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All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Welcome back to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you would turn to your hymn books of song number 346. Song number 346. Bring your vessels, not a few. Song number 346. Are you looking for the fullness of the blessing of the Lord? In your heart and life today. The promise of your father. According to his word in the. All time. He will fill your heart today. As the Lord. Bring your vessels, not a few. To overflow. Holy ghost. 346. Bring your vessels, not a few. On number two. The earth and vessels. Jesus precious blood. One. Inhuman consecration. Before the throne of God. Holy ghost. He will fill your heart. To overflow. Bring your vessels, not a few. He will fill your heart today. To overflow. Holy ghost. Like the crucible. Grace forevermore. Changing. According to his promise. Holy ghost. Every vessel. He will fill your heart today. To overflow. As the Lord commanded you. Bring your vessels, not a few. He will fill your heart today. To overflow. With the Holy Ghost. All right. Let us pray. Thank you for allowing us to be here. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. For the next song, we're going to song number 24. Song number 24. And can it be that I should gain? That's song number 24. Song number 24. And can it be that I should gain? An interest in the Savior's blood. He died for me. He caused his pain. For me he gave. To death pursue. Amazing love. How can it be? That thou, my God, Shouldst die for me? How can it be? How can it be? That thou, my God, Shouldst die for me? He left his Father strong above. So free he saw him within. In his grace. And he did sell him all but love. And bled her out. And sell her strings. To his mercy all in embezzling grief. Oh, how can it be that thou, my God, Shouldst die for me? Amazing love. How can it be? That thou, my God, Shouldst die for me? Long lie your presence within. Fast bound in sin and vicious night. Oh, thy light of use could be great. I hope that thou art in plain with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. Oh, speak the Lord. The heart will be. Amazing love. How can it be? That thou, my God, Shouldst die for me? Good evening. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't already get a bulletin, you can slip over your hand nice and high. One of our ushers can come by and get you a bulletin. On the front, we have our Bible memory passage, Psalm 148, verse number 2. On the inside, we have our service and soul winning times, as well as our church stats. I'm going to try and get a count for the last few days just to have for reporting. Is there anything from this past Thursday from our soul winning report? Anything on Thursday? Okay, what about Friday? Was there anything from Friday? Is that 10 total? Okay. All right, 11 for Friday. What about Saturday yesterday? Was there anything? Looks like five for Saturday. And then today, there was two in the van I already got. What's outside of the van? All right, looks like another, so it's seven total for today. Praise the Lord on that. Keep up the great work on soul winning. And I looked at our numbers from the end of July. We were just a little bit ahead of last year. But we did really good last year at the end of the year. And so we got to really, you know, kick it up and try to finish the year strong on our soul winning. And hopefully we'll just keep it at it. We got a couple soul winning marathons and things. We got the soul winning one on September 11th. And so I'd really encourage you to do that. And we'll have our fire breathing Baptist Fellowship with some extra soul winning. But we want to keep up the good work there. On the right, we have our expecting ladies list. Please keep all of them in your prayers. We also have our prayer list. If you have any other prayer requests, you can always submit those via email. Or you could fill out one of our communication cards. Slip it into the offering plate. And we'd love to be in prayer with you on anything that you have. We do update this weekly, so just make sure if you have a continual prayer request to try and submit that every single week just so we're aware. And we can keep that in our bulletin. Again, we have our events there. I already mentioned, also wanted to mention is November 13th is going to be a soul winning marathon in Oklahoma City. And so our church plan up there is going to be spearheading that. Brother Tannifer and everything. But I hope maybe a big group from here will want to come up there and travel. And it's really receptive up there. And surprisingly to me is they have just as many Spanish speakers in Oklahoma it seems like. When I say that, I mean the people that live there. Like there's plenty of people that only speak Spanish in Oklahoma City. And so it's another area that you could really use Spanish if you're a Spanish speaker. Obviously it depends on what area you're in. But hey, if you speak English and Spanish, you're going to get 98, 99% of the people in Oklahoma City. And so it's a great area to go soul winning. It's very receptive. You just got to catch them when they're not high. I mean if you can get them when they're not smoking marijuana, I mean it's real receptive. And so maybe in the morning, mid-morning, something like that. But it's great. It's not around 420. That's pretty much all I had for announcements. Let's go to our third song, 159 in our hymnal, song number 159. Song number 159, blessed be the name. Song number 159. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. His name above, one name shall stand. Exalted for and for. At God the Father's sole right hand. Where angels close adore. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Redeemer, Savior, friend of man. Once quit by the fall. Thou hast defied salvation's plan. For thou hast died for all. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. His name shall be the counselor. The mighty Prince of Peace. Of all Earth's kingdoms, conquer her. Whose reign shall never cease. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name, blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. While the offering plates are being passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Exodus 23. It's Exodus chapter 23. It's Exodus chapter 23. Exodus chapter 23. Thou shalt not raise a false report. Put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. Neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to rest judgment. Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him that hated thee lying under his burden but is forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him. Thou shalt not rest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. Keep thee far from a false matter. And the innocent and righteous slay thou not, for I will not justify the wicked. And thou shalt take no gift, for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous. Also, thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. In six years thou shalt sow thy land and shalt gather in the fruits thereof. But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still that the poor of thy people may eat and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard and with thy olive yard. Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest, that thine ox and thine ass may rest and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed. And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect, and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth. Three times a year thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread. Thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib, for in it thou camest out from Egypt, and none shall appear before me empty. And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in the field, and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labors out of the field. Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning. The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seeth a kid in his mother's milk. Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and to the Hittites, and to the Perizzites, and to the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I will cut them off. Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works, but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images, and ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water, and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren in thy land, the number of thy days I will fulfill. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land, and I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea, even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert under the river, for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me. For if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for the souls that were won today. I pray, Lord, you bless Pastor Shelley with your spirit. Allow us to pay attention. Please help us to apply the message to our lives in the coming days and weeks, and in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. I want to start here in verse number one where the Bible reads, Thou shalt not raise a false report. Put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. And I'm drawing the title of my sermon from this very simple phrase here, false report. And the title of my sermon is false reports and accusations. False reports and accusations. And really, this is just something that's so rampant in our society, in our culture, and affecting so many people today. And it's important to realize that this is a very important commandment. This is a very serious commandment. It's something that is very common right now because people are just liars. I mean, I don't know how else to word it. Pretty much everybody is a liar, and people lie just constantly. I mean, it's just water off a duck's back. I mean, it's one of the most common things that we see today. People are not honest. And I'm not saying like the world. I'm saying like everybody, even saved Christians, even godly people supposedly, you know, godly or whatever. People just lie like it's nothing. People just, for some reason, almost have no fear of God in the area of lying. And it's really frustrating because people will try to believe anything and everything they hear. People will pretend like everything people say is true, even though at the same time they realize everyone's a liar. I mean, you say, hey, everybody lies all the time. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then it's like they believe everything that they hear at the same time. And what you have to understand is that we're not supposed to raise a false report. And we're also not supposed to receive false reports and hearken unto false reports. And we don't want to be a partaker with them and become an unrighteous witness. And a lot of people, what they do is they hear information. And while they may not have made the initial false report, they end up repeating it. They end up sharing the exact same information with everybody. And ultimately what they're doing is they also are an unrighteous witness. They're an unreliable source of information. And because this is so rampant, you see online today that there's all these different websites and groups and organizations and things online to prevent this. They're called fact finders. Now, what's funny about this group or this nomenclature of fact finders is pretty much everything they say as far as like how they categorize themselves or the things that they, the broad categories that they basically use are good. Because fact finding, that sounds like a good thing, right? There's nothing wrong with finding facts. There's nothing wrong with basically trying to find credible information or determining what's true or what's not true. And whenever these fact finders will basically investigate and they'll try to figure out if someone's telling the truth or not, the titles that they'll give for these articles or their assessment are often good things. They'll say, hey, this is mostly true, which is often a thing that happens. People will give you information that's mostly true, but because they've snuck in some fake information or false information with it, it ends up being a false report. Or they'll say it's missing context, which again, that's also a thing that people will do is they'll leave out context when they give a report so as to make it misleading. They'll say it's misleading or it's unverified. And so a lot of these fact finders, the things that they're saying are good. It's just they're not following their own rules. They're not actually being honest with themselves. They're actually doing the things that they're accusing other people of doing. They're the ones that are not providing the context or doing misleading things or basically just using unverified, unreliable sources of information. But I'll go as far as to say this. You can't trust information from anybody. Let me say that again. You can't trust information from anyone. Your only reliable source of information is this book. That's it. And so it's an important thing that we realize that we need to make sure everything we believe, everything we think, all the decisions that we make are based on the Word of God and not what other people tell us. And even pastors today, you know, pastors will say things that are wrong. I am not perfect. I can say or teach something that's wrong. And ultimately, I want you to have your final authority in the Word of God. If I ever said something and you say, you know, the Bible says something completely different, believe the Bible every single time. You know, I'm not afraid of that. I'm not scared of that. In fact, I believe if 99% of Christians would believe what the Bible says, they'd probably walk through the doors of a church like ours because they'd end up realizing we're a little bit more honest when it comes to what the Bible actually says than a lot of other churches are. Not to say there isn't other good churches out there, but we need to submit ourselves to the Word of God and we need to make sure that we're aware of all the false reports that are going out there. Go to Proverbs 14 for a moment. Go to Proverbs chapter 14. You know, the Bible talks about a group in Thessalonica that, you know, or I'm sorry, a group that's, you know, different than the Thessalonians. Let me read this verse for you in Acts chapter 17. It says, These are more noble than those in Thessalonica, and that they receive the Word with all readiness of mind and search the Scriptures daily whether those things are so. So the Bible talks about the Bereans, and a lot of people even name, like, a parachurch ministry like the Berean Council or the Berean Fellowship or the Berean Brothers because they're trying to take this wording or basically this story out of the Bible and bring it to the context of saying that they study the Bible better. And look, it's just true that some groups care more about the Bible than others. Some churches care about the Bible more than others. Some Christians care more about the Bible than others. And so we need to try and be like the Bereans who actually search the Scriptures, study the Bible, and make sure the things that we hear are actually true because a lot of times people are just going to give you bad information. Even from the pulpit, you know, I try my hardest to make sure that everything I say is completely accurate behind the pulpit, but even myself sometimes I mess up a stat or maybe I say something a little off here and there, and I try to correct those if I feel like it's important. But I've heard a lot of people teach things that are just not true, behind my pulpit, behind other pulpits, you know, and it's important that we're making sure that we're studying the Bible and making sure that that is our final authority and that we're not guilty of the ones that are raising false reports. But people that do believe the false reports, look what the Bible describes them as, Proverbs 14 verse 15, the simple believeth every word. So let me say this. Being someone who just accepts whatever you hear automatically makes you a simple person. Now simple could be synonymous with stupid, foolish, silly, ignorant. These are kind of similar words. But simple in a lot of contexts is just someone that's just not very bright. It's someone that's not very smart. They just, you know, basically are trusting of anything and everything. And it's not like, oh, I'm too trusting. It's really that they're just naïve. Because there's nothing wrong with being a trusting person. The problem is that they're putting their trust in the wrong thing. Hey, I want you to be a trusting person. I just want you to put all your trust in this. So hey, be a trusting person, but make sure your trust isn't a reliable source. Don't trust anyone and everyone. That makes you naïve. That actually makes you foolish. And in a lot of cases, it makes you a very stupid person. The Bible says, but the prudent man looketh well to his going. So we need to be people who make sure that we're paying attention to the information that's being given us and checking it with the Bible, making sure that it's accurate. Because what I believe is that the Internet has had a dramatic shift in the last several years. To where false information was definitely rampant on the Internet. It's always been rampant. But at this point, it's almost like the vast majority of information on the Internet is just false. And I say that because it's just how it is. I mean, when it comes to medical information, I find a lot of medical information false in my personal opinion. When it comes to history, false. When it comes to justice and social issues, false. When it comes to religion, false. I mean, we're talking about major categories here. Just a lot of false information, a lot of fake reporting, a lot of just, I mean, as Trump would say, fake news. And it's just reality. I mean, the news is fake. Basically, all the information that's being pumped out by Hollywood is fake. Basically, all the televangelists are fake. It's like, oh, man, I get all my good Christian doctrine from the TV. It's fake. It's false. That's a bad source to get information from. And it used to be that the Internet was a good place to go and find information at. And I still think you can. But it's a lot harder. It's a lot more difficult because people can just lie and lie and lie. And it's very difficult to find trustworthy information anymore. And ultimately, if it doesn't agree with the Bible, I'm not going to, I don't care. I'm not going to be interested in that type of information. Go to Proverbs 11 for a moment. Now, there's other words in the Bible that kind of describe the issue that I'm bringing up of being false reporting. One would be tail bearing. Now, tail bearing could be a couple of different things. According to the dictionary, this is what tail bearing is according to the dictionary. One who spreads malicious stories or gossip. Here's another in the same dictionary. It says one who tells, tells likely to breed mischief. One who carries stories and makes mischief by his officiousness. And officiousness, I didn't know what that word is. I had to look it up. But simply it's one who inserts themselves into a situation that they don't belong in. So it's someone who's meddlesome. Basically someone who's just trying to insert themselves into a situation and express their opinion when no one was asking. And it's basically saying this is what a tail bearer is like. They basically go around and they want to give you information about people where they're not involved. They didn't see it. They didn't hear it. You didn't ask. Nobody wants to know. But they're just going to tell you all about it anyways. Okay. And really it's funny because when you start thinking about tail bearing, it just sounds like the news. I mean think about the news. I mean when have you, I mean very rare. You actually watch the news and you recognize anybody on the screen. Maybe it does happen every once in a while. But mostly it's what? People you've never heard of that you know nothing about and they're just going to tell you all their gossip. You know this person did this and they have this problem and this issue or whatever. I mean the newspaper, same way. You're going to find out about everybody's dirty laundry. You know in the newspaper they used to put everybody's divorce because it's public record. Everybody that got divorced, right there on the newspaper for you to read. And you can find out all the scuttlebutt about every single person. Hey People magazine, what is it about? Jennifer and Brad had a fight. You know and one threw a coffee and the other one threw its phone or whatever. It's like this is just the news. It's just a bunch of tail bearing. Just going around. You didn't ask. You didn't care. You didn't want to know. Do you really want to know what's going on with Shia LaBeouf or going on with the Queen of England or going on? Nobody really cares. Obviously though, but some people they just want to hear gossip, don't they? Some people just want to hear scuttlebutt. They just want to hear the news as it were. But really it's not a godly attribute. Tail bearing, there's nothing beneficial to it. It's not really going to help you. And when it comes to the news, most of the time the news is trying to put forth a particular agenda. And so they're going to feed you with all the stories that they want you to basically hear, listen to, think about. They want to kind of control you and program you and cause you to make certain decisions. Because they'll start feeding you certain stories that will cause you to make purchasing decisions literally. Where they start feeding you all this information about how dangerous it is in your area. It will cause you to what? Buy more security systems, buy more guns. And they'll just happen to put like a security ad on the next page after all the stories about all the home break-ins. Or they'll feed you a story about dogs and the dog catcher. There's always an agenda when it comes to these type of issues. And like a tail bearer inserting themselves and then just giving you all this information and gossip about people. There is an agenda. They either want you to not be their friend or they're attacking people. Or they're trying to get you away from someone or take advantage of you or get your money. I mean think about a homeless person. They come and tell you their life story. What's the purpose? Because they want your money. It's not like you really cared to find out about their dog that died. And now they traveled across the country and they're trying to get their sister. It's like you didn't ask. You didn't care. Why are people bringing all this information up? Because there's an agenda associated with it. Now look what it says in Proverbs 11 verse 13. A tail bearer reveals his secrets. But he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter. Sometimes tail bearing can be true. Sometimes you hear about something. It's true. It's factual. It's not like there's anything that's necessarily false about it. But they're just sharing it just to damage people. Like so and so got divorced. That could be a legitimate story but it's just why would you want to share that? The only goal is just to basically rub people's nose in it or make them feel bad or look bad. And what is the tail bearing doing is revealing secrets. Meaning there's no real need for you to go around and just tell everybody's dirty laundry. I don't think that any of us in this room want our 10 worst decisions for the week to be read aloud for everybody in the congregation. Hey, this is what so and so did this week and this is the dumb thing they said. It's funny because people try to do this to me. They'll notice their brothers and sisters in Christ do something stupid in the week and they'll tell me about it as if I'm going to do something. They'll be like, did you see what so and so did? Did you see what so and so said? Did you hear about what's going on? And I'm thinking like, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to follow everybody around in the congregation all week and tell them everything I disagree with? Hey, you shouldn't warn that. You shouldn't do that. Don't eat ranch, okay, obviously. Why would you drink coffee? I mean, what's going on, buddy, you know? It's like, do you really want me to just follow you around and just obsess over everything you said? Hey, typo on this sentence, buddy. Hey, you didn't do this right. And look, sometimes it's serious. It's like something that was dumb. It was really foolish. They shouldn't have done it. It was a sin. It was bad or whatever. But look, I'm your pastor. I'm not your just tattletale police for to go around and just tell everybody what you're doing wrong and policing everybody and making sure that you're handling. Oh, so and so argued with their spouse. Oh, y'all got to come here. Let me sit y'all down. Let me tell you, don't argue with your spouse. It's like I'm not here to settle all of your spats. I'll preach in the pulpit what you should do. I'll try to set the best example that I can. Look, I'd have to follow myself around. I'd have to come here and be like Pastor Shelley. You know, you're not listening to your own servants, buddy. You know, it's like no one's perfect. And it's silly for us to go around and title on everybody for every single thing that goes wrong. And a lot of times it is also a false report to sometimes it can be true. But a lot of times the tail bearing, they'll exaggerate certain details or it'll be missing context or it'll be misleading or we don't really know what happened. And they're giving you all this information. And it's really silly to just get involved in it because it's just not something you should get involved with. You know, you're going to basically just hate your life. If you just go around trying to meddle with everybody's right, meddle with everybody's issues, tattle telling on everybody constantly. I mean, my children do this to themselves and I don't want to hear it. So and so hit me, punched me, took my toy. And it's like sometimes adults act like this. And I'm thinking, like, I don't want to hear it. I'm not interested. You know, unless someone's like bleeding, dying or a heretic, I'm really not that interested. You know, or giving birth or something. You know, maybe maybe then I'll get involved. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to be here to just settle every little spat and every little, you know, sin issue that everybody has. Go to Proverbs 18, Proverbs chapter 18. And maybe people do this with a good intention. They think like, oh, I better tell Pastor Sally. But I honestly don't look at that person in a good way. I don't think like, oh, that was a good intention. I'm thinking like that's stupid. Stop telling me. Stop harassing me about this stuff. I don't want to deal with it. I'm not interested. If you care so much, why don't you help? You know, but I'm not going to be the policeman to go around and police your thought life. Okay. Proverbs chapter 18, look at verse 8. The words of a tale bearer as wounds, they go down in the innermost parts of the belly. You know, if you make a mistake, it's really hurtful when someone goes around and blabs that to everybody. Someone's going around telling everybody all the mistakes and all the problems you have, especially because often people exaggerate it or put it in a worse context than it really is or try to make it even sound way worse than it is or try to act like they're holier than thou. I would never do this. I would never say this. I've never heard someone doing this before. And they kind of pretend like it's the worst thing ever, even though they're probably guilty of ten times worse than that. So you want to be careful that you're not this person, though. Because I think a lot of people end up being a tale bearer on accident. They're not even thinking about it. They're just sharing all this information. They're just going around blabbing their mouth, just constantly saying things about people and not realizing that it's hurting people along the way, that people truly get their feelings hurt. And, you know, we all can be sensitive, not just women. We can be sensitive when people go around just talking about you in a negative way. That's why you should just not go around blabbing about people and talking negatively about people and sharing information. Here's how I view it. If you wouldn't share the information right in front of the person, you probably should never share it. Because, hey, sometimes you share information about, hey, did you hear so-and-so had their baby? You would share that right in front of them, wouldn't you? I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. Or, you know, so-and-so, you know, got this person saved. Or, you know, so-and-so just had their baby, let's sign up for their meal train. Or, you know, there's going to be positive information you share about other people. We love to talk about, you know, our friends and exciting things that happen to them. Hey, they got their family saved. They got this family member saved that they've been praying about. Or, you know, they finally went out soul winning and they got someone saved and it was great or whatever. You know, but it's like, oh, did you see what she wore at church the other day? Would you really say that in front of her though? You know, ah, this person did this or said this. Do you see what they did on Facebook or do you see who sat by so-and-so or didn't talk to so-and-so or didn't invite so-and-so to so-and-so's birthday party or do you see how their kids were acting or blah? It's like all that just causes problems. And it's really not beneficial. Proverbs chapter 20 verse 19, you're right there. He that goes about as a tale bearer of evil secrets, therefore meddle not with him that flatter through his lips. Here's another thing that's interesting about tale bearers is they'll flatter you before they end up just sharing all this false information. Hey, since you're such a good Christian, I wanted to share with you how this other person's a terrible Christian. You know, they'll just sit there and flatter you. Oh, you're such a good friend. I really like you. Let me tell you all about how they're a bad friend. So they'll walk up to you and they'll flatter you, try to get some favor with you, talk about how you're so much better or you're so much of a good person or they like you so much more and then they'll just share all this wicked false report or information about someone else. Beware because that person's going to do the same thing to you. They're going to turn around and then go tell the same person they just talked trash on, the same thing they said about you to them. They'll be like, I've had this literally happen where a guy's coming up and he's like, man, you're my best friend. I really hate this other guy. Then he walks to the other guy and he's like, oh, you're my best friend. I really hate the other guy. Then we started talking and we're like, this guy's full of crap. This guy is just flattering us and he doesn't like anybody. He's just a liar and he's just raising constant false report and accusing people and just trying to cause problems really. Go to Proverbs 26. Go to Proverbs 26. What's going to help a church is having no tail bearer, is having no slanderer, is having no one going around raising false reports about the brethren. Honestly, this church in my opinion has come a long way because when I first came in, it was a little rampant from some people. There was a lot of just slanderers and people that bring up false reports and false accusations and just tail bearing and it was just like, ugh. But fortunately, you know, it's gotten a lot better. But at the same time, churches literally have this issue all the time because it's just human nature that this is going to be an issue. People are going to always gossip. People are always going to be a tail bearer. People are always going to have these problems and we have to be reminded on a regular basis to keep our mouth shut really. Look what it says in Proverbs 26 verse 20. Where no wood is, there the fire goes out. So where there is no tail bearer, the strife ceases. So notice once everyone stops, you know, talking dirt on people, you start having unity. And when you see a church that has a lot of divisions, it has a lot of factions, it has a lot of people that don't like each other, it's because there's tail bearers in the congregation. And I've seen it. I mean, there's literally been churches that I know of, good churches. And it's not necessarily the pastor's fault because he can't force people to behave. But there'll be people that are like, they'll be sitting in a certain section of the auditorium and someone will come sit near them and they move. And they can't be around them, they can't talk to them, they don't want to go soloing with them. They have their own little friend clicks and they'll get mad at each other and it's just like, you're like, it's church. If you're both saved, you're going to be in heaven for a long time together. Get used to it, okay? I mean, and look, sometimes there's people that I don't necessarily find the most fun to talk to or the most enjoyable or maybe our personalities don't click as well as other people. But for the most part, I feel like I can talk to anybody, you know. And that doesn't mean I have to invite them over to a barbecue. It doesn't mean that I have to invite them to all of my kids' parties or whatever. It doesn't mean that we have to sit next to each other every single time we're in the auditorium. But I think it's really petty and carnal when you can't even be near your brother or sister in Christ. And look, I will never force anybody to be friends with anybody. You don't have to be friends with anyone. That's your own prerogative, you get to decide whatever you want to do. But at the end of the day, you should be friendly. You're not right, in my opinion, with God if you don't want to be friendly towards people. But that doesn't mean you have to be best buds with anyone. And I, you know, sometimes there's people in the church that I'm thinking like, I don't want to hang out with that person at all. They have a lot of problems, a lot of issues, and I'm going to keep my distance from that person purposely, you know. And through the history, we've had a lot of people like that, that it turns out there was a good reason why he would stay away from that person or you notice issues or whatever. And, you know, it's not for me to go around and tell everybody about it. I don't think there's any benefit in realizing someone's a bad person before they show themselves to be a bad person. But you privately can make decisions saying, you know what, I'm just going to distance myself from that person and I'll be friendly and cordial, but, you know, I just don't want to get really close to that person for whatever issue. But it's wrong to then go around and tell everybody that you're not. Hey, I just want to let you know I'm not going to sit near Dylan anymore. He looks kind of like a Mormon and, you know, that just makes me feel awkward. He drinks a lot of coffee, I don't know, you know. It's like, hey, if you feel that way, just keep it to yourself, you know. It's just a better way to handle yourself. And it's not just church, this is everywhere. You know, in the workplace, you should try to adopt this philosophy. Don't go around tell bearing about people on the job, you know, keep things to yourself, try to be friendly, try to be cordial with your co-workers, and your boss gets really frustrated from having to babysit employees or constant tattletales and can't get along with other co-workers and are always causing problems on the job. So I want you to turn there. Not only are we talking about false reports and tell bears, how about just pure slander? Now, slander is different than being a tell bear because slander is just always false information. Now, I believe that slander is typically purposeful, but it's possible that someone can slander someone unknowingly. Essentially, they believe something's true and they repeat it, even though it's not, it's a false information. But typically, slander is on purpose. They know that what they're saying is wrong and they're maliciously, purposely trying to hurt and damage people and make up stories about them and false information about them. And look at how David, you know, the psalmist, what his opinion is of these people. Verse 5, who so privately slandered with his neighbor, him will I cut off. Him that hath not looked in proud heart, will not I suffer. So privately means privately or like sneakily or cunningly, meaning they're going around, they're whispering. They're going around, they're drawing people aside. They're calling people privately and they're just making up the worst accusations about someone. David says, I won't let this person be around me at all. And if someone comes to you and they're privately slandering someone, you should cut them off. You should have nothing to do with them. You should stop them in their tracks. And look, the best way to stop gossip and slander and tell bearing is for you to be bold enough, brave enough to just tell someone that you're not interested in hearing about it. And look, there's a nice way to do it. If someone comes up to me and wants to start sharing information, I typically just say, well, wait a minute, does this have something to do with me? And they're like, no. It's like, I just, I don't feel comfortable then discussing. I just don't want to talk about it then. Hey, that sounds like a bad situation but I'm not really involved so I don't really want to get involved. Let's talk about something else. You know, let's talk about what we're doing next week or you want to go soul winning or you know. Just basically, if it's not about you, if it has nothing to do with you, then you just cut it off and just move on. Just talk about something else. You don't have to be like, wicked slanderer, stand back. You know, I will not hear this information, you know. It's like, don't be overdramatic, okay. But at the same time, you can still cut it off. You can still just say, look, hey, does this have something to do with me? Oh, it doesn't? Okay, I don't really want to discuss it, you know. Yeah, that sounds bad but I'm not that interested. Let's just talk about something else or whatever. And you know, if someone cuts you off from saying something you shouldn't, don't get offended by it. Take it like a man, just say, okay, sure. And then just talk about something else. You know, and realize that they're actually trying to help you from not doing something wicked, from not doing something evil, from trying to basically keep peace within the congregation. And if someone gets mad at you for not you listening to their gossip and tail bearing, you want that person mad at you. Why would you want to be around? Why would you have friends that just constantly want to gossip and rail and slander anyways? You should have David's opinions and say, I'm cutting that person off. If you're not willing to stop yourself around me, then I just don't even want to be around you. I don't want to even have that kind of a friend who's willing to just slander his neighbor. Go to Proverbs chapter 10, go to Proverbs chapter 10, go back. And I'm just giving you kind of a little of a basis here and then we're going to look at some stories here and talk about some people. But the Bible has a lot to say on these topics and these subjects and we need to be careful that we're not raising false reports about people. Proverbs chapter 10, look at verse 18, he that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth the slander is a fool. And the multitude of words that wanteth not sin, but he that reframedeth his lips is wise. I was just warning you, saying, look, when you talk a lot, you're probably going to say a lot of stupid things. You know, the people that are constantly, you know, sharing their opinion online often have bad opinions. People that are constantly sharing their opinion in the public square or, you know, the group of friends, they're always overtalking the conversation or overbearing, they typically say a lot of foolish things. You know, the people that are typically wise kind of keep to themselves, they're a little bit more quiet, a little bit more reserved. They think about what they're going to say before they say it, rather than just, you know, desiring to hear everything that their heart has ever thought of come out of their mouth. You know, that's a dangerous way to live your life. And notice in the previous verse, it's talking about people that are hiding hatred with lying lips. Meaning what? Typically, when people slander, it's because they hate that person. Again, it's possible for you to utter a slander accidentally, but nine out of ten times, the person uttering a slander, they hate that person. And they'll lie about it. They'll be like, oh, I love this person. I'm not attacking this person. I don't want to hurt this person. You know, if anybody starts out a video telling you what they're not doing, it's because that's what they're about to do. This video is not to cause problems, you know, or it's like, with all due respect, it's like they're about to basically disrespect the crap out of you. Okay, I mean, why would they start out a video or a conversation by telling you what they're not going to do? Because they already know that's how it's going to come across. They already know that's how it's going to be received because that's exactly what they're doing. So be very careful when someone's about to tell you what they're not going to do. I'm not about to lie about you. I'm not about to slander you. I'm not about to attack you. I'm not about to expose you. I want to just tell you how much I love you. You know, it's like, be really careful of what they're about to say after that. Be careful of this person and the person that under the slander, according to the Bible, is a fool. Go to Job 32, go to Job 32, and I'm going to show you a few more quick verses and then we're going to get into some story in the Bible here. But, you know, even the Apostle Paul, he talked about how they were slanderously reported in Romans. He said, and not rather is we slanderously reported and some affirm that we say let us do evil that good may come whose damnation is just. So the Apostle Paul is going around, he's preaching the gospel, he's preaching the freeness of salvation, and people are slandering him by saying, oh, you're saying do evil that good can come. Like, basically, the idea would be like murder people to go to heaven. It's like, he was never saying that. No one's saying that. No one's ever taught that, except for, wait, Muslim, sorry. With your jihad, right? But at the end of the day, look, Christians aren't going around saying let us do evil that good may come. I mean, that's a really wicked slander that's being brought against the Apostle Paul. But what I want to tell you is this. Godly men are going to have a lot of false reports brought up about them. Godly people are constantly going to have a lot of false reports brought up about them. And so if you truly want to follow a godly man or you want to be around godly people, what you have to realize is that there's going to be a lot of slander thrown at them. A lot of evil thrown at them. You know, another great guy in the Bible is Job. Job, according to the Bible, is the greatest man alive at that time. I mean, he's one that fearth God and escheweth evil. Asshew means he stays away from it. He hates it. He wants nothing to do with evil. I mean, this guy's a perfect and an upright man. I mean, God is commending him to the devil and saying, like, how can you find somebody better than Job? I mean, have you considered my servant Job? You know, and Job's supposed to be a picture of Christ. And now Christ is perfect and one who feared God and eschewed evil and did right. You know, that's kind of the picture of Job. But when Job's around this bozo named Elihu, Elihu can't stop slandering Job. I mean, when you read the book of Job and you finally get to the character of Elihu, I mean, he slanders Job up and down just every single verse, almost, it seems like. He's just saying Job is wicked. He'd drink up scorned like water. I mean, his friends are all wicked. And Elihu is just slandering Job incessantly. What we have to understand, though, is he finally gets kind of tossed aside. God has nothing to do with him, okay? He's basically thrown out of the picture, in a sense. And I liken this to church. There are going to be people that get thrown out of church. And let me tell you how you know if it was Elihu or not. They slander the crap out of you when they leave. They just cannot stop talking how bad you are in the church and everybody that goes there. They just incessantly, they just look obsessed with you for the rest of their life, just constantly saying evil against you and false reports about you, okay? And it reminds me of Elihu because look at this verse in verse 19. It says in Job 32, verse 19, Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent and is ready to burst like new bottles. So what Elihu is saying is like, I can't help myself. I just got to speak. I just got to let it be known what I have to say. And what I've noticed is a lot of people that get thrown out of church, what they end up doing is they just go online, make videos, and they're like, I had to make a video. I just had to let my story be known. I just had to share my experience with what's going on in this situation. And they're just like an Elihu. And all they do is they sit there and just slander Job up and down. They just make up all these false reports and false accusations, just left and right. And sometimes it'll discourage people from going to a church where they have a bunch of Elihu's around there attacking Job, basically. But I'm going to tell you this, you have to deal with it. If you want to follow the man of God in your generation, in your lifetime, you have to deal with Elihu's, okay? Because the alternative is going to a church where all men speak well of the pastor because he's a false prophet. So you have option. Option A, no slander against your pastor because he's a false prophet. Option B, lots of slander against the man of God. That's your option. Or just don't go to church and just not be right with God. But I'm telling you this, if you want to follow a real man of God, you could find tons and tons of people slandering him. Constantly throughout the Bible, constantly in reality, that's just how it is. And we have to be careful that we don't get discouraged or faint or be weary of the Elihu's out there because they're going to be constantly out there attacking. Even if you want to follow Jesus. Now, I don't know, go to John chapter 7. Go to John chapter 7. You know, the Bible says it's an honor for a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling. You know, if you want to have some character, just let some things go. You know, if I didn't like a church, why not just move on? You know, I have left churches. I went to a church and I believe the pastor's a false prophet. I believe that they're doing a lot of evil work. I think the majority of the people are unsaved. I disagree with their doctoral statement almost on virtually everything. I mean, they're wrong on the Bible version issue. They're wrong on the charismatic gifts. They're wrong on salvation. They're wrong on discipleship. They're wrong on sin. I mean, I could just get up and down and just list all kinds of things they're wrong on. I disagree with their elders. They constantly have scandals. They constantly have issues. But you know what? I don't sit here and feel like I have a need to watch every single one of their sermons and harass them constantly and make all these troll accounts and talking about them. And look, the church that I left is way bigger than us. I mean, it had 10,000 people in its congregation. It was reaching every country in the world. It's on television on one of the most popular television networks. The pastor's written a book where millions of people have listened to it. And I'll tell you his name, Jimmy Evans. Now, I have preached against him maybe once or twice or like a small handful of times. But you almost never hear me talk about him because I've moved on, because I don't care. I don't need to obsess about something that I don't care about. The people that obsess, they have serious issues. Serious, serious issues. It's like the stalker ex-girlfriend who's trolling you and following you around or whatever. And at the end of the day, there's going to be some guys that have some crazy stalker ex-girlfriends, but it's not his fault. He could still be a good guy. And when it comes to Jesus Christ, if you wanted to follow Jesus, if God decided for us to be born at the time of Jesus, you would have had to deal with this issue if you wanted to follow Jesus. Let me prove it to you. Verse 7, verse 12. And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him, for some said he is a good man, others said nay, but he deceiveth the people. Notice there's tons of people talking about Jesus. Oh, this guy is a deceiver. This guy, you know, you can't trust this guy. He's going around deceiving people. Verse 13, albeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews. So notice they're not even saying this publicly. They're going around sneaking around telling people this, aren't they? They're going around, oh, he's a deceiver. You know, oh, I don't like this Jesus. He's deceiving people. Let's keep reading. Verse 15. And the Jews marveled, saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned. Another false report about Jesus, because number one, he didn't deceive anybody. He's literally the truth. Number two, he did learn. Go to Luke chapter 2. Keep your finger here, because we're going to go through John 7 a lot. Go to Luke 2. I'm going to prove that what they're saying is false. Now, to them, they think he's never learned. But the Bible actually teaches he did. This would be similar. You know, they'll look at pastors, and they'll say, oh, this guy didn't go to seminary. He doesn't know the Bible. He's ignorant of the word of God, or he's not qualified to teach or preach because he didn't go to this particular seminary. He doesn't have this doctorate. He doesn't have this master's degree, a master of divinity. Look, the only person that has a master of divinity is God, okay? He's the only master. You know, the master is Christ. Everybody else that claims to be a master of divinity is a lying deceiver, okay? Luke chapter 2, look at verse 46. And it came to pass that after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. So when Jesus was 12 years old, he went to the temple, and he's asking questions to the leaders there and listening to them. I would call that learning. You want to know how you learn? Ask questions. Verse 47. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed, and his mother said to them, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said to them, How is it that ye sought me? Whist ye not that I must be about my father's business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. But his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And notice this last phrase, or this last verse. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. So that's what the Bible says. Jesus actually increased in wisdom. And in fact, whenever the Bible talks about Jesus going to the temple and reading, it says as his custom was. What does that mean? It means he was regularly going into the synagogue, regularly going in to hear the word of God being preached, reading the word of God. He's someone who studied. He's someone who asked questions. The Bible says he increased in wisdom. Yet what was their accusation? Having never learned. What an accusation that is. I mean, Jesus has never learned anything. You know, yet the Bible shows us multiple proofs of him learning, growing, asking questions, getting wisdom. What a weird accusation. Go back to John chapter number 7. Go back to John chapter number 7. Oh, how can this guy read? He's never learned anything. Verse 19. Did not Moses give you the law? And yet, none of you keepeth the law. Why go ye about to kill me? People answered and said, Thou hast the devil who goeth about to kill thee. So notice what they've said about Jesus so far. And this is really short. We haven't even covered very much of the Bible yet. They're saying he's a deceiver. They're saying he's never learned anything in his entire life and he's a devil. This is some serious slander, right? It is funny because they'll prove themselves wrong just a few verses later. Look at verse 25. Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? Isn't that funny how they instantly contradict themselves? Oh, who's trying to kill you? Isn't this the guy they're trying to kill? It's like, hey, you have a devil. No one's trying to kill you. We're trying to kill him, right? You know, it's like they can't even get their story straight, can they? But lo, he speaketh boldly and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? Skip down to verse 40. Many of the people, therefore, when they heard this saying, said of a truth, This is the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Had not the scripture said that Christ cometh of the seed of David and out of the town of Bethlehem where David was? So there was a division among the people because of him. So here's another false report. They're saying he can't be the Christ, he can't be the chosen one because he wasn't of Bethlehem, he's of Galilee. But here's the thing. He is of Bethlehem. Oops, screwed up on that one because they don't actually know the truth about him. And they're just assuming that he was born in Galilee. They don't realize he actually is from Bethlehem. What if they had asked him, they said, Hey, were you born in Galilee? He's like, Bethlehem. You're like, oh, oops. Maybe they asked that question. But, you know, a lot of times this is what people do. They just assume things about you and then they bring up what? A false report. And notice, look, constant false report about Jesus. They're trying to get you to stop believing he's a Messiah. And look, this is a valid point. Because if Jesus had not been born in Bethlehem, he couldn't have been the Messiah. They were accurate. If he had said, yeah, I'm born in Galilee, then they'd be like, oh, okay, well, then we're going to stop following you. Then you're not the real Christ. But they're trying to use that accusation, that information to try and get you discouraged. They're trying to attack his qualifications, as it were. And look, there's a lot of people, they'll try to slander men of God at their qualifications because if they know they can get you to believe their qualifications are not legit, well, then you'll stop following them. Won't they? So that's one of the things they'll go after is they'll try to attack you in that area. Go to Mark chapter 14. Go to Mark chapter 14. And look, this is a small, small sample. You read the New Testament, it is false accusation and slander and evil report brought against Jesus constantly. It's brought against Paul. It's brought against Job. It's brought about Jesus. It's brought against all of them. You say, well, if you're really of God, then why are all these people that are saying all this evil stuff about you? Because they're of God. It's a circular argument, but that's the reality. Now, sometimes it could be because they just are wicked. It could be because they are evil. But we really do have to kind of evaluate the situation. We have to be Bereans. We have to study ourselves and study ourselves to be approved unto God. We have to hearken to the word of God and pay attention. Is this guy a flatterer? Is this guy giving a reliable information? Is the things he's saying consistent with the Bible? Are they consistent with themselves? You know, where am I going to put my trust in? Look at Mark chapter 14, verse 57. And there arose certain and bare false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands. And within three days, I will build another made without hands. Verse 59, but neither so did their witness agree together. Again, they're trying to take things Jesus said, twist them, pervert them, add a few words, switch it around a little bit, and then try to say what Jesus was teaching, is that he was going to literally destroy the physical temple there. But he said, Detroit, this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again. What was he really saying? He was talking about the temple of his body, is what the Bible says. And so, again, just false accusation, railing, evil witnesses, lying about Jesus. Go to John chapter 2. Don't go there. Go to John 18. I'm sorry. Go to John chapter 18. You know, when they bring Jesus to Pilate to basically have him crucified, it's interesting what they say when they bring him. Look at John chapter 18, verse 29. Pilate then went out unto them and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? Verse 30. They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. Hey, this judge is a bad guy. What did he do? He's a bad guy. What's his accusation? Bad guy. They already told you he's a bad guy. Why don't you believe us already? You know, is that really fair? Is that a fair trial? Look, they're just bringing up a false accusation. You say, Well, why would they bring up that accusation? Because they didn't have an accusation. Notice, when people just say, Oh, this guy's just a bad guy. Or they just bring up these vague, random things. It's because they don't have anything to say. Or they bring up petty little things. It's because they don't have anything legit. Look, if they had something legit, they'd just bring it up. They'd bring up the legit accusation. They'd say, This guy killed this person. Here's the witnesses. Or, This person committed adultery. Here's the witnesses. Or, This person stole. Here's the receipts. Here's the videotape. This guy's a bad guy. You know, that's a really weak argument. And in fact, it makes it sound like you're lying whenever you just go around talking about people in such a manner. So, pay attention to how they talk about people and say, If someone's bringing up the same type of accusations to you, beware of that. Say, I don't think that's necessarily true then. You know, Why is it a lot like Trump? Orange man bad. If you were not a bad guy, we wouldn't talk about him bad on Twitter. You know, it's just like, Look, there's plenty to bring up against Trump. But, at the end of the day, you know, a lot of times people, when they just bring up these over-the-top type accusations is because they have nothing to say against them. Go to Acts chapter 17. Now, I'm going to give you a couple other examples because people say, Well, that's Jesus. Of course, people lied about Jesus. But, you know, his disciples, they somehow magically won't lie about. Like, What? No. Hey, if they're going to talk, if they're going to call the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more they have his household. Now, let me unpack that verse for you just for a second. You know what Jesus is saying? Jesus is saying, If they'll call me the devil, okay, and Beelzebub is kind of a synonymous term with the devil, the false god. He's basically saying he's the devil. He's saying, If they'll call me the devil, then they'll call you way worse, is what he's saying. Because you typically, you know, it's easier to talk negatively about a contemporary than the boss. Like, you're going to be a little more careful talking negatively about the boss for fear of judgment or wrath from the boss. So he's basically saying, like, If they're going to talk this horribly about the master of the house, I mean, the sky's the limit with you guys. I mean, they'll say anything about you guys. They'll bring up ten times worse accusations about you because they're way less afraid of talking negatively about you than me, is basically what he's saying. So some people will be like, Oh, they talk way worse about you than Christ. Yeah, that should be expected. They will. They'll say everything under the sun. They'll say any kind of evil against his followers because they don't have as much respect or basically his followers than him himself. And when it comes to Paul and it comes to the other people, they'd say all manner of evil. Acts chapter 17, look at verse five. But the Jews, who believed not me with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren of the rulers of the city, crying. These that have turned the world upside down are cometh also, whom Jason hath received. And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there's another king, one Jesus. Now here's the thing. Is Paul really going around breaking every single Roman law and saying there's a completely different king, rebel against Caesar, and follow Jesus? No. This is a horrible false accusation. He's not an insurrectionist. He's not trying to overthrow the political regime and control. He's trying to get people saved. The only thing that's in threat here is the religious regime, is the Jews, and the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. Those are the ones that are really being threatened. But they have to shift the blame. They have to say, oh, he's a political dissident. He's someone that's an insurrectionist, so let's go arrest him. Let's get him and attack him, or whatever. But again, it's lying slander, isn't it? What you have to realize is great men of God are typically never going to be brought before a judge or falsely accused for something that sounds good. This guy's feeding the poor. This guy's preaching the gospel and getting people saved. This guy is trying to help people. They're not going to say that. So people are like, oh, you guys are getting in trouble for evil things. When are they ever going to accuse us of doing something good? That's a silly idea. They're going to make some lie up and then say that that's what you're doing. Oh, these people are harassing people and attacking people, and they're trying to bring them into their cult. They're just going to make all kinds of lying accusations about you, even though you know that's not what you're doing. Go to 1 Kings chapter 21. Go to 1 Kings chapter 21. So if, hey, they lie about Paul, they lie about Jesus, they lie about Job, they lie about everybody. I mean, really, do you think it's going to be different with us? Do you think it's going to be any different? And look, the lies are just so egregious sometimes. It's crazy. You know, people will come and attack our church, and they'll say that I want every child to die. And I'm like, where do you come up with this stuff? People have said you teach unless you go soloing and you're not saved. And I'm like, when? You know? Like, people will just make up all kinds of crazy weird accusations about us. Do you believe in fairies? I'm like, fairies? What are you even talking about? Fairies? You know? You don't even think there was a World War II. What? You know? It's like you deny all science and reality and truth. No? You know, it's just like they'll just come up and say the weirdest things about you, make all kinds of railing accusations against you, and they'll just make stories out of thin air. They'll say you've done things that you know you've never done. They couldn't even be possible. Why? Because if you try to serve Christ, they're going to lie about you. Just like Naboth. Look at 1 Kings 21, verse 7. And Jezebel's wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth a Jezrelite. She wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with a seal, and sent the letters unto the elders to the nobles that were in this city, dwelling with Naboth. And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people, and set two men sons of Belial before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king, and then carry him out and stone him that he may die. So notice what Jezebel, they've concocted a conspiracy against Naboth, and this is symbolizing what's going to happen to Christ. Christ has the triumphant entry into the city, just like Naboth is set up on high, and they're shouting, Hosanna in the highest about Christ, aren't they? And then they lie about him, calling him a blasphemer, Naboth and Christ, because when Christ is being confronted with the Pharisees, they're calling him a blasphemer, saying that he blasphemed, making himself equal with God. And then what do they do? They kill him. And notice who is the party in both these sons of Belial. Children of the devil. Wicked, evil, reprobate type people. And look, those type of people will lie about anything. And this is the worst lie, because their lie, if they got caught, would put them to death, according to the law. So notice, there is no moral line that they won't cross. They will cross every line. The Bible says in Romans chapter one about people which are reprobate, that they're full of murder. They're full of murder. And that they're unmerciful, meaning that they will hurt man, woman, boy, child, girl, they just don't care. They have no moral compass. They're a psychopath, meaning they feel no emotions. I mean, basically hurting a person in real life to them is like when teenagers play video games. You know, in a video game, you're shooting people and killing people all the time, and you feel nothing. In fact, you actually like it in a lot of cases, right? I mean, a lot of people, they're playing, they're shooting people, they think it's fun, they think it's cool. That's how those people are in real life. Hurting people, doing damage to them, that's what they're like. They think about. They want it to happen. They're excited. They get this opportunity to do it, and they literally do it. Now, go if you would to Amos chapter five for a moment, and I'm kind of finished with my stories. I just want to make a few concluding statements. But sons of Belial will lie about anything, and if you know who the sons of Belial are, most of them are your news anchors, your government officials. I mean, you want to talk about a lot of the people in high places of authority today? They are these sons of Belial, and they will literally say anything. And they would kill people in a heartbeat. They'd have no problem. That's, in fact, what they like to do. And, at the end of the day, there's going to be a lot of people that have animosity towards someone that loves the Lord, that serves God, that preaches the truth, and you shouldn't let that discourage you. In fact, what it should do is it should be an indicator to you that you're on the right course, that you're following the right person. Amos chapter five, verse 10, they hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. Well, they don't hate my pastor. Here's my question. Does he speak uprightly? And you say, well, he speaks uprightly. Okay, well, here's my other question. Is he rebuking in the gate then? Well, no. No one ever has heard any of his sermons. Okay, well, that's why nobody dislikes him. So, obviously, the more public you are and the more you're preaching the Bible correctly, the more animosity you're going to get. And some people, they would be confused. They'd say, well, why are you doing that? Because the net gain's worth it. I have a thousand people get mad at me for my sermon, but one person hears it and likes it, then it's worth it. And you know what? There's plenty of people that are secret listeners out there. I'm just being honest. There's lots of people. You know, my sending pastor has thousands. And at the end of the day, I preach for my congregation, number one. That's my family, number one. You guys second. And then, thirdly, it's just people that can't make it that are still interested. But at the end of the day, there's going to be some casualties in the sense that when you rebuke in the gate, people are going to get mad about it. People are going to get upset about it. People are going to lie. They're going to slander. And there's a lot of fakers that come to church. Go to First Timothy, Chapter 5. There's a lot of evil people that will come to church and they just fake it. And I think a lot of them, they're just attracted to the truth. So they're not purposely trying to hurt God's people or hurt a pastor. They're just kind of attracted to the truth like a bug is to the light. And they come in, they hear the light, and they fake for a while. But eventually, it's so repugnant to them, the truth is, and just honesty and good people, they finally just expose themselves. And then once they expose themselves, they can't help but what? Just lie and slander until they die, basically. I mean, they're just going to just attack and attack and attack. And it's funny because here's how you can tell the difference between us and them. Because they'll say this, well, you guys attack a lot of people. Yeah, but here's the thing. As many things as I'm against, I'm still for a lot of things. I'm for steadfast Baptist church. I'm for a lot of other independent funnel Baptist churches in this world. I'm for Christianity. I'm for the King James Bible. I'm for soul winning. I'm for reaching the loss. Hey, I'm for the truth. Hey, I'm for families. Hey, I'm for doing all kinds of things that are right in this world. Yet what you notice about those other people is they're against everything. They're not saying, hey, come with me to this church. That's better. And listen to this sermon and listen to these pastors and do these things. They're just against every pastor, against every church, against the truth, because they hate Jesus Christ. You know, these people saying, oh, Jesus is a deceiver. They're not saying, come listen to this guy. They just want you to get off the Jesus train. They just want to get you off the Paul train. They just want to get you off the Naboth train. They just want to attack somebody. They're not interested in actually getting you to the truth. They just attack to attack for attack's sake. Rather than saying, don't listen to this guy because he's lying about the truth. Listen to the Bible, you know, pointing you to a good source or pointing you to a good pastor or pointing you to a good church or pointing you to a good direction. That's how you know the difference between the two. Hey, I'm all for attacking evil people. I'm all for bringing out lies and slander and preaching against the false prophets of this world. But you know what? I'm also for a lot of things. The point someone gets to where no one's right and everybody's wrong, that's a scary person to be around. Oh, everybody's wrong. And you are too, you know. But really, it's never going to be the case where everyone's wrong. There's always going to be a remnant. There's always going to still be good men of God. There's still 7,000 men that haven't bowed the knee to Baal. There's still other good people. There's still other good churches. And you know what? We don't want to start making up false accusations against good men of God. And so I try to be really careful. Whenever I preach against someone or whenever I mention someone's name, I make sure to the best of my ability to have only facts and that there are multiple witnesses. Because the Bible rebukes you if you do not. Look at 1 Timothy 5 verse 17. Let the elders that rule well be kind of worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word of doctrine. For the Scripture saith, Thou shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward. Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses, them that send rebuke before all, that others also may fear. Anybody that goes after a pastor better have rock-solid evidence. Rock-solid. And if they don't have rock-solid evidence, they should be rebuked sharply before everyone. Now look, rock-solid evidence is not one testimony. It's multiple testimonies. And even then, it's not even saying it's definitely true, because notice with Naboth, they had two false witnesses, didn't they? And the worst thing you could do is just make up false accusations against a pastor. God gets really angry about that. And we have to be careful. The Bible even says this, receive not an accusation before two or three witnesses. And I think this is really hard for people. What this is actually teaching is if someone comes to you with information against a pastor and it's only one witness, you are not even allowed to pretend like it's true, is what that's saying. You're not even receiving it in your heart. You're not going to treat that person differently. You wouldn't say anything about them differently. You wouldn't think about them differently, because you're not even receiving it. It could be true. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm saying the way you respond to it is by pretending like it's not even true, and you're ignoring it, and you're not even going to let it affect your decision-making. That's what it's actually saying. And if you had two or three witnesses, then at least you could receive it and investigate to see whether or not it's true. But it's saying you shouldn't even try to investigate things when it's one witness. And you cannot believe every video clip, photo, or text as a witness, because things can be doctored, faked, misleading, out of context. And typically, this is what liars like to do. They build you an entire context, and then show you a piece of evidence that fits that exact contents the way they wanted, and it makes you feel a certain way about it. You need to evaluate information to see if it's actually factual, it's backing up what they're really saying. Sometimes there's even evidence that's not even admissible in court. It's inadmissible evidence, because it was either obtained legally, or there's something off about it. That's how you're supposed to respond to one witness against the pastor. It's inadmissible. It's, I'm not allowed to hear it, I'm not allowed to think about it, I don't want to dwell on it. And look, I've had people, they tell me, and they say, hey, this pastor did X, Y, and Z, and it sounds bad, and I think this person's a reliable person, but because it's one witness, I have to pretend like what they're saying is not even true. And you say, well, what does that mean that it's not even true? What does that mean you wouldn't receive it? It means I won't even ask the pastor about it. Because if I ask the pastor about it, it sounds like I received it. If I'm bringing it up to other people, it sounds like I received it. If I'm thinking about it, or entertaining it, or treating that person differently, it sounds like I'm receiving it. How many of these false accusations did you want to receive about Jesus? The deceiver one, or, I mean, which one of those? Or would you want to just say no to all of those? And no to all the ones about Paul, and no to all the ones about Naboth, and no to all, look, you want to be careful that you're not receiving junk information, allowing them to taint your mind, taint your viewpoint towards good men of God. And I'm not saying that pastors can't do wrong. I'm not saying that pastors can't be corrected. I'm not saying that pastors can't be wicked, evil people. What I am saying is don't let a bunch of random slander from one-off sources taint your mind about someone that is not bad. And I'll say this, there's been even pastors that I don't like at all, I think are evil, but someone comes to me with information that's one witness, and I just pretend like it's not true, because it's just inadmissible. I can't do anything about that. And even if I think it's completely true, this is what I do to that person. I try to think about how the information they brought to me could not be true and tell them about it. I say, I know what you're saying, but maybe this is actually what happened, or maybe this is why that's not true, or maybe this could be the reason why that's happening. I'll explain why they're misunderstanding the situation, and I'll even try to exonerate that person in their eyes so that they won't receive it, because the fact that they're bringing it to me sounds like they already received it, and their mind hurts. Now obviously, if you witness something, you witness something. I get that. But against the pastor, you're not supposed to receive that. And it should be the case for every person, though. Obviously, I'm not teaching here that pastors are above others, and like, oh, well, we'll take one witness against just a random church member, but not a pastor. It's out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, shall every word be established. So you don't do that with your friends, either. Don't do that with anybody. If someone comes to you and has one witness against somebody about something, you should pretend like it's not even true. But remember the simple belief of every word. And it's easy to want to believe bad stuff about someone that you already don't like. Like, I don't know, Hillary Clinton. Like, Bill Clinton. Like, Bill Gates. I don't know. Is there anybody else that other people don't like? Joe Biden. The devil. Okay? Joe Lowstein. Right? But here's the thing. I don't want to still receive slander against those people, even. You know, even Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil, durst not bring forth a railing accusation. Meaning, I don't want to sit here railing on the devil. Like, every bad thing that happened in the world is not the devil's fault. Sometimes it's just wicked people. You know, it's not like every bad thing that happens is only the devil's fault. Okay? So we don't want to just blame the devil for every single thing that ever bad has ever happened. Okay? And I'm not saying the devil isn't doing bad stuff. But we want to make sure that we are adhering to the truth and we're not raising a false report. We're not also agreeing with false reports. You know, gossip is wrong. Slander is wrong. Tail-bearing is wrong. In fact, railing, according to the Bible, gets you thrown out of church. Go to Proverbs 29, last place I'll have you turn. And, look, gossip is just wrong. Just stop doing it. And people, they always minimize sin. People say, oh, well, yeah, it's not gossip because I've known this person for a long time. Look, it's still gossip. I don't care if you've known the person for one day or your whole life. Gossip is gossip. How long you've known the person has no relevance. Or they'll say, oh, well, it's not gossip because they asked me about it. What? That's stupid. If someone comes up to me and is like, hey, what do you think about Dylan? Well, since you asked, you know, let me tell you every negative thing I could even dream up about him. You know, that's not an excuse to then gossip about someone because they asked about them or because you've known them for a long time or for any other reason. You just don't gossip. Or I've heard this excuse, oh, well, we're family, so we can say whatever we want to each other. I would say between a husband and wife, you're one flesh. But, look, my cousin does not get off the hook for me getting to say whatever I want to them because they're my cousin. You know, it's just something you should just avoid. And people try to minimize sin. They'll try to make it seem like it's not a big deal. We need to magnify sin and realize that, hey, gossip and slander and railing is a wicked thing. We don't want to be a part of it, you know. And I'll say this, what's really hard about this issue is the fact that no one can eliminate bias. You can't eliminate bias. And so when you hear something, you're going to already have prejudgments about that. You know, when it's CNN, I already believe it's false just because their lips are moving. I can't change that bias that I already have, okay. And then there's going to be other sources in my life that if they were opening up, I would think it's automatically true because they seem like a trustworthy person. So you can't necessarily change your biases, your favoritism, your perspective, your presuppositions that you go into. But we need to really challenge ourselves and make sure that we don't let our biases and favoritism and anything like that get in the way of this issue. And believing false information against someone we don't like and or even listening to things that we shouldn't from people we do like, we want to be neutral and say every piece of information I'm going to evaluate its merits on its own. And if it's not information I should have, I'm going to turn my ears off. And if it's information that, you know, I should have, I'm going to deal with it appropriately. But here's the worst thing you can do. There's these lying slanderers is try to fight with them. Or more importantly, give them attention. Do not give them attention. Look at Proverbs 29 verse 9. If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest. You know what I like about God when he deals with Elihu? He gives him zero attention. He just, he talks, he just starts talking to Job. He's like, who is this that darketh counsel by words without knowledge? You know how many times God talks to Elihu? Zero. You know what information God has for Elihu? Zero. You know how interested God is to comment on Elihu's video? Zero. You know how much God wants to share his video? Zero. You know how much God wants to talk about what he said? Zero. And it seems like some people, what they want to do is they want to find all the trolls that exist in the world and just share everything they do every moment. It's like, you are the troll now. I don't want to hear about it. And it's like, did you see what this troll did? They're trolling. And I'm like, no way. Are you kidding? Did you see this video of this heretic? He preached heresy. No way. Did you see what the slanderer said? He slandered. What? Are you kidding me? It's like, did you see what this troll commented on this troll comment on this troll video? Was it something trolling? Yeah. Can you believe it? And I'm like, yeah, I can believe it because he's a troll. Because he's a loser. And like, quit wasting all your time, effort, energy. You know, when someone shares a really wicked video against a pastor, you know what I think? I think I hope nobody shares this with anyone. I hope they get zero views. You know what would be the most devastating thing to these trolls? If they uploaded the video and it was just zero views. And it's just like, all right, well, I'm going to share it. Zero views. Zero views. Zero views. Because all they want is attention. What they want is they want you to come there. They want you to say mean things to them. They want you to go in there and be like, this is not true. And they're like, yes, it is. And you're like, no, it's not. Yes, it is. And it's like, can you believe this guy? And it's like, yes, because he's a troll. He won't listen to me because he's a troll. He is not smart because he's a troll. And it's like, what did the Bible say about it? What did it say? There is no rest. You know when you're going to win over the troll? Never. Never. You're never going to win them over. Never. You're never going to win them over. So you know the best thing to do with false reports? Ignore them. Pretend like they don't exist. Just get rid of them. There's a lot of information that we just shouldn't have. A lot of information you should just reject. You should have nothing to do with. You know, the Bible says a man that is an heretic after the first and second ammunition posts on all of his videos. Follow him around and share all of his videos. Interact with him as much as humanly possible. It says reject, doesn't it? That was the message version that I was using. Don't do that. There's no benefit. If you really felt like somebody was doing something wicked or evil that needs to be exposed, then tell the pastor privately. Right? But if it's a troll being a troll, leave them alone. Let them just stay in the ditch where they are. Stay in the trash can that they're in. Have nothing to do with them. Because a lot of times what you're doing is you're bringing out wicked false accusations that simple people will end up believing. You know how much benefit there is for people listening to trash? Zero. Because it will even affect you. You'll start to be like, well, they did kind of make a good point there. You know, Jesus is from Galilee, so I don't know about that Bethlehem thing. And it starts to mess with your mind. It starts to mess with your emotions and mess with your head. And because you don't know what's real anymore, you start getting confused. Stop listening to CNN. And stop listening to spiritual CNN, too. Get rid of all of it. Get rid of all the junk and just start listening to the Bible and listening to people you do like. It's weird if you spend the majority of your time listening to people you hate. Weird. You're weird. Okay? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your Word. Thank you for giving us so many clear instructions. Thank you for giving us reliable sources that we can actually listen to, like the Word of God, like preachers that actually are faithful. I pray that we would just, you know, do our best to not give into the flesh and hearken to all these liars out there. But rather, we would just ignore them and reject them and have nothing to do with them and that we'd rather just cling to the things that are important, that we would talk about things that have value, that we wouldn't get distracted with all the evil slander that's out there and you would protect us from that so that we can have a pure mind and a pure heart. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Final song, song number 161. Song number 161. I'm sorry, 160. Crown him with many crowns. Song number 160. 160. Crown him with many crowns. Crown him with many crowns. Crown him with many crowns. The lamb upon his throne Hark how the heavenly anthem Drowns all music but its home Awake! my soul can sing Of Him who died for thee, And hail Him as I matchless keep, Through all eternity. Crown Him the Lord of love, Behold His hands inside, Rich wounds yet miserable armor, In beauty glorified. O angel in the sky, Can fully bear that sight, But downward bounces one great eye, At mystery's surprise. Crown Him the Lord of life, Who triumphed o'er the grave, Who rose victorious to the strife, For those He came to save, Whose glories now we see, Who died and rose on high, Who died eternal life to bring, In lives that death may die. Crown Him the Lord of heaven, One with the Father known, One with the Spirit through Him, Kept from yonder glorious throne, To Thee be endless praise, For Thou for us has died, Be Thou alone through endless days, Adored and magnified. All right, y'all are dismissed. God bless you. Copyright © 2020, New Thinking Allowed Foundation