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Now, if you want to go over to the book of Exodus, you're in Genesis, just go a few pages to the right of your Bible, look at Exodus 23 2, and what I want to preach about this morning is this, the individual versus the group. That's what I want to talk about, this is a theme throughout the Bible, the individual versus the group. Now, look at what Exodus 23 2, this warning from God, he says, Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil, neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to rest judgment. You see, there's a tendency that people have to just go along with the group, to go with the crowd, and that's why God gave this command. He said, Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. He said, don't go after many to rest judgment, because many people use this as an excuse, well everybody else is doing it, and so I just did it as well, I just went along with the crowd. Other people will look at a Bible believing church or a Bible believing Christian and say, well that can't be right, you mean to tell me that all these other people are wrong? I mean, how many times have you heard that? You try to tell them that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, you try to tell them that Jesus saith unto them, I am the way, the truth, the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me, oh, you mean all these Muslims are wrong, you mean all these Hindus are wrong, you can't mean to tell me that all these Buddhists are not saved, they're going to go to hell, but I'm going to tell you something, just because everybody's doing it, does not mean it's right, in fact, it always means that it's wrong. You see, I've heard a quote before and I remember this was up on the wall when I was in school, it said, what is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right? Let me just change that, what is right is never popular, and what is popular is never right. The Bible says, enter ye in at the straight gate, straight s-t-r-a-i-t, like something narrower, enter ye in at the straight gate, because broad is the way which leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in their act, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto light, and few there be that find it. You see, people have a tendency to get security, to get their security and their sense of well-being from being a part of the crowd, from doing what everybody else is doing, but we ought to get our security from knowing that God is with us, okay, and that if it's just one of us doing the right thing, but God is with us, that should be all the security and peace that we need, rather than saying, well I feel pretty good about this because I'm just going the same way that everybody else is going. But that's what our human nature is, that's why God made this command, thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil, neither shalt thou speak in a constant decline after many direct judgments. Now the Bible in Christianity emphasizes the individual, whereas our ungodly society, humanism, atheism, evolution, all emphasize the group. Think about this now. God created, if you look at Psalm 139, I'll show you what I mean, I'm going to go a lot of different directions with this this morning, but talking about the individual versus the group, look at Psalm 139, right in the middle of the Bible if you look at Psalms, go to chapter 139, look what God says about each and every person in verse 14, he says, I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knows right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect. And in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them, if I should count them! They are more numbered than the same. When I awake, I am still with thee. So here we see that David is saying that when he was in his mother's womb, God was forming and fashioning him. God was creating him unique. He was totally different than any other person. All of his members were written in a book. Care was taken that every part of his body was fashioned in a certain exact way. Every single person is created as an individual. The Bible says the very hairs of your head are numbered. God just doesn't look at some crowd to see a crowd of people, like looking down upon the earth. And the Bible says that God sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are like grasshoppers. But you know what? He looks down upon us as an individual, as a human being. He has a totally different relationship with us than he has with someone else. We are unique. We are an individual. We're not just part of the crowd. We're not just part of the group. You say, why is that so important? Well, see, this is the exact opposite of what the world teaches. This is the exact opposite of what the public school and the science teacher is going to teach you, because they're telling you you're just part of a certain species. And basically what evolution teaches is survival of the fittest, which basically means that whatever is for the good of the species, and you know what? For the good of the species, you just might have to die, or you might have to just be kind of thrown under the bus for the good of society, for the good of man. God says, I'll leave the 99, and I'll go into the mountain to find the one lost sheep and bring him home. But today's atheistic, evolutionist society would just say, well, as long as the 99 is okay, who cares about the one? Forget the one, man. Just keep the species. Keep the flock. But the shepherd loves the sheep, the individual sheep, and goes after that one that maybe it's not financially helpful to him to spend a lot of time and effort to go find that one, but he cared about that one, and he wanted that one back. And that's a picture of the love that God has toward us. So it's all about the individual, not about the group. You see, today's evolutionist mentality has basically altered our form of government. You see, when the founding fathers of the United States set up our government, they did not give us a democracy, because this is the definition of a democracy. Two wolves and a sheep voting upon what they're going to have for dinner. You know what I mean? And so that's democracy. That's freedom, right? Where the 99% can take away the rights of the 1%, or the 51% can take away the rights of the 49% as long as it's what the majority wants. That's not what our country was founded on. Our country was founded on liberty and justice for all, even if you're in a minority group, even if you're not part of the 51%. And people just think, well, if it's what people want, no. It doesn't matter if 99.9999% of people think that it's okay to not have freedom of religion, to not have freedom of the press, to not have freedom to be secure in your personal property, we still have that freedom. Because we live in a constitutional republic, which basically tells us that our rights as individuals are protected. But today, because we've drifted away from the things of God, we've drifted away from the Word of God, this humanistic philosophy of democracy has come in, which basically says, well, whatever's best for the majority is what we're going to do. Whatever's going to help most people. These leaders from the past, these wicked leaders like the Adolf Hitlers, the Joseph Stalins, the Mao State types, they all promised to make life better for the average man. You know, the average worker, the average person is going to live a much better life. And who cares that we have to destroy a minority? Who cares that certain people are going to have to suffer and die? This is the exact philosophy that you get from evolution, where it's just natural selection, you know. The weak must die. That's what it teaches. That's what evolution teaches. The weak have to die off. That's why today women are pregnant. They go to the doctor. They get genetically tested to see if there's something wrong with their baby life. Maybe it's going to have Down syndrome. Maybe it's going to be born blind. Maybe it's going to be born deaf. And then they'll be suggested by the doctor, oh, just abort that child. You don't want to have the burden of a Down syndrome child, the burden of a handicapped child. God created every child the way it is, and God's will is not for everybody to be perfect, not to make us all some kind of a perfect specimen, you know, and we're all just so healthy, you know, and we're all just perfect, physically fit, and we look great, and we look a certain way, and we fit a certain normal. No, God created people as an individual. There was a man in the book of John who was born blind, and Jesus' disciples asked him, they said, why was this man born blind? Was it he that sinned or was it his parents that sinned? And Jesus said, neither did this man sin nor his parents, but he was born blind for the glory of God. God had a plan for that man to be born blind. I've seen people who've had Down syndrome who've been used greatly by God, who've been used to win souls to Christ. I mean, someone with Down syndrome, okay? Why is that? Because God created that person the way that they are as an individual for him to use for his glory, and God doesn't always choose the wise and the strong and the talented. He's chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise and the things which are not to bring to naught those things that are, because God is the God of the individual, not what's best for the country, not what's best for the species, not what's best for the group. No, what is right? What's right? Not what's best for this group or that group. What's right? And I'm not a part of the group. I'm an individual. I'm not just a number. I'm not just a statistic. You know, I'm an individual. You're an individual. You are created by God. The hairs of your hand are numbered. He created you the way that you are. And by the way, why don't you be happy with the way that you are instead of trying to fit in with the group? People today, they want to look exactly like what Hollywood has said, this is the way you ought to look. This is the way you need to look. God made us all different. We don't all look like a movie star. You know, I mean, I do, but you might not look like us. I mean, not everybody can look like us. We all look different. And today, girls are growing up. And because they don't fit in with what's considered to be beautiful, you know, now they have to alter their appearance. You know, starve themselves and become skinnier than God created them to be. Or, you know, dye their hair, change this, change that. Instead of just saying, you know what, this is the way God made me. And by the way, when God makes something, He said He makes it very good. He said that He looked upon all things that He made in Genesis 1 and behold it is very good. It says He's made all things beautiful in His time. But today, people look in the mirror and they say, well, I don't look like what the advertisement, Madison Avenue says I should look like. I don't look like what Hollywood says I should look like. So I'm going to have to, you know, go on this starvation diet. And it seems like every girl you meet anymore has some kind of eating disorder. I mean, it's so prevalent. I mean, it's so common. Because they're being crammed down their throat that they have to be a certain way. God created some women to be very slender. And that's just the way they are. They can eat and eat and eat and that's just the way they are. Other girls are created to be a little bit more full figured. That's the way God made them. And yet society has a chart that says, well, this is where you got to be. You're this height, this weight. Not everybody's the same. That's what's wrong with school. It's one size fits all. You put 30 kids in a classroom that are from all different backgrounds, all different levels of learning, all different religion, and you put them all together and have a one size fits all program to teach them. One size fits all. No, the individual, my friend. The individual is what matters. Not just a one size fits all. Be who you are. Be the way that God created you. God can use you to do things that I can't do. There are people that I'll never get saved. But if you would talk to them, they would get saved and vice versa because God created us different to do different things. He said in the church, he sent all the members in the church as it had pleased him. He said, if everybody were the eye, where were the hearing? If everyone were the ear, where were the smelling? He said, look, different people have different functions. Different people have different talents. Different people have different abilities. We ought to just decide, hey, this is who God made me. This is how God created me. These are the talents that some people can learn a foreign language and pick it up like it's nothing. Other people can learn it to save their life. It's different abilities that we have given to us by God, and we need to just decide, this is who I am. This is where God put me. I was born male. I'm going to be a man. I'm going to dress like a man, talk like a man, act like a man. I'm not trying to say, well, I feel like a woman trapped in a man's body. You filthy pervert. And that's what's going on today. A bunch of guys who think that they're a woman, dress like a woman, talk like a woman, act all girly and ephemeral. Be who you are. The Bible says that the ephemeral, that's a sin. 1 Corinthians 6. Don't act feminine. Don't act girly. Be a man. And if you're a woman, don't be a tomboy. Don't try to say, well, yes we can or we can't do it or whatever. Mix up Obama and the girl with the handkerchief on her head and this thing. The point is, why don't you just say, hey, I'm a woman. I'm going to be feminine. I'm going to dress feminine. I'm going to act feminine. I'm not going to try to prove how tough I can be as a woman. I'm not trying to prove how sensitive and girly I can be as a man. I am who I am. I was born with brown hair. So I'm going to have brown hair. Now, when I was a teenager, I used to dye my hair and bleach his blonde and all this stuff. But when I became a man, I put a weight shot on those things and realized, look, it doesn't matter what color my hair is. That's foolish. That's vain. God created me looking the way I am. This is how I am. This is who I am. This is who I'm going to be. And God's going to use me to do something for God just the way that I am. I'm an individual. I'm not just part of a group. Look at Ezekiel chapter 22. While you're turning it, I'll explain something else to you. In Exodus 23, you're turning to Ezekiel 22. Remember that verse I read to you about thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil? What's interesting about that verse is that he uses the word thou. Now, a lot of people criticize our King James Bible for using the words thee and thou. And yet, thee and thou are some of the most important words in the Bible. You say, well, how so? Why would it matter? Thee, thou. Get rid of the thes and the thows is what the modern Bible cries out. Oh, I can't understand all the thes and theows. Well, let me just break it down real simply for you. Thee, thou, thy, thy. It just means you. Now, was that so hard? Now you understand the whole King James Bible. But there's a reason why God uses the word thee and thou and not the word you. Because the word you is in the Bible. Have you noticed that? Sometimes the Bible does say you and your, right? The difference is that thou is singular. You, your, ye is plural. And so if you're reading these modern Bibles, it's all just you, you, you. Could be the group, could be anybody. Whereas when you're reading the King James Bible, that distinction is there between the singular and the plural. Just like when Jesus said to Peter, Simon, Simon, he said, Satan hath desired to have you. Is he talking to just Peter or is he talking about the group? He says, Satan has desired to have you, the group. But I have prayed for thee. That's the singular. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. So you see in the same verse there, you've got you and thee. And the thee is when he's talking to us about people. He says, look, Satan is after all of you, Peter. But I prayed for you individually, Peter. You, the individual. When you're converted, Peter, individual, thou, strengthen thy brethren. God looked at one man and said, look, the devil is going to try to destroy this church that I have built upon this rock, talking about himself. And he said, Peter, you are the one single person who will stand up and make the difference and will lead. That's what God's looking for, the individual. The modern Bibles, you lose that individual personal touch. Where God is sometimes talking to the group, yes, but you know what? The vast majority of the time, which is why the King James Bible is known for the Thes and the Thes, the vast majority, he's talking to the individual. All throughout the Bibles, thou, thou, thou, thou, thou, thou, thou. It doesn't matter what he's doing. It doesn't matter what she's doing. What art thou doing? He's talking to you specifically personally. You lose that meaning in over a thousand scriptures. You would get the wrong meaning if you just said you. You wouldn't understand the nuance, the difference there between singular and plural because it's not clear from the context. And that's one reason why the Thes and the Thes and the Thou's are helpful to help you understand it, not making it harder to understand. But that's just another lie to try to get people on with these new Bibles that take out the word hell. They take out references to homosexuality because they're trying to be more politically correct, trying to make Christianity a little more palatable for the modern here, and so forth. But look at this scripture in Ezekiel 22. And by the way, the first person to use the plural form in the Bible is the devil because God said, Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. The first person who addresses the group is the devil comes and says, Yea hath God said? Questioning God's word. Yea hath God said? Ye shall not eat of all the trees of the garden? And then basically Eve picks up on it and says, Of all the trees of the garden, we may freely eat but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and so forth. The devil wants to get you in a group. And I'll get to that in just a minute. But look at Ezekiel 22. Ezekiel 22, 30, it says, And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy, but I found none. Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. Their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God. Now here's a whole nation. Here's a whole group of people who were punished by the wrath of God because he couldn't find a man. Now you say can one person, can one individual really make a difference or do we just need a group? We're going to have to have a big group to make any kind of difference. No. He said, I sought for a man. He said, If I would have found one man that would stand in the gap and make up the hedge, I could have spared that nation, but I found none. Therefore my wrath burnt among them like fire. You see, God is looking for an individual and one person can do great things for God. One person, male or female, young or old, God only needs one person to do something great. You can go out there and knock the doors and win people to Christ week after week. Let's say you win one person to Christ a week and that's not impossible. I mean that's not a crazy goal to have. I mean if you're out knocking doors every week for hours and if you're talking to people in your personal life, hey that's pretty reasonable to say that you could win one person to Jesus Christ on a weekly basis. And yet if you did that every week you'd get 52 people saved in a year and then after 20 years you'd have won over a thousand people to Jesus Christ. Now that's a lot that one person could have and who knows who those people are going to talk to, who those people are going to preach the gospel to. But just think, in 20 years of serving God you could have a thousand people saved. You say I can't believe that you would say you won over Christ and think God does it all. Didn't Paul say I've become all things to all men that I might by all means save some? That's what Paul said. Didn't Paul say if by any means I might provoke to emulation them that are of my flesh and might save some of them? Didn't Jude say in verse 22 and others saved with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh? You say well God's going to do it all. No, God has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation and he's sending us, he's saying as the Father sent me so send I you he said to his 12 disciples and he sent them out and he said go out and preach the gospel to every creature and it's our job the Bible says to pull them out of the fire, to compel them to come in, to persuade them to be saved. Agrippa said that Paul almost felt persuaded to be a Christian and so we can go out there as an individual and see all kinds of people saved, influence all kinds of people. Look how many people Peter preached to, thousands and thousands and thousands of people that he preached to in the book of Acts. One man, one man preached, one man preached to Cornelius' household, his name was Peter, that whole household and who knows who they got saved, who knows what else. One man, Philip, talked to the Ethiopian eunuch and that Ethiopian eunuch was a religious man. He was going to Jerusalem to worship and yet he was an unbeliever, yet he was unsafe. He was religious but he wasn't saved. He was in that chariot, he was on his way home from Jerusalem, he'd already done the worshipping. They didn't have anything to teach him. Those bunch of Pharisees and scribes and sagacies taught him a bunch of garbage and he wasn't even saved and so he's on his way home from his phony liberal church that taught him nothing and he's driving along in the chariot, he's reading the Bible. I mean doesn't he sound like a pretty good guy? He's reading the Bible, he's religious and yet he was not saved. Philip saw him afar off and basically God's fear moved upon him to go talk to this guy and he sees him afar off and what did Philip do? How the Jehovah's Witnesses go soul winning? You ever see them walk down the street and they go like at about one third the normal speed of walking? Because they don't care, they're just putting in their time because they have to go. We don't have to go. We don't make anybody go out and not do it. It's not a requirement, you don't have to do it but we don't check out, we don't care. It's your choice but Jehovah's Witnesses, they have to do it because they're trying to earn their way to salvation. Salvation's a free gift, we're already saved. We're doing it because we love them to keep his commandments but we go out and I want to be like Philip because when Philip saw the chariot, he ran toward him. He ran to meet the chariot. He didn't do this, you know, ring the doorbell, oh, nobody's home. I'm just putting in my time, you know, or like this. Nobody's coming to the door. You know the TV's go, I hear people. There you go, okay, now they're going to come to the door. But people, Philip, one man, ran to the chariot, climbed up in the chariot and said to the Ethiopian eunuch, understandest thou what thou readest? One guy. You say, why would Philip go talk to that one guy? You know, he could have been preaching to some crowd somewhere. No, he talked to this one guy. One guy who was a eunuch. And by the way, eunuch, that's not exactly the coolest guy in town, you know what I mean? That's not exactly the guy who is a really powerful person. Eunuchs are not people who are powerful. You know what they are? They're somebody else's slave. They're somebody else's servant. Okay, they're somebody else who's even had their masculinity removed, okay, because they've been sold into bondage. So this is not exactly a powerful, influential, you know, cool guy. You know, this is a man who is a servant. He's somebody else's worker, you know. Now he had a lot of authority because he was the eunuch of the Queen of Ethiopia, but he was still just a eunuch, okay. And what happened? Philip gives in the Gospel, he says, Understandest thou what thou readest? He didn't understand. He said, How can I accept some man should guide me? Philip opened the Scripture and at the same place began to preach unto him Jesus. And that man said, I believe Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He believed that he was baptized and he went back to Ethiopia rejoicing greatly. I promise you when he got there, he got people saved. I promise you he shared that message with other people in Ethiopia and got other people saved because he was home rejoicing. He was excited about it. Hey, the individual, one person God the Ethiopian saved, one person the Ethiopian took the Gospel back to Ethiopia. You see, God uses the individual. He's looking for a man. He's looking for a woman. He's looking for one person that will be different than the crowd, that will not just blindly just follow what everybody else is doing and will do what's right and stand in the gap and make up the hedge. Now, look at Job, chapter number two. The book of Job chapter two. Job is right before Psalms. Psalms is right in the dead center of your Bible. Look at Job chapter two. Job chapter number two. You see, you say, Why are you preaching this? I want you to understand that you're important. I've heard pastors get up and preach. You're expendable. You're expendable. If you don't do it, God will use somebody else to do it. You know what? That is not true at all. You are not expendable. He said, I stopped for a man and found none. Therefore, I had to judge the mission. I'm not expendable. You're not expendable. If you decide to quit the church or just get out of God's will, stop winning souls, stop doing what's right, go off into sin, hey, there will be something missing from this church. Something will be missing. I mean, we'll just replace you. You can't be replaced. You say, well, Pastor Anderson will just replace you. You'll replace me if I'm God. But is it going to be exactly the same as Pastor Anderson? That's not just me because I'm the pastor. That's anybody in the pew also. God doesn't just replace people like, oh, it's just like you get a new car for your washing machine. No. We're human beings. None of us is expendable. All of us was created. The Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship. That means he made us. That's what it means. We are his workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God had before ordained that we automatically would walk in them. No. Which God had before ordained that we should walk in them. He said, you're saved by faith. You're not saved by works. But he said, you're saved unto works that you should walk in. He said, as many of us have been baptized into Jesus Christ, have been baptized into his debt, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, we also should walk in newness of life. We're not necessarily always going to, but we should walk in newness of life. We should do the works that God before ordained that we should walk in them. There are works that God has before ordained for you to walk in. The Bible says that he gave to every man on this earth ministers by whom they might believe, and yet I wonder how many people have all these works, all this plan that God has for their life, and they are out living in sin. They're out of God's will, and they are not doing it. And guess what? It's just not getting done. You say, oh, somebody else is doing it. No, it's not getting done. Because no one is replaceable. No one is expendable. Everyone is an individual. Everyone is created by God for a specific purpose. They cannot be replaced. Look at Job chapter 2, verse number 1. It says, again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present to him. You say, who are the sons of God? The old man of love, the father of a certain class, that we should be called the sons of God. But as many as received him to them gave you power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Every time the Bible talks about the sons of God, it's talking about born again, out of believing Christians. That's what it's talking about. You say, well, it's the angels. And almost every modern Bible will change this to angels. If you have the NIV, it says angels, and then there's a little star, and at the bottom of the page, it says, well, literally in the Hebrew, it's the sons of God. Well, why don't you put sons of God there? That's not a translation. If it says sons of God, you call it change to angels, because that's what it really means. That's not a translation. But the NIV is going to do your thinking for you. The King James will let you think for yourself. You see, the angels are not God's sons. In fact, Hebrews chapter 1 explicitly states that none of the angels are God's sons. And yet, even though Hebrews 1 flat out says, under which of the angels said he at any time, thou art my son in the state of my begot me. He said, no, Jesus is God's son, and those who believe on Christ are adopted as God's sons. The angels are not God's sons. He said they're ministering spirits, but they're not the sons of God. And yet the NIV will change this to the sons of God. I mean, they'll change it from sons of God to angels, which is not what it is. But he says there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves for the Lord, because the sons of God, they're up in heaven. They're believers. They've already passed on from this life. They're up in heaven with God. But look who comes among them. He says Satan also came also among them to present himself before the Lord. Now, is that saying that Satan is one of God's sons? Absolutely not. He's saying Satan came also, which also means in addition to these sons of God, Satan came also. And it says, and the Lord said unto Satan, from whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth? Does that sound like he's just kind of part of the group? No. He said there's none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil, and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movest me against him to destroy without cause. Now, the word perfect does not mean without sin. The word perfect means complete, entire, mature. You don't need a dictionary for that. You can find it in the Bible. It says that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. It means you don't lack anything. It means you have the whole package, your balance. Okay. He says here there's none like him in the earth. Job is a great man. He has no parallel. There's no one else that's like him. But notice, Satan was going to and fro in the earth, walking up and down in it. Remember the Bible says, be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the devil is a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Now, wait a minute. Is the devil everywhere at once? No. Now, is God everywhere at once? Absolutely. God is omnipresent. He said he's in heaven. He said if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. God is everywhere. The heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain God, the Bible says. He's everywhere. Heaven is his throne. The earth is his footstool. And the Bible makes it clear, many, many scriptures, we don't have time to read them all, that God is everywhere. But is the devil everywhere? No. The devil goes to and fro, walking about, and he has all his lieutenants, you know, all his deputies, all the devils of hell that he sends out to do his work and so forth that do his bidding, but he is not everywhere at once. He goes back and forth, he goes here, he goes there, and all these different things. Nowhere does the Bible give that attribute of God that only God has of being everywhere, all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent. That's God. That's not the devil. The devil is not the opposite of God. The devil is a creative being. The devil is a fallen angel, okay, that was created as a beautiful creature, Lucifer, but he rebelled against God, and so he's limited in his power. He's not omnipresent, omnipotent, any of those things. So listen, what if the devil had to go and attack each Christian individually, okay? That's not going to be possible for him to do it, you know, or to go to each church and try to destroy that one church and go to, you know, and there's thousands and hundreds of thousands of churches all over. He's going to go to each church and try to attack that church individually. He's not going to be very effective. So the best way that the devil can attack a church is to get churches to unite together into groups called denominations. This is what he does. Now flip over to Ephesians 4, and I'll tell you why this is not right. Look at Ephesians chapter 4, and you'll definitely see the truth of what I'm saying. I'm going to give you some real concrete examples of this, in fact, of how this works. But it says in verse number...actually I'm sorry, chapter 5. Chapter 5, verse 22, here's a real popular verse in 2009. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. But that's not what I'm preaching about. Look at verse 23. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. And he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. But wait a minute, who's the head of the church? Christ. Is Stephen Anderson the head of this church? Christ is the head of the church. Now what is the church? According to the Bible, the church is the congregation. The church is the assembly. Old Testament word congregation is always, whenever it's quoted into the New Testament, always the word church. Old Testament, in the midst of the congregation, I'll sing praise unto thee. New Testament, in the midst of the church, I'll sing praise unto thee. A church is a congregation, it's a group of people. You're sitting in a church, an assembly here of believers. Now wait a minute, who is the boss of this church? Jesus Christ. Does Jesus a head of the church? No, he's the head of the church. So this church has one authority, one leader, Christ. That's it. Now the pastor is here, not to stand up here and be a boss and command, basically just the messenger, the angel of the church, the messenger, the man who basically takes what God has commanded and just brings it to you and tells you what it is. Not to make up my own rules, not to tell you to do things that aren't in the Bible, but just to repeat to you what God has said. Just to stand up here and say, all right, you heard him, let's do it. And basically to lead on the ground here, but I'm getting my orders from God. That's why I'm getting my orders from him of what to preach, what to do. And I didn't get them from a voice in my head, I got them from reading God's word. You've got the same orders sitting in front of you, so we should have some great unity because we have the same thing. But wait a minute, churches that are part of the denomination, Christ is not the head of that church because there's another head somewhere in another city that is basically calling the shots. It's true. I mean, if you're going to a denominational Baptist church, let's say a southern Baptist church, well guess what? The SBC headquarters down in Texas or wherever and there's a president just like the Catholics have a pope, just like the Mormons have their prophet, just like the East Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox have the patriarch, just like the Church of England has the Archbishop of Canterbury, just like the southern Baptists have their president. They all have somebody else who's calling the shots from a different state and if you don't fall in line, it will affect you financially. The pastor loses the pension, the church loses the building, whatever. Brother Dave and I were out so many years ago, we ran into a guy who's the song leader for a Baptist church in Tempe and he said, our Baptist church in Tempe, we just had to leave the denomination. He said, we're losing everything, we're losing our building, we're losing our vehicles, the pastor's losing his pension. He said, it's destroying our church because we had to get out of the denomination. We asked him what happened. He said, here's what happened. The denomination voted to start having homosexual Sunday school teachers and deacons and basically they voted saying, well, we're not going to stand against homosexuality. And he said, our church was not going to go along with that. And so we had to get out. We had to break out and we paid a price to get out. But wait a minute, how many churches do you think in that same denomination probably felt the same way as that song leader and yet stayed in because of the financial strings? Think about that now. And guess what? They're not obeying the head. The head condemns that kind of filthy lifestyle and yet they were following their other head, the denomination. And so many churches today, they get their Sunday school material from some denomination, telling them what to teach, telling them what to preach. The money, you know, they take in their offerings. Ten percent of it goes to the denomination and the denomination spends it how they choose. And it's very easy for the devil to attack because he gets everybody yoked up in the denomination. All he has to do is go to that denomination at the top, infiltrate it at the top, and then it all filters down. He can destroy a thousand churches by getting the one person at the top. It's happening everywhere you turn. I knocked on somebody's door. They said they were a Lutheran. I said, oh, did you know that the Lutherans just decided to ordain, you know, sodomite, queer clergy, you know, homosexuals, to ordain them as pastors? I said, is that what you believe? They're like, no, no, no, that's not what we believe. I said, yeah, but it's too bad that your church is a part of that denomination. They said, yeah, we know. It's ridiculous. But what are they going to do? Just grin and bear it. And they're a part of it. Now they're participating with it. Now they're part of that religion and they all go back. You know, and you've seen one after another, the denomination is going back, going liberal, turning away from God's word, turning away from the truth. Baptist denominations, Baptist domination in Brazil, the one major Baptist denomination in Brazil a few years ago voted and started having women preachers, even though the Bible makes it clear that women are to keep silent in the church. I suffer not a woman to teach nor do you serve authority over the man but be in silence. And yet they just go in the face of scripture because Christ is not their head. Because the denomination is their head. They have another boss. Or maybe they're just a two-headed monster. They have two heads. No, Christ is the head. And that's how the devil works. He wants to get you part of a group where you will just mindlessly just go with the flow. Well, you know, I'm just going to trust the pope. Well, I'm just going to trust the patriarch. Well, I'm just going to trust the president of the convention. Well, I'm just going to trust our prophet. Well, I'm just going to trust. I'm just going to trust. Hey, it's better to put your trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man, Psalm 118.8. You can't just mindlessly follow the group. You've got to be willing to swim up the street. You're in the public school right now. Hey, you be different than the group because the group is wrong. The group is going to hell. The group is destroying America. The people today, they vote and destroy America because they vote wrong, because they believe wrong, because they live a lifestyle that's wrong, because they don't follow the command of God not to follow a multitude to do evil. Be yourself and get God right here and get yourself and the Holy Spirit and the Bible and say, God, what do you want me to do? I don't care what he's doing. I don't care what Pastor Anderson's doing. I don't care what Faithful Word Baptist Church is doing. Hey, I am going to do what the Bible says and if none go with me, still I will follow, no turning back. I have decided to follow Jesus. That's what we ought to say. We ought to be an individual. Now look, is it wrong to be a part of a group? No. Faithful Word Baptist Church is a group. Here we are in a group. But you know what? If the group goes bad, get out of the group. If Faithful Word Baptist Church goes bad, get out of here. If Pastor Anderson goes bad, don't you go bad with him. Pastor Anderson is not going to go bad, but you know what? If I did go bad, I would hope. If I started preaching false doctrine, if I started leading you the wrong way, I hope that you would run screaming the other direction and get out of this church or throw me out. Don't just mindlessly follow the group. Your loyalty shouldn't be with the group, it should be with Jesus. Now if you can find a group that's going with Jesus, yes, that's important. And God does say that we need to edify one another and strengthen one another and iron sharpens iron and there can be a benefit of joining into a group here. But the group is called the local church, not the denomination that spans the continent. We're talking about just the church. We assemble as a group where we can all see the whites of each other's eyes here. We're in a group and guess what? This isn't the only church. There are hundreds of thousands of Bible believing churches in the world. And that's going to make the devil have a hard time attacking them all. But if we all link up and we can even make it a good denomination. It's all about the right things and soloing and King James and all this good stuff. But you know what? Someday the devil will easily infiltrate and get in there. Let me give you an example. A great church that was around for a long time, in Hammond, Indiana. First Baptist church with Dr. Jack Hyles. Did a lot of great things for God. And so many people just looked to that church as their leader. And it wasn't a formal denomination, but a lot of people, whatever they said, that's what they were going to do. They would preach his exact sermon. They'd get the tape from his sermon. They'd preach that exact sermon. They would get his books and preach the Bible. And they were just really following him. And he did a lot of great things for a great guy. But what happened? His successor took over, his son-in-law, Dr. Jack Scott. And guess what? He started taking things a very, very bad direction. But the problem is so many churches and so many people were so used to following a great church and a great man, but they just transferred that. Oh, the new guy comes in and they just kept on following right along. And so many churches have gone into false doctrine from following Dr. Jack Scott. I mean, somebody, it was one of your friends, right? Walked up to a pastor and showed him a quotation from Dr. Jack Scott and said, what would you say about the person who made this quotation? And showed him some wicked quotation, some perverted statement. And he showed him that and the pastor said, Ben, whoever said that is an unbeliever, a false prophet, is wicked. And he said, did you know that that was said by Dr. Jack Scott? And here's the tape of the sermon. And he said, oh, well, I'd have to hear the context. You know, all of a sudden, well, if it came from our leader, it must be okay. Wrong. Right's right, wrong's wrong, God's not a respected person. And so you can't just blindly follow people. You see, if I just taught you, trust me, just trust me. I'm preaching the right things, just trust me and you'll be fine. Just do everything I say, believe what I say and you'll be fine. The problem with that is, even though today I am teaching you right things, I am teaching you true things, what about the next pastor who comes in, you know, let's say I fall over dead or whatever happens, you know, or thrown in jail or whatever. And then the next guy comes in and he starts teaching you a bunch of heresy, you're just using, you know, trust, trust the man of God, trust the pastor, he's got it. You know, you just follow it mindlessly. You say, well, he's God's man, don't question the man of God, don't question the pastor. No, question everything. That's what the Bible says, prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. He said, this fight is not prophesied, he's just talking about preaching. Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. Prove what you hear me say from the pulpit, prove it in your own Bible. Judge what I say. That's what Paul said. He said, judge what I speak. He said, when a man is preaching in 1 Corinthians 14, let the others that sit by judge. Don't turn off your judgment. You know, what do they say happens when you drink alcohol? What's the first thing that goes? Your judgment. Who's been to traffic school like eight times like I have? Let's see, I did it five times online, three in the classroom, one traffic survival school. So you know, if you've been to traffic school like 20 times like I have, now I'm being a little more honest, then you know that they always tell you the first thing that goes when you drink alcohol is your judgment. And yet guess what Christians of law say to their judgment? Judge not, judge not. And they think you should never judge. When Jesus said, judge righteous judgment, he said the spiritual man judgeth all things. I mean, hundreds of verses. Just look up the word judge and it's mostly positive. In fact, if you're having a play, there's a book in the Bible called Judges. And people say, never judge. It's wrong to judge. It's always wrong to judge. So what happens? It's like a drunken Christianity spiritually that has no judgment. They cannot discern between right and wrong because they won't judge. Whatever the pastor says, we're just going to smile and nod. No, judge ye when I speak. That's what Paul said. And the Lord gave the understanding. You must judge. You must discern. You must decide yourself. Not mom, not dad. You must pick up the Bible yourself and read it and let the Holy Spirit guide you, not just blindly follow the group. What did the Nazis say? Well, I was just following orders. Right? I was just following orders. Today it's the police who arrest innocent people, take their kids away from them. Oh, that's not going on, is it? The government taking people's kids away from them without a trial, without a jury, without an indictment. The CPS just comes and takes their kids away and then a month later says, oh yeah, turned out you guys didn't do anything wrong. Well, here's your kids back a month later after they've been molested in some foster home somewhere. Oh, but the police are just doing their job. The CPS is just doing their job. The Nazis just did their job. The Soviets were just doing their job, just following orders. No. I'm following orders of Jesus Christ and if my boss at work tells me to lie, I'm not going to lie. And if my mom and dad tell me to lie, I'm not going to lie. And if somebody tells me kill this innocent person, I'm not going to kill that innocent person. I don't care if I'm in the military, which I'm not. I don't care if I were in the police, which I'm not. I don't care what government organization you're for. Somebody tells me to kill an innocent person, I'm not going to do it. I'd rather answer to God. And that's why you shouldn't swear some oath to just follow whatever somebody tells you to do. I swear, I promise that I'll obey whatever my commanding officer says. If he tells me to commit adultery, I'll do it. If he tells me to murder or rape, I'll do it. No. I'll swear allegiance to God Almighty and that's the only place that my allegiance is going to lie. I'm not going to sit there and promise to obey a man. And that's what happens all over the world. It's happened throughout history. People have been told, kill innocent people, they open fire. People have been told, do this dishonest thing. You're told on the job, lie. Lie on your timesheet. Change the hours. Change the dates. Change the time. Let me ask you, who has been asked on a job in your life to do something dishonest like either the lie or change numbers or change figures? You know what I mean? It's pretty common. So what are you going to do? The group will do it. I mean, if there's 20 people on your job, 19 of them will do it. But why don't you be the one that says, you know what? I'm not part of that group. And you know what? If you go to public school and you fit in and you're the most popular person, then you're not living for God. And I'm not going to apologize for that statement. I mean, that is nothing to be clear. If you are the most popular kid in your school, you are not living for God. Period. Say, well, I don't accept you to that. No, you don't. If you're the most popular pastor in your town that all the politicians love and all the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary and the Shriner, you are not preaching God's word. Because Jesus said they hated me, they hated you. He said, you're not of the world. That's why they know you not. They know those that are just like them, the worldly ones. Whenever you're the favorite among the worldly crowd, you're not living for God. So you better learn today. And you know what? The children I think need to be listening to this sermon the most. Learn to be an individual. Learn to look at yourself as Stephen L. Anderson, not just, well, go Sun Devils. I'm a Sun Devil or a Tiger or a Wolverine or one of these teams. And look, I'm not saying don't cheer up a team, but I'm saying don't just think of yourself as I'm a this, I'm a that. Why don't you just be Stephen L. Anderson? Why don't you just be David Burtis? Why don't you just be who you are? And just say, this is what? What denomination are you part of? What group? What pastors are you affiliated with? None. We're independent Baptists, thank God. Independent Baptists. And we're not just one of those people that says we're independent Baptists, but we're all part of a group somewhere. No. I have friends in the ministry, but that's all they are friends. And it seems like they're always turning on me every couple months. Especially about two months ago, I think about 80% of them all turned on me. So thank God I'm not in some denomination with them. They would have voted to strap a muzzle to my face or something, you know? And not Robby Grace. Thank God. But you know what? I'm an individual and you know what? God wants you to be an individual. That's not in any of the way you are. Not a robot, not a clone, but a human being with a soul that's unique. Your fingerprints are unlike any, you know, no two snowflakes are alike. Okay? Everybody's different. Don't try to fit into the world's mold of what you're supposed to be, how you're supposed to act, how you're supposed to think. Don't just say, well, I'm a Republican, so whatever the Republicans say. Or I'm a Democrat, whatever the Democrats say, I'm just going to go with it. Or I'm Libertarian and they say this, so that's not it. Or Ron Paul is my hero. And you know, even though those people could be right about 99%, don't just make that person be the substitute for your own mind and your own walk with God. Don't just say, well, Pastor Steven Anderson said it, I believe it, that settles it. No. You've got to think, don't just be a mindless star of me or anyone else. Be an individual. And you as an individual, I'll close with this one verse. Joshua 23, 10, you don't have to turn there. One man of you, this is what God said, one man of you shall chase a thousand. He's talking about in warfare. For the Lord your God, he it is that fighteth for you as he has promised you. That's a pretty amazing verse. He said, one of you shall chase a thousand. And he said, two of you shall put ten thousand to fight. He's saying, look, if God's on your side, there's no telling what you do. Jonathan and his armor bearer, great story. Stood up against the entire army, two men. They got in kind of a narrow pass in a steep place. They went up and fought and they killed 19 of the enemy. And the enemy got so scared that they started to flee away and then the rest of the army came in and chased him and won the battle. Because two men, and you know what Jonathan said to his armor bearer? He said, God's not limited. He said, God, whether God saves by many or by few, he said, let's just, the two of us just go and just face these people. And God's going to be with us. And they went and faced them and that courage caused them to win the battle that day, even though the odds were all against them. Why? Because one person matters. You can make a great difference for God if you'll choose to be different than what the crowd is doing. Let's bow our heads now to word of prayer.