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At this time our ushers will be receiving the offering. Please turn your Bibles to the first Corinthians chapter 11. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Tonight we're in first Corinthians chapter 11. First Corinthians chapter 11, and the Bible reads, Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I deliver them to you. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered dishonereth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonereth her head, for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God. Judging yourselves, is it commonly that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. Now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not that you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may manifest among you. When you come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating everyone taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry and another is drunken. What, have ye not houses to eat and to drink in, or despise ye the church of God and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he break it, and said, Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye come not together unto condemnation, and the rest will I set in order when I come. Let's pray, dear Lord God, thank you for the church you've given us, Lord, and for the King James Bible as well, Lord. And thank you for your pastor, and we pray that you bless him right now as he preaches your word, Lord, and that you give him boldness, and that us in the congregation were edified by the preaching, Lord. So just bless this service. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, we're continuing this evening. We're going to pick up where we left off with our Sunday night series, Drama at the Church at Corinth, and just talking about just different problems that the church at Corinth had. Of course, we started off with the problems with division and authority. One evident thing that we see with the church at Corinth is that they just had a problem with authority. They didn't know how to necessarily obey authority. They were rejecting the authority of the Apostle Paul, even though essentially he's the one responsible for starting the church. He won them to Christ. He baptized some of them. Not all of them, but he did baptize some of them. And, you know, the signs and wonders of an apostle were done before them to confirm the word of God. But yet in spite of all that, there were still some within the church that were rejecting him as the authority. And then we also saw the problems with fornication. And this kind of shows us that when a church has a problem with authority, it's going to eventually trickle down to other areas, right? Because of the fact that they're not going to respect the authority of the Bible. They're not going to respect the authority of God. And so fornication was going unfettered within the church. And such fornication is not so much as named among the Gentiles that one should have his father's wife. And we see that in 1 Corinthians, chapter 5. And, of course, we know that eventually they cast out that individual from the church. They practiced church discipline to get rid of that individual. They cast out the leaven because it was leavening the whole lump. And then there was an issue with the inability to resolve matters between brethren. People were going to law, suing brothers over trivial matters that didn't really matter. And they were going before the unjust, before the unsaved to resolve matters that they could have just resolved in-house at the church. Not matters of, you know, some crimes they committed, but just defraudings, right? And then we looked at marriage, divorce, and remarriage and how a lot of their ideologies were kind of skewed. And so he had to kind of teach them what the Bible says about those things. We talked about eating things sacrificed unto idols. And then two weeks ago when we were preaching on this, we talked about full-time church employees and what the Bible had to say about that. Tonight, I'm going to cover two particular subjects in this chapter, and that is the Lord's Supper and hair length. Okay, which you kind of wonder, like, what do they have to do with another world? Nothing. You know, it's just, you know, the Apostle Paul is just addressing both of these subjects, these topics in one chapter, but they're very much important. And so we're going to go over that this evening. Now look at verse number one. It says, Be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you. So the first thing he addresses is the importance of just following authority, right? And he says, Be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Basically saying the reason you should follow the Apostle Paul or the, yeah, the reason you should follow him is because of the fact that he's a man of biblical integrity. He's leading the church. He's not teaching false doctrine. He's not doing something that is contrary to sound doctrine. He's following Jesus. And therefore, it should reason that these people who he went to the Lord and this church that he started should follow him. Now this doesn't mean blindly follow him, right? And, you know, there's a lot of times in churches where people will blindly follow another leader based upon their position, not necessarily because of what they believe or their leadership. And that's bad, right? That's the blind leading the blind. And we should never just blindly follow someone. We should base our following off of what is it that they believe? What are they teaching? What are the core principles that they have? And so he's telling them there, follow me. I'm following the Lord. And then he says in verse number two, I praise you. Okay, now what does that mean? I commend you. You're doing a great job, right? You're doing good. I praise you that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I deliver them to you. So what is he commending them for? Well, one thing for remembering him, but secondly, because they've kept the ordinances that he previously had delivered to them. Ordinances are orders, commandments, right? And so the theme of the chapter of 1 Corinthians 11 is to essentially follow the leadership by obeying the ordinances that were delivered unto them. Okay, now what's interesting is that in this particular chapter, he talks extensively about the Lord's Supper. Okay, and I'm going to talk about that tonight, but he says in verse two that he praises them for keeping the ordinances. But obviously, the Lord's Supper was not one of them. He said, why is that? Well, look at verse 22. Verse 20, excuse me, says, when you come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. Verse 22, what have you not houses to eat and to drink or despise you the church of God and shame them to have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. So the implication there is that, yeah, they were doing some ordinances well, but this particular ordinance of the Lord's Supper, they were not doing well. Which is why he says, I praise you not for this particular thing. Okay, you know, it's kind of reminiscent of when Jesus is addressing the seven churches which are in Asia. And he is commending them for their hard work and, you know, the fact that they hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans. And they have all these great qualities, but then sometimes he'll say this, notwithstanding have somewhat against thee, right? And he points out some specific flaw that they need to work on. Well, in like manner, the Apostle Paul is telling the church at Corinth, hey, you guys are doing a great job by remembering me. You guys are doing a great job by following these orders, but in this particular thing, you're not doing a good job. You get an A plus on all these other things, but you got about a D minus in this particular area. Because even though you're observing the Lord's Supper, you're not doing it in a biblical way, okay? And here's the thing, let me explain a couple things before I get into the crux of the teaching here in regards to the Lord's Supper. I come from an independent fundamental Baptist church and, you know, I was born Baptist, born again Baptist, you know, Lord willing I'll die a Baptist, amen? I'm Baptist-bred and Lord willing I'll be Baptist-dead, okay? And, you know, I came from the fundamental Baptist movement and, you know, all the things associated with it, soul winning, King James only. And one of the things that's commonly associated with Baptist churches is how they observe the Lord's Supper. And for years on end, we observed it in house, in church, okay? And what they would do is they would, you know, pick, I think at our old church it was they would observe it like once every four months or something like that. Where the entire church would get together and it was members only. Although there were individuals within that congregation that were not members, they were still part of the ordinance there. And, you know, they'd pass around the bread, they'd pass around the juice, they sing hymns and they take it and it was a time of examination. And for the longest time I didn't really see a problem with it. But, you know, once this was pointed out to me and I saw that the blatant verse here that essentially he's rebuking them for the fact that they were doing it within the church. That's all I needed, right? And so you say, yeah, but you observed it the other way for so many years. But, folks, you do understand that just because you did something for X amount of years doesn't make it right. And sometimes we're shown a different way. We read a scripture and we're like, I've actually never seen that verse before, although I have seen it. I've just never really thought about that. And this is typically something that happens a lot is that, you know, especially, for example, someone who came out of the old IFP. We have these preconceived ideas, things that we were taught, and things that were never challenged in the old IFP, okay? Some of them may be sinful, some of them are just unbiblical, some of them are, you know, just traditions of man. And even though there's blatant scriptures that teach contrary to it, because everyone was doing it and no one challenged it, therefore we never really questioned it, you know? And I don't want to compare this to the pre-Trib rapture, because the pre-Trib rapture is obviously heretical, it's stupid, and it's not damned to have a heresy. But, you know, it's one of those things where you just never really looked at Matthew 24 in such light in Mark 13, Luke 21. But then when you come outside of that box, when you take off those lenses of dispensationalism, Zionism, then you can see as clear as day what the Bible actually says about it, okay? Now, this is definitely true when it comes to the Lord's Supper. So this is something that, and you know what, other churches too, even churches that are part of what we would consider to be the new IFP, they still observe it in that way. But I don't believe that's a biblical manner of observing the Lord's Supper, and we're going to look at it tonight as to why, okay? Look at verse 18, if you would. Verse 18. So again, he's commending them for keeping the ordinances, so obviously, if they're observing the ordinance of the Lord's Supper in church, he would be commending them for that too. But he specifically says in verse 22, I praise you not, implying that they're not keeping it in the right way, okay? Look at verse 18. We're going to cover these first two verses here. It says, for first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. Now, first and foremost, before we get into the Lord's Supper, he's addressing the fact that there is an important part of the ministry that you should have heresies in the church. Not meaning that we should teach heresies, but that you should expect that heresies are being taught sometimes because of the fact that, number one, you're going to have infiltrators. Number two, when you have heresies springing up in the church, it's an opportunity for those who are approved to essentially manifest themselves of whether God's hand is on them or not. So it's good for heresies to rise up sometimes just so I can reinforce biblical doctrine and teach that specific doctrine of why it's wrong or whatever, but also because there might be a sprinkling of people who believe that in the church. And so if people believe that in the church, heresies kind of bring that out in them, you understand? And we've had that happen throughout the years where I'll teach something and then someone will come up and be like, well, why did you say that? And then you come to find out, oh, this person believes heresy. So it's important that it says there that heresies would be among God's people in a church that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. So never have this attitude of like, oh, man, I can't believe that heresy was in our church. That's part of life, part of the ministry. It's part of life. It's part of Christianity. That's why there's so much warning against heresy. And let me just say this. Christians who are saved can get involved in heresy. And in fact, Galatians chapter 5 specifically says that heresies are a work of the flesh. Drunkenness, fornication, adulteries, envies, murder, strife. And it even says heresies, showing us that Bible believing Christians can get caught up in just stupid teachings, heretical teachings that are contrary to God's word. But you know what? One thing you don't see in that list is sodomy, which is kind of interesting, isn't it? They never mention sodomy as being a work of the flesh because it isn't. It's unnatural. But it even goes as far as to say that heresies can be a work of the flesh. And so sometimes they arise in church and it's an opportunity for us to expose that heresy by teaching what the Bible actually says. We want to be a church that's not ignorant of the scriptures, right? Not everyone is at the same spiritual level, but everyone should have a basic understanding of doctrine in our church. So that they can refute and not be deceived, not be a child tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. Now here's the thing when it comes to the Lord's Supper because now look at verse number 20. We're going to get into the actual teaching here of the Lord's Supper. The old IFB, they would often observe the Lord's Supper in house, in church, and they based it off of this teaching that the church has two ordinances. Now if you come from a fundamental Baptist church, you know what I'm talking about. They would often have like a members class or something like that or some sort of class where they would integrate you into the church. By teaching you these basic things, these basic tenets that we believe as Baptists. And they would break it down with the Baptist acronym. How many of you know what I'm talking about? B is for Bible, the inerrancy of scripture. And then you have A, autonomy of the local church, the fact that we're independent. P is for priesthood of the believers. And then what do you have? T for the two ordinances. I'm sorry, T was two offices. One of the two, right? Because there's two T's in there. So T is like the two offices of the church. You have Bishop, which is the pastor, and you also have the deacon. I is for individual soul liberty. Essentially saying that we can worship God according to the dictates of our conscience. We can't force beliefs upon someone. Someone has to choose. It's a consolidated version of free will. S is for separation of church and state. And then lastly, T is for the two ordinances of the church. Being baptism and observing the Lord's Supper. How many of you have ever heard something like that? Now here's the problem with that teaching. Because it's claiming that the church is supposed to observe these two ordinances. But here's the problem. Jesus said in Matthew 28 to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always even until the end of the world. Amen. So here's the thing is that we're not supposed to only observe two things. There's all types of things we have to observe. So who made you boss to say that those are the only two things we have to observe? Or is it just because it fits your Baptist acronym? Now the reason they came up with that is because it's a bastardized version of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church that was adopted by the Protestants. Because obviously the sacraments as taught by the Catholics, they teach that you have to keep those things in order to be saved. But those who protested the Catholic Church say, well you know we're going to go, we know it's by faith alone. And so really there's two ordinances you have to keep. Baptism and Lord's Supper. But they don't save you. They're just things that we observe and keep. And of course the Baptists, they want to be cool too. So they copy that from the Protestants. But folks, we're already cool. We don't need Protestants to be cool. We got our own thing going on. Baptists are in the Bible. Amen. One of the most fiery preachers, John the Baptist, is the cousin of Jesus. Think about that. And so that's where this comes from. Now the problem with this, obviously we should have nothing against the fact that we should observe the Lord's Supper. Obviously we know we have to, along with many other things such as Baptism. But the problem with this is it places this on a pedestal in such a way that churches think that they have to do it within the church. Because that's what the Protestants did. Because that's what the Catholics did. Whereas that's not actually found in the Bible. Now look at verse 20. When you come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. So what's that one place he's referring to? When you congregate together as a church, he's specifically saying you're not supposed to observe the Lord's, this is not to observe the Lord's Supper. Now how do we know that that's true? Because of the fact that in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and 1 Timothy chapter 4 tells us what we should be doing in church. Which is give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Church is meant for doctrine. And so we can preach the word of God, equip the believers, it's not to gather together. Oh that's wicked. You're saying that we shouldn't observe the Lord's Supper. That's not what we're saying. What the Bible's teaching us is we're not to do it. Here's the only problem with Paul's writings though. He never really tells us what's the right way to do it. He tells us what's the wrong way to do it, which is in church, but the implication there is that God gives us the liberty to choose the administration of how we're going to actually observe the Lord's Supper. And we'll get more into that in just a bit. So it's pretty clear there. When you come together therefore into one place, he's addressing the church at Corinth. This letter is to be read at the local church known as Corinth with all the believers. Every man, woman, boy, and girl is under the sound of this letter as they're preaching this in a church. And he says when you're gathered together into one place, referring to church, it's not to eat the Lord's Supper. Does everyone see that? It's pretty clear. So if they were observing the Lord's Supper properly, this verse would just make zero sense. So obviously something is off here. Now go to Exodus. Hold your place there in 1 Corinthians 11. Go to Exodus chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12 if you would. I do believe that obviously everyone should be fully persuaded in their own mind. Every church should be fully persuaded in their own mind. Because we have friends who actually do observe it in a local church and they believe that's right. And you know what? That's their prerogative. That's what they believe is right to do. And we're not going to downplay them or say that they're wrong for that. What we believe here, what I believe is that it's not supposed to be observed in a local church. So how do you rightly observe the Lord's Supper? Well the Lord's Supper was to be eaten within households. Now when you do an extensive study on the Lord's Supper and where it comes from, this is an ordinance that was carried over from the Old Testament when they would eat the Passover. Which is why Jesus Christ ate the Passover with his 12 disciples. Now let me ask you a question. I don't want to get ahead of myself here but I'm going to do it just for this point here. Did Jesus only have 12 disciples? Did he only have 12 apostles? So there's a bunch of believers during this time. But who did he have the Lord's Supper with? His 12 disciples in an upper room. Not including a bunch of other people. So the Lord's Supper was to be eaten in households. He was like, yeah but that was like an upper room. Yeah because Jesus didn't own houses. So he just like asked to borrow someone's house to do it in. So the Lord's Supper was a continuation of the Passover. The difference being that in the New Testament, Jesus Christ is our Passover. So the lamb no longer needs to be consumed alongside the bitter herbs and all that. But now we eat the bread and drink the juice because Jesus Christ commanded us to do so. So this is a continuation. People would do it in the Old Testament looking forward to what Jesus Christ was going to do. We do it to remember what Jesus Christ already did. It's a continuation of it. Look at Exodus 12 verse 1. Next unto his house, take it according to the number of the souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. So what we see here is that when the Passover would take place, they wouldn't gather together to do it necessarily. They would meet in different houses. Now go to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter number 2. And please don't misunderstand me. I'm not downplaying the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is very much important. It's commanded by God. Obviously we know that we're supposed to do it as oft as we will. So it's based upon our discretion when we want to do it. I'm making the case that it's not supposed to be taking place in the house of God. Based upon the clear statement by the Apostle Paul that you're not supposed to do in church. Look at Acts chapter 2 verse 41. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking bread and in prayers. Now when we see that term, that phrase breaking bread, it's not like break bread brother. It's not saying like feed me. Breaking bread is referring to unleavened bread. Because when bread is unleavened, which is how we're supposed to eat the Lord's Supper, it breaks. It's not fluffy or whatever. It's like the cracker. It just breaks. So that's why they say they're breaking bread and in prayers. So obviously the implication here is that they're observing the Lord's Supper. It says in verse 43, and fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believe were together, and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they continued daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread, listen to this, from house to house. So how are they observing the Lord's Supper? From house to house, just as we see in Exodus chapter 12, that they would eat the Passover house to house. And it doesn't mean that they didn't have a centralized location where a church could meet. Because they did, right? This is referring to the fact that when they would break bread, referring to the Lord's Supper, the unleavened bread that they're consuming, it was being done from house to house. Did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. So Jesus observed the Passover with only 12 disciples, even though there were other believers and apostles present. So that's more proof over the fact that when the Lord's Supper was observed in the Bible, not everyone was present. Not everyone was present, they weren't gathered together, he literally did this, and there's only 12 of them present. It's not like, alright, let's call all believers together to observe this, let's get this communion going on, and then we're going to sing to him, which that's how we're going to do it. But it's just like, only the 12 of you are invited though. Now go to Mark chapter 14. It's pretty simple. Look at Mark chapter 14. Let's read Mark chapter 14 here. The Lord's Supper was observed in smaller groups, it says in verse 13, Notice it doesn't say where I'm going to have church, where we're going to congregate together. He says, where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples, and what do they do? This is the famous passage where he talks about the Lord's Supper. So we see there the connection between the Passover and the Lord's Supper. He says in verse 15, And he would show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared, their make ready for us. And his disciples went forth and came into the city, and found, as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover. And in the evening he cometh with the twelve, and as they sat and did eat, Jesus said verily, I say unto you, one of you, which eateth with me, shall betray me. So on and so forth. And so if this is something that was supposed to be done with the entire church, then we've got a problem here, because when Jesus did it, there was only 12 present. Now go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Let me say this too, you know, I believe only believers should take the Lord's Supper. Right? I mean that's pretty much, you know, across the board what everyone agrees with. Whether you observe it the way we do it, or you're a church like my old church that observes it in church. I remember being in church and they would say, if you are not a believer, you know, don't take it. And they would often tell the parents, like hey, if your children aren't saved, make sure they don't take the Lord's Supper. So my father-in-law would often do that. But here's the thing, if you have a large church, how do you determine like who's saved and who's not, right? Like how do you determine, how do you like manage that? Whereas that can be managed within small groups, okay? Now why is the Lord's Supper done? Or why is it done in a sense of why did Jesus Christ institute this ordinance? Look at verse 23. For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night, in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he break it and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you, this do, because it turns into my body and my flesh and your stomach. That's not what it says. But the Catholics like to take this and teach what? Transubstantiation. Coupled with John chapter 6 and say, when you eat the leavened, well they eat unleavened bread but they eat leavened wine, right? Because it's juice that's actually alcoholic which has yeast which is leaven, okay? And the reason the bread's supposed to be unleavened is because leavened pictures sin and Jesus Christ has no sin. He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. He was made to be sin who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. But Jesus Christ was without sin, therefore when we eat the bread, it's supposed to be unleavened to picture the fact that he is the lamb without spot or wrinkle. And the same thing with the wine, okay? The wine, or as the Bible also calls it, juice, okay? It's synonymous with juice. It can't have yeast in it. Non-alcoholic. But Catholics don't do that. Catholics, they make it as alcoholic as you possibly can. And I don't want to rehash my sermon from last week, how the priest that, you know, to the Catholic church that I went to, was when he was doing the Lord's Supper, they were doing Communion, he's like getting drunk off of the wine. He's like killing it, you know, and then he kind of forgets where he's at. And he just like walks off the stage. And we're waiting there for like 20 minutes wondering like, okay, what's next? And he's like, oh, I guess mass is over. And I'm talking about he killed it. Like he took it and it just kept going up and up and up and then he just like licked his lips, grabbed the cloth, he cleaned it. But how are you going to observe Communion with alcohol? Because you're essentially saying that the blood of Jesus Christ was tainted. That's the picture that you're giving, okay? No, the Lord's Supper does not become the flesh and blood literally of Jesus Christ within someone's bowels or whatever, okay? No, the Lord's Supper does not become the flesh and blood literally of Jesus Christ within someone's bowels or whatever, okay? This false doctrine of transubstantiation which the Catholic church claims saves you. This is done as a way to remember what Jesus Christ did. He says, in remembrance of me, pretty simple. Verse 25, after the same manner, he also took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. Now here's an important aspect of the subject of the Lord's Supper, why we take it aside from remembering the death of Jesus Christ. It's also a way to examine ourselves, okay? Now there's two interpretations to this, okay? One being, some would say, well it's to make sure that we're saved, right? Like you ask people like, have you believed on Jesus Christ, okay? Others would say that it's an examination of one's heart to make sure that we're just right before God. And I believe both, you know? The last time we observed the Lord's Supper, I was at someone's house and we just asked around like, Have you believed on Jesus Christ? Are you saved? And they're like, yeah I got saved on this day or whatever, or I got saved through this. You're just kind of getting everyone's testimony. And then it was also a time where we could just examine our hearts before the Lord to just make sure we were right with God. That we're not regarding iniquity in our heart, okay? So I think both of them are right answers. Now whether you adhere to one or the other, I think is irrelevant. I think the most important thing is that you're just, you're saved, okay? It says in verse 27, Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. So obviously, you have to do it in the right way. Whether that be, you know, making sure that you're saved, making sure that your family's saved, or the people that are in your group are saved, but also just making sure you're right with God. And I think that's important for us to do on a daily basis anyways, right? Making sure that we're right with God, we're examining our hearts, etc. But look what it says in verse 30, though. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep. It's not referring to sleep like some of you are doing right now. Sleep as in they died. Some of you are sleeping and you didn't even take the Lord's Supper. But apparently at the Church of Corinth, because they were doing it wrong, and there's potentially unsaved individuals there who were taking it, many were getting sick to the point of death. And they're, you know, they're dying. So it would seem to indicate that the Church of Corinth was pretty big. Large church, large congregation, and obviously the larger a church gets, the more problems it's going to have. And so this was a definite issue with them is that they were getting sick to the point of death. It says in verse 31, for if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world. So that's why I believe that it's also referring to an examination of one's heart. Because he says there that we should judge ourselves. And the picture there could be that when we take the Lord's Supper, we make sure we get right in our hearts. We judge ourselves for whatever sin we have so that we're not judged of the Lord. We're not chastened of Him. We correct it before the Lord has to correct it for us. Because we don't want to be condemned with the world. But in the previous verses, it talks about damnation. Not condemnation, but damnation, which implies the fact that if someone dies, they go to hell. You understand? Because they're taking the Lord's Supper unworthily. In other words, they're not saved. Now, do we have this explicitly shown in the Bible? Yes. Because of the fact that Judas Iscariot dipped the sop with Jesus he had of it. And then that's when Satan entered into him. That's when he betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ and then he hung himself. And so that is an example. I don't know if that happens. Well, I don't want to play Russian Roulette with that with someone you love and maybe they're not saved. I think it's a strict thing that when you're observing the Lord's Supper and you're with your family, make sure your kids are saved or don't just be flippant about whoever takes it. And see, that's why I'm saying that it's easier to manage something like that in smaller groups. Whereas if you have a massive church of 500 people, 700 people, even a group of our size, a little over 100 people, it's kind of hard to manage that because we're not going to go around asking everyone if they're saved. Most churches wouldn't do that. And then he says, Wherefore, verse 33, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that he come not together unto condemnation, and the rest will I set in order when I come. Another problem here is that some people were just coming to eat the Lord's Supper because they were hungry. Which is bad. That's even worse. Let him eat at home. So you say, okay, you've shown us how the Lord's Supper should not be observed. So how are we going to administer the Lord's Supper? Well here's the problem is that Paul didn't even explain that. Now when something is not clearly explained but the Bible teaches us, don't do this and it doesn't necessarily give us a clear answer as to how to do it, the implication there is that it's based upon the administration of the leadership or it's based upon our own discretion how we're to do it. So in other words they give us all the elements of what we know how to do. At that point we can freely observe it according to the dictates of leadership or how someone advises you to do it. I'm going to advise you how we can take the Lord's Supper as individual groups. Because obviously we want to do this. Go to Luke chapter 22 if you will. I think the best way to do this would be through the teams. We have enough teams here that essentially everyone in this church is part of a team and so a team leader could easily just say hey we're going to meet on Friday and we're going to have fellowship but we're going to observe the Lord's Supper. And one thing that we see in regards to the Lord's Supper, the only example really that we have that we can base this off of is that a male leader should be the one leading the thing. Book, chapter and verse. Okay, Jesus. Jesus is the one who did the Lord's Supper, right? There you go. Verse 22 says, And they said, And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, blessed it, and break it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them. And they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. Barely I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God. So what we're going to do is I'll get with the team leaders and we'll just schedule something. And obviously, you know, if you're a small church, let's say you're a church of 20, this would be a very easy task. Break it up into two groups and that's it, right? But when your church begins to grow, you need to add some administration and some organization to it. So I think this is the best way. You get the team leaders, and I can get with them, I will get with them, and they can schedule a day at their house or at someone's house where they can observe the Lord's Supper. And here's the thing is, when it comes to my old church, I don't agree with them with where the Lord's Supper was done, but I do like the way they observe the Lord's Supper. I think it was a great way to do it. Because the way they would do it would be that my father-in-law would get up, or my previous pastor, and they would sing a song, right? Because it says there in verse 26, And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. So they'd sing, you know, there is a fountain, okay? Now let me just say this about there is a fountain, by the way, okay? Let me say something about the way y'all sing there is a fountain. And by y'all, I mean new I have beers, okay? Because I transitioned from the Old Testament to the new, from old IFP to the new IFP. In the old IFP, we used to sing there is a fountain like slower. Here it's just like, there is a fountain filled with blood, and it's just like, you guys are like rapping it or something. It's like, chill out, you know? Hey, it's all good. Five verses, we sing all five verses slow. Like I remember in the old IFP, it was just like, There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And it was just a very meditate, it was sung in a meditative way. Like that would take too long. Where you gotta go? You act like you got somewhere to be. Fifteen minutes after church is over or something. What, you gotta watch football or something like that? I know you're hungry, but you know what? In-N-Out's not going to close any time soon. We sing all the verses to all the other songs. Why do we have to rush everything? Don't fall into the liberal trap, my friends, of having to just rush the service, because you just want to get out the door. We're having church, my friends. If you didn't like it, you should have just stayed home. Alright. But you know, there is a fountain, we would sing that slow. Okay, now song leaders, I'll leave it at your discretion. But the reason we like to sing there is a fountain slower when we would observe the Lord's Supper, is because it's just a time of meditation where we just, like our hearts just swelled with gratitude over what the Lord has done for us. We weren't rushing anything, it was just we sing every verse, bring a tear to our eye. It's just a great moment, you know? We would sing that, and we would also sing at the cross. Which, by the way, you guys also sing a little too fast. Sing. Why do you have to be so fast about everything? You know? At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light. I remember when we first started singing that here, I was just like, Whoa. Where we used to sing, I was just like, At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light. But that's too slow. Some songs are meant to be sung slower, folks. Put a little R&B in there, amen? So what we would do is we would sing that song, and I'll be honest with you, at my old church, I used to love observing the Lord's Supper. When they announced we would do the Lord's Supper, I loved it. For a few reasons. One, because it just gave me an opportunity to just think upon salvation, think upon, you know, what the Lord's Supper is for. And we would sing together, and then we would examine our hearts before the Lord, and you know, there's times in my life where I have sinned in my life that I knew I was being rebellious against the Lord and help me just get it right with God. And then we'd observe it, we'd sing another hymn, and my father-in-law, between the eating of the bread and the drinking of the juice, we would read the Scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 11, where the Apostle Paul talks about that, we would actually read, let's see here, we would read verses 24 all the way to verses 25. Or verses 23, excuse me, verses 23 to verse 25 is what we would read there. And so when we would take the bread, we would read the Scripture, we'd sing the song, there is a fountain, and then we'd take a couple moments to examine our hearts, we'd pray, we'd bow our heads and pray, and then we would take it. And then he would read the second portion of the Scripture, verse 25, and then we'd sing at the cross, and then we would take a couple more moments to just examine our hearts and just to give gratitude unto the Lord. Like one half of the prayer was just like, Lord, thank you for saving me, thank you for giving your body for me, and I'm so thankful that salvation is free, I'm so thankful that I don't have to try to earn my salvation, just thank you, you know. And then the second half would be, Lord, if there's anything in my heart that's not pleasing to you, help me to get it right. It was just a really wonderful time of just reflection and observing this. The only problem was, it was just we're doing it in church, okay. Like, well that sounds so beautiful, can't we just do it in church? No! Because he obviously says, look folks, we love emotion, but folks, we've got to have the integrity of the Bible here, okay. And you can still have that at someone's house, amen. And so, I think that's the best way to do it. They would do it really well, and when we observe the Lord's Supper at someone's house when we started our church, or at someone's house, excuse me, that's what we did. We read the scriptures, we sang a hymn, and we just spent time and meditation and reflection of, you know, of salvation and having gratitude. It was great, I loved it. And so, what we're going to do is, we're going to basically institute that through the leaders. And here's the thing, if you say, well I don't want to do it, I want to do it on my own, then you do it on your own, that's up to you. That's on you. You do as often as you will. I can't, there's nowhere in the scripture that tells me, like, nowhere in the scripture does it say that only a church leader should do it. We see Jesus instituting it. But what we do see is that this scripture is being read in church. So obviously, the church leadership oversees it to a certain extent, letting people know how to do it, or how not to do it, or to administer the best way to do it. You understand? And I think the most organized way to do it would be through the team leaders. Okay? And so, if you have any questions, you can see me after the service about that, but that's what we're going to do. Now go back up to verse 3 there. But I will say this, you know, once we do that, essentially what we're going to do is, first, before we read the scriptures, before we even sing, we check everyone's salvation. Okay? Kids don't take the Lord's Supper if they're not saved. It's not cute. Okay? Like, yeah, go for it. Yeah, yeah. Be a part of it, too. No, we need to take this serious. We need to be very serious about this, and we need to take into account the Lord's body, and so that's what we're going to do. Now look at verse 3. We're going to talk about the length of hair. I've got a couple more minutes here. So, you know, obviously this is a Greek culture, and with an unsaved Greek culture, you have men with long hair, possibly, right? Just like today, unsaved dudes with long hair or unsaved girls with very, very, very short hair. Now look what it says in verse 3. It says, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Now when he says the head, we're in 1 Corinthians 11, by the way. What he's referring to here, when he says the head, he's referring to the authority. So he's saying the authority of every man is Jesus Christ, and the authority of the woman is the man, her husband, and the authority of Christ is God, showing us the succession of authority, order. This is something that's very important to God. Verse 4, here's a practical application. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered dishonereth his head. Now when it says covered, it doesn't refer to a baseball cap or a sombrero or what kind of hats you guys got going on right now? What's that called? Fedora or whatever. It's not referring to a head covering. It's referring to your hair. Because the covering in 1 Corinthians 11, I like the hats. The hats are cool, man. Hats are great. Everyone's like... It says in verse 5, But every woman that prayeth or prophesies with their head uncovered dishonereth her head. Okay? So according to the Bible, because the covering is referring to the hair, if a man has long hair, and he's praying in such a fashion, he's soul winning, that's what prophesying means, it means to preach, he's actually simultaneously dishonoring God. It's like an oxymoron. It's like he's honoring God by preaching the gospel while at the same time dishonoring God because he's essentially saying that he's ashamed of his authority by allowing his hair to grow like a woman. Okay? And like man or with a woman, if every woman prays or prophesies with their head uncovered, meaning that they're shaven, she's dishonoring her head, she is a reproach to her husband. And if she doesn't have a husband, she's a reproach to her father. And if she doesn't have a father, she's a reproach to God. Okay? For that is even all one as if she were shaven. So when it talks about her head being uncovered, it's not saying her head is shaven, as in like bald, but it's close enough where essentially it looks like a man, and God sees it, well you might as well just shave off the whole thing. So when you see a woman with like a fade, God's not pleased with that my friends. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn, but if it be ashamed for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. Now how do we know what he's referring to specifically? Well look at verse 15. It says, But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering. The Bible says. So that flies in the face of La Luz del Mundo. If any of you know what I'm talking about here, which is a massive cult that's in the United States, started off in Mexico, where this apostle by the way, who's a pedophile by the way, who's had his grandfather, great grandfather, they're all apostles and they're all pedophiles, and they died and went to hell. But they're apostles, and they believe in speaking in tongues. It's just a cesspool of heresy and filth and perversion within those churches. It's wicked as hell. But they truly believe that a woman ought to have her head covered with like a doily. Isn't that what I'm talking about? Those head coverings? It's like someone just went to a Hispanic family on the table and just grabbed that little doily or whatever, and just put it on. That's literally what they believe. And I've been to one of the services because years ago, I think when I was like 16 or 17, I really liked this girl. And the only way I can even talk to her, she's like, you gotta come to my church. I was like, I'm there. So I went to La Luz del Mundo, Long Beach, and he immediately was like, this place is weird. Because the men would sit on one side and all the women would sit on the other. And she's like, alright, I'll see you later. I'm just like, what? They didn't have instruments. And then they would have women come up and give testimonies, prophesying in church. And they were just like crying the entire time and all these things. But the major thing was the doilies. The head covers the doilies. And they would point to this scripture to say that the woman's head has to be covered. But they, like every other false cult out there, every other damnable heretic out there, they only take one verse, but they don't read the entire chapter. Where it's clearly saying that the hair is for a covering, not your doily. Now obviously the reason God has his command in here is for gender distinction. And so he wants men to look like men and he wants women to look like women according to Deuteronomy 22 verse 5, amen? Not only just in their hair, but even in their garments as well. This is why the Bible says, the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, referring to pants. And yes, I will continue to preach about pants on women till the cows come home and the cows are never coming. Neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. What would that be? A dress. So if a dress is a woman's garment, by process of elimination, we can safely surmise with assurance that pants is a man's garment. For all that do so are abomination. They're not committing an abomination. The Bible says no, you are an abomination. Unto the Lord thy God. Why? Because God wants gender distinction. Oh, but there's so many women that wear pants out there. Who gives a rip? God says that's still an abomination. You're not making a distinction between what a man and a woman is according to God. Look at verse 7. For if a man indeed ought not to cover his head for as much as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. So guess what? Man buns are a no-go. Now obviously the Bible doesn't give us a specific length, right? It doesn't say, hey, the man, you know, high and tight or whatever. But here's what I personally believe, okay? Well obviously you know what I believe. I get the fade or whatever. But at the end of the day, what the Bible teaches is that you shouldn't be confused as to what you are if you're like a distance away or something. Is that a chick or is that a dude? The hair says chick. But the frame looks like a dude. And then that happens, my friends. But you know what I'm not for either? I'm not for straddling the fence either. Some of you dudes need to cut your hair. Amen? I'm just being honest with you. You don't have to get it like me, high and tight and faded or whatever. But you know what? After a while it's just like, all right, dude. Those things need to see some clippers like sometime soon at least. You just like to straddle the fence a little too much there. Same thing with women, right? We can't say that women having short hair to their shoulders is wrong. Because it's not. If I see a lady with hair to her shoulders, I know it's still a lady. The problem is when it starts going a little shorter than that, a little higher than that, and it starts getting up here, or they have one side shaven or something. You know, I see this one girl where it's just like, she has my hair cut. And you know, in my mind I'm like, that's a fresh fade. Oh wait, that's a girl. Why does a girl have a fresh fade? That's ungodly, my friends. Yeah, but it's in style. Who cares if it's in style? It's unbiblical, it's wrong, it's abominable in the eyes of God. Okay? And so, you know, there is no length. The Bible doesn't provide a tape measure. It says, you know, this is this many cubits or whatever for a woman. Or this is how long a man should have it. Obviously, number one, people should be able to tell you you're a man or a woman. But also number two, you should be a type of person that you don't want to straddle the fence. You're just right there at the border. Do we want to be people who are just like, Well, I just want to do as much as I possibly can without sinning. That should never be the philosophy of a Christian. Like, I just want to be right up close, just right there. Just like, I'm right here and he's just like, Bag, effeminate, queer, man bun. And it's just like, you're just right there. I don't want anybody to even look at me and just kind of look at my hair like, Man, it's getting kind of long. You know, I want to be over here. Verse eight, for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. I don't know what that verse means. I just, I've been saved for 15 years, haven't figured it out yet. So, if you guys got a good interpretation, let me know. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither is the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God. Judging yourselves, is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? What is he saying? He goes, don't you have common sense? Judging yourselves, you think it's right for a woman to just have a fade as she's like praying unto the Lord in a church? Calvary Chapels? This is very big at liberal churches. Where women, you know, they have the fades, and the dudes have the long, hippy hair. You know, Jonathan Rumi, where he plays Jesus in one show, and then a couple months later, he plays a sodomite. And he looks exactly the same in both. Why does he look exactly the same? Think about that for a minute. Nothing changed! It's like Jesus' revolution is a spinoff of The Chosen. Like he makes a cameo appearance or something like that, because he literally doesn't change anything. He still has long, hippy hair. Are you saying hippies shouldn't be saved? Of course we want hippies to be saved. In fact, I don't even know if hippies exist anymore. Are they even around anymore? Hippies, yes, of course they need to be saved, but the gospel is the power of God and it's the salvation to everyone to believe it. And you know what? Once a hippie gets saved, once some worldly person gets saved, they need to start making some changes in their life, my friend. Cut that fag tag off, you know, and start looking like a man, judging yourselves. Verse 14, does not nature even itself teach you that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him? So why are we portraying Jesus Christ with long hair? Why are you shaming his Father? Because the head of Jesus Christ is God, God the Father. So these people are willingly shaming Jesus Christ, portraying him with long hair, so as to shame God the Father. But if a woman have long hair it is a glory to her, for her hair is given to her for her covering. Now, here's the thing though, okay, well pastor are you saying that I have to cut my hair? I'm saying you should, but if you choose not to that's on you. Like we've had people come to our church and they have dudes with long hair, and they've approached me about it. They're like, hey, I heard we shouldn't have long hair. I'm like, yeah, the Bible says it's a shame. Should I cut it? Yeah. And then they just never came back. But you know, even if they continue to come back, I wouldn't cast them out of the church for having long hair. If a person kept coming to our church, a dude kept coming to our church with just long hair, he had a man bun, he had long hair, he had long hair, you know, he had just, it was just like shameful. I wouldn't cast them out. If he felt within himself like, I just feel this is fine, I was just like, alright, it's not. I mean the Bible says it right there, but that's up to you. Why wouldn't you cast them out of church? Why wouldn't you discipline him for that? He's dishonoring Christ. I'll tell you why, look at verse 16. But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom. Neither the churches of God. So remember he's talking about these ordinances, the chapters about ordinances. He said, but there isn't an ordinance to say you have to cut your hair or else you can't be a part of the church. We have no such custom. You should just judge within yourself and know that this is what you should do. And look, if a woman comes in with, you know, I don't know though, I don't know about that actually. No, think about it, I don't know. If some lady comes in with like, you know, but you know, in the 90s, like straight women would do that, wouldn't they? They would have like these retro looks or whatever. And you know, sometimes you have like, let me be careful here. Because I'm not trying to offend anybody. You have these older ladies, they have that 90s haircut. You know what I'm talking about? Don't leave me on the island here by myself, okay? Where they got the silver hair and it's just like, it's faded or whatever. You guys don't want to talk about it? You know when you go to the barber shop, there's always that picture. They have these pictures of these people who have these haircuts from like the 80s or something. They're like, I'll take number eight, you know what I mean? They have like the flat top, but they also have the ladies and it's just like a fade on the side or whatever. Some of these older ladies, they do that. If they come to our church, they're going to hear preaching like this because when I see people with long hair, dudes with long hair or ladies with really short hair, that's an indicator to me I need to preach on this. But if after I preach on this, they continue to just do it, okay, well we have no such custom, we're not going to tell you. It's like there's a guy who came today. There's a visitor who came today. And in my personal opinion, in my observation, he came to troll, okay? He was extremely rude to every person who talked to him. And our church is not rude to anybody. I know people are sometimes afraid to come to our church or whatever, but honestly, everyone is very friendly here. They have tact, they know how to shake hands, look you in the eyes and say, how are you doing, where are you from, how did you hear about our church? And you know, every person he talked to, he was just absolutely rude to every single one of them. He gave a smart aleck answer to every single one of them. Brother Ulysses, our evangelist, he went up to him and he's like, hey, how's it going, you know? He's like, where are you from? And the guy's like, earth? Like, dude, are you serious? And so, you know, there's a couple of people who talked to him and he was just giving him like a really rude vibe. And finally, Brother Haig was just like, hey, Pastor, can you talk to him? Because I don't know, man, he's just, you know, he gives me this weird vibe. I don't know if he's like a bad person. Like, probably just, you know, he's just worldly or something, I don't know. I was like, yeah, I'll go talk to him. So when I shook his hand and I introduced myself, and then somewhere along the conversation, he basically was just like, yeah, sorry I didn't come dressed like you guys, you know? I'm like, that's fine. I was like, there's no dress code here. He goes, oh no, there is a dress code here. And I'm like, no, there is no dress code. We don't enforce. He was like, you can't come to this church unless you wear your suit, shirt, and tie and, you know, a little vest every once in a while, okay? We don't have a rule like that. There's no rule like that. We have no such custom. So if someone wanted to come in flip flops and shorts and a shirt, they're more than welcome to if that's what they want to do. Now I will say this, is that the young men in our church, when they come to our church, they end up adopting these bigger brothers in church. You understand what I'm saying? And these bigger brothers ended up showing them the ropes, kind of helping them a little bit. And you see them. They come to our church and you look at them now and they've been refined a little bit, you know? Like they actually look mature and they act mature and they dress mature. I think that's a good thing. Why not? No, that's wrong. That's so legalistic, bro. Jesus had sandals. It's like, you know what, there's nothing wrong with wearing your Sunday's best to church. And you know why we dress up for church? Because we think church is important. If you had a court date and you had to go see the judge, you'd probably dress your best, right? If you went to some important get together or something like that, you know, you have your suit that you would wear to come to church because you think church is important. And so that's just the philosophy, but it's not something we impose upon anybody. And it's not like if someone comes in shorts and flip flops or whatever, that we're just like, wow, bro. You know, obviously some guys are really close to one another so they'll get on each other about it. But we're talking about some stranger. I mean, the guy who came today, he wasn't poorly dressed or anything like that. He had on Cody's jean jacket, amen? He had his jean jacket and all that. I mean, he was looking pretty rad, you know? And you know what, when I saw him, the first thing I thought about was not his clothing. I wasn't like, oh, unclean. That was like the furthest thing from my mind. But it wasn't the furthest thing from his mind. And he ended up hating, I mean, and I was thinking to myself, like, this guy's really going to hate our church. After I'm done with the sermon, he's really going to, because I preached on Judas and I just wasn't going to hold back. And he was being such a jerk that I thought to myself, I'm going to look at him during the sermon. But we started singing, oh say but I'm glad, and he just was mad. Like everyone in here is happy, they're like, oh say but I'm glad, I'm glad, and he's just like. And so finally he just walked out and was just like, I'm tired of this hypocrisy. What hypocrisy? Everyone's happy here. And then he like gets on his bike and he just like takes off, he puts it on speed five or something and he just takes off as fast as he could or something like that. And I'm only mentioning like three things that he did, he did way more things than that. He said way more things, disrespectful things, just murmuring the entire time, complaining the entire time. What he's implying is that we're just, oh, we're just so legalistic and oh, look at all these people with all their suits. How is that bothering you if we're not imposing that upon you? What is it about our church that's bothering you? Is it bothering you because we have a lot of men in our church that seem to have it together at a younger age than yourself, my friend? Is that what it is? I mean the guy was dressed like a 15-year-old, but who cares if that's what he wants to do, that's what he wants to do. But don't get on the younger guys who are here and they're Sunday's best, they're giving a firm handshake, amen, Josh? He got a firm handshake. They're giving a firm handshake, thank you so much for coming, glad to have you. Maybe that's not what he was expecting, I don't know. But you know what, if I was lost, I would love to come to a church like this. You know, obviously, I'm talking about if I just came in because there's all these men here who are greeting me, they're happy, everyone's singing, they're having a great time, everyone's wide-eyed, they're just excited. It's like, this is a place where I want to be. So what I'm saying is that, you know what, the Bible speaks out against these things, but we don't have a custom to kick someone out if they do. Let me give you another example before we finish. You know, obviously, I'm not for women wearing pants, I preach against them all the time. It's abominable, stop doing it. And then when I see it, I'm just like, I'm going to preach on it again. But you know, if some visitor comes with a woman with pants on, she remains in our church for six months and she's wearing pants in church, I'll preach against it, but I'm not going to preach. Like, I'm going to preach on it quite often until I realize, okay, this lady's getting it, she just doesn't want to do it. But you know one thing I'm not going to do? One thing I'm not going to do is, hey, if you ever want to come back to this church, you need to wear a dress or something. Because we have no such custom. All right, well that's between you and the Lord. If you want to be ashamed and abominable and just an open reproach to everyone, have at it. I've done all I could. I'm not the Baptist police here going to cite you a ticket for wearing pants where you shouldn't be. I'm just going to tell you what the Bible says about it. And you know what, ladies, it's not your job either to go to some lady in our church who's wearing pants and say, uh, you shouldn't be wearing pants. No, look, if you're close to them, if you're friends with them, and you have that close relationship with them where you can say stuff like that, all for it. I'm all for the men rebuking other men that they're close to. I think open rebuke is better than secret love. I think if a brother or sister is deviating or doing something wrong, I think it's good to have another person in church just come to them and say, hey dude, get your act together. Because they're obviously not doing it out of malice, they're doing it because they love them, right? But never try to impose, and I don't think this has ever happened, but never impose a rule where it's just like, you shouldn't come here if you keep wearing pants. Because it's not true. We don't have such custom. We don't have a dress code here other than you need to wear clothes. Now obviously, you know, sometimes you have people who are just like, they dress down like they're just really down. Like it looks like they just rolled out of bed and came to church. It's like, come on, dude. Come on. Can you at least comb your hair? You know, they just rolled out of bed. It just kind of shows that they don't esteem the house of God very much. They don't really care. You understand what I'm saying? But don't accuse us of having this custom where we're just imposing that upon people because we don't. Let me say this. Things are rather cotton than top. It's true. If you don't believe me, look at all the vests in the room. I mean, Eric started wearing a vest and it was like a domino effect. A lot of guys started wearing a vest. I think that's great. But there's no custom here that's just like, hey, if you're a member of First Works, you better get yourself a vest. Or else you ain't a man. That's stupid. You understand what I'm saying? These are things that we do, not things that we impose. And look, if a woman comes in with like a fade or something like that and we preach on it and she's just not willing to grow her hair out, she has other heart issues. She's obviously just in a rebellion towards God. You understand? And if a dude walks in with a man bun, he's unwilling to cut his hair even after we preached on it. And maybe even develop some relationships in the church where a brother or sister comes to him and says, hey, you probably should cut your hair because the Bible says this. And he's still willing to do it? Okay, then he has a heart issue. There's a heart issue there. It's deeper than his hair. It's deeper than the roots of his hair. It's a lot deeper than that. He's got some other issues that he needs to take care of. You understand what I'm saying? But I don't think we have people like that in our church, okay? And so the message to you would be, don't straddle the fence. Don't always be at the border. Just take care of it. Amen? That's it. Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for this day. Lord, thank you so much for your Word and thank you for the clear teachings. Help us as your people to observe these things as you've commanded us, Lord. And we understand there's more than two ordinances of the church. There's a lot of things we need to observe as your people. Help us not to put one over the other. Help us to observe them all in a balanced manner. And I pray that you'd bless us as your people, Lord. And as lost people come to our church, because that will happen, we're not trying to cater to them, but help us to be kind to them, to be gracious with them, and that they would fall into conviction and want to get saved, Lord, and want to start serving you and be added and be integrated into church. But help us to realize that that's not the purpose of our church. The purpose of our church is to teach believers, to save people, what the Bible says, to mobilize them to go out and preach the gospel and get people saved, Lord. And help us never to lose sight of that, Lord. We love you. We thank you. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Song number 138, The Haven of Rest is our last song. Song number 138. Song number 138, The Haven of Rest. Sing it out on that first verse. My soul in that exile was out on my feet, so burdened with sin and distress, till I heard a sweet voice saying, Take me your choice, I entered the haven of rest. I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest, now sail the wide seas no more. The tempest may sweep for a while, slowly deep in Jesus I'm safe evermore. I yielded myself this tender embrace and faith-taking hope on the world. My fetters fell off and I anchored my soul, the haven of rest is my Lord. I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest, now sail the wide seas no more. The tempest may sweep for a while, slowly deep in Jesus I'm safe evermore. The song of my soul since the Lord made me whole has been the old story so blessed. A home in the haven of rest, I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest, now sail the wide seas no more. The tempest may sweep for a while, slowly deep in Jesus I'm safe evermore. O come to the Savior, He patiently waits to save by His power divine. Come anchor your soul in the haven of rest, let's say my Beloved is mine. I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest, now sail the wide seas no more. The tempest may sweep for a while, slowly deep in Jesus I'm safe evermore.