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Now if you would, keep your finger in Revelation chapter 17 and go back to Matthew chapter 6. And I'm going to read you a scripture from Matthew chapter 6 before I get into the message. Matthew chapter number 6, and we're going to look at verses 7 and 8. The Bible reads in Matthew 6, 7, But when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask him. Now, today I want to talk about Revelation chapter 17. And Revelation 17, I believe very strongly, is describing the Roman Catholic Church. And I'm going to go into that and show you that in Revelation 17. But what I wanted to show you in Matthew chapter 6 is that, look, there is religion out there, according to the Bible, that, you know, chance a lot of vain repetitions. It's based upon a lot of false traditions that are not found in the Bible. And God is telling us, be not therefore like unto them. He said, don't pattern yourself after them, is what he said. Now look at Revelation 17, and we're going to go through a few verses here, just to show you that this is what this is talking about. For example, in Revelation 17, it says in verse 1, And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven bottles, and talked with me, saying, Come hither. I was shown thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters. Now, later on in the chapter, he explained that those many waters are what? Nations and peoples and tongues and multitudes. It's described as nations of this world. It says, With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the line of fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit of the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden palpit her hand, full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And upon her head was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. Now, if you would skip down, and I'm going to show you this verse in number 9, it says, And here is the mine which had wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth. And then look at the last verse in the chapter. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth. Now, this is describing a city that's seated upon what? Seven hills. And this city that's seated upon seven hills, that reigns over the kings of the earth, drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, the Bible said, the mother of all false religions, basically colored in scarlet color, gold, silver, precious stones, a lot of riches and abundance of beautiful stones and so forth. And then it says that it was filled with names of blasphemy. Now, I believe that this is referring to the Roman Catholic Church because, of course, Rome is seated upon seven hills. I remember when I was in public school as a child in elementary school, the chapter on Rome was called Rome, the City of Seven Hills. It's known as that. And this is a description of a false religion, but it's not calling it here Catholicism or Rome. It's calling it Babylon. Now, why is that? Well, flip back. I'm going to explain it to you. Jeremiah chapter 44. Go back to the Old Testament. I want you to see this. Jeremiah chapter 44. There's three big long books at the end of the Old Testament. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, some of the longest books in the Bible. Look at Jeremiah 44. I'm going to show you kind of the roots of this religion. And then we're going to go back even further than this. But in Jeremiah 44, verse 15, the Bible says, Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, of great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt and Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying... Now, let me say this. These were not Egyptians that he spoke to. Give context to the chapter. These are Israelites who lived in Judah. They had fled down to Egypt. Now, the reason that they were being judged by God is for following the false religions of the heathen, the religions of Babylon. Look, if you would, at verse number 16. As to the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee, but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven. Do you see that? Now, does God prefer you as a feminine or a queen? No, he's God the Father. He has a masculine entity. It says, We will burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, for then have you plenty of fiddles, and will well have sought an illegal. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, and watch this dance, did we make her cakes to worship her? Did you see that? Making her cakes, and pour out drink offerings unto her without our men? Now, what I want you to understand here is that this religion that they're practicing is still around today. There's nothing new under the sun. This religion that worships the queen of heaven, that bakes cakes unto the queen of heaven, that has a drink offering to the queen of heaven, this Babylon religion is still around today, it's called the Roman Catholic Church. I literally have seen a church in Phoenix called Queen of Heaven Catholic Church. And here the Bible is talking about these people worshipping a false deity of the queen of heaven. I've seen, when I was in Sacramento, a cemetery, Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery. Okay, so we're going to go back even further, go back to Genesis 11. Genesis chapter 11, at the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapter 11, it says in verse number 4, and they said, go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Now, I don't have time to show you this, but in Genesis chapter 10, God divided people up into nations. But they decided they didn't want to be divided into nations, they wanted kind of a one-world government, they wanted to be united together, universal association of people, and they wanted to build their way to heaven. They were going to work their way to heaven. Now, this is basically the beginnings of the false religion, the Babylon religion that we're talking about. It's based on two things, universalism, universal church, one-world religion, and building your own way to heaven, working your own way to heaven. It started in Genesis 11. We see it in Jeremiah 44. In the New Testament, it talks about this mystery Babylon religion that persecuted the saints, shed the blood of the martyrs. It had these names of blasphemy, names like father. The Bible says, call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father, which is heaven. But what does the Catholic church refer to their priests? Father. Okay. All the gold and silver, the scarlet color, the stained glass windows, the riches, the long flowing garments, these are the signs of the Catholic church. Now, I'm going to draw this out for you. I want to help you understand this tonight. And so I'm going to draw this on the board here, a progression here of this religion, okay? So the first thing that we see is the Tower of Babylon. Okay, then we see Babylon, which is a world empire that had this type of false religion. Okay, then we go down further from Babylon and we have the Roman Catholic church. Now, a lot of people have asked me about denominations or denominationalism. You know, there are people that call themselves non-denominational. And then there are people that are Roman Catholic, there are people who are Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian. A lot of people don't understand where these religions came from. And they don't understand what it means to be denomination or non-denomination. Let me explain this right now. We are non-denominational. You say, no, you're Baptist, you know, faithful, we're a Baptist church. We do not belong to any Baptist association. The Bible says that Christ is the head of the church. And this church has no other head but Christ. There's no other organization somewhere in some other state that tells us what we can and can't preach, that props us up financially. No, we are independent of any fellowship, convention, board, whatever you want to call it. We're not part of a denomination. But in the last 20 years or so, you've got this non-denominational movement. But you know what the funny thing is? 90% of churches, they call themselves non-denominational are part of a denomination. And people get so mixed up about this because I've talked to people and they say, oh, we're non-denominational and I preached in a nursing home and we had the Baptist service at 2.30 and then at 3.30 we had the non-denominational service. And I asked them, I said, what denomination are you? They said, we're non-denominational. I said, what's the name of your church? They said, The Door at Tempe. I went home on the internet, they were part of a denomination of 2,000 churches, a Pentecostal denomination. But they think because they took it out of the name, they're not part of a denomination. There's a church in Tempe that's called Cross Point Church. It says Cross Point Church. Then at the very bottom of the corner, it says SBC, which stands for what? Southern Baptist Convention. Now that church, if you ask them, they'll say, oh, we're non-denominational. But wait, they're part of the Southern Baptist Convention. I mean, look, if I change my name to Fred, am I no longer the same person? Oh, that's Pastor Steve Ashley. No, that's Fred. Okay, it wouldn't make me Fred. If I could have him say, hey, my name's Fred, what if I wore a t-shirt that said, hello, my name is Fred? And I'm actually, it's not going to change the fact that I'm Pastor Steve Anderson. You can call something whatever you want. That doesn't change what it is. I mean, you could call it, you could call, you know, the Roman Catholic Church, you could call it Faithful Word Baptist Church. Is that really going to change what it is, though? No. The name is not defining what it is, okay? They can call themselves non-nominational, but if they're part of the Southern Baptist Convention, they're a Southern Baptist Church, they're part of the nomination. Other big, mega churches, so-and-so community church. All you have to do is open the phone book, you'll see. You'll find them under the heading, Assemblies of God, Church of God and Christ, Southern Baptist Convention, whatever. And yet they'll say we're not a nominee. What do they mean by that? Oh, we just mean everybody's welcome. Well, everybody's welcome here, too. Oh, well, we just don't believe all this doctrine. Everybody has doctrine. Look, I have doctrine. Doctrine means teaching. I believe that Jesus is God. I believe that salvation is by faith alone. I believe that you can't lose your salvation. And any non-denominational church has doctrine. Maybe they believe you can lose your salvation. Maybe they believe that salvation is by works. Maybe they think it's by faith. Maybe they think it's, you know, the Bible's the Word of God. Maybe they think the Bible has mistakes. These churches have doctrine. What it is is they just don't want to tell you what their doctrine is. So they just say, oh, we're non-denominational. Like, we don't want to tell you what we believe. But it doesn't change the fact that they still believe something just as strongly as I believe something. The difference between them and us is that we're willing to tell them what we believe. You see, we put Baptist in the sign not because we're part of any denomination, not because we're part of some Baptist organization. Baptist is a name that describes our church. It's an adjective to let people know, hey, this is a church that believes in the eternal security of the believer. The Bible is God's Word. The Bible is the authority in all matters of faith and practice. Hey, salvation is by faith alone. Jesus is God. It gives people an idea of what we believe. Even the word faithful work gives people an idea of what we believe because it shows that the Scriptures are our authority. It shows that we believe we can rely upon the Bible and that we don't need a man to show us what it really means or change it or interpret it for us. We are holding fast to faithful work. People can probably usually ascertain from that that we're probably preaching the King James Version just by talking about the faithful work. And so the reason that we're called Baptist is not because we're part of a Baptist denomination. It's because we're just trying to shout out to people this is what type of church we are to help people find us and to help people understand what we are. These other churches, oh, what if we just change our name to just the Rock Church? Church founded upon a rock. What if every church had a name like that? How are you going to know which church is a soul winning church? How are you going to know which one is preaching the true Gospel? I mean, there are thousands of churches in Phoenix. How many of them are really preaching the Gospel? How many of them are using the King James? How many of them are going door to door soul winning? How many of them are preaching hard? How many of them are just a rock concert? You'd have to visit every church. So that's why we have Baptists in the name at least to help people narrow down a little bit to get in the ballpark of what they're looking for in a church. And so what about all these other denominations? You know, where did they come from? The Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Lutheran. Well, I'll tell you this first of all. They were all started by man. All of them. Now, the Baptists, you know, handle, or it's not even a denomination. Some of them are, like Southern Baptists. But the Baptists' name, you cannot point to any man who started the Baptists. I mean, who is it? Call out the nomination. I'll tell you who started it. Call out the nomination. Luther. Martin Luther. Man, that was a tough one. This is great. I'm on a roll. Piscopalian. Piscopalian. Henry VIII. Presbyterian. John Knox. The Baptists, Ellen G. White. And no one would dispute that. I mean, these are the founders. The Latter-day Saints? Joseph Smith. Right? And Joel's witness? Charles Taze Russell or whatever his name is. Christadelphians? I don't even know what that is. Christadelphians? I never heard of that. But anyway, if you go down, I don't know everything. I mean, I'm just a long man. I was hoping for, like, Luther. I'm just saying, you know, I don't know who started the Christadelphians, but I guarantee you, if you go on their website, you'll say, okay, this is the guy who founded them. And even modern-day new denominations like Calvary Chatwick, Chuck Smith. You know, they're all started by a man. They're all started by a woman. They're all started by somebody. You know, you look at the Methodists? John Wesley. Presbyterian? John Knox, who was influenced by John Calvary. Okay? All these different religions are started by man. Who started the Roman Catholic Church? Constantine the Great. Okay? And so these churches have all been started by man. Who started the Baptists? No one can tell you that. Because Baptists has never been a specific group. It's never been one church. It's never been one denomination. It's always been a label that was plastered on people who were against the Roman Catholic Church. They were called Anabaptists, re-Baptized. Because they would take people who had already been baptized to the baby, win them to Christ, and then baptize them. And they were known as re-Baptized in many places. They were made illegal. They were burned at the stake. It was the death penalty to re-Baptize someone who had already been baptized by the Catholics. And that's where the name Baptist came from. And not everyone throughout history who's been called Baptist was even preaching the Gospel. Because Baptist was a really broad label. Just a label thrown on anybody who was, you know, making the Bible their authority and re-Baptizing converts after they taught them that salvation was by faith alone. So it's never been an organization. It's never been a true denomination that you could point to and say, this is where the Baptists were founded. Nobody knows where it was founded. It's just been Christians. It's just been Bible-believing people throughout the ages that have been labeled by others as Baptists. Even the name Christian is not something that Jesus coined while he was on this earth. It was something where an Antioch is where they were first called Christians. And then later in 1 Peter, Peter refers to it and says, hey, if you suffer for being a Christian. So being a Christian was something that was called them by others. It was a label that was put on us. Of course, in the Bible, there's John the Baptist. That's something that Jesus labeled him because he baptized. And that's probably a lot of where our current term of Baptist comes from. And being a Baptist to me just means you believe the Bible, salvation is by faith. You know, baptism by immersion, that's what Baptists have been about throughout the years. You know, the Bible says, if thou believeth, with all thy heart thou mayest be baptized. And these religions that were sprinkling babies, you know, that's not even baptism. And so that's what it means to be a Baptist. And that's why we're independent, free of any denomination. But where did all these other denominations come from? Listen to me now. Every single one of them came out of the Roman Catholic Church. Every modern-day denomination that you'll find virtually, except some of these Baptist ones that have just kind of formed up. You know, like the Calvary Chapel, the Southern Baptist, and these newer ones where it's just Baptists joining together and forming a denomination. But I'm talking about the mainline denominations through history have all come out of the Roman Catholic Church. I'll prove that to you right now. I'm going to show that to you. Because look down at your Bible. Are you in Revelation 17? The Bible says about the Roman Catholic Church, it talks about the blasphemy, the fornication, the filthiness, and you know, the Catholic clergy has always been a filthy clergy. And I'm not ripping on Catholics, because you know what? A lot of people who are Catholic, they're brought up that way or they're deceived or they're just trusting in their religion. We need to go out and get them saved. You know, my wife was raised Catholic, for example. But I'm talking about the priests. I'm talking about the bishops and the archbishops and the pope. These are bad people, okay? And that's why they're constantly getting busted for being a pedophile. You know, they're constantly involved in sexual perversion in these monasteries. Why? Because they're bad people. They're evil. They're preaching a false gospel. But look at verse number 5. It says, If on her forehead was a name written, Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. Now by the way, I one time picked up a Catholic newspaper and it had the word mystery on like every page. The mystery of, and they talk about, you know, the mystery of the Eucharist, the mystery of the Virgin Mary. And look, they are worshipping Mary as a god. They literally put on the level of God, the Queen of Heaven, and they say that Mary is the mediatrix between, you know, us and God, and they literally teach that Mary lived a sinless life. Now Mary, while she was on this earth, said she would rejoice in God her Savior. She needed to be saved because she was a sinner. She wasn't perfect. She was a virgin, yes, but that doesn't mean that she was perfect. She was a sinner just like you and I are sinners. Now let's trace this out because if the Roman Catholic Church is called the Great Whore, and not only is it called the Great Whore, it calls her the Mother of Harlots. So this Great Whore has given birth to other harlots, okay? And what you have to understand about all these denominations that came out of Catholicism, they all took a little bit of Catholicism with them, and I'm going to illustrate that to you as well. So let's start right here with the Roman Catholic Church. Now this idea of a universal religion, a universal church, all the way back to the Tower of Attic, and who's ever heard people say, like, the church is made up of all believers? You know, you've heard that? Well, in the Bible, the word church is only ever used to describe an assembly of people. The word church means congregation. I mean, in the Old Testament, he said, in the midst of the congregation, while I sing praise unto thee, that verse is quoted in Hebrews chapter 2 in the midst of the church, while I sing praise of thee. The word church means assembly, congregation, and yet people will say all Christians make up the church. Now, we're not assembled with all believers. We're not assembled with all Christians. Church as is what the Bible talks about. Usually when the Bible talks about churches, it's plural, or it's a specific location like the church at Ephesus, the church of Philippi, the church as of Galatia. So the Roman Catholic Church idea has been around all the way, going back to Genesis and the Tower of Babel, a universal religion and a works salvation. They were trying to build their way to heaven. They said, let's build a tower to reach to heaven, which is a symbol of us trying to work and earn our way to heaven as opposed to just believing on Christ, what he did on the cross. Now, the first time that the Roman Catholic Church was formally what we would think of as the Roman Catholic Church was in A.D. 313. Constantine the Great, the Roman Emperor, legalized Christianity. But here's what he wanted to do. He wanted to use Christians as a political force. He was trying to gain power. He was originally one of four Caesars that were ruling at once, but he wanted more power for himself. So he decided to use the Christians as his ally. He put crosses on all his shields. He had a vision, supposedly, from God that told him, in this sign, conquer. And he went to war under the symbol of the cross, and he decided to make the Christians his political ally, but he wanted them to all be united as a political force. And so he didn't like the fact that all these independent churches all believed different things. Just like today, there are all these different churches that all believe different things. Well, it was the same back then. He said, no, we're all going to agree on the same doctrine. You know, if you believe over here, okay, and this other guy believes over here, you guys need to meet in the middle and agree. Now, is that how we determine our Bible doctrine? No. If he's over there and I'm here and the Bible's here, I'm staying here. I don't need to meet him in the middle and compromise. So here's what he did. He called these councils of all the major pastors and all the major bishops, and he got them all together and said, look, we are going to pass this out. And he didn't even call himself a Christian. He didn't even claim to be a Christian. But he presided over these meetings anyway. And he presided over them, and they all argued and agreed upon doctrinal statements that they could all agree on. And they wanted to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Now, do you think that God wants us to basically impose Christianity on people by law? No. Christianity is a personal choice. Each person decides for themselves to believe on Christ or not to believe on Christ. But this was supposed to be just a state church, state religion. Constantine wanted you guys all to agree. You know, they had a big argument at one of these major councils. Is Jesus God, or is he just a created being? And they went back and forth. They went back and forth. They went back and forth. Do these sound like they're all Bible-believing pastors? No. They go back and forth, go back and forth. And they basically kind of struck with a little bit of compromise. He's kind of God. He's pretty much God. You know what I mean? But they didn't really come right out. They had to satisfy people with certain verbiage not to go too far on that. OK, they cast out all these different beliefs. Just to give you an idea of some of the pastors that were there. Constantine had these two main religious advisors. And he asked them, he said, what do I need to do in order to be saved? And this is what they told them. They said, well, if you're baptized, that'll wash away all your past sins. But then after you're baptized, you know, you have to keep on, like, doing good works and praying and asking forgiveness and keep, you know, toeing the line. As a Christian, you're going to lose your salvation. That's what they told them. So does that sound like a scriptural message? No. So here's what Constantine decided to do. He said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to wait till I'm about to die to get baptized. Because getting baptized sounds a lot easier than following all these Catholic rituals, you know. So he said, you know what? I'm just going to wait. So Constantine never got baptized until he was on his deathbed. He was dying. He was very ill. He got baptized. And when he came out of the water from being baptized, he put on clothing that was solid white. And he didn't even leave the house. He didn't do it because he didn't want to sit. You know what I mean? So he's like, he had to go these last, like, five or six days while he was hanging on the light, like, sin-free. Because he'd already been baptized, and that's all he wanted to do. So he just chilled in an all-white outfit. Because I guess that's more of a holier color of clothing to wear or something. That's why I always wear a white shirt when I preach, you know. But anyway, he's just, like, sitting in an all-white and then dying looking at him. So anyway, it's true. So the point is, this was a corrupt, politically motivated institution from the beginning, the Roman Church. That's why I call it the Roman Catholic Church. It came out of the Roman Empire, OK? Well, this is the mother of false religion. I mean, this is the biggest false religion in the world. It's huge. A billion members, OK? Now, from Roman Catholic Church, we see these other religions spawn. The first one, AD 1054, the Great Schism, OK? Where, basically, the Roman Catholic Church began the Orthodox, the East Orthodox, OK? This is your Greek Orthodox, your Roman Orthodox, your, uh, what is it called? I don't know. There's all these different Orthodox, you know, whatever. But they basically split the Catholics. Now, let me tell you. They split over a few different things. I'll tell you the two main things. One of them was over idolatry. You know, basically, the East Orthodox did not believe in all the icons of the Roman Catholic Church, all the different idolatry and the statues and everything. They also split over baptism. It was a big thing. And there are a lot of reasons why they split. I'm just simplifying for the sake of the United Sermon. They split over baptism. The Bible thinks that baptism is by immersion. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. When Philip baptized Ethiopia, they went down both of them into the water and baptized it. All throughout the Bible, it's easy to prove that baptism is by immersion, especially because the Orthodox Christians believed... I'm sorry, they spoke Greek as their native language. The Roman Catholics spoke Latin. Well, the Greeks knew that the word vautizo in Greek means to immerse something underwater. And so these people strongly said, hey, it's immersion. These people said sprinkling. Okay, just sprinkle them on the fork. So what happened in 1054? The Great Schism. We have a split, half and half. The West goes with the Roman Catholic. The East goes with the Orthodoxy. That's 1054. Okay, now here's the thing. These people came out of what? The Roman Catholic Church. And let me tell you, they brought a whole lot with them. You can almost not even hardly tell the difference between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholic Church. The guy who was visiting this morning, Lee Rupus, that was here in service, he was raised Greek Orthodox growing up. And he said it was a workspace salvation. You know, they still have the priests. They have the baptism of babies. They just dump the babies all the way underwater. They just immerse babies, literally. Okay, I'm telling the truth. So that's your Orthodox. So you can see how Orthodoxy is looking a lot like mom. Right, I mean, look at the Orthodoxy and say, wow, you look a lot like your mother. You still have a bunch of idolatry. You're still teaching work salvation. You're still wearing all these funny dresses and funny hats and, you know, burning all this incense and everything, okay? A lot of similarity here, okay? Well, then you go down further down the line and you have the Protestant Reformation. This is where the Roman Catholic Church really started to have some children, okay? Because you have, you know, let me just go through. Again, this is not meant to be like a history lecture or an exact case and everything. I'm just trying to give you the feel here, okay? For example, you know, one of them, and these are in no particular order, okay? But for example, you have the Church of England, okay? This was started by Henry VIII. Now, Henry VIII was married, and his wife was not able to produce, in his mind, a male heir. She kept having daughters. So he decided to divorce her. So he went to the pope at the time and asked for a divorce, and the pope said, no, you may not have a divorce. Now, for a couple reasons. Number one, the Catholic Church technically doesn't condone divorce, even though today they give divorces to people all the time. Technically, they're against divorce. But secondly, his wife was Catholic and was a heavy Catholic influence in the nation, and so they wanted to keep that Catholic influence. They didn't want him divorcing his Catholic wife. So Henry VIII said, you know what? I'm going to give divorce anyway. I'm going to do what I want to do. And so he broke off from the Roman Catholic Church and started his own church where he was the head of it, and it was called the Church of England. He threw out all the Catholics, and he also made, at the same time as he threw out the Catholics, he made beating yourself illegal, self-flagellation, because the Catholics used to whip themselves with whips, and it's true. And he threw them out of the country, okay? So that's the Church of England. Well, the Church of England in America today is known as what? Episcopalian. Okay? Episcopalian is what the Church of England is known as in America. Because I guess Church of England's just not a local title when you live in Arizona. So they go by Episcopalian, but it's the same organization. They still answer to the Church of England back in the UK, okay? Hey, you know, another time around the Protestant Reformation, you have Martin Luther, okay? Now, here's what happened with Martin Luther. Martin Luther was studying to... This is what happened. He was riding his horse one night, okay? And he was in this big thunderstorm, and he was really scared that he was going to die. And he was under this tree, and he prayed, God, if you'll let me survive this, I will become a Catholic priest, okay? So he survived, and so he decided to become a Catholic priest, okay? So he went in, he's studying in some monastery. He's got a glass of beer in his hand, okay? And he's got a Bible in the other hand, okay? So he's drinking his beer, reading the Bible. And he gets to this part that says, the just shall live by faith. And all of a sudden, he just looked at that and said, you know what? The Roman Catholic Church is wrong. It's all about faith, okay? Well, but the problem is, so he starts sitting on the Lutheran Church. Then he goes and decides he's going to nail the 95 theses on the wall of the church in his town in Germany. He goes there, and on October 31st, 1517, okay? So we'll throw a date on him, 1517. Just, you know, one random date in his life of when he kind of started his big thing with the 95 theses. He puts the 95 theses on the wall. People will try to tell you that it was, oh man, it's great, it's anti-Catholic. It was not at all. He still believed 90% of Catholicism. He just didn't like 10% of it. He still believed in baptizing babies. He still believed, and the Lutherans believed today, and they said, they still believe that when you eat the cracker and drink the juice, you know, that it literally becomes the body and blood of Christ, which is a strange doctrine, okay? That Catholics believe transubstantiation, which is really kind of like cannibalism, if you think about it, you know, if you're eating, if it's becoming flesh and blood while you're eating it, you know, it's a little weird. You know, he just, he kind of goes like this, and then, you know, poof, it becomes human flesh in your stomach, I guess. Well, the Lutheran Church still believe in that. They still have idolatry. They still look a lot like their mother, because it was started by a Catholic priest, Martin Luther. And he still said, you must endure to the end, you must live a Christian life all the way until you die in order to be saved. So it's still a work of salvation, okay? Well, then we'll throw somebody else on here. John Calvin. John Calvin, a Catholic priest. Who decided he didn't like the Catholic Church, split off from the Catholic Church, started his own religion, okay? But notice the common denominator. They all came straight out of the Catholic Church. This is half the membership of the Catholic Church, just called himself Orthodox. This is the Church of England, a Roman Catholic country, a Roman Catholic leader breaking off and starting his own branch of the Roman Catholic Church. This is Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, studying to be a Catholic priest. John Calvin, a full-blown Catholic priest, breaks out. And these people took a lot of Catholicism with them, okay? Let's follow some of these down on the family tree. Okay, Episcopalian. Two men that were brothers were studying to be Episcopalian priests, John Wesley and Charles Wesley, okay? They decided that the Episcopalian Church was corrupt. And so they decided to start a denomination called the Methodist Episcopalian. Okay? Methodist Episcopalian. Because we're getting back to the old methods of the Bible. Well, here's the thing. John Wesley wrote an entire book on why you can lose your salvation. Whole book. He goes through, like, you know all the arguments that we use when we're proving to the Bible, from the Bible, somebody said, you can't lose it, it's eternal, you're a child of God, he'll never forsake you. All these examples show all these arguments. He goes through them one by one and tries to prove them wrong in this book. And the book's ridiculous. But I've seen the book. I've looked through it. Written by John Wesley. And yet Baptist preachers today will lift him up as some kind of a hero of the faith when he did not even believe in salvation by faith alone. He believed you could lose your salvation if you don't live right. So you have the Methodist Episcoparians. Well, when they came to America, they just dropped this name and just decided to just be called Methodist, okay? Then another one that came out of the Church of England is called the Puritans. Now, you remember, these are like the pilgrims who came to America with the hats and the first Thanksgiving and all that, okay? Well, the Puritans then began being called the Congregationalists, okay? So the Congregationalists came out of the Puritans. The Puritans came out of the Church of England. They wanted to try to purify it, but then they ended up just leaving and coming to America. The Church of England came out of where? The Roman Catholic Church, okay? So the Congregationalists in the 1800s just became more and more corrupt, more and more corrupt, and this is where pretty much most of your cults come from. Congregationalists spawned the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, okay? Come out of the Congregationalists, okay? And other cults and sects. A lot of your Pentecostals today come from the Congregationalists. A lot of your Pentecostals today come from the Nazarenes, which the Nazarenes came from a split in the Methodist Church in the 1800s. A lot of Pentecostals come straight from the Methodists. Some come from the Nazarenes, okay? John Calvin had a disciple, John Knox, who started the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. Okay, so this is John Knox, who was the disciple of John Calvin, who came out as a Roman Catholic priest, okay? Now, let's ask ourselves this question. Do the Presbyterians baptize babies? Now, did you grow up a Presbyterian? Yeah. Do they baptize babies? Yes. Do the Lutherans baptize babies? Okay. Do the Methodists baptize babies? Do the Episcopalians baptize babies? Do the Orthodox baptize babies? Where do you think they got that from? Do you think that they got it from reading the Bible? When the Bible clearly states every time, it says that John was baptizing an anon near to Salem because there was much water there. If he would have just needed a birdbath if he was just sprinkling them as they went by, why did he have to go to a place where there's much water in order to baptize? He baptized in a River Jordan. It clearly, every time, says they went under the water. It's a picture of the dead burial and resurrection of Christ. And so where did they all get it from? Don't tell me that they all just came up with it separately. They all took it from the same source, the Roman Catholic Church. This guy left the Roman Catholic Church. You want to know what the real reason was? Political reasons. He set up his own government in Geneva, Switzerland. It was like a fascist dictatorship. He executed a Jew just for being a Jew. He executed a Baptist just for being a Baptist. I mean, read the history. Political reasons, right here. Political reasons, again. Political reasons. So you can see that these all came from the same mother, and that's why they all look like mom. And what are the major denominations about leaving out? Somebody help me out. Am I missing any main ones? There's really Wesleyan. Pardon me? Wesleyan? Then there's something called Wesleyan. Okay, Wesleyan is going to fall under this right here because the Methodist religion was started by John Wesley. John and Charles Wesley, the two brothers, okay? And see, what happens is the Wesleyans are basically saying, well, the Methodists have strayed from John Wesley's original teachings, so we're going back to, like, John Wesley. So we're calling ourselves Wesley, okay? What did you say? Reformed. Okay, reformed is usually they're looking to these two guys right here. Because the people that I knew back in Sacramento that went to a church that was called Reformed Church, they were real big on John Calvin, and they were real big on Luther. Now, what doctrine is John Calvin known the most for? Calvinism, which means that God controls everything that's happening. Like, right now, God just made me do that. That's what they believe. I mean, look, if I take my shoe off, like Nikita Khrushchev, and beat it on the table, it's because God just, you say, why'd you do that? Well, I don't have any choice but... You know, I mean, I'm just doing what I was ordained to do, like, before the world was ever created. God ordained that I would beat my shoe on the table. I'm just eating service. Well, the reason that this is such a twisted, sick doctrine is because of all the twisted, sick things that are going on in the world, and you're going to tell me that God dreamed that up? Hey, Romans chapter 1 says that people who go into perverted things, it says, after the lusts of their own hearts, their wicked imagination. God didn't come up with all this weird stuff that people are into. Hey, it's man and his heart that becomes evil when he rejects God that comes up with this stuff. If God's controlling the world, look, what is he doing? He's not doing a very good job if this is him controlling every human being. So he's controlling all these monstrous people that are hurting people and doing evil? No. It's a very twisted doctrine. It's also twisted because they're saying that God determines who goes down to hell. Then why is he sending the majority to hell? Without even giving them a chance? Doesn't even make sense. And then is he deceptive when he says, hey, whosoever believeth? If it's only these certain people? Okay, and so he's being very safe. He's telling them that God so loved the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only God and said that whosoever, anybody out of the world who believes on him will be saved. And they're just saying, oh, that's just for a select few. Okay. So now, if you want to name off a bunch of nominations, most of the ones that you can name are going to come under this heading right here. Pentecostals, which mainly came out of the Nazarenes, the Methodists, and the Congregationalists. That's your Church of God, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ. They start running out of names. Assemblies of God. Okay, and what do they all have in common? What is the big teaching of the Pentecostals? One world religion, one world church. They are all, all, all believing in the universal church. I have never met a Pentecostal that won't tell you the church is made up of all believers. And you know what? Everybody on this whole blackboard believes that, that the church is made up of all believers. It's a universal religion. Now, who knows what the word Catholic means? Universal. Universal. Look it up in the dictionary. The word Catholic means universal. So it's really called the universal church, the Roman universal church. Now, these reformers, John Calvin, Martin Luther, this is what they said. We don't believe in a visible universal church. We believe in an invisible universal church. You know, it's invisible. You just can't see it. It's there. Whereas the Roman Catholic Church, it's a visible organization. The Pentecostals are your... And you know, here's another group that came out of the Methodists. The African Methodist Episcopalians. Who's ever heard of that denomination? And this is open, abbreviated to what? AME. You know, so and so AME church. African Methodist Episcopalians. And then they also, there's two branches. There's the African Methodist Episcopalians, and then there's African Methodist Episcopalians, Zion. Now, I don't know what the difference is, but you know, these are more Pentecostals, basically. Okay? And you have all these different denominations that are Pentecostal. They're all very universal. They all teach that you can lose your salvation, and the vast majority believe in speaking in tongues, which is like, to them, it's like all this gibberish and rolling in the aisles and woo hoo! You know, that kind of stuff. So, you know, this gives you an idea of where this all came from, right? Now, that was all kind of introduction to the sermon, you know. And again, I'm not trying to give you some lecture on history. You know, if I took the time, I could prepare it and give you the exact dates and everything. And yeah, some of the dates I know, but to be honest with you, I'm not really interested in studying all the equivalents, you know? And I haven't really even done much study here. It's just, this is the stuff that you pretty easily learn and pick up through the years. You know how I learned about false religions? Because I'm not going to sit there and read the Book of Mormon. You know, I'm not going to sit there and fill my mind with these different teachings of the Quran and the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price and the Tao teaching. I don't have to read all this stuff. Because you know how I learned about other religions? I go solely. I go solely. And I talk to Mormons. I talk to Josephus. I talk to Baptists. I talk to Methodists. I talk to Church of God and Christ. I mean, I have talked to every denomination under the sun at some time. Christadelphians, you know? Just the other day, let me tell you. So, you know, I'm not going to show it. I'm running into these people, okay? And I was talking to a friend of mine lately, and I said, you know what? I said, here's how I can tell what churches in town are great churches. Because we'll knock at every door in a certain neighborhood, and everybody who goes to a certain church, we'll ask them. Like, whenever we ask them if they know, sure, they all say they don't know if they're going to heaven. Or they say, I know I'm going because, you know, I go to church. I live a good life. You can lose your salvation. And obviously, you know, it's a bad church. Whereas another neighborhood you'll go to, everybody will say, oh, I go to this and that church. And then they're all saying, yep, I know I'm saved. It's through Jesus. It's by faith alone. And then you can say, hey, you know, even if they're not just like us, at least this church is, you know, preaching the gospel. It's a pretty good church. And, you know, it's easy to tell. You learn more about other religions by going solely than anything else. And the Bible says, learn not the way to the kingdom. So I'm not going to sit there and study their ways. I'm going to go out and try to win with Christ. And in the process, you're going to figure out what they're hung up on. What it is that they believe that's false. But remember what we started with? Matthew chapter 6. He said, be not ye there for light unto them. He said, don't be light unto them. Don't be light unto them who use vain repetitions. Hitting repetitions like, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Thy righteousness never giveth us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, forgive our trespasses. For thine is the kingdom and the power of the glory forever. Amen. Alright, one down, forty-nine to go. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Thy will be done. This is Catholicism. They go to the priest. They confess themselves to the priest. And he tells them, say, fifty our fathers and fifty ye who are married. Now the our father is found in the Bible. Look at Matthew 6. Are you still there? Flip over to Matthew 6. Because, look, now that we kind of see where all these denominations came from, we see that they all go back to the Roman Catholic Church every single one of them. Except Baptists. Baptists only go back to the Catholic Church in that, oh, they were called that by Catholics who were trying to kill them. Okay? But they were never former Catholics starting a new denomination. Now, again, all of these denominations are set up just like the Catholic Church. Jesus said, be not ye therefore like unto them. And yet the Lutherans are like unto them. The Orthodox are like unto them. The Methodists are like unto them. The Presbyterian are like unto them. They all have a hierarchy. The Mormons have their prophet. Then they have a board under that. And they have all this hierarchy. The Catholics have the pope. The Cardinals. The archbishops. The bishops. The priests. Okay? And on and on. All of the Southern Baptist Kingdom has the president, has the board of directors. Every denomination is covered after the same pyramid of hierarchy, which God never ordained. Look at Matthew chapter 6, though. It says in Matthew 6, verse 7, But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them. For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye. Our Father which art in heaven, how old ye I am. Now notice this. He's telling them, Don't use vain repetitions like the heathen do. They think they're going to be heard for their much speaking. Like just saying it fifty times is going to be pretty odd. So he says, Don't be like them instead. I want you to pray like this. So he's giving an example. He didn't say pray this prayer. He said after this manner. See that in verse 9? After this manner therefore pray. Pray in this way. And then people will actually take the prayer and chant it. I mean God, what is God thinking in heaven? I give up. I mean God sits there and says, Don't chant. Don't use vain repetitions. Don't repeat things over and over. Instead pray like this. Oh let's repeat that prayer. Our Father which art in heaven, how old ye I am. I keep you account of what we've done. What's in heaven. He just said don't repeat it. And then they'll chant that exact thing. Does this sound like a religion that's bleeding the Bible? No. And so he's saying, Don't be like them. Now we as Christians, we as Baptist should be nothing like the Roman Catholic Church. You know, they wear the long fancy flowing garments. We ought not do it. They have a stained glass window out front. I'm not going to put a stained glass window in front because it looks like the Catholics. The Bible says abstain from all appearance is equal. They've got their big steeple. I don't need a big steeple to be like the Roman Catholic Church. I don't need a stained glass window to be the Roman Catholic Church. They have the confessional booth. And you know what today, pastors that are Baptist have their own version of the confessional booth. They call it council. And they have people come into their office and dump all their dirty laundry, tell all the weird things that have gone on in their life, or give every twist and turn of their messed up marriage and their bedroom life, and they tell them all these obscene details. They go into all this detail. Look, that's nothing different than what the Catholics are doing, getting in some box somewhere with the pastor and telling them every dirty secret or every problem or every sin that you've got. I'm against it. People come to me and they want counseling. And people have said to me, I'd like to talk to you after the service. And I say, sure. When the service is over, I say, okay, what do you need? And they say, well, we need to go somewhere private. I say, I usually say to them, I say, see that corner of the room over there? That's as private as I get. You know, 10 feet from where people are standing, that's how private I get. And I never take people off into some office somewhere or give in some little room with them. And then they lay on the couch for me like a psychiatrist and tell me all the problems. I'm going to counsel them. You know, this is not what God called me to do. God called me to preach the Bible, to preach the Word. You don't need a psychiatrist, and you don't need a priest. You need a pastor to preach to you. And they have their own little version of the confessional booth where they'll get along with somebody in a room and hear all this stuff. And people come to me and try to tell me details of their marriage, I always just say, hey, I want to hear it. I'll say, it doesn't matter, because I don't need to hear your situation to know what the Bible says. Here's what I just say, just stop. Let me just show you what the Bible says about marriage. Turn to Ephesians chapter 5. And I show them Ephesians chapter 5, or I show them some other scripture about husbands, love your wives, wives, be obedient to your husbands. You know, I go through all the different scriptures, and I say, it doesn't matter what your situation is. The Bible says the same thing for everybody. You don't need some special, personalized version like, oh, let me personalize this to you. God will not be personalized. Why don't you personalize yourself to God? Why don't we make you fit into what God says instead of making the Bible, oh, let's fit it into your situation. Oh, is that what's going on? Well, I guess divorce is okay. No. You know, oh, that's extenuating, sir. No. The Bible is the same for everybody. But here's another version of the confessional booth. Every head bowed, every eyes closed, no one looking around. Today, I preached about pornography. Who would raise their hand and say, Pastor, I've been struggling with pornography. Pray for me. God bless you. I see that hand. I see that hand. You know, it's about being like a lukewarm, lazy Christian. Every head bowed, every eyes closed. Who here today, say, Pastor, I've been lazy. I've been a lazy jerk. God bless you. I see that hand. Okay. And then, okay, now come down the aisle and pray at the altar. Pray at my feet. And that's what these altars are. I mean, the pastor is literally on a platform standing up higher than everybody else, which is fine because I understand a public speaker might stand on a podium or a platform, and that's all fine and dandy to stand up on a platform and preach because, you know, you want to be seen by a crowd. But you know what? Having people come and kneel at your feet, maybe that's not such a good idea. And I'm not saying that pastors are wicked or sinful that are doing this, but I think they just haven't thought it through. Hey, wait a minute. Maybe some of these traditions got passed on from the old mother of war herself. You see, these Baptist churches, they didn't get these invitations from the Bible because you can't find an invitation on the Bible. Show me in the Bible where people bowed down and kneeled at the front of the auditorium at the end of the church service. Show it to me. Show me in the Bible every head bowed and every eyes closed. Show me in the Bible every head bowed and every eyes closed. It isn't there. Nobody was ever told in the Bible, hey, close your eyes. You know, close your eyes, there's going to be glass. Just kidding. Every head bowed, every eyes closed. So you have your eyes shut. Where did they get that from? Well, that was the church that they used to go to do that. And then they wound up, why'd they do it? Well, because the church that they used to go to did that. But where does it come from? Where does it go back to? If it doesn't come from the Bible, I have to ask myself, where is it coming from? Close your eyes. Raise your hand if you're struggling with sin right now. Oh, I see that hand. I see that you're struggling. I'll pray for you to do better. It's like a secret little thing where the pastor gets to see. Did you ever sit in church? See, I grew up in independent Baptist church. Didn't you ever, weren't you ever a little jealous of the pastor? Man, he used to know everything. He knows everybody's, you know, what their sin is, because they're putting up that hand. And you're like, well, why does he get to know? And you're trying not to open your eyes. You've got to keep them shut, because man, if you open your eyes, and then somebody busts you with your eyes open, it's like, well, how'd you know? You must have your eyes open. You know what I mean? I mean, hey, when I was growing up, I was really close to my eyes. So for all I know, everybody's eyes could have been open. I was just. I don't know what was going on. Okay. You know, somebody used to ask her, why did you have your eyes open during the invitation? How'd you know? Well, I just checked, because I figured that you would. I just checked. Just to make sure, you know. Look, I'm not saying that any church that does that is a wicked church or something. I'm just saying, look, having people kneel at your feet is not right. Okay, now call me crazy. I know I'm a fanatic for not thinking it's right for the pastor to stand up in front of everybody, and they're all bowing down with their eyes closed. But I'm sorry, it just seems a little weird to me. And so we're not going to do it here. We don't close our eyes. Hey, it's all out in the open. The only time we close our eyes when we pray, hey, I close my eyes too. If you want to keep them open, keep them open. I don't care. I'm going to bow my head and close my eyes. You can do a cartwheel, Paul. And so you say, what's the point of this sermon? Be not like unto them. We ought not be patterned after a false religion. And many of these traditions, if they didn't come from the Bible, they come from that false religion. Now, maybe as Baptists, we don't baptize babies. But what do Baptists do that's very similar to baptizing babies? Baby dedication. Baby dedication, they bring the baby up and the pastor prays over the baby. You say, what's wrong with that? Because it's patterned after a false religion. That's what's wrong with baby dedication. You say, oh, come on, what's the big deal? I talked to a Lutheran recently and asked this Lutheran, I said, don't they baptize babies at your church? And the Lutheran said, well, they do, but it's more like just a dedication. They said, we're just dedicating that baby to Christ. We know the baby doesn't believe. It's just us dedicating the baby. And that's what Lutherans will tell you. That's what Presbyterians will tell you. That's what Methodists will tell you. Why do they baptize babies? Oh, it's just a dedication. And then we as Baptists are going to have a dedication? Why are we following? Why are we being lightened to them? I don't think our church building should look like a cathedral or a Catholic church. I don't think it should have a steeple and stained glass windows and be patterned after a Catholic church. I don't think so. I don't think that I should dress like a Catholic pastor. I remember when I was in the black heavens of Chicago, a lot of the missionary Baptist churches would have their caller turn around backwards. Where did they get that from? Is it in the Bible? No. It's the Catholic church that has their caller turn around backwards. Who knows what I'm talking about? You know they have a little white patch right here because they have their calls turn on backwards. They have that little white patch. You know, a little house on the prairie. Reverend Alden, you know, the phony preacher that the church that they went to, he had his caller turn around backwards. My dad used to enjoy watching a little house on the prairie when I was growing up, but when Reverend Alden would come on screen, he would scream at the queen. He'd say, Dad, may I be? This is what he'd say. That guy's a nappy, pammy preacher. He's so watered down. He never preached anything negative. He never said anything. He's just like, well, you know, everything's okay. Everything's great. With his caller turn around backwards. Like a Catholic. Baptizing babies. Like a Catholic. Baby dedication. Sounds like a Catholic. Wearing long robes while you preach. Or even, you know, they'll robe the choir members sometimes. The pastor will wear a suit, and then the choir is in long robes. Looks like what? The Catholic church. We need to be careful not to let these traditions creep in. If it's not in the Bible, let's not do it. Let's not do it. I mean, singing hymns as a congregation, that's in the Bible. Praying as a church, that's in the Bible. Singing hymns, stringed instruments, pianos with stringed instruments, that's in the Bible. Preaching, that's in the Bible. Taking up the collection, taking up the offering, that's in the Bible. I mean, everything we do ought to be in the Bible. Going house to house to get off school. It's in the Bible. And we ought not let these traditions creep into our service that are not found in the Bible. And so we ought to decide, hey, look, maybe all these other denominations are like that to the Catholic church, but that's because that's where they came from. We were not born from the Catholic church. We're not part of any denomination. And you know what? True Baptists have never been part of a denomination. That was just a label given to anybody who was going against the grain of the Catholic church. And like I said, some of them were not even really believed in the gospel. Some of them were false religions. And today, a lot of Baptist churches are false churches that preach wrong things. There is such a variety. I mean, Rick Warren is a Baptist. Bill Clinton is a Baptist. Jimmy Carter is a Baptist. I'm a Baptist. Billy Graham is a Baptist. And Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist. I'm a Baptist. The guy across the street, Twin Butte Baptist Church. Can you see a little bit of diversity and difference in the beliefs of the people that I just listed? See what I'm saying? And so Baptist has never been a denomination. Now, there are Baptist denominations that have come together, like the SPC. You know, Calvary Chapel is basically made up of Baptists. I mean, they call themselves non-nominational, but their doctrine is pretty much similar to a Baptist doctrine. It's watered down, okay? But as Baptists, let's not put ourselves back into the yoke of linking ourselves together into denominations and to following these rituals, these vain repetitions. You know, be careful of vain repetitions in your life. Think about this. When you pray for your food, has that just become a vain repetition? Has that just become something that you just chant or are you actually talking to God? Think about that now. When you pray for your food, you ought to be thanking God for that food. And you ought to think some thoughts in your heart of gratitude for your food. And not just say like, Your Jesus name is Jesus. Blessed are thy Jesus. You know, and if you say it fast, that's fine. But the question is, are you actually thankful in your heart? And say, Hey, dear Jesus, thank you for this food. You know, I appreciate what you've given me. I appreciate what you provide me. And you don't have to go into some dissipation about it. I mean, you know, you can make it a quick thing, but what really matters is not the words that's coming out of your mouth, but what's in your heart. Are you really thankful? And are you even communicating to God, or are you just saying it out loud and just saving the people around you? Think about that now. Or other repetitions. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul. Think, were you praying to be saved every night? I already got saved one time. I don't need to pray that. But people will repeat prayers. Or they'll have a prayer book. Don't repeat something when you pray. Every prayer out of your mouth should be different, because it should be coming from your heart. It shouldn't just be repeating. It should be something that you've authored in your own mind and heart, where you speak to God personally. Okay, rituals, vain repetitions, traditions of men, Roman Catholicism. Hey, be real. Don't follow that stuff. Don't become like some kind of a... I don't want to say religious, because religious is a good thing. You know, religious is a Bible doctrine. But I think some people, they get like these religious feelings when they smell incense, you know, or when they hear music, and they get these feelings, and it's all about like a religious feeling and a worship experience. Hey, when we come to church, let's be real about it. Let's sing the songs like we mean it. Let's pray to God, not just repeat a prayer before I start preaching or, you know, repeat a prayer when I'm done. Pray from the heart. Mean it. Talk to God. And don't fall into just a rut and a rhythm in your life, okay? Live a life that's real before God and not this Catholicism chanting, bead counting, and all this stuff. You know, and don't come confess things to me. Sometimes I'll preach on some stand and people come up to me and say, yep, I've been guilty of that. I've been doing that. And I'm just like, you know, don't tell me that. I'm like, don't go in. I don't want to hear about it, you know? And, you know, I understand being humble and confessing your faults and saying, you know, that's fine. But I just don't like when people specifically do it to me as if I'm somebody. You know, I mean, the Bible talks about confessing your faults one to another. It doesn't say everybody confess your faults to the pastor, okay? And so that's why when people come to me, I almost feel like they're trying to get something off their chest to me. It's like, look, you know, talk to God, talk to somebody else. I'm the pastor of this church. You know, I preach. I'm trying to be a leader. Like, I'm trying to set a direction for our church, guiding a direction, like, hey, soul winning, you know? Read the Bible, memorize it, pray, you know, but I'm not. That's all I am, just a leader. You know what I mean? I'm not some kind of a special, magical person or something where you come confess to me. No, I'm just, you know what? I'm just trying to lead here, okay? And so confess to one another if you have something to say, you know? And that's up to you. But let's not let this stuff creep into our church and let's decide not to be like them. Let's be different. Let's pray from the heart, you know? Let's not just follow our religion that's made by man, but let's have a real walk with God that's based on the Bible. Let's prioritize that word of prayer. Father, please just bless the sermon, dear God. You know, it's difficult tonight for me to express what I mean to say, but Father, help everyone here to understand that, you know, religion in this world has degenerated into just a repetition of people going to church, performing a ritual, going through the motions, and God, help us not to be like that. Help us not to follow the traditions of men, but help everything that we do as faithful, we're a Baptist church, to come from the Bible and help us to be willing to be corrected if we're contrary to the Bible, dear God. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.