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

🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Great singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for our church and for the opportunity to gather together and praise you. Pray that you would fill us all with the Holy Spirit and bless our pastor as he preaches to us this morning. We love you and Jesus send me prayer. Amen. Alright, for our next song, let's go to 238 Christ liveth in me. 238 Christ liveth in me. Sing it out, 238 Christ liveth in me. 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Great singing. Good morning, thank you for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, lift up your hand nice and high. One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. On the inside we have our service and soul winning times. As well as our church stats. On the right we have the list of our expecting ladies. Upcoming events. This Saturday is our soul winning marathon. It's going to be local. So we're just going to be meeting here at the church. 9am. This Saturday. And we're going to be going out soul winning for a few hours. And then we're going to meet back here at lunch. We'll have lunch. And then we'll go back out again for another afternoon session. Now, if you cannot participate in the entire day, please still come to whatever portion that you can participate in. So if you want to come in the morning and only do the morning and then leave, you can. If you want to come just for the afternoon portion, you can do that as well. So don't feel embarrassed, ashamed or anything like that. Participate in as much as available. I know a lot of people have things they do on Saturdays. But if you can, you're more than welcome to join us for the whole day. And we just want as many people to participate as they can in anticipation of Easter services. And you can invite them to our Easter services the following day. We're going to have the Lord's Supper that Sunday night. And so we're going to do that in the evening service. And I understand that that's not when he was crucified. But that's just when we're going to do our Lord's Supper event. And so that'll be Easter service that evening. Otherwise, if we're going to do it when it's going to happen, we don't have to show up on Thursday, okay? And so we're going to do that Sunday night, alright? And then also April 6th, there's the next preaching class. April 9th to the 10th is Verity's Youth Rally. April 13th is the Shareefport Louisiana Soul Waning Marathon. There should be a sign-up sheet for both Soul Waning Marathons and that event. Also there's a spring swap, May 5th. If you'd like to participate, you can bring any item that has value that you don't want. So if it doesn't have value, like a half used Kleenex, that's trash, okay? But if it is something that does have value, you can bring it, donate. If you want items of value that other people don't want, you can just take them, okay? So we don't discriminate. You can be a 100% giver or you could be a 100% taker or you could participate in both. Or you could not participate. All of the above are available, okay? But it's just a friendly way for people to donate some items that have value. I know that a lot of people have said or testified that they were blessed by things that were donated. And so I have no idea. I know in times past there's been some really cool stuff. I can't promise you that there'll be anything this year, but you never know. So it's up to us, right? And then on the back there is a prayer list. Continue to pray for everybody. One other reminder, we're getting really close to wrapping up Proverbs 31. And it is, in my mind, obviously every passage of the Bible is for every person. But I was hoping that a lot of the ladies would be inspired to work on this one, considering the context. And I actually ordered some different prizes. So we actually ordered some really nice custom thermoses that our monogram was steadfast on them. And some girly colors. And I don't have them yet, but I'm supposed to get them soon. So I'll even display them. I'll model them or whatever for you guys. And I meant to kind of have these maybe a few weeks ago, just so you'd have even more time. But I just wanted to make that announcement. So you're going to want one of these cups, okay? I'm just saying, all right? But you've got to memorize the chapter and you've got to quote it to a non-family member. There will be other prizes, so it's not just limited to that. But I just wanted to kind of make some kind of a cool prize that could be offered out there. And so just throwing it out there. Hey, Proverbs 31 is a great passage of the Bible. And the real prize is having that deep into your heart. But that's all I really have as far as announcements. We're going to go ahead and sing our Psalm of the week, or I guess our special handout song. It's going to be Holy, Holy, Holy. All right, let's sing it out. Holy, Holy, Holy. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee. Holy, Holy, Holy, Merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, Holy, Holy, all the saints of glory, Casting down their holy crown, the crown of glass we speak. Share of Him and share of Him, falling down before Thee. Place where in our hand evermore shall be. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of darkness might be, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not be. Holy, thou art holy, there is none beside Thee, perfect in power, love and unity. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, all thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and sky and sea. Holy, Holy, Holy, Merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We'll read the entire chapter before the preaching as is our custom. The Bible reads, Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time, for the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned to believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. Whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God, even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer, Father in heaven. I just pray, Lord, that you fill Pastor Shelley with the Holy Spirit and give him clarity of mind as he preaches the sermon to us. Help us to apply the message, Lord, and to make any necessary changes to our lives or to our mentality. And I also pray that you would bless our soul winning time at two. I love you in Jesus' name. I pray. Amen. Amen. I want to look at the latter part of this chapter in verse 15. The Bible says, Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now the word tradition is only found a couple times in the Bible as a positive mention. This would be a positive mention that we have of the word tradition. Additionally, in the next chapter, it also mentions the word tradition in a positive sense. Look at chapter 3, verse number 6. The Bible says, Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us. So we have two mentions of the word tradition in the Bible that are positive. Now the vast majority of other mentions or all the other mentions of tradition in the Bible are negative. They have a negative connotation with them. And I want to preach about the idea of how many people will acquiesce to specific doctrines, not because the Bible says so, but because of tradition. And the title I've just given my sermon this morning is this, Old Heresy, Old Heresy. And the reason why I'm saying this is because many people will say, Well, of course I believe this because we've always believed this, or people have believed this for a really long time. But just because something's old, just because something's traditional, doesn't mean it's biblical. You can be wrong for a really long time. And so just because it's a heresy that's been believed for a really long time doesn't mean it's not heresy still. And I think that we as Bible-believing Christians need to recognize that while there's nothing technically wrong with tradition, we need to do it 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 said here in verse number 15 where it says we've been taught certain traditions by word or our epistle. What's the epistle? The epistle is the Word of God. It's the Bible. And so, yes, there are traditions that have been handed down from the apostles, and they went to the early church, and then that would have been carried forward. But we always want to check and make sure that those traditions line up with the epistles that were written by the apostles. Because if you have a tradition that is not found in the epistles, or it even contradicts the epistles, then you know what? It's old heresy. And we want to make sure that we're not subscribing to doctrines or beliefs or ideas just simply because they were handed down. We want to test everything with the Bible and make sure the Bible is right. Because this is what happens. Every time you give credence to tradition, what you end up doing is you end up saying this is wrong. You have to pick. Either we've been doing it right, no matter what, forever, or the Bible is just always right. And you have to pick. You can't necessarily have both. And probably the worst offenders of this is Catholics. Now, I'm going to get to that in a later part of my sermon, Catholics are very big on tradition. Many other churches, you know, you could really look at the Orthodox, you could look at other churches, and they're really big on tradition and things being handed down. But just because they have a long history of believing certain things or doing certain things, that does not make them valid, true, or right. And even fundamental Baptists, you know, we don't want to get to a point where what we're doing is we're teaching our children, you need to just believe it because I said it. Or whatever I hand down to you, you just do, don't even question it. No, no, no, we should always look at our lives and our practices and our beliefs and make sure that they're lined up in the Bible, that that's what the Bible teaches. The Bible should be our final authority. Not tradition, not man, not how I feel, not what I want, but it should be specifically what does the Bible say. Now, I want to go to a couple places for a minute. We're just going to kind of do a little quick Bible study here. Go to Matthew chapter 15. Let's just look up the mention of tradition and every other place of Scripture. Now, it's not mentioned that much, so it won't take us that long, but let's just look at tradition in the Bible and let's just get an idea. Go to Matthew chapter number 15 and let's see the pattern that the Bible brings up when it's talking about tradition specifically. Matthew 15, look at verse 1. Three little contexts here. Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they washed not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said to them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? Now, is that a positive mention of tradition? Jesus Christ is saying, look, you're breaking God's commandments by your tradition. Your tradition is not biblical. It goes against the Bible. And he's saying, like, why in the world would I care about your tradition when it's literally violating the Bible? Now, I want to make something clear here. In this context, this specific tradition is not breaking the Bible. The idea of washing your hands before you eat is not sinning. That tradition is not what Jesus is talking about. What Jesus is doing is he's pointing out their hypocrisy, saying, why would I care about this tradition when your tradition contains all kinds of hypocrisy and errors and issues? It's almost like Jesus rejects their entire tradition based on the fact that they're hypocrites about large sections of it, even though this specific tradition would not be a violation of God's word. And that's not even the bone that he has to pick with them here. If we keep reading, he says in verse 4, It is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father or his mother. He shall be free. Thus ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draw nigh unto me with their mouth, and on earth me with their lips, but their heart is far from thee. He's saying, this group of people give lip service to God. They say they love God. They even praise God. But inwardly, they don't love God. They don't honor God, and they're not following God's commandments. And he's showing they have a heart issue, showing that they don't really care about God's commandments being followed. They're just going to follow their tradition no matter what. They don't even care if it literally breaks God's commandments because they don't care about God's commandments. So he's saying, why in the world would I care about your stupid tradition when you guys are just blatantly, obviously violating God's word? You know, let's talk about the Catholics again. It's like, why in the world would I care about Catholic traditions when they're just so openly and obviously breaking so many of God's commandments? It's like, why would I care about their doctrine or their beliefs when they're wrong on salvation? When they're wrong on their pope. When they're wrong on just virtually every issue. You know, I'm just going to reject all of it. I'm not going to sit here and say, well, this specific tradition doesn't have anything that's bad with it. But wait a minute. They just have some giant issues, meaning I'm going to have Jesus' attitude and say, like, I don't care what any tradition is. Because it's just all garbage. It's just all bad. It's just all wrong. You guys are just so obviously off course here. You have such a heart issue that why in the world would I care? You're hypocrites. I don't care about your tradition. Your tradition is stupid. Your tradition's not from the Bible. And why would we even care about your... Why is tradition more important than God's word? You know, when we come to church, you know, the Bible doesn't say preach the traditions. It says preach the word. There's so much emphasis in the Bible for preachers and pastors to preach the word, nothing more, nothing less. You know, when he's charging the pastors, he says, hey, that they teach no other doctrine. No other doctrine, meaning, you know, this isn't Pastor Shelley's just time to get up and just express all of his personal opinions about everything. Now, again, obviously, just to make things plain or clear, sometimes I do give my personal opinion. You know, I'm not going to just get up here and just preach sermons just on my personal opinion. Why golf's better than every other sport? My sermon this morning, you know? Why baseball's boring, you know? I'm not going to get up here and say, this is the best job, or why green is the best color. All right, I'm just going to preach a sermon on why green is the best color. You know, it's not a story time. It's not for me to just get up and just preach about my personal opinion. You know, I'm supposed to preach the Bible. So then how do Catholics get up and they just preach and talk so much about their tradition, and it has nothing to do with the Bible. That is not how we're supposed to operate as a church. Our church should be focused on one thing, the text of Scripture and what the Bible says. Now, go to Mark. Just go to Mark for a moment. Mark chapter 7, we'll see a similar story. You know what Jesus said about the Pharisees? But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Many Catholic services today are just a vain exercise. It's just like, what they're doing is worth... What does vain mean? Worthless, meaningless, has no profit. So someone going to a Catholic church learning the traditions of the Catholic church is meaningless. It's in vain. It's not... God doesn't look down from heaven and say, oh, I'm really glad this person woke up on Sunday morning and went to mass. Went to mass. They could have slept in, and it would have been just as beneficial. Actually, it would have probably been better because, frankly speaking, they wouldn't have been contaminated with heresy on top of that. They wouldn't have been involved in a lot of other weird practices that are going on. But it didn't... There was no positive gain out of it. It wasn't like, well, you know, eat the meat and spit out the bones. There was no meat. It was like a big nugget. Okay? No profit. It was all just bones ground up and then just corn syrup. And it wasn't... They didn't use flour, probably. They just found something on the ground and just mixed it together. I mean, the McNuggets have no nutritional benefit. They don't benefit your taste. And they cost money. Like, I don't even know why people eat them. They can't even give them away. Everything's so expensive, and then they're like 40 McNuggets for a dollar. It's like, what? They're like, okay, sorry, 80. No, I still don't want them. They're like, please just take the McNuggets. It's like, no one wants this. Just like the Catholic Church, nobody wants that... God up in heaven isn't like, well, at least they went to mass for a really long time. That's their Hail Marys. Is the McNuggets, okay? Well, I did 40. God's like, I don't want it. 80. I don't want it. They're still worthless. The things that they're doing, there's no real value, there's no real benefit. And we want to make sure that we're not getting sucked into some kind of a vain tradition that doesn't really have any benefit. You know, any church could do this. Any church could at any point have services or have ministries or do activities that are in vain. Meaning that they don't have any real profit. People that are going to these non-the-non churches to watch Hollywood movies, it's completely in vain. Going to life church? Whoa, we're doing life together, man! Okay, well, but you know what? There was no spiritual profit there. From a spiritual perspective, it was done in vain. You know, if you're not going to church hearing the Bible, being challenged by the word of God, if you're not coming here to worship God in spirit and in truth, you know what? What you're doing is in vain. Yeah, but the traditions, man, just show up. Yeah. There is no tradition of the non-the-non church. It's brand new anyways, okay? So get over yourself. So then they're like, well, I've got to go to the old church then because I can tell that the non-evangelicals are a joke. I mean, most everybody that didn't grow up that way realizes it's a literal joke in a circus. No one reads the Bible and becomes a Pentecostal. Pentecostals, Pentecostals, they have to be made that way. They have to be brought into the cult and learn all these vain traditions of just like... Oh, that was a heavenly language. No. There was nothing heavenly about it. It was annoying, weird. You know, you go to some of these churches and it's a cult of personality. They have all their traditions and they're not found in Scripture. And we want to make sure that we're going to the right kind of church. And so many people out there are saying, well, all this stuff is just a circus and it's hard to even call it Christianity anymore. So then they turn to, well, we want to go where the church has been the same. We'll go to the Orthodox or we'll go to the Catholics. We want to go where it seems like they're pious, where they seem like they're zealous. Yeah, they're zealous of their tradition. Yeah, they're zealous of their vanity. You know what? I'm not going to give up on the New Testament church being distinct from the Catholic church just because there's a bunch of circuses out there. We're not a circus. We don't have to be a circus. And you know what? There's still 7,000 men that haven't bowed the knee to Baal. There are still fundamental Baptist churches all over this country where people can go and they can still worship God. You know what? I'm not going to go to the Catholic church. I'm not going to go to the Orthodox church. I don't care how old they are. That doesn't matter if they're right or wrong. Mark chapter 7, look at verse 13. This is just a verse. Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition. Notice he said in Matthew that it was the commandments of God that they were transgressing. Notice this, he's saying the word of God is made of none effect. And boy, when you talk to a Catholic, they make the word of God of none effect. You'll literally show them something in the Bible and they'll be like, well, that's not what that means. Well, then why don't we get a Bible where it means what it says? You know, isn't it annoying when everything someone tells you is not really what they mean? It's like, hey, what do you want to eat for lunch? Nothing. That's not what you mean. Right? The Bible is not a girl where we literally have to ask it all these questions. It's not a wife. It's not like we have to be like, how are you doing? Fine. You don't sound fine. I heard the words and I can look them up in a dictionary. That's basically how Catholics are with the Bible. You mean fine, though. And you have to have some guru to come tell you. Boy, that's confusing. Women are confusing. You know why? Because they don't mean the words that they say. But let me tell you something. The Bible's different. The Bible means what it says, folks. And we don't want to be like a person that makes the word of God of none effect where essentially you show up and you can read it and you're like, I'm doing what it says. I'm sorry. Every word literally means something else. You just didn't get it. Let me explain to you how the Bible does not mean anything that it literally says. That's confusing. How could anybody actually grow spiritually on their own then? Oh, they can't. And that's the goal of the Catholic church is they really want to strip the Bible away from its people and give it to their gurus and to their cult leaders called popes and archbishops and then the papacy will just tell you what's right. Well, here's something in the Bible that contradicts what you said again. Well, you're just not interpreting it right. And I'm going to show you some real hardcore examples of this but I'm just trying to make it clear what Jesus was dealing with and help you understand there's no new thing under the sun. The same group of people still exist today where essentially they elevate their tradition over what the word of God literally says and they make the word of God of none effect at that point. Galatians chapter 1, let me show you this. Galatians chapter 1, I'll show you another example of this. Tradition is a neutral word. There's nothing wrong with the word tradition. There's a few mentions that are positive in the Bible and then there's a lot of negative mentions in the Bible. What is tradition? It's just something that you've been doing for a long time or been passed down or some kind of a pattern of behavior. You know, there's certain traditions that are fine. You know, in America we celebrate certain traditions. We have things like holidays. We have Thanksgiving. We have Christmas. We have Easter. Is there anything wrong with us celebrating Easter next week? No, I think that's a great tradition. You know what we're going to celebrate? We're going to celebrate Easter according to the Bible. We're not going to just we didn't just make some holiday up that can't be found in the Bible and like Lent and then we're just going to observe Lent now or Ash Wednesday or whatever. We're just going to start making stuff up that you can't find in the Bible anywhere and then we're just going to celebrate that particular event however we see fit. Yeah, but we've been doing this for a long time. Okay, but you know what? That's a different religion then. That's not a religion based on the Bible. And notice how Paul distinguishes this. Galatians chapter 1. Look at verse 14. He's talking about himself and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in my own nation being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. When the apostle Paul talks about the traditions of his fathers he says that was the Jews' religion. You know what he's saying? This is a different religion. The Jews' religion is not Christianity. It's not even the religion of the Bible. Now of course we understand that Christianity we could argue that that started with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and we're in the new covenant and that's Christianity. But you know what? Old Testament Christianity was the same religion. It's not like we switched religions or something. It's the same religion. We say, oh, this new cult form called Christianity after Christ. No, no, no, no. There was a false religion before Christ called the Jews' religion and it was not based on the Bible. There was always people that were based on the Bible which is Christianity. There's Old Testament Christianity and there's New Testament Christianity and I'll grant you there's distinction here. I'll grant you that there's a new covenant. I'll grant you that it changed. But what I won't grant you at any point is at least these Jews that we're talking about in Galatians chapter 1. He's saying this group of people had a completely different religion. What was their religion? It wasn't based on the Bible. It was based on their traditions. And the apostle Paul says, hey, I was good at that. I was really good at following the traditions. I was really, you know, excelling in fact. And I was really zealous. Meaning he was, he cared a lot. He was very sincere. He was sincere, but he was sincerely wrong. And I will say this. I think a lot of Catholics are very sincere and very zealous. But here's the problem. It's the Jews' religion. It's not the religion of Christianity. They have a different religion. What is their religion? They follow their traditions. They don't follow the Bible. And they have the same problem as the Pharisees. They follow the Bible, but you know what? They're not saved. I mean, look, the Pharisees had some good doctrines. They believed in the resurrection. That was a good doctrine. But then they also had a lot of leaven in their doctrine. And they had a lot of traditions that they had brought in and brought over. And at the end of the day, they were blinded. In fact, their masters, their masters, Nicodemus, didn't even know how to get saved. And Jesus Christ was kind of And you don't even know doctrine number one? Like you're so off kilter? You're worse than a baby Christian as far as intellect, yet you're a master? And this is how I view Catholics. These Catholic church fathers and these big guys of the faith, these giants of their faith, they're not even as smart as a baby Christian that just got saved. Why would I care what they believe or they understand? I mean, they're so confused on doctrine. You say, hey, you have to be born again. He's thinking like, how am I going to go in my mother's womb again? And look, that's the kind of logic that these Catholics have. That's the kind of logic that a lot of these Orthodox and these people have. Because they're not saved, so they can't discern between the spiritual and the carnal. And they mix them up all the time. They get confused on them. Why? Because they don't have the Holy Ghost. And they're not being led of the Spirit. They're not saved. You can't figure out the Bible. It's a puzzle. It'd be like solving a puzzle with no images on it. And you couldn't even see the shapes and you're blind. How are you going to do that? How are you going to put together a puzzle when you can't even see it, you can't even look? I mean, they're just kind of feeling like this kind of feels like an edge and this kind of feels like a hole. I'm just going to shove these together. And sometimes they accidentally put a piece together right, but most of the puzzle just looks like a train wreck. And anybody that can see, a five year old kid that can see would look and say like, wow, you're terrible at making puzzles. And it's like five year old kids in our church that are saved could already rebuke the smartest Catholic priest. Like the most advanced master of Catholic theology. I don't care what church father, the five, six, and seven year old children in our church, out of the mouth of babes he's perfected, praise, and they know more doctrine. They're better on doctrine than these church fathers and these scholars and these people that are going to the master, I'm a master of seminary. I have a doctorate. And yet the children are like, smarter than them. That's literally the world that we live in. And it was no different back then. Back then, the Pharisees are the same way. Now the Sadducees, they're like your United Methodists where they're literally parting with Sodomites and stuff like that. That's not even a real church. The Pharisees, though, you have to understand the Pharisees are very similar to what we think of as Catholics and Protestants and a lot of the Orthodox because they're actually sincere. They're not running around acting like the devil literally incarnate or something. They're usually pretty conservative. They're pretty pious, but at the end of the day they're just not saved. And behind closed doors, they have a lot of wicked people in the midst of them. Some of their higher-up leadership is very evil, very wicked. And look, let's just be honest. Most Catholics can still even recognize that there's a lot of evil within their own organization. I've talked to a lot of Catholics and they're like, I talked to one of the Catholics, and he's like, the Pope's the Antichrist. And I'm just thinking like, yeah. Like, that's a pretty big admission from a Catholic, right? A lot of Catholics would condemn all the pedophiles and the predators that are being swept under the rug and moved around. I mean, let's just be honest. We too look at and condemn a lot of Baptists who are shuffling around predators and welcoming pedophiles. I mean, you could find literal Baptists in this area that have literal sodomites on their staff. How would you feel if people were like, oh, I don't like Baptists because they literally have faggots as their pastors? Yeah, I wouldn't like Baptists if that was true too about every single Baptist. But that's not every single Baptist. And let's be real. Most Catholics are not cool with all of this junk. Most Catholics aren't thinking like, oh, I'm so glad that the Pope said that fags can get married or whatever. It's not a big deal anymore or something. Most Catholics are just thinking like, wow, what a satanic, evil person that climbed to the top. What a Judas in our midst. Very zealous, very pious, but here's the problem. They're zealous and pious for their tradition, not for the Bible. And we need to wake them up and say, look, you need to change your loyalty from the traditions to the Bible, to the Word of God. Go to Colossians, chapter number 2. Just go a little bit further to the right. Go to Colossians, chapter number 2. And we want to make sure that we don't fall victim of this mentality. I don't think that there's a high percentage chance that very many people are going to leave our church and then join the Catholic church. But at the same time, this is a really clear application that we can use and learn from, and I think that there are things that we can fall victim of or just having a bad mentality. And we want to teach our children, we want to teach ourselves to make sure that our loyalty is to the Bible and nothing else. And I think every generation should always test every doctrine again. Like, reprove every doctrine and figure out why they believe everything they believe. Don't just trust your parents. Don't just trust me. Don't just trust everybody. You know what? Read the Bible. Study the Bible and say, hey, I believe this doctrine because of this verse, this verse, this verse, and this verse. Because of a quote from Pastor Shelley. Because then we're no better than the Catholics. Because that's what the Catholics do. The Catholics say, hey, we believe this specific doctrine because Church Father said this, and Church Father said that, and Church Father said this. No, no, no, no. You believe a doctrine because of a verse, a verse, a verse. Not this pastor, this pastor, and this pastor. This Church Father, this Church Father, and this Church Father. No, no. It should be verse, verse, and verse. And out of the mouth of two or three witnesses a word be established. Now, this is important because while we're not going to get sucked into the Catholic religion I don't think that anybody in the New Testament church is going to get sucked back into Judaism. Now, they did get Judaized a little bit but the ones that are really saved I mean, they're not going to go and become this hardcore Jew. The apostle Paul is saying, if you did that you were never even saved. He's like, I'm afraid of you. If you get circumcised if you're a Gentile and then you get circumcised, that's just evidence of your reprobate, okay? Because it's so unnatural like to convince a grown man hey, do you want to circumcise yourself, man? They'd be like, never. No, that's just ah! There's no way that you would want to do something like that. You know, they tricked Hamar into it with a woman, but at the end of the day you know what? That was his destruction. That was to his detriment and it destroyed him. And that spiritual picture is illustrated in the New Testament where people that are getting circumcised or thinking they have to keep the law you know, they're just doomed and so, I want you to make it clear like, just because you may not go to this extreme doesn't mean it's still not an issue or something to beware of. Because the Bible literally commands us to beware of this. Look at Colossians chapter 2 verse 8 Beware! Any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Notice what he's saying. Beware that someone would spoil you and what would they spoil you with? Specifically this, the traditions of men. The tradition of men. And I think that there's just there's something about our human nature that sometimes you'll just say well, I just don't want to do that I'm uncomfortable doing that because everybody else does it this other way and they've done it for a long time. And it would just, I would just feel more comfortable if I just kind of go along with what everybody else is doing what everybody else believes how everybody else handles themselves you know, tradition's comfortable. You know if you grow up in a household and your dad's a big Cowboys fan it's going to be hard watching the Cowboys every single game, every single year you just become an Eagles fan. It's going to be like why would you want to switch to something like that? It's going to be more comfortable when you hang out with your dad and your brothers and your cousins and their whole house is decorated like the Cowboys to just, you know, hey we're Cowboys fans here. I'm not going to switch to the Eagles or something. That would be uncomfortable. Now some people do this kind of stuff they go against the grain a little bit, but I'm just saying it's not as comfortable. It's easier just to default to whatever you were raised as or whatever they taught and the same goes with religion that many people they say, well, I don't want to do what my church is saying or I don't want to do what these people are saying because everybody else believes something else. I mean would it be easier to join a movement of churches or a group of Christians that are small minority or a billion Catholics? Well, we got a billion of us. How could we all be wrong? I mean, and they've been doing the same things and they just got all this good, these beautiful buildings and they got all this stained glass and they got the nice pipe organ and, you know, there's this rich history and I can read an endless amount of books from all these church fathers and it's just so cool, man. Look at all this cool history and look how it's just unchanged. Yeah, but guess what? It's old heresy. And you know what? Beware of that. Beware of just believing what everybody else believed. How about when Christianity eat into these Gentile areas? They didn't have a history of Christianity. They had a history of pagan religion. Well, everybody's bowing down to the rock, man. We're all hanging out with these rocks. It's like, it's a dumb rock. Stop bowing. You know, get the new religion. Get Christianity. Just because, well, we've been bowing down to rocks for ages, man. Yeah, you were wrong for ages. Your religion has been wrong for a really long time. Oh, well, it's old. That doesn't make it true. You know what the Bible calls the devil? That old serpent. He's the father of lies. You know what? He didn't start lying five minutes ago. He lied a long time ago and he keeps lying and he keeps telling the same lies. He's a broken record. He's almost like Ken Hovind on his presentation, okay? He just gets out of his slides and he's just like, nope, uh, yea hath God said. It's just a broken record just saying the same things to the same people. Why? Because it works. You have to admit the devil's a pretty effective communicator considering the fact that the Broadway leads to hell. He already kind of figured out how dumb humans are and how easy it is to trick them and deceive them and to lead a vast majority of them into hell. So, you know what? He's probably not going to just try it. Reinvent the wheel. He's using the same kind of arguments, the same kind of views, and he has the same tactics. You know, the Bible says we're not ignorant of Satan's devices. Well, if Satan's constantly inventing new devices every single month, how can we be prepared? We can be prepared because he has no new thing. He doesn't have a new trick up his sleeve. It's the same work-salvation repackage. It's the same tradition of men repackage. It's the same lies repackaged over and over and over. He's a creature of habit. And, you know, if you resist the devil, he'll flee from you. Go to 1 Peter 1. So we pretty much looked at every mention here of tradition. A lot of them are really very negative, and the Bible literally even says, beware of tradition. How can I be comfortable with the tradition? This is how you get comfortable with it. Verse 1, 2, and 3. When you have a tradition that you don't have verse 1, 2, and 3, well, now I'm starting to get nervous about the specific tradition. I don't know if that's really biblical. Again, there could be certain things that become a tradition that are not found in the Bible, but they're also not against the Bible. Obviously, we have church at 1030 on Sunday morning. That's becoming a tradition. Changing the service time every single week or something like that. Is there anything contrary to the Bible saying that we're going to meet at 1030 in the morning? No. But at the same time, could we be dogmatic and say, every church needs to have church at 1030 or they're not right with God? These people having it at 9 a.m. are wicked. No, I mean, you can't really say, I'm sure some people would say, oh, you guys are lazy. We're showing up at eight. I'm sure there could be arguments for all areas of viewpoint on this. When you have a tradition that goes directly against what the Bible says, now we're in really dangerous territory. And here's the thing. While it's not a big deal what time you meet for church, if it's coming from a Catholic source where they reject huge doctrinal issues, then I'm going to reject even their minor things that aren't even against the Bible. Just all of it. Just everything that you say, just like Jesus is basically just rejecting everything of the Pharisees. Look at 1 Peter 1. Look at verse 18. The Bible says, for as much as you know that you are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. You say, look, you guys had to reject the tradition of your fathers to get saved. And so many times in order for someone to get saved they literally have to reject tradition. And you see this. You see this challenge. You see this spiritual battle raging when you go soul winning. You knock on a Catholic's door and I always try to be really blunt with Catholics and I'll say, yes, most Catholics will tell me like you said that it's faith and works. The Bible does say something different. Would you be willing to see what the Bible says? And then after presenting the Gospel I say, now what I showed you is different than what the Catholic Church teaches. Do you believe what the Catholic Church teaches? Or do you believe what I showed you from the Bible? And I make them pick. Because honestly, most Catholics are such an NPC that they'll agree with you and make it seem like they're saved and then when you have to actually confront them with that, then they just, you can tell they were just kind of lying or glossing over. It's crazy how many times people say things and they don't even know what they're saying. You know, they'll say like, well, you know, for the first 30 years in Egypt the children of Israel were not being afflicted. And then 400 years after that they were afflicted. And then they'll say in the next breath they'll say, but obviously that timeline started 215 years before. You're like, what? You know, that started with Ishmael mocking Isaac. How does that work? How can you go from a timeline where you were talking about Joseph being dead and then now all of a sudden you're talking about Ishmael mocking Isaac. And the people are just like, yeah, yeah. So it's just like you go out soul-wetting and sometimes you're just like, yeah, yeah, I believe in God. Jesus did it all, yep, yep. You can't lose it, nope. Not a works, yep, yep, yep. And then I'm just like, okay, you want to pray? Oh, yep, yep, yep. Now what I showed you is different than what the Catholic Church teaches. What? They believe it's faith and works. I showed you it's faith. Oh, I believe it's the Catholic Church, please. Wait a minute, you just said that you thought it was faith alone. Yeah, it is. What? No, I'm showing you how the Catholic Church believes it's faith and works. Yeah, it's definitely faith and works. You're like, what's wrong with you? Okay, but I'm just being honest. If you don't ask these questions, you can sometimes pray with people and they don't even know what they're doing. No, don't just be like so zealous to get numbers that you're not getting people saved. I care so much more about getting someone saved than coming back and saying I had five people that didn't really get saved. I even like the fact that we just kind of report our numbers privately, and I'm not against public numbers. I'm not against it at all. I'm just saying, I don't want to encourage people to have this mentality where they want to rush through a gospel and just pray with someone just so they can feel like they can count it, but the person didn't get saved. I care so much more about getting people saved and getting them genuinely saved and also not antagonizing people that are saved. So a lot of times at the first part of the conversation, I ask them a lot of good questions to try and really figure out where they're at because I have people say all kinds of confusing things. I'll be like, hey, do you think salvation's by faith or faith in the works? And they're like, faith in the works. And then I'm like, can you lose your salvation? They're like, no. What if someone didn't have the works? Well, they're still saved. I'm like, you just said it was faith in the works. So you almost can't trust anybody's answer. You almost kind of have to give them a couple scenarios to just kind of figure out where they're at. People just say stuff. Or you know what? They're thinking about their meal or they're thinking about food and then you ask them a question and they're just like, just say stuff without thinking. So you have to be careful what you're doing, especially with Catholics. Catholics, I mean, think about it. They're going to confession They're just sitting here just like, Hail Mary, hail Mary, hail Mary. They're used to just being an NPC, literally. Our Father in Heaven, our Father in Heaven, our Father in Heaven. It's like, do you want to pray with me? Sure. What do you want to pray? You could probably pray anything. Hail Satan, I love Satan. Let's all worship Satan together. They're just like, they're probably just doing it. Okay, sure, whatever. I'm not saying to try this, okay? At least not on soul wedding time. If you want to make a funny video on your own, go for it. But I'm just telling you, you know, let's be careful when we're talking to Catholics that they actually repented. What's a repentance? They rejected the tradition received by their fathers. That's what it says here. In verse number 18, You know what? These people, when we give them the gospel, should know that they're rejecting the tradition. They shouldn't be confused. They shouldn't be thinking, I'm still a Catholic now. I'm still a Hindu now. I'm still a Muslim now. I still am a Pentecostal that believes you can lose your salvation. No, no, you're changing that. We're having a change right now. That's why I always ask them, hey, did you change your mind? Did you have a change of belief? Do you see how what I'm saying is different? Something. And they're like, no, that's what I always believe. Okay, bye. You've got to change from your tradition. Okay, that's what soul wedding is. That's what getting someone saved is. Salvation is repentance. Changing what you believe and putting your faith in Jesus Christ. You know, they always say, you don't preach repentance. You know what? If you don't preach repentance, you don't get people saved. Because we're not tagging something on. We're not acknowledging some certain fact. We're changing what we believe. You better change. You better believe something different. You better repent and believe the gospel as Jesus went out and preached. Jesus preached repentance. Amen. John the Baptist preached repentance. Amen. What? You better believe on Christ to put 100% faith in Jesus Christ. You know, when you run into a Catholic, you better preach repentance, but it's not repenting of sin. It's repentance of what they believe. Reject the traditions that you received from your fathers and believe the gospel. That's what we need to preach. It's called confrontational soul winning. What are you confronting? Your belief is wrong. Your tradition is wrong. You need to change what you believe and put your faith in Jesus Christ. And you need to humble yourself like a child. And you need to reject all the pride in your heart, all the arrogance in your heart, latching on to these traditions. And you need to believe in Jesus Christ. Oh, well, they believe Jesus is a real person. Okay. So did the Pharisees. And even, think about it this way, Nicodemus even recognized that Jesus was from God and he wasn't saved. Nicodemus could recognize, I know that you've come from God. Nicodemus acknowledged the miracles of Jesus. Nicodemus recognized that Jesus was from God. Nicodemus didn't say that Jesus said anything wrong, but he wasn't saved. Why? Because he hadn't put all of his faith in Jesus Christ yet. And then we get the most famous verses in the Bible, John 3.16. He's trying to tell Nicodemus how to get saved, how to actually be converted from death unto life. And it was by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ to believe on the Son of God, to put their faith and their trust in him. Go to 2 Chronicles, chapter number 30. Go to 2 Chronicles, chapter number 30. Just because something's old doesn't make it right. Well, the Catholics, you know, they've been having church a lot longer than you guys, than Baptist. You know, they say, then they do IFB. Yeah, way longer. Then fundamental Baptist, way longer. Then any kind of Baptist, way longer. You know, I always get this false accusation where people say, oh, but Pastor Shelley thinks that his church fathers are the Anabaptists. No, I don't. Look, I have no problem saying that there's no groups that use the label Baptist before we have them recognized in history, because I don't care what labels are used or what was said. Does that mean there weren't people that believed like us? No, I'm sure there were people that believed like us. But even if they were wrong on some things or even if they didn't have everything right like I did, you know, that doesn't mean that they couldn't be my church father. Again, I'm not saying I'm perfect on every single issue, but I guarantee that there are people in our lineage that we have doctrines right and they had wrong. Now this is what some people do, is in a zeal to kind of teach like a landmark view or this Baptist brighter view, they'll almost attach themselves to all these weird, heretical groups and then claim like they're their church fathers. And I'll be honest, like, if you and I lived in Europe in the 15th century, the 13th century, you go back further, most of us would have probably gone to the Catholic Church. Not because we were Catholic, but because if you didn't go to the Catholic Church, they'd kill you. Okay, just like in the Old Testament, many times they had to offer sacrifices in the temple with bad leadership. You have Hophni and Phineas making people abhor the offering of the Lord. And here's something you don't realize. The Catholic Church didn't have Google or Facebook. In the 14th century. I don't know if you're confused on that, kids. They didn't have cell phones, they didn't have internet, they didn't have anything. You know what was a big problem for the Catholic Church? Enforcing their doctrines between every single parish. And often what would happen is a Catholic priest or the leadership of certain Catholic churches spread all over Europe would start reading their Bible. That was a big problem for them, okay? Because then they would start reading the Bible and be like, this is what the Bible's saying. And then they would have to constantly kill, excommunicate, do all kinds of things to all kinds of pastors and preachers out there because of the political power and influence that they had. Imagine if we lived in China today. Imagine if we lived in North Korea today. Imagine if you lived in a lot of these countries where they have a state-enforced religion. You don't think that there's any Christians in those nations that just on paper or to the government they have some form of religion that they don't really have. They're lying about it or being dishonest about it. But in their heart they're really actually saved. Or having private church meetings or reading their Bible in private. It's for sure happening. So why would I think that it's any different in the history that, yeah, a lot of saved people are probably going to Catholic churches in Europe when it was mandated and forced. Look, a lot of people go to the Catholic church today that don't even like a lot of the things about the Catholic church. And they're not even forced. They might be forced by their wife, but I'm just saying, like, not with a gun or by the government or something. Look, there's plenty of people. I remember, this is what's so funny to me, is I grew up in non-denim churches. And I just remember how much my dad would talk trash on the church that we went to. And I would always think, like, why are we going here? You know, when we'd have their praise and worship time, it was, it would be, like, dark. Like, they would just turn off all the lights and then they just had these stage lights and they had just a rock band. It was loud. Like, you could hardly even hear yourself singing. It was that loud. They didn't have the smoke yet. I don't know if they've had that. But it was just, it was just kind of a crazy, loud, dark. And my dad, this is my dad, he's just like, we're just, like, hanging out with the family. He's just like, you know what our praise and worship reminds me of at church? And we're, like, thinking, like, I don't know, you know, something positive. He's like, it reminds me of hell. You know, it's all dark and loud and screaming. And I'm thinking, like, why do you go to a church where you describe the worship time as hell, literally? Like, doesn't that seem a little contradictory? I remember, like, one out of every four sermons was on the pre-trib rapture. And while the preacher, while the preacher is literally talking during the service, he's saying, like, now, we're going to all be raptured out of here. My dad's like, that's not in the Bible. It's not loud. Now, here's the thing. Don't talk in service, okay? This is not, I'm not telling you how to behave in church. If you think that our church is literally hell when we're having worship service or something like that, find another church, okay? Find one where you don't think that you're experiencing hell on earth while singing to the Lord Jesus Christ, okay? Dylan doesn't sound that bad, all right? But I'm just saying, like, why are we here when just, like, every other sentence from our pastor, you're audibly saying, like, he's just saying, like, that's not in the Bible. The Bible doesn't say that. That's not true. Like, I'm just hearing this. And then the other half of the time, my dad was just sleeping. Now, we were faithful to church, okay? We were faithful. So he's there hating worship. He's saying that the preacher's just lying, like, half the time, and then the other half, he's sleeping. I'm thinking, like, why do you go here? No, he doesn't go there anymore. But I'm just saying, like, I was just kind of dumbfounded by that. But I'm thinking, he was not forced to go there whatsoever, folks. You don't think that there aren't people going to the Catholic Church that think it's all junk and disagreeing with the vast majority of what's being said? And then you put us back in the time of Europe when it was literally mandated and forced? You don't think there are people that were saved trying to read the Bible? I mean, there were parents who were burned at the stake by the Catholic Church for teaching their children the Lord's Prayer. I guarantee those people didn't like what the Catholic Church believed on certain issues. There's people constantly being killed in martyrs. Many times through the Holy Crusades, you know, they're just forcing a whole bunch of people just to convert or be killed. I'm sure a lot of people are like, yeah, I'm Catholic. Okay, I'm sure there's a lot of martyrs, too. But at the end of the day, you know, we can't just sit here and know exactly what happened in history or know exactly what the Catholic Church was like. But I'll say this. If we read their documents, if we give credence to history, if we say everything they say is right, they're still wrong. I don't care. Oh, well, we've consistently taught salvation by works. Okay, congratulations, you're still wrong. Like, it doesn't change anything. And you say, well, how in the world could God allow the Catholic Church to be wrong for so long? Well, number one, it's not his institution. Okay? Let's just pretend for a moment that the Catholic Church was literally God's church and his institution that he literally endorses and was a part of. I don't believe that for a second. Let's just pretend like that. They could still be wrong. And they could still be wrong for a really long time. Now, I want to prove this. Look at 2 Chronicles, chapter number 30, and look at verse number 5. Okay, this is talking about King Hezekiah performing the Passover. Look at verse number 5. So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel from Beersheba even to Dan that they should come to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem, for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it was written. You hear what I'm saying? God's real people. This is no doubt that this is God's real people. There's no doubt that this is the institution that God blesses. And God is saying they were doing it wrong for a long time. So why would I then say that just because you've been doing it a certain way for a long time, it's right. No, no. We need to always go back and say, hey, wait a minute. Have we been doing it like this says? Because if we're not doing it how it was written, well, but you don't understand Catholics have been doing this for a long time. You know who's also been doing things for a long time? Mormons. I mean, Mormons have been doing their thing since 1830. That's a long time. That's almost 200 years. We're coming up on a 200 year anniversary of Mormons. And they've been wrong all of those years. Muslims have had the wrong religion since the 7th century. Well, but we've had the same Quran. We've been doing the same things. Okay, you've been wrong the whole time. You were still wrong. You still can't read, okay? Judaism, Talmudic Judaism. What they call Judaism today, which is not the Jews religion mentioned in Galatians, and is not Biblical Christianity. It's a completely different religion based on blasphemous teachings against Christ. It was basically just an antithesis to Christianity. It was like, let's just create a religion saying everything in the Bible is wrong. That's Talmudic Judaism. Since the 6th century, they've been wrong. And they're still wrong. Catholics, oh, we've been doing the same thing since the 4th century. Well, guess what? You're also wrong. Hinduism. Hinduism's way older than your little Catholic church there, buddy. Wrong. They'll say a more modern form of Hinduism started around 200 BCE. But they'll even say that early forms of Hinduism, the Vedic religion, goes back to 1750 BCE or even 2300 BCE. And if you ask Hindus, they say it's a turtle. Well, you're eternally wrong. The oldness of a religion does not validate its authenticity. It does not prove its validity. You're wrong. Go to chapter 35 for a moment. Hezekiah said, you know what? Let's do it as it was written. You know it's possible, and I know this probably hair-lips a lot of people, but it's possible that church had not been done as it was written for a long time. He said, ah, well, where's the fundamental Baptist church from the 16th century? Maybe they weren't doing church right back then. I mean, I have a literal proof text, and they were not doing the Passover correctly for a long time. So does that mean that we have to have exactly this kind of church for every generation all the way back to Peter? No, maybe they were screwed up. You know why I think they might have been screwed up? Well, considering the fact that all the epistles written to the churches that just started were really screwed up. I'm saying to me, people are like, oh, the Catholic church is so old. God's never going to allow the church to be destroyed. And I'm saying, okay, well, show me the church at Smyrna. Show me the church at Thyatira. I mean, weren't those churches legitimately started by the apostle Paul? Where is it? Why is it gone? You know why it's gone? Because churches can come and go. Churches can get good. Churches can get bad. Then they can get good again. Then they can get bad again. Then they can disappear. You know what won't stop? There won't stop being Christians on this earth, and we won't stop having churches. You know what? The quality of those churches ebb and flow based on us. We make the church what it is, and the quality of the church is us, and the quality of the church is based on how it's written. And you know what I love about this viewpoint that I have? Is it means that we can keep making church better. That we're not just this downgraded version of the past, and we've got to keep trying to be like they were in the past. No, no, no. Let's just keep trying to be like what it's written. Who cares about history? Oh, well, this is how church used to be. Well, you know what? It's wrong! Well, fundamental baptism has always been pre-trib. You're wrong! Well, fundamental baptism, you know, I don't care. It doesn't matter. You know what? Whatever you're wrong on, let's change. And then, this is what I would like for God to say, is not, well, now they're doing like the history. Now they're doing like their church fathers. No, I'd like it to say what it says in 2 Chronicles 35. Look at what it says in verse 18. And there was no Passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet, neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. God's saying, hey, here's one of the greatest Passovers ever kept, and it's literally centuries, centuries from when they were doing it. Samuel is in the time of the judges. And in fact, I believe this is a minimum of 450 years that he's saying. For 450 years, nobody was keeping the Passover like Josiah. Hezekiah kind of brought it back to where it was written, and then Josiah comes on the heels of that, and perfects it even more, and gets it even more dialed in, and even better, and then God literally says, hey, here's them practicing and worshiping me. The best has been in such a long, like forever. This is one of the greatest. You know, that's what I would want God to say. Hey, this church just keeps dialing it in, and they're having church better than it's been in centuries. And again, it's not to try to lift ourselves up. You know what we're trying to lift up is this, and say, hey, you know what, we're not better than our fathers, and we're not going to take and just receive what they've given to us, and just say it's gospel. We're going to say this is the gospel truth, and we want our church to elevate the kingdom's Bible, and elevate doctrine. So we want to encourage our children to say, hey, if we're Hezekiah, be Josiah. Hey, yeah, we're trying to bring it back, but you know what, if we're wrong, or you can dial it in even more than us, do it. Be the Josiah generation that dials it in even more, and God looks down from heaven and says, that's how church is supposed to be. That's how church is supposed to look. That's how church is supposed to sound. That's how church is supposed to be a bright and shining light in such a dark world. Who cares about all these old heresies? Now, I want to address just a couple before I finish. We won't take too much time on this, but go forward to Mark chapter 6. Here's an old heresy that the Catholics love to keep repeating, that Mary stayed a virgin. Now, you know what's so funny to me? I don't even have to study the Bible to prove these people wrong. You know what all I have to do? I have to type in what heresy they have and read their article, and they'll give me all the verses that disprove their doctrine every single time. They already know that they're wrong, so whenever you ask a Catholic, like, hey, is this true? They're like, well, let me explain all these verses that tell me why I'm wrong, why they don't really mean what they mean. You just kind of wonder, how do I prove this doctrine wrong? Just ask the Catholic what they believe, and they'll tell you the verses that prove their doctrine wrong for you. That's just how it is. Now, I remember, I've actually had a couple conversations with a Catholic recently, and I was asking him about this. He told me this. If Mary is not a virgin, post-Jesus Christ, he said that Jesus isn't the Son of God. I'm like, why does that have to be true? And he was like, well, if Mary had brothers and sisters after Jesus, then people would think that Jesus wasn't really born of a virgin. I'm like, why does that have anything to do with it? Like, really? The person's like, you know what? I don't believe in a virgin birth as a miracle, but if she didn't have any other children, then it's plausible. You know, if she had other children later, then obviously the virgin birth can't happen. No, no. They just deny miracles point blank. Like, it doesn't matter if she had children after or before or any of those kind of things. That's just silly. But look at Mark chapter 6. Look at verse number 3. Mark chapter 6, verse number 3. The Bible says, is not this the carpenter? That's where you get the idea that Jesus is a carpenter. The son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph, and of Judah and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us. And they are infinitive. Now I'm like, hey, doesn't it say that Jesus had brothers and sisters? All you have to understand is that the word brother actually just means cousins. Oh, really? It's like, hey, how are you doing? Fine. You're not fine, are you? You know, it's like, okay, the King James says brothers here. What does your Douay-Rheims that was translated from your Catholic version say? Oh, it says brothers and sisters, too. Why didn't you just update it to cousins then? Like, why do you continue to use words that don't literally mean what they say? Why are you still using brother? And then they'll say like, oh, we can find some place in Genesis where Abraham called, you know, their brethren. Really? So now this brothers and sisters doesn't mean that? But it gets worse for them, okay, folks? It gets way worse. Keep this verse in mind. And I wanted to find which verse. I didn't write it down. I guess it's in here. Go to Matthew 27, okay? Go to Matthew 27. Remember that it said his brother was James and Joses, okay? Or Joses. You know, I don't know how you would say it. Matthew 27. Now, I didn't even, like, I didn't even think of this point. Like, don't think, like, Pastor Shelley found a really cool point. I just used their article, okay? Look what it says in Matthew 27, verse 56. Among which was Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children. So it's saying there's these three women that were there at Jesus Christ's crucifixion, and we know Mary the mother of Jesus is there, and then it literally says that this Mary is the mother of James and Joses. And then, you know what this article says? It was another Mary. Oh, okay. Based on what? But it gets worse. Go to Matthew chapter 1. Go to Matthew chapter 1. Just another Mary. Well, that's interesting because the Mary it keeps bringing up is his mother, and then it literally says she's the mother of these people, and then it literally says that they're their brother. Well, brother doesn't mean brother, and this isn't Mary, and it's just completely different. You know, it's just like, how are you Catholic? Well, tradition says. Now, this one's a pretty bad one. Matthew chapter 1, look at verse 25. This is talking about Joseph, and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. Now, this is what the Catholic told me. Well, the word till doesn't mean that it actually happened. If I said, I haven't eaten anything until lunch. Oh, what did you eat? Nothing. That doesn't make any sense. You know what the word till or until, because they're basically the same word, you know what it means according to the dictionary? Up to that time. So it's saying, something is true up to the time on which the statement is being made. So you know what was true? That Joseph had not known Mary until or till a specific time period. Why would it clarify that if he never did? And you would never make this kind of a statement to anybody. Well, I was cool till, you're implying what? That something changed. Or I was saved till. Well, you know what? You can't lose your salvation, so that sentence wouldn't make any sense, buddy. Right? I was hot until they turned the air conditioning on. Oh, so you're still hot then? No, you would think something changed. So it's saying, he knew her not till she gave birth. And it's clarifying that after the birth, making it what? She was a virgin. Why would it put that statement in there? To prove that she was a virgin. Because wouldn't someone be confused? Since she had other children, they would know that she for sure wasn't a virgin. So you know what you would have to do? You would have to believe by faith that the firstborn was a virgin, that it was a virgin experience. It's similar, the Bible loves to do this to people. Just to make it clear, like you have to believe by faith. Like there's no doubt. Because you have Sarah, she goes, and she hangs out with Pharaoh, and then immediately when she comes back, all of a sudden she's pregnant. It's like, you've been with Abraham for 80 something years, and you could never conceive, and then all of a sudden you go hang out with Pharaoh for a little bit, and then you come back, and you conceive. How do we know that it wasn't Pharaoh's kid? Well, you have to believe by faith, because the Bible tells us that Isaac is the son of Abraham. Just like it would be with the Virgin Mary, that just because she had other children, well, how do you know that it wasn't Joseph's kid? Because the Bible tells us so. And we believe it by faith. And it actually makes it harder to believe. You know, why would I want to sit here and say like, well, she couldn't have other children, so then we could just... It makes the virgin birth easier to believe or something. I don't need it to be easier to believe. And then you're just making what? This verse? Make no sense. You wouldn't use that word till. Well, till doesn't really mean that something changed. Then why use it? Now you're just making the Word of God in unaffected again, aren't you? Go if you would to Matthew 28. Go to Matthew 28. Well, but you don't understand. The church fathers said this. Athanasius of Alexandria said that Mary was the ever-virgin. And St. Jerome said that, about Mary specifically, that she was a virgin and she remained a virgin. Oh, okay. Notice, Catholics, why is Mary a virgin? St. Jerome, Athanasius. And it's like, hey, why was she not a virgin? The Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark. Notice who's appealing to Scripture and who's appealing to tradition, church fathers. And I'll tell you this, Catholics love to do this. They'll try to debunk something I believe. Church father, church father, creed, creed, creed. And it's like me. John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts. It's like, who are you going to trust? The Bible or tradition? And you know what? If I'm wrong on any doctrine, you don't need a single church father to prove your point. Prove from the Bible. You know what? They can't prove it from the Bible. They have to dig up some old cult leader, some old heresy to try and debunk you. You know what? It's wrong. I asked this person, I said, hey, when was Jesus Christ crucified? Because you all celebrate Good Friday. I think it was Thursday. Oh, well, it's definitely Friday. Why? Well, that's what everybody's done. I mean, we've been celebrating Good Friday for forever. I can't find a church father that doesn't agree with Good Friday. Okay, so do we just go with Good Friday because every church father has always said that? Or should we just believe what the Bible says? Now, we know specifically that Jesus Christ was risen again on the first day of the week. Why? And we celebrate the resurrection on Sunday. Well, look at Matthew 28 and look at verse 1. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning and his arraignment white as snow. And for fear of him, the keepers did shake and became his dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear ye not, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen. As he said, Come, see the place where the Lord lay. So the day has not started. The dawn is when the sun comes up. It's saying before the dawn, they're showing up, and then the angel's saying Jesus is already risen. That means that Jesus already rose before the day of Sunday. Now, I want to go to a few more places. Go to Luke 24. Go to Luke 24. This presents a problem for Catholics. Why? Because in Matthew chapter 12, verse 40, he said, For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the well's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And I found another Catholic article. I found another Catholic article. Was Christ really in the tomb for three days? And then you know what they put? Matthew 1240, what I just quoted for you. And they also put Mark 8. We're going to go there in a minute. How can it be three days? Well, because they say Friday counts for a little bit. I agree with that logic. That's fine. Friday day, Saturday day, oops, he rose before Sunday day. So now you only have 1.2 days. How do you get to three? That's some weird rounding. I can see how you could round up to whole numbers and get to two, but you can't get to three. It's literally impossible. You're denying clear verses. And the Bible literally says this, too. Look at Luke chapter number 24. I want to look at verse number 20. And now the chief priest and a ruler has delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him. So this is the walk to Emmaus. These guys are talking with Jesus. They said, hey, Jesus was crucified. Verse 21, but we had trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel. And beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. So you're saying today is the third day since what had done? Jesus was crucified. So Sunday is the third day. That would make Saturday the second day since. That would make Friday the first day since. Meaning when? It would have been Thursday. You know, you wouldn't say it's been a day since I preached this sermon. Now you might say that, okay, because it's really long. But that wouldn't be accurate. Tomorrow you would say it's been one day since Pastor Shelley preached this Sunday morning sermon. It's not the same day. So if you're going to say three days since, it's really clear that Sunday is the third day. Saturday is the second day since. Friday is the first day since. Thursday was the day, what, when he was crucified. So it would be Good Thursday is what you would celebrate. Well, but that's against every tradition that we receive to our fathers. Next to your tradition. I don't care what you're, you're wrong on everything, Catholics. Why do I care? Go to Mark chapter number eight now. Go to Mark chapter number eight, this one's pretty good too. I didn't even have this, this is another one I didn't have. Because Catholics are good for one thing, showing me all the verses that debunk themselves. Here's another verse that debunks our clear heresy. Mark chapter number eight, look at verse 31. And he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and of the chief priests and scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. I'm like, wow. That was another good verse. This is their answer, okay. Is there a contradiction? No. Because the ancient Jews. This should never be your response to any claim. I know this is true because of ancient Jews, okay. Because the ancient Jews counted as a whole day any part of a day. So the quote three days and three nights just means three days. And the day just means any part of the day. So when Jesus was really clear and was saying days and nights, he didn't really mean days. And he didn't really mean nights. He just meant part of any kind of a day, just a little part, and it just counts for all of it. Again, making the word of God of none effect. He didn't just say three days. He said three days and three nights. Isn't it interesting? Every time it contradicts them, they just change what it says. Because if it says what it says, they're wrong. Well, in modern, you should just mean three days. So, you know, that's basically how we count it is because of ancient Jews. The ancient Jews that crucified Jesus? And why would I care? Like, why do I have to go back and say all the people that crucified Jesus and didn't believe in him, they understood what three days and three nights meant. But all of us saved Christians don't. And so we have to put ourselves in the mind of unsaved, Christ-rejecting, Christ-killing Jews. Sorry, this is a crime in South Dakota, or South Carolina, I'm sorry, and Georgia. The Jews killed Jesus, Kristi Noem. The Jews killed Jesus, Ben Shapiro. And you know what? They didn't believe any of the Bible. If they had believed Moses, they would have believed in him. I'm not going to say, wow, all the Christians, every single Holy Spirit-filled child of God doesn't understand three days and three nights. We need to go to a bunch of unsaved, ancient, Christ-killing Jews to understand what it really means in just three days. How could Catholics even fall for this doctrine? Historically, Catholics have not been friends with Jews. It's absurd, folks. Why? Why? Because they elevate their tradition over the Bible. I don't care how old the heresy is, beware of tradition. Beware of the tradition of men. Oh, well, you know what? The Catholics believe this is about the Trinity. I don't care. The Catholics believe this is about the Eucharist. I don't care. The Catholics believe this is about baptism. I don't care. Quit trying to prove me wrong with church fathers. You're a liar. You know what? If you're going to prove me wrong, prove me wrong with Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, with Peter, with James. And you know what? Let us not fall victim of philosophy and vain deceit and church fathers and creeds and confessions and, oh, look what Wikipedia said. Oh, written by Jews, ancient Jews? You know what? I care about what this says. Well, what did Josephus say? I don't care. You know what? We should only believe what the Bible says on every single doctrine. And we need to challenge our children because we have a lot of truth to learn every doctrine for themselves too. Don't let your children just fall victim of, well, dad said that or the pastor said that or whatever. No, no, no. You children, you have a verse for everything you believe. And not just one, have two, have three, and don't just acquiesce to what someone told you. Don't believe everything because you read it in the Bible yourself. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us the Bible so that we could actually have a light in this dark world. I pray that we wouldn't be ignorant of traditions that want to try and go against the Bible or make the Bible of none effect. I pray that we wouldn't get this virus of the mind where we reject the clear reading of the Bible, where we say that words don't really mean what they mean, where we let people come and deceive us and trick us with history or confessions or creeds, but rather we believe everything that the Bible says. And even if it is new, that we would just have the confidence and the faith to do what the Bible says right now. And I pray that you would just help us to be zealous soul winners and get people to repent of their traditions that they could truly believe in you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Alright, for our final song, let's go to song 81, When We See Christ. Song 81, When We See Christ. 81, When We See Christ. 82, When We See Christ. 83, When We See Christ. 84, When We See Christ. 85, When We See Christ. 86, When We See Christ. 87, When We See Christ. 88, When We See Christ. 89, When We See Christ. 90, When We See Christ. 91, When We See Christ. 92, When We See Christ. 93, When We See Christ. 94, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 96, When We See Christ. 97, When We See Christ. 98, When We See Christ. 99, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Jesus. 95, When We See Jesus. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ. 95, When We See Christ.