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

Amen. Galatians chapter 5, the part that I want to focus on is beginning in verse 16, and the title of my sermon is The Works of the Flesh, The Works of the Flesh. Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, and what that means is that they are apparent. We can see them. It's no secret what they are, and that's what manifest means, openly displayed, apparent. We know that they're there. And the Bible tells us, beginning in verse 16, this I say then, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And the obvious counterpoint to that is that if we don't walk in the spirit, we will fulfill the lust of the flesh. We have to walk in the spirit in order to not fulfill the lust of the flesh. That's the solution to the problem of the flesh, okay? The flesh is that part of us which is not saved, right? It is the unregenerate man. When we got saved, our spirit was quickened, but our flesh stayed the same. Our body didn't change. It wasn't like the moment you got saved, you looked down, and all the blemishes and imperfections of your body started to disappear as your body was just completely made perfect in Christ. No, your flesh stayed exactly the same when you got saved. It was the spirit that was quickened. So now you've got this dichotomy between the new man, which is the regenerate man, the son of God spiritually that you've become in Christ, and that old sinful flesh that is still there, okay? So now you've got this war going on between the flesh and the spirit, between the new Steven Anderson and the old Steven Anderson, or insert your name here, the new man versus the old man, and part of the flesh is the brain, okay? This is what is known as the carnal mind. So when we talk about the flesh, we're not just talking about skin, bone, muscle, blood vessels. We're actually talking about your brain as well. There is something called the carnal mind, and the Bible says that the carnal mind is an enmity against God. There's the natural man that receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for their foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. But then there is also the spiritual mind. To be spiritually minded is life, right? So let's read this. It says, walk in the spirit, verse 16, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. When you get saved, you delight in the law of God after the inward man. When you get saved, you love the Lord on the inside. You delight in the things of God on the inside because that new man, that new creature in Christ loves the things of God, loves the Lord, loves church, loves the Bible, loves the hymns. But you've also got that old man, and these are contrary, and so you can't do the things that you would. You want to serve God, but then the flesh holds you back, right? So you've got to win that battle. You've got to put on the new man. You've got to mortify the deeds of the flesh. You've got to read your Bible. You've got to pray. You've got to sing hymns. You've got to go to church. Why? So that you can feed that spirit and win the battle over the flesh. And this is something that happens every single day. You know, Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. This isn't a one-time thing. This is a daily denial of the flesh. That's why the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is have some kind of communion with the Lord, whether that be prayer or reading your Bible or singing a hymn. Just right away get your mind on spiritual things. Don't just start out carnal and just roll into the day with that which is of this world, right? There's something spiritual going on the first thing when you wake up because this has to happen every single day. But he says in verse 18, but if you be led of the spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest. We talked about what that meant. Which are these? And none of these should come as a surprise to us because of the fact that they're manifest, right? It says, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like of the which I tell you before as I've also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now here's what you have to understand. If people that did these things inherited the kingdom of God, then the kingdom of God would not be a very nice place because then the kingdom of God would be filled with a bunch of adultery and murder and drunkenness and all that. So in order for us to enter the kingdom of God, in order for us to enter the kingdom of heaven, we have to be saved, okay? That's the only way to get there because guess what? Every single one of us has these tendencies in our flesh. We have the capability to do these things and we have done some of these things and even if you haven't done all of these things, you've done some of these things, period. Nobody is without sin and you say, well, I haven't done anything on that list. Well what about and such like? You know, I mean, he lists 17 specific items and then he's just saying stuff like that, such like. We've all done such like. We've all done sinful, bad things. So you know, some people who want to teach a works-based salvation just say, well, hey, you know, you got to just clean up your life and get this all out of your life and start living a perfect life. Well, you know what? Good luck with that. But the Bible says all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death. Even lying could be put on the such like and lying will send you to hell. Any of these things will send you to hell. The only way to get to heaven is to be saved. And you got to be saved by believing in Jesus. And when you believe in Jesus, your sins are separated from you as far as the east is from the west. And so that's how you're able to walk into the kingdom of God even though you've done these activities. Why? Because they're forgiven and forgotten. That's why. And when we get to heaven, we will never do these things again. And here's why. Because it is the flesh that causes us to do these things. If I were to go to heaven right now in my current condition, I wouldn't fit in. I wouldn't be able to exist there because I'd be too sinful. Even the greatest man on earth, John the Baptist, wasn't good enough to go to heaven in his sinful condition. That's why the Lord said, among them that are born of women, they're not risen or greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Why? Because even he in his sinful condition is not perfect and heaven's a perfect place. And there shall not enter into it anything that defileth. You know, nothing that defiles can get into heaven. So if we believe on Jesus Christ, we're saved, right? But we're still in the flesh. But the good news is we're not going to heaven in this flesh. We're not getting in a spaceship and going to heaven. We're going to go to heaven after this flesh is discarded. Now you're either going to physically die and then your soul spirit will go on to heaven, which is no problem because that sinful part of you will be left behind in a grave and buried and eaten of worms. But if you make it all the way to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, then you will forego physical death. The Bible says we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye. And when you're caught up to meet the Lord in the air, you're going to be changed in a moment. And the Bible says that He shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. So you're going to go to heaven if you die before the second coming of Christ, your soul, your spirit, and you won't be sinning. You'll never sin again once you get to heaven. Isn't that great? Never sin again, right? Then if you make it to the second coming of Christ, you know, you're going to be changed and get that glorified spiritual body and again still you're never going to sin again at that point. It's like the song goes, there is a fountain filled with blood till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more. He's saying, look, they're already here, the church of God, but they're still sinning, right? But someday we'll get to the point where we sin no more. Why? Because the flesh is what's making us sin. And so once we die physically, we're done with that. Or once we make it to the second coming of Christ, that's over, praise God, and we will never sin again. So we're not just going to go through eternity sinning and doing all these things, and we're not going to enter the kingdom of God in a sinful state. That's what's being taught. But what I really want, you know, that's just an introduction to kind of explain the context and explain the passage. What I really want to dig into, though, are the specific works of the flesh tonight. Now that we have our bearings spiritually with what we're talking about, what are the works of the flesh? Why talk about the works of the flesh? Because these are the things that we want to avoid. These are the things that we naturally have a tendency to do. We have human nature, sinful nature, whatever you want to call it. But our flesh wants to do these types of things, and these are the type of things that our flesh is going to draw us into if we don't walk in the spirit to avoid these things, right? So what are the works of the flesh? Well, when you look at this list, I find it helpful to break this list into three parts. And in fact, it's broken in three parts because it spans three verses. And actually, I really like the way it's broken up here in these three verses because it's sort of broken up by category if you think about it. Because look at the first verse that lists the works of the flesh in verse 19. It says, now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these, and then it gives four items, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Now can you see how those four items go together? I mean that's a great little bundle of wickedness right there, okay? You've got adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Now when I was memorizing this chapter, Galatians 5, I gave it a little mnemonic or memory helper there of spelling the word awful. And obviously we're missing a letter there, you know, there'd be a W in there. But that helps me remember whenever I'm memorizing scripture and there's a list, I'll use little tricks like that. And these are awful things, aren't they? So that'll help you remember the first four, right? Ununcurity, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Now uncleanness is not talking about what I preached against this morning, right? You know, untidiness or being a pack rat or something like that. You know, when the Bible used the word uncleanness, that's a euphemism for all types of just sinful activity in regard to that which goes on in the bedroom, right? So that which is related to fornication and adultery. Uncleanness and lasciviousness are two items that have to do with that same type of sin, okay? So lasciviousness has to do with lusting after those type of illicit relationships of fornication, adultery. And you know what? Frankly, that type of lifestyle is unclean. It's unclean even from a sanitation aspect and that's why God uses the term uncleanness because there's disease involved. It's unsanitary and it's morally dirty. You know, it's spiritually dirty and we even use that term, don't we? We say a dirty magazine, a dirty movie, right? A dirty book. What do we mean by that? Uncleanness. Well, that's what God means here. So this shouldn't be too hard to understand what he means by uncleanness. That which is dirty, that which is sinful in that way. So those four go together. Unsullory, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Mankind has a tendency to engage in these activities and we must walk in the spirit to avoid these type of temptations. You know, you can't just expect young people to just go to their marriage pure and make it pure to their wedding day just by accident, just by osmosis. Because guess where the flesh wants to take them? Into fornication. And when people get married, we can't just expect that they're just automatically going to be faithful to their spouse for a lifetime. No, because their flesh is going to tempt them and pull them into what? Adultery. And so we need to put on the new man, walk in the spirit, read the Bible, preach the Bible, listen to the Bible being preached, and understand how wrong these things are and we are to flee fornication. So we got fornication, adultery, uncleanness, lasciviousness. That's pretty obvious that those are tied in with the flesh because obviously these are physical cravings of the sinful man. Pretty easy to understand, right? Let's jump to the third part of the series, okay? So that's kind of the first section because I said we break this up into three parts because of the three verses, right? Look at the third part. We've got envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Now what does this little series have in common or what does this little series make you think of? Well, besides the sexual sins that we saw in verse 19, verse 21 is pretty much giving you the standard sins that worldly people are likely to commit. If we're not talking about the bedroom, you know, these are probably the other most common sins that we're going to see sinful people engaged in. Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and we see revelings there. I would just insert the modern word partying, you know, those who party, quote, unquote. That's what this is talking about. And so when the Bible says here envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, this covers a lot of American culture in 2018 of those who are non-Christian or those who are a very worldly Christian that would do these things, right? Drunkenness is pretty prevalent, isn't it? I mean drinking is almost universal sometimes you feel like when you get around the job site, you get in the business world. I can't even count how many times in the construction industry I was told, hey, if you do this extra job or if you run this wire, you know, I'll get you a six-pack of beer. I got a case of beer for you, buddy. Hey, I'm going to get you a 12-pack, buddy. And I'm just like, I don't drink, you know. But I can't even count how many times I was offered. Who's had that on the construction? Yeah, see what I mean? You know, that's the bonus. I mean that's the ultimate to them, right? That's what they think about. That's what they do. So drunkenness is pretty common, isn't it? I mean is it rare? No, it's common. So it must be a temptation that's common to man. And you know the things on this list are temptations that are common to man. These are the works of the flesh. They're manifest. We see them everywhere. We see drunkenness everywhere. You say, well, come on, Pastor Anderson, murder? Is murder that prevalent? Well, yeah, actually just ask 25% of women in America who've already had an abortion. Ask them if murder is prevalent. Because abortion is murder. Can try to sugarcoat it any way you want, but anyone with any sense or logic or reason knows that that baby's alive and you killed it. That's murder. And so don't listen to the liberals and all the weirdos that want to justify this wickedness. It's murder. So you can see murder is pretty common. How about envying? You know, we think about envying, desiring that which belongs to someone else, wanting to be someone else, not content with such things as we have, but envious of that which does not rightfully belong to us. This is the love of money, the root of all evil. And we see it everywhere. The commercialism, the materialism, the desire for more money, more goods, or wanting to be a star, wanting to be this celebrity, that celebrity. So this is pretty common in the world. And of course, revelings. I mean, you know, young people, this is what they live for, partying. You know, Friday night, Saturday night, whatever. And so these things are pretty common, aren't they? They're manifest. So that's the third part of the series. The first part of the series, of course, is also unfortunately pretty common. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Okay, so let's home in on that central verse here, verse 20. Because in verse 20, we find some items that we would probably not expect to be on this list. I wouldn't expect these things necessarily to be on a list of the works of the flesh. I mean, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness makes perfect sense. Works of the flesh, right? And then when I see things like, you know, drunkenness, murders, revelings, envyings, makes perfect sense. I mean, that's the flesh talking, right? But if you look at verse 20, what's interesting is this list here, it has a kind of a theme because these things have to do with religion. Isn't that interesting? Because we start out with idolatry, which has to do with what? Religion. And we end up with heresies. What does that have to do with? Religious beliefs. And when you look at a lot of other things on the list, you'll find a religious connotation. I mean, witchcraft has to do with that, which is spiritual. Even though it's an evil spirit that you're dealing with, there is still an element of spirituality there. And these other things that are listed here, with it, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions. I'm going to show you how this all kind of ties together into one thought. You know, the apostle Paul here, who is obviously speaking by the Holy Ghost, he's not just randomly stringing together a list of sins like, my grandmother had a big red trunk or something and he's just coming up with a sin to start with each letter of the alphabet or something like that. Nothing in the Bible is incidental, coincidental, or accidental. This list means something. These things are in the order that they're in for a reason. You know, God's trying to teach us something. God's trying to warn us about something, saying, hey, stay away from these works of the flesh and embrace these works of the spirit, the fruit of the spirit, rather, that are listed in verses 22 and 23. So let's go through and talk about each of these. Let's focus in our attention on verse 20 and let's start out with idolatry. Let's just start by defining these things, first of all. What is idolatry? Well, idolatry, in the literal sense, is when we carve out an image or a likeness or a molten image and we worship that or pray to that or bow down to that or venerate that, that is known as idolatry, right? So this could be anything from a Buddha statue to Hindu gods. This could be the Catholic saints, Mary statue, even a statue of so-called Jesus, even though it's just some long-haired white hippie dude that, you know, has nothing to do with – it's just a random dude because nobody knows what Jesus looked like so they just made a guy and just bow down to that guy, call it Jesus. You know, whether this is the golden calf or whether it's, you know, whatever Buddha or laughing Buddha or whoever it is, it is idolatry. Molten images, graven images, bowing down before them, venerating them, whatever you want to call it, that's idolatry, okay. Then witchcraft, witchcraft has to do with the dark arts, sorcery. This is spells, incantations, charms, basically intercourse with Satan or demons or evil spirits, fallen angels, crystal balls, voodoo, psychic hotlines, right? That's what this is referring to, witchcraft. Then hatred, now when the Bible says hatred here, this is not condemning all hatred as some people will try to twist this verse because of the fact that we know even Jesus Christ hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans, right? Jesus said twice in the book of Revelation, I hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. And the Bible commands us in Amos 5 verse 15 to love the good and hate the evil, okay. So the Bible says, abhor that which is evil, cling to that which is good. So this is not a condemnation of all hatred or as it would even be condemning the Lord and Jesus and condemning us for following the Bible. But what this is condemning when it says hatred, it's talking about hating your brothers and sisters in Christ or hating people without a cause. The Bible talks about being angry with your brother without a cause, hating your brother. If you hate your brother, you're a murderer and on and on. So most hatred in this world is wrong but obviously there is a righteous anger, a righteous hatred, even though most anger is wrong. There's a time for anger. The Bible even says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, there's a time to love and a time to hate, okay. So obviously we know that when Jesus Christ hated, he was not in the flesh. He was doing that which is right. But hatred is what? What define hatred? Hared is the opposite of love basically in a nutshell. That's a whole sermon of itself. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that. Variance. What does variance mean? This has to do with being different, okay. Think of variations, right. Well, variance is another way of saying variation, being different, okay. We'll come back to that. What does emulation mean? Vibration is mimicking or trying to be like someone else, okay. And who's used that word just in your everyday vernacular? You talked about someone emulating someone else. Sometimes you might look at a teenager and say that they're emulating this rock star or this Hollywood star or maybe this band is emulating that band, right. I know it's a word that I grew up using even just in my everyday vernacular. Some people might not have grown up with it as much but it's not that obscure of a word. It's not that weird of a word emulation, okay. To emulate someone is to try to be just like them. So if I'm emulating someone, I'm going to dress like them, talk like them, act like them, mimic them to try to be them. Does everybody understand what emulations is referring to there? And again, that could be good or bad because of the fact that the apostle Paul said that he desired, he said, to provoke to emulation them that were of his flesh that he might save some of them. He's saying, hey, I want them to emulate me, meaning I want them to be like me. I want them to follow me. But we're going to talk about what the bad kind of emulation is. The good kind is I see him going soul winning, I go do the same thing, you know. I see him reading his Bible, I'm going to go read my Bible. That's good emulation. But there's a bad kind of emulation. The next thing is wrath, okay. Wrath is extreme, intense, burning anger. Usually we associate this word with God because God really takes the cake on having the most intense anger. You know, when you're on the receiving end of God's anger, it's called wrath. But of course, there are also people in the Bible who become wrath, they have wrath. And the Bible warns us not to let the sun go down on our wrath and to be angry without sinning, right. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down on your wrath. Then strife, strife is when there is conflict between two people, right. Strife is when we're not getting along, we're fighting. If a marriage is constantly having fights and bickering and fussing between husband and wife, this would be marital strife, right. So right now I'm just helping define the words, then we're going to go deeper. But that's what strife is. What is sedition? Who's ever heard of the Alien and Sedition Acts, right? Whoops. Who knows what I'm talking about from the early days of our country, President John Adams and everything. Sedition has to do with rebellion or mutiny would be another term of that. It's when you're overthrowing authority, right. That's what sedition is. You're going behind people's back and trying to turn people against the authority and trying to have a coup d'etat as it were, right. And then he says heresies. What are heresies? Heresies are strange and diverse doctrines, false doctrines that will cause division among us by teaching things contrary to what we've been taught from the Bible, contrary to what the Bible teaches, what our parents have taught us, what our church has taught us, strange new doctrines, false doctrines that will carry people away into error. These are known as heresies, okay. And there are different degrees of heresy. I mean there's damnable heresy which is that which would affect even salvation itself. And then there could be other more minor heresies. But that's what this is referring to. Now I'm going to delve into these with a little more detail. But first let me stop and say this. What we need to understand, and this kind of goes back to what I was saying at the beginning of the sermon, is that these are the works of the flesh. Who participates in these works? Well two groups of people, saved and unsaved. Because unsaved people, of course, are going to do the works of the flesh. Why? That's all they've got. They don't even have the Spirit. So this is their life. This is who they are. This is what they're like. This is what's going to manifest in their lives, okay. So unsaved people are for sure going to do these things. But also saved people have the capability to do these things. When they're not walking in the Spirit, they're going to do these things. But they also have the Spirit at least warring against these things. So at least they have a fighting chance of getting these things out of their life. But unsaved people are going to do these things, and saved people are going to do these things. Now you say, Pastor Anderson, I find it hard to believe that a saved person could do some of these things. But yet if we stopped and went through each of these, we could think of specific examples of saved people that we've known that have done these things. Or maybe if you went real deep into your own life, you could think of times when you did something along these lines. Now you say, come on, witchcraft? Well look, I'm not saying that saved people are just going to go out and worship Satan or something. But you know what, I guarantee you there are saved people who've gone and got their palm read or fooled around with a Ouija board or fooled around with whatever the soothsaying and whatever. It's out there. You know, I hope you have it. I hope you don't ever mess with that stuff because it's very wicked and it opens the door to all kinds of horrible things. But there are saved people who could do that. And you know, an example of this is King Saul. I mean, here's a guy who believes in the Lord. He's a saved man. But just he's having a weird day. God's not talking to him. And what does he do? He goes to the witch at Endor. He goes to that woman that has a familiar spirit. So he participated in this. What was it that caused him to do that? You know, that was his sinful flesh that led him into that. That's a work of the flesh. And even heresies, obviously it's possible for a saved person to go into false doctrine, to get mixed up on false doctrine, even accidentally or unknowingly follow a lying false teacher to some degree, or even to go into heresy on their own. Why? Because of the flesh. And I'll explain why. So any of these things can happen. You know, there are saved people who even have idols and things and you know, it's wicked but it's out there. And it needs to be got rid of. But when we talk about these things, let's talk about how we could avoid these things or what they are. And I especially want to focus in on the ones that are less common, okay. Like what's this about variance or emulations, right, seditions. Let's talk about that. Well, I would say that variance could best be defined as being different for the sake of being different. Now this is something that the flesh tends to want to do. That's why teenagers, they dye their hair all kinds of crazy colors. They put on all kinds of crazy clothes. They do all kinds of wild and crazy things. Why? They're trying to stand out and be what? Different. That's variance, okay. It's being different for the sake of being different. Variance, okay. Now how does this manifest in a church? Well, if you would flip over to Hebrews chapter number 13. Hebrews chapter number 13. You see when you have young carnal preachers or young men who want to go into the ministry and they're not walking in the spirit but they're walking in the flesh, they're susceptible to this sin of variance. Just like the punk teenager at public school is going to dye his hair green, they're going to come out with some green hair doctrine just to be different, some different take on scripture, some different belief to try to stand out and be different, right, variance. And these can go hand in hand, variance and heresies because when you're trying to be different for the sake of being different, when you're trying to find some different doctrine that nobody else believes in, where do you think you're headed? Into heresy. Because you're trying so hard to be different, you don't even care that much whether it's for sure right or wrong, you're just going to go with it because it's cool and fresh and new and different and exciting and edgy and you found something that Pastor Anderson has never seen or any of his preacher friends have ever seen or his parents or grandparents or anyone has ever known. Look what the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 7, Remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation, Jesus Christ the same, yesterday and today and forever, be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats which have not profited them that have been occupied therein. The Bible says look, it's good to be established. It's good to follow the faith of those who have gone on before. Why does verse 7 tell you to follow the faith of those that have gone on before? Because verse 8 says that Jesus doesn't change. So if Jesus doesn't change, it makes sense that we could follow the faith of those in verse 7 and it makes sense that we would not follow the people in verse 9 that have all the weird doctrine and that we would stay with that which is traditional, that which has been handed down to us, that which is standard, not into that which is exotic, new, strange, foreign, whatever. Now here's the thing, tradition can sometimes lead us astray. The Bible warns us many times of people making the word of God of none effect through their tradition. We know the Pharisees and the Sadducees were people that had bad traditions that needed to be discarded. So if we come across a tradition that goes against the word of God, obviously we don't want to follow that tradition because the Bible has to be the boss at the end of the day. It's what the word of God says. But our default should be to go with what our parents have taught us, what our church has taught us, what the people who want us to Christ taught us, right, the stuff that's been handed down to us and given to us, that should be the default. That's the starting point, right, not to just be carried about with whatever we hear, whatever we see on the other. No, no, we have some kind of a foundation, we have some kind of a basis, we have some kind of a root or a starting point or a default, right, and we're going to leave that position only when there's a compelling reason to do so. I mean, it's going to take a lot to talk us into changing on something. Now, if we need to change on something, we need to change. We don't want to just say, I'm just going to stick with what the old time preachers preached and I'm never going to change. It's like, well, wait a minute, you know, if something was wrong, if something needed tightened up, if something was a little off, let's correct that, but not at the drop of a hat, not flippantly or easily just given to change. The Bible says we should not be given to change. If we need to change, let's change, but let's not just be given to change. Let's not just change because we like changing because we have this work of the flesh called variance where we just love to be different. We just love to stand out. We just love to come out with some new thing. That is where a lot of false doctrine comes from. It's where a lot of stupid preaching comes from and I don't know where people are getting – actually, I do. It came from the flesh. That's where it came from. It's a work of the flesh. Where is this stuff coming from? The sinful heart of man, the desire to puff up and lift up self with variance. It's the spiritual equivalent of the green-haired teenager. It's what it is. Now let me give you some examples from my own life where I had to discard tradition on certain things. Let me just explain to you how I believe that this thought process should work. I grew up an independent fundamental Baptist. I was blessed to be born into a home with parents that loved the Lord and took me to church from the time I was born all the time. There was never a time when our family quit going to church. We always went to church and my parents always tried to take me to the best possible church they could and without that I wouldn't be here. I thank God for my parents and I thank God for those churches that they took me to where I could be rooted and grounded in biblical teaching and I could learn doctrine and learn the Bible. Thank God I wasn't raised a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Mormon, a Catholic, whatever. By being raised Baptist, the vast majority of what I was taught was right. Thank God for that. That doesn't mean that I'm just going to go with everything I was taught, but that's the starting point. That's the default. That is the basis. As I got older, I came to certain things and I thought to myself, hey, this doesn't seem to jive with the Bible. For example, when I was 12 years old, I came to the conclusion that the Bible taught that the rapture is not pre-trib. It's after the tribulation, but all these churches are teaching is pre-trib, pre-trib rapture. Now, I didn't know the history behind it. I didn't realize that actually the majority of Christians throughout history have rejected the pre-trib rapture. That's actually a minority position that's more recent. In my world, that's what everybody believed. Even though I saw the post-trib rapture clearly in scripture, I was hesitant about it because of the fact that it was something different. I don't want to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. I don't want to be carried about with divers and strange doctrines. You know what? I believed that the pre-trib rapture was false, but you know what? I still stayed there, listened, learned, kept my mouth shut. What I'm saying is that I was hesitant to discard that which I was taught. I was just like, oh, sweet, this is something I can disagree with my church on and I can prove how independent of a thinker I am. That's awesome. That's a dumb attitude. That's variance. Rather, I was cautious, kept studying, kept reading, kept learning, and obviously you get to a point where you can't deny it, that the pre-trib rapture just isn't there. Later on in my life, there were other things, but it was always a slow process. I remember when I'd been pastoring for six months and I was preaching on a Wednesday night and I started to say something on a Wednesday night about how the Jews are God's chosen people and that land belongs to them and all the Zionist stuff I've been taught. I started to say that and I don't know if I said it or if I was just about to say it. I must have not said it because otherwise people would have thrown it in my face by now many times and nobody's ever thrown it in my face, so I must have not said it because they're all recorded and online. As the words were about to come out of my mouth, or maybe they did come out of my mouth, I was thinking to myself, do I really even believe this or is this just something I've been taught my whole life? Just a tradition, right? So then I went to the scripture and I started saying scripture and right away I was like, wow, the Jews are not God's chosen people. But you know what? I was very hesitant. I was like, oh man, I'm not just going to just on a dime just discard what I've been taught, discard everything, because I thought maybe I'm wrong. I read the Bible twice cover to cover before I ever preached that. So I'm saying once I realize, uh-oh, something's wrong with my doctrine on the Jews, then I'm like I'm going to read the Bible two times cover to cover just thinking about that one thing. You understand what I'm saying? I read the Bible two times cover to cover and that confirmed, okay, what I'm seeing is there. And then I got another preacher that I found that agreed with me. So then it was like, okay, I'm not the only one seeing this because, you know, if we all have the same Holy Spirit and the same Bible, you know, we shouldn't just have some unique doctrine that's just unique to us only. That's a scary thought, isn't it? So you know, then it was like a well-respected preacher that I admired, you know, he had the same teaching and I thought to myself, you know what? This is true. I have the confidence to preach this. That's not being tossed to and fro. That's not being carried about slowly stopping and being very reluctant to discard established teaching. But then, you know, we have people who come to our church, haven't even read the Bible cover to cover at all, let alone about a certain subject. You know, I mean, before I started the church, I'd read the Bible 20-some times, okay. Then I read it twice just about that subject. But then you got these guys who are literally on their first or second time through the Bible cover to cover and they're just ready to just throw out everything that I teach at the drop of a hat. I get up and preach the Bible, it's like, hey, I've been studying this for decades, I've been studying this for years, you know, this is what the Bible teaches. And they're just like, I saw a YouTube video that said something else. You know, and it's like they just throw it out, there's no study, there's no due diligence, there's no process of figuring out whether these things are so. Just at the drop of a hat, ready to just jump on whatever the YouTube video, whatever the doctrine of the week, doctrine of the month, you know what, it's garbage. It's variance. And a lot of young preachers, they want to basically put themselves on the map by coming out with some exotic new doctrine and they end up making themselves look like an idiot. That's what they end up doing. Or they end up preaching heresy and leading people astray. And so don't let that be you. If you're a young preacher, you know, you need to do things the right way. You know, a lot of people say, well, what about you pastor, you know, you preach stuff that goes against the mainstream. Yeah, but I thought about it for years and then I reluctantly said, hey, we've been wrong about this, this needs to change. That's different than just flippantly just throwing everything out the window. Okay. And the thing about that is that I never set out to be different. I never set out of, I'm going to start this new movement, this new IFB. How did I know that all the old IFB were going to just embrace sodomy? How could I have predicted that? You know, and the issue on the timing of the rapture, to me, that was never a major issue as far as like, it's not a salvation issue. It's not a core doctrine or anything like that. It's not like a damnable heresy to be wrong on the timing of the rapture or something like that, right? So, you know, I never set out to be this pioneer and start, you know, I just wanted to be an independent Baptist preacher, okay? And the way that it worked out where the old IFB just went off into crazy town, you know, then it's like, oh, well, here we are and, you know, we're leading and people are following us and people are listening to us. That was never the goal, though. You know, if that's what God does, if that's how it works out, that's how it works out. But that shouldn't be the goal. I'm going to be the next big thing. I'm going to be, you know, just serve God. Just be humble. Just win souls. Just preach the best sermons you can possibly preach. Preach the Bible. And if you're not sure about something, don't preach it. Preach what you know for sure. Preach what you know is right. You know, you're still going to make mistakes, but don't just preach wild stuff because it's going to get you more viewers or more people to show up or more pats on the back of, wow, your sermons are always so exciting, so much new stuff. I mean, look, there's a way to have exciting sermons with a lot of new stuff. The right way. And you know what the right way is? A ton of Bible reading. I mean, look, you put your face in the Bible for a couple hours a day. You memorize hundreds of chapters of the Bible, you're going to have some interesting stuff to say about the Bible. Or you can take the shortcut and just get the crazy new doctrine of the month and preach that. And wow, everybody with, wow, I've never heard that before. Yeah, you never heard it before because it isn't true. You never heard it before. I never heard that passage that way. That's because it's not what that passage says. So yeah, I'm all for preaching exciting new truths if they came from hours and hours and hours of mining through the Bible and finding the unsearchable riches of Christ, not just gimmicks. But people are looking for a shortcut, aren't they? We're talking about variance tonight. What is variance? Being different for the sake of being different. Now a lot of times pastors can feel this way or church members can feel this way that they need to be different, to stand out. Why don't you just stand out by doing a good job? Why do you need a gimmick? It's a lot easier just to dye your hair green, isn't it, than to actually have some real achievements in your life. You could have some achievements or you could just pierce up your face and put 10,000,000 different piercings in it. That'll stand out. You can light yourself on fire or you can actually achieve something, build something, learn something, do something. Different for the sake of being different. Now there are people out there who have what's called a need to persuade or a need to compensate. What am I talking about? You know the guy who's got the gigantic 4x4 that's just a little too big? You know what I'm talking about? How about the guy who goes to the gym to the point where his biceps are like a cantaloupe or a small melon? You know what I'm talking about? Where it's overkill. Why? He's got a need to persuade. He's trying to overcompensate for his own insecurity. He's got to prove to everybody, hey, look how strong I am, everybody. Look how tough I am. Look what a bad dude I am. Look at that truck out in the parking lot. This is coming from an insecure person who's got to persuade all the time and compensate and impress. Do you see what I'm saying? Here's what happens amongst preachers and amongst Christians. They've got to prove that they're different than Pastor Anderson. I'm not just a blind follower. So I've got to prove that I think for myself. So it's like they've just got to find something to disagree with me on, even if it's not there. Now look, if there's something that you disagree with me on because I'm wrong, then disagree with me. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If the Bible says something different than what I'm teaching and you've actually done the due diligence and figured out why I teach the way I teach, figured out why I believe what I believe, why I'm preaching what I preach, and you look at it and you say, you know, Pastor Anderson, it just isn't there, then disagree with me. But then there are people who just disagree with me on stuff because they're just looking for something to disagree on just so they can prove to everybody, I'm my own man, ma. I'm a big boy now. I got my own doctrine. I got my own religion. Here's the thing. If you're just secure in your walk with the Lord, you don't have to go around proving to everybody, hey everybody, just so you know, I got my own walk with God, everybody. Just so you know, everybody, I'm not following anybody except Jesus. This is insecurity talking. This is variance talking. Do you understand what I'm saying? Let's just be different for the sake of being, you know, there's nothing wrong with agreeing with your pastor. I mean if he's wrong, he's wrong, but if he's right, he's right. And the default should be to agree with him. And look, I sat in church. You think that I've been a pastor my whole life? Guess what? I sat in church my whole childhood. I sat in church my whole teenage years. I sat in church as a young adult. I sat in church as a young married man. I sat in church with three kids and you know what I did? I sat there and I listened and I, by default, believed what I was hearing. Then I received the Word of God with all readiness of mind, then I searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so, but I received it with a ready mind. I wasn't just like, just skeptical about it, right? I mean I, look, and if you say, well, I'm not going to just by default believe what Pastor Anderson preaches, then you need to find a church where you actually believe in the church enough to where you can say like this church is a right church, this is a godly church, this pastor is a man of God, this is a guy I can follow, this is a guy I can listen to, this is a guy I can learn from, this is a church I can get on board with. You know, this is a church that I can invite my friends to and feel good about it and be on board and be a part of the team and want to be on that team, right? Because if you don't feel that way about our church, you should find a church where you do feel that way. That's what I would recommend. If you're like, well, I just kind of hold my nose and go to Faithful Word because it's the best thing I can find, it's the closest to the truth. You need to find something a little closer. You know what I mean? You need to just go find that closer church because, you know, we're a team here. You know? And you know what? When I went to Regency Baptist Church, I was a team player. And when I went to First Baptist Church of Hammond, I was a team player. And when I went to Citadel Baptist Church, I was a team player. You know what? That is what being a part of the church is about. It's about being a team player, not being a person who's just got to prove all the time that you're going to do your own thing. That's just childish. It's juvenile. It's immature. It just shows you're an immature babe in Christ and that the flesh is talking and it's variance. Let's look at a few more of these. I've only got a little time left. Let's look at a few more. What is emulations? Emulations is when you are mimicking or trying to be someone else. Instead of just being yourself, instead of letting God use you for who you are and just being who God made you to be, getting up and preaching the sermons that God laid on your heart as you, it's when you feel like you have to get up and imitate someone else. On the surface, emulations and variance kind of seem like opposites on the surface because one of them is like being different for the sake of being different and then one of them is like trying to be a carbon copy, right, emulations. But the ironic thing is that these two things can actually go together because you can have variance of, well, I'm going to be different because I want to be the leader because I'm emulating leadership instead of just realizing, hey, it's okay to follow. It's okay to be a church member. It's okay to be an assistant pastor. It's okay to be a deacon. It's okay to just be a part of the team. Not everybody has to be the quarterback or the wide receiver or whatever. You can just be a part of the team, amen? You know what? I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. It's just cool to be on the team. But over time, people get to the point where they take things for granted. You know, instead of just being excited, yay, we're on the team. We made the team. It's like, well, I got to be the star player or I don't even want to be on the team, right? Emulations, desiring to be someone else. Just be yourself. Just be you. Don't try to be the next this or the next that. Just be you. God used you as you are. Don't have emulations. Wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, hatred. Why the hatred? Well, here's the thing. When you get into variance, right, and then that leads you into heresy, what is heresy by nature if it's not telling lies? Right? Because if the right doctrine is the truth, then what is heresy? Heresy is a lie, right? And you know what the Bible says? The lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it. When you lie to someone, that is a hateful act. You know, instead of loving your brothers and sisters in Christ, you begin to teach lies to puff up and lift up self because you want to be different for the sake of being different for your own ego, which is variance, or you want to have emulations, which is also ego, desiring to be someone else or to lift yourself up to the same level that someone else has. And then, of course, you're going to be hateful toward those people that you lie to, and you're going to be hateful toward those people that you are varying from or emulating. The Bible says emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. Now look, we've experienced this in our church recently. We've seen these things. We've seen people, and I just want to make this really clear, and I know that it's possible that not everybody agrees with me on this. I just want to say this. You know, people who reject the Trinity aren't saved. That's where I stand. You know, and it's kind of hard to accept when these things first happen because you're emotional about it, and it's hard to step back and kind of take like an outside view of things because you're too close to it. And you know, I know for me it was kind of hard to wrap my mind around when these things first started happening a year ago, but you know, when I stopped and started listening to other people that were not emotional about it, and I started listening to other people that were taking a more objective viewpoint, you know, it's pretty obvious when you look at it from the outside that people who are rejecting the Trinity just simply aren't saved. And people who listen to a year's worth of preaching on the Trinity and still don't believe in it are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth at that point. So, I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I'm saying that they're saved because it's a work of the flesh because remember, unsaved people and saved people have these same things going on in their head. Unsaved people have variants, emulation, sedition, ego, and all these things that would lead them into error, okay? So I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I'm saying that these people are saved, but there are other people who go into other false doctrines and other heresies that are saved. And I do think that it's possible for someone to get a little bit mixed up about the Trinity, a little confused on the Trinity, or other doctrines even, but the difference is that when a saved person gets mixed up on a doctrine, you show them the Word of God, they're going to come around to it. We've all made errors and mistakes in our doctrine, but the difference is that we received correction when the correction came. And we didn't go all the way in either to just the most damnable heresy. There are those who've put their toe in the water of it, as it were, or just gotten a little bit confused, led astray, mixed up. I've seen it my whole life. I've seen people that were clearly saved get mixed up on the repent of your sins thing. I remember when I was a teenager, I got a little mixed up on it for a little while because you hear all this preaching that's wrong and then you get confused, you know, and then you're trying to figure out, well, what's going on here? But then when somebody shows you the truth, you're like, bam, that's it. That clears that up for me right there. Okay. But saved people can get into these cute doctrines. I'm not saying they're going to deny the Trinity. I'm not saying they're going to start teaching a full-blown work salvation, but they can get caught up in trendy and cute doctrines. What are some of the trendy, cute, little variant doctrines that we see springing up all the time? Yeah, you said it, not me. Literally now, the flat earth is a big thing, that the earth is actually flat, and it's the dumbest thing in the world. I didn't preach about it for years. The first person I heard preach about the earth being round was Pastor Donnie Romero, and I was like, why is he talking about this? Is this really necessary? We all know that the earth is round. What's he doing? I didn't say anything, but I'm just admitting, even though he's my friend, I was kind of thinking like, that's weird. Why are you talking about that? It turns out he was right, because there's this huge movement online of the flat earth movement with literally millions of people following it, literally millions. If you go on my sermon that I preached last Sunday night on YouTube where I preached against the flat earth, it just has thousands and thousands of comments condemning me for believing the earth is round. Look at it. In fact, today, it just crossed the threshold where it's got more thumbs down than thumbs up. I think it has like 600 thumbs up and 600 thumbs down or something like that, but it just crossed over that threshold. It has like 18,000 people watched it, and I think it's like 600 to 600. I mean, we're living in some strange times where you've got millions of people now who believe that the world is flat, but the thing about that is that it's variance. It's like, oh, this sets me apart. This makes me different. I think for myself, hashtag flat earth. It just shows people are willing to look stupid as long as it makes them different. Tour the local high school. It's the same thing, same mentality. You try to talk sense into these flat earthers, forget about it. They don't even listen. You give them a sentence, and they just reply with something totally unrelated. It's like what you said is just like, just doesn't even register because they want to believe that stuff because it's part of their variance. They want to be different. Other cute doctrines, divers and strange doctrines besides, of course, the Trinity denying oneness doctrine. I'm not going to go into that. We've already heard enough about that, but another one is this thing of Yeshua. Instead of just calling him Jesus, instead of just calling him the Lord Jehovah, it's Yahuwah and Yahweh and Yahuwahwah and Yahashasha. It's like, you know, you got to have the sacred name, but there's 20 different versions of it. Who do you trust? Because nobody had a taper quarter back then, and Hebrew doesn't even have any vowels in it, so we don't know how to pronounce it. But you know what? That Yeshua thing, that's a new thing. That did not exist when I was a kid. Flat earth was not a thing when I was a kid. Didn't exist. Oneness didn't exist unless you're talking to tongue-talking holy roller Pentecostals. Did not exist in a Baptist church. Everybody was Trinity. Everybody knew the name above all names was Jesus Christ. Nobody was coming at you with Yeshua, Yahweh, Yahweh. Never even heard of that stuff. Flat earth, unheard of. What else is the new trendy doctrine that you see? Well, that's been around. Unfortunately, that's always rearing up its ugly head. Yeah, exactly. You know, embracing the Sodomites, that's definitely a new thing. And we just have to ask ourselves, is there a compelling reason to throw out that which is traditional, that which Baptists have believed, that which our parents and grandparents have believed, that which the churches have gone on before us have believed. And look, we need to be talked out of those things. It shouldn't just be, you had me at hello when you're throwing out the standard Baptist doctrine. We need to get established, rooted, get behind the church's doctrine, get behind what we've been taught, and only be talked out of it with a lot of evidence. That's how I've lived my life for the last 36 years that I've been alive. That's how we should be, not just ready to just jump on this train and jump on that train and jump on that bandwagon of every stupid thing. I don't know what the next stupid thing is going to be that comes out. Because if flat earth is out there and oneness Pentecostalism is out there, everything's up for grabs. There's nothing that's off the table with these people. We need to make sure that we don't allow these feelings of variance to come inside of us of I want to branch out and be different. Just be part of the team. Just be happy where God put you. And let God exalt you in due time. God lifts people up and puts them in the ministry. God gives people opportunities. It's not that hard. Here am I, send me. God will use you, but go through the right process. Do things the hard way. No gimmicks, right? Keep that variance in check. Emulations? No, be yourself. Don't try to emulate me. Don't try to emulate other preachers. Just be yourself. You know, follow us as we follow Christ, but don't try to, you know, dress, talk, act identical to someone. That's just carnal and foolish. Seditions? Why are you, you know, why would you want to try to split the church? I'll tell you what, because you're trying to draw away disciples after you. Sedition, trying to split the church and create your own little faction, heresies, well, that's what's going to happen when you're always trying to come out with some new cute thing and be different on this and different on that. And you know what? People's hearts that engage in these activities are filled with hatred and wrath for good people. You know, people that come to this church and they listen to all the preaching, but yet in their heart they burn with anger and hatred toward me. Why? Because they want to be me? Or because they want to vary from me? You know, what's going on with that? Why don't you just realize that I'm just like you. I'm your brother in Christ. You're my brother in Christ. We're both serving the Lord. You know, I've got my place in the body. You've got your place in the body. We're a team. We're working together. Let's be friends. Let's get side by side and do something for Christ. Let's love each other and let's strive for unity. Not being different for the sake of being different. Not trying to be someone that we're not. Let's just have unity. Let's just get together, work together, be friends and let's have what the fruit of the Spirit is. Love. We'll close on this. Verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit is love. You know, love your pastor. Love your fellow church members. Love your brothers and sisters in Christ. Don't just be mad because you're not them and wish that you were them. Or don't just wish that you could be different than them or whatever stupid thought enters your head. Love them. Joy. What is joy? Joy is like being happy, right? Okay, why don't you just be happy with what you have? Don't covet and envy and wish that you could emulate something else. Have joy. Peace. Peace is when you're getting along with people. Not at strife with everybody. Not in a fight with everybody. Not causing sedition. But you're at peace. Long suffering. Patience is what we're talking about, right? Goodness. Goodness. Faith. Meekness is the opposite of what? Pride and ego. Which is what we see with the works of the flesh. Ego and pride. That's what leads to variance, emulations, strife, seditions. The Bible says only by pride cometh contention. So strife comes from ego and pride as well. Meekness and temperance. Temperance is self-control. Keeping yourself under control. And so this is the way we need to be. Fruit of the Spirit. And stay away from the works of the flesh. And what we really focus on tonight are things like variance, emulations, strife, sedition, heresy. Beware. You're not above these things. I'm not above these things. Because we all have that flesh, don't we? And if we let the flesh go unchecked, we all want to vary and emulate and cause sedition and envy and I want to be him or her. And you know what? And by the way, I'm kind of focused mainly on the men because I am a man. So I'm kind of talking about preachers and men and everything. But you know, the same thing goes with women. Women can be affected by envy, emulations, right? And variance and things like that. This is very common amongst women, in fact. Just like amongst men. It just manifests in a different way of maybe more to do with clothing and hairstyles and stuff like that that I don't understand. But the point is, you know, just this attitude of constant competitiveness with other women or comparing yourself with other women all the time, whether favorably or negatively, and getting mad, hating women in the church because they're better looking than you or whatever. Whatever thoughts enter the sinful heart of man or woman. So we need to walk in the spirit, friend. If we're ever going to have unity and peace in our church, we've got to be as individuals humble people. And we've got to walk in the spirit and get rid of the ego and be humble. And be a team player, right? Get on the team and be a part of it. Not like, well, not like Jephthah, you know, I'll be on the team if I can be the boss. That's the wrong attitude, right? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Help us to walk in the spirit, Lord. Help us not to be carnal, prideful, ego-driven, desirous of vain glory, hating one another. Lord, help us to love each other, esteem others better than ourselves, put other people first, lift up other people, and humble ourselves, Lord. And help us not to be carried about with divers and strange doctrines. Help us to run screaming in the other direction from these stupid, new doctrines, whether it's oneness, flat earth, sacred names, or whatever other stupid doctrine, Lord. Help us to stay with the traditional doctrines where they line up with the Bible. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.