, Lord, help us not to be hypocrites where we downplay our own sins and we want to magnify everyone else's sins, Lord. Help us to realize that we're all sinners and that we all are saved by grace if we believe on Jesus. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, if you take your hymnals and turn to hymn number 263. Verily, verily, number 263. We'll sing all four verses and be dismissed. Oh, what a Savior that He died for me. Sing it out. Oh, what a Savior that He died for me. From condition He hath made me free. He doth believeth on the son's defeat. Hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Verily, verily, message ever new. He doth believeth on the son's defeat. It is true. Hath everlasting life. All my iniquities, all them were vain. All my in heaven, yes, my name was pain. All who believeth on Him, the Lord has said. Hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Verily, verily, message ever new. He doth believeth on the son's defeat. Hath everlasting life. Oh, for a meaning I can trust my Lord. Though He is simple, I believe His Word. Oh, glad message every child of God. Hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Verily, verily, message ever new. He doth believeth on the son. It is true. Hath everlasting life. Oh, all unworthy, yet I will not doubt. For in the covenant we will not cast down. He that believeth on the good news shall. Hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Verily, verily, message ever new. He doth believeth on the son. It is true. Hath everlasting life. Thank you for joining us this evening. You are dismissed.