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🎵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🎵 🎵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🎵 🎵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🎵 Good evening everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you can all find your seats we're going to get started. We're going to start this evening off in song number 406. Who is on the Lord's side? Song 406. Who is on the Lord's side? Song 406. Who is on the Lord's side? Who is on the Lord's side? Sing it out on the first. Who is on the Lord's side? Who will serve the King? Who will be his helpers? On earth eyes to greet. Who will be the Lord's side? Who will face the foe? Who is on the Lord's side? Who for him will go? By thy call of mercy, by thy grace be thine. We are on the Lord's side. Savior we are thine. At the weight of glory, at your crown and crown, cancer we the army, praise the warrior song. But for love that claimeth, but for whom he thine. He whom Jesus nameth, must be on his side. By thy love constray thee, by thy grace be thine. We are on the Lord's side. Savior we are thine. Jesus thou hast bought us, not with old or dead, but with thine almighty blood, for thine eye of him. With thy blessing filling, each who comes to thee, thou hast made us with thee, thou hast made us free. By thy grand redemption, by thy grace be thine. We are on the Lord's side. Savior we are thine. Fears may be the conflict, strongly be the foe, but the king's own army, that can overthrow. Round his standard reigning, victory is secure. For his truth unchanging, makes the triumph sure. Joyfully entwisting, by thy grace be thine. We are on the Lord's side. Savior we are thine. Great singing, everybody. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for bringing us all here together to worship and to praise your name. Lord God, thank you for all the souls that were won today and help us to continue to press forward toward that high mark, the calling of God. Lord God, I ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, next up on our list is song number 10, song number 10 near the cross. Song 10 near the cross. Song 10 near the cross. Jesus, keep me near the cross. There, a precious fountain, free to all the healing stream, flows from Calvary's mountain. In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, till my wretched soul shall find, rest beyond the river. Near the cross, a trembling soul, love and mercy found me. There, the bright and morning star sheds its beams around me. In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, till my fractured soul shall find, rest beyond the river. Near the cross, O Lamb of God, bring his seeds before me. Help me walk from day to day, lift his shadows o'er me. In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, till my fractured soul shall find, rest beyond the river. Near the cross, I'll watch and wait, hoping, trusting ever, till I reach the golden strand, just beyond the river. In the cross, in the cross, be my glory ever, till my fractured soul shall find, rest beyond the river. Great singing. Good evening. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you still need a bulletin, one of us should come by. Just lift up your hand real quick. They'll come by and get you a bulletin on the front. We have our Bible memory passage, as well as on the inside our service soul winning times. And then on the right, several ladies to be in prayer for. We have our prayer list. Please be in prayer for all of them on the back. Preaching class on Saturdays at 2 p.m. If you have any questions, please just ask me or brother Dylan. And we've had some really great sermons, some really good preaching. So I'm really encouraged by that participation. Also, there is the Verity Baptist Church Next Generation Youth Rally. And I did look up the information. I guess it's geared for teenagers. So it's a teenager specific type of event. However, parents, I believe, are still encouraged if they would like to participate with their kids. They can go to the services and everything like that. But it is geared towards teenagers. And then congratulations to the Galaso family on the birth of John Christian, who was born on the 11th at 3.18 a.m., weighing 9 pounds, 14 ounces, and measured 21 inches long. Congratulations. That is great. We're going to go ahead and sing our psalm of the week, Psalm 146. It's in our special handouts, Psalm 146. All right, that's Psalm 146. Sing it out real loud together. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live, O life, praise the Lord. I will sing praise with us, O my God. While I have, believe me. Would not your trust in princes Or in the Son of man In whom there is no hell, In whom there is no hell. Praise be the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. Israel would live for thee, Research into his earth and land. Every day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath loved God of Jacob or his town, Whose hope is in the Lord, the Lord is God. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. Which with heaven and earth The seed and of all that there is, Which he has drew forever, Which takes him to his judgment, For the offers which giveth Good to the free, the Lord, Peace in the prisoners. Praise be the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. The world with me God, In his love combined, The Lord raised him with man, Our God, and the Lord loved him. The righteous, the Lord, Returneth the strangers, We relive the power, Blessed in the world. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. Of the reign of the wicked, He turneth upside down, The Lord shall reign forever, Even thy God, O Zion, Unto all generations, Praise be the Lord, praise be the Lord. Great scene everybody. As the offering plates are going around, you can turn to 1 Timothy chapter number 5. 1 Timothy chapter number 5. 1 Timothy chapter number 5. 1 Timothy chapter number 5. 1 Timothy chapter 5. The Bible reads, Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters, with all purity. Honor widows that are widows indeed, but if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents, for that is good and acceptable before God. Now she that is a widow indeed and desolate trusteth in God and continue within supplications and prayers, night and day. But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth, and these things give in charge that they may be blameless. But if any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, well reported of for good works, if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work. But the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith, and withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but toddlers also, and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan. If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged that it may relieve them that are widows indeed. Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture saith, Thou shalt 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 sin rebuke before all that others also may fear. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins. Keep thyself pure. Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment, and some men they follow after. Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand, and they that are otherwise cannot be hid. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, I pray that you give Pastor Shelley the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit as he preaches to us, and give us ears to hear and soften hearts in the room, Lord, so that we may apply the message to our lives. And I also pray for safety as we go our separate ways after the service. We love you. We thank you for our church. And in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 5, verse 17, Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. Now, specifically in this passage, it's telling us that the elders are the ones who are ruling because it's saying let the elders that rule well be counted worthy. So of course the Bible makes it abundantly clear that elders rule the church. Now, when it says elders, plural, it doesn't necessarily mean that every church has its own group of elders, but it's just talking about pastors in general, elders in general. They are the rulers of the church. And of course our church believes in being pastor-led, being elder-led, and specifically even having one pastor or one elder as the main authority of the church. And what I notice in America, probably the worst problem in America today is the fact that we are filled with pastors in name only. And that is the title of my sermon this evening, is Pastors in Name Only. Pinos. All right? That was the nicest part of the sermon, okay? So just buckle up. If you came this morning, I hope you got a lot of soaking in of the grace, all right? But here's the problem in America, is that we have a bunch of pastors in name only, and what they're not doing is they're not making decisions for their church. They're not the decision maker. They have other people. They have groups. They maybe have a deacon board, or they have a, quote, elder board, or they have committees, or maybe they just even have the entire church vote on the decisions that they're gonna make for the church and that the pastor is not really the decision maker or the church. Well, that makes him a pastor in name only. He's not really the shepherd. You don't ask the sheep where they wanna go. The shepherd leads the sheep. The shepherd is a specific role. If the shepherd is being led around by the sheep, he's not a shepherd. He's a shepherd in name only. And so we need churches today where the pastor is given the authority, is given the ability to make decisions for the church. And a lot of people that are very narcissistic or evil-minded will say, oh, that's a bad model, or the pastor's gonna do a lot of bad things. But that's why you also counterbalance the authority given to a pastor with the qualifications given to a pastor, meaning you pick somebody, or you're going to a church where the pastor is a good man. He has a good family. He's showing himself responsible in the areas of marriage and raising children and preaching the gospel and that he studied and he's not a novice. I mean, there's all these different things that are there to try and make sure that the person you're following is the right kind of person to follow, but then it's someone to truly follow. It's not someone that's a nobody, but it's rather it's somebody that's there to set a vision for the church. It's someone to make the decisions of where you're gonna go and how the service is gonna run and even just what's gonna be preached. You know, I decide what's gonna be preached and sometimes it's well in advance. Sometimes it's right before the service. It doesn't necessarily always follow the exact same model, but you know who's not telling me what to preach? Anyone. Now, of course, the Holy Spirit and the Bible and Jesus, I want to be led by them. He is my shepherd, and of course there is an authority that comes from the Bible, but humanly speaking, the pastor is the leader. The pastor is the shepherd. The pastor is the one to make decisions, and there's so many churches today where that is not the model, and you can see the failure of these churches. You can see the church doesn't have much of a vision. You can see that the church isn't making a lot of decisions. You can see that the church is even just making bad decisions very regularly. They're very slow to adapt. They're very slow to cause any kind of controversy or uproar, really do much of anything today because of all the bureaucracy. It's very slow, kind of like how our government is run, where it's very slow and efficient, and the leadership is almost a puppet rather than the actual decision maker. When we look at our country today, it's such a shame and embarrassment that our president is a literal puppet, that he's not a real decision maker, that he's not really leading the charge. And, of course, we have a president in name only today in Joe Biden. He is not really leading the country. He is not really casting forth a vision, and we see the ram of occasions of that in our country is that we're run by a lot of corruption, a lot of inflation, all kinds of issues of sin and moral decline. We just see just apathy. There's not really any kind of unity in our nation anymore. People are very just jaded against the government in general because of the corruption. We see the unfair treatment of certain political candidates by the Democratic Party. We see the unfair bias showed towards his own family members who have been caught and are basically openly triumphing in the fact that they're committing all kinds of crimes and nothing's happening to them. I mean, we just see all kinds of evil as a result of the fact that the president is just a puppet, and we see that the leader is just a puppet. But, you know, the same thing applies to a church when the pastor is just simply a puppet, when he's just to go up there and just entertain the congregation. He's just there because he's really good at speaking, or maybe he's funny. But you know what? We're not here at a comedy club tonight. We're not here. I'm not an entertainer. I'm not a performer for you today. I'm not putting on a show. There's no lights and music and this cool movie screen back here. We're going to show you movies or something like that. No, I'm here because I'm supposed to be the authority, the leader, and I'm deciding what's going to be preached. And, of course, that's important because we need to empower good men to preach what the Bible really says. And we need a pastor that's going to be willing to even throw people out of church. But because the pastor has been stripped of his authority today in many churches, he cannot throw people out. There could be certain people that actually make the decisions that need to be thrown out and he can't throw them out because they're the ones that make the decisions. It's like you've got these deacons that are unruly or you've got the deacons' wives that are unruly or you've got all these random people in the church that maybe they're the financier, maybe they're the person on the bylaws or the paperwork or whatever, and they basically hold that over the pastor. They threaten the pastor. And many churches today are constantly switching pastors, just like Elizabeth Taylor switched husbands, and as a result of that, we don't really have pastors anymore. The Southern Baptist Convention has almost completely ruined itself because it's filled with pastors in name only. If you look at the way Southern Baptist churches are structured today, they are a congregation-led, a congregation-run church. They are run by the people in the building, not by the pastors. And the pastors pretty much are at the beck and call of the membership, and essentially the people get to decide who's going to come, how long they're going to stay, what they're going to pay them, what they're going to do, and he's just afraid of even losing his job. And many times they kind of come and go. They only stay for a few years because they're job-hopping. They kind of start out as a youth minister somewhere, then they go to a small church, then they try to get a gig at a bigger church, and then when there's a big opening, then they try to get in with that church, and they're constantly going in view of a call, and you just have all these swapping around of all these different pastors. Why? Because they're just simply a pastor in name only. They're not really in charge. They're not really making the decisions. They're not really setting the vision. They're not really capable of throwing people out of the building. And then whenever you have this authority, then people say, oh, you guys are a cult. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too, okay? And at the end of the day, you need to have a pastor that has authority, that makes some decisions. And, of course, here in 1 Timothy 5, verse 17, it says, Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor. Of course, because we are having young churches or this is a young church, and we're just starting out, it may not be feasible for the church to financially support a pastor the way that it should. So there's been times, especially when I started Pure's Baptist Church, I didn't take a salary at all. I didn't take any money from the church. In fact, I was feeding, I was paying extra money above what was needed just to try and keep the church going. So it doesn't mean that the pastor has to be paid for it to be a legitimate church, but a good thing would be that pastors are paid, and what is the standard, biblically, is that they're worthy of double honor. Notice what it even says in the next verse, For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward. So according to the Bible, and there's other passages, I'm not going to go there for the sake of time, but you can read 1 Corinthians chapter 9, you can read other passages that mention the fact that pastors are entitled to some pay. Now be it, it's limited, it's not saying a hundred worth, it's saying he's worthy of double honor, right? It doesn't say a hundred honor or fifty honor or fifty thousand honor, it simply says double honor, so of course there's some limitation on that, but also it's enough money to where the pastor wouldn't have to really worry about other things. And so ideally if you have a bigger institution, you have a bigger church, it has the financial ability, then the pastor should be paid a good salary to where they don't have to focus on money, they can focus on the spiritual things. And they don't have to even focus on job insecurity, because that will cause a pastor not to do his job correctly. When a pastor is worried about his own job, he's feeding his family, or whatever, his 401k or whatever, while that's not right, it also will cause the pastor to not really be the pastor, to not really do the job. Just like imagine, you know, if a dad is the dad, he's the father, he's going to discipline his children a certain way. But if a guy is, you know, maybe a stepdad, or he's dating a woman that has children, he may feel a little bit timid about how he disciplines those children or how he would talk to those children, because that woman could decide she doesn't want to be with them anymore, because he's just kind of coming in to fulfill the role. He's not really the dad. But you know, when you're secure and you know you're the dad, you feel like, hey, I'm going to treat these children exactly how I should, because they're my children, right? And so it's like when the pastor, it's like, it's my church, and it's his church, and he's there, and he's in the power and authority, then he can make decisions, he can rule, he can do what's necessary to lead that church. And many churches today are not giving them that option. You know, even the president itself, I think the president is paid somewhere around 400, maybe $450,000 a year as the salary of being the president of the United States. In my opinion, that's a pretty modest income for being the president of the most wealthy and powerful nation in the world. And a lot of the presidents end up getting a lot of extra money from all kinds of side things, or side hustles, or insider trading, or bribes, or all this other stuff, and to me it'd make more sense to maybe raise the pay, but then also raise the standard of the candidate. Instead of keeping the pay low and the standards low, why don't we raise the pay a little bit for the president, you know, he's got an important job, and then make sure that the candidate is a person of moral character, of moral quality, of somebody being worthy of being in that position, and then maybe they don't have to worry about money they can focus on just doing right. They can focus on actually leading the nation correctly. And you know, that's what we really need in this country, is we need pastors who are given the opportunity to not have to worry about the carnal things so they can focus on the spiritual things, and they can do the hard job of being a pastor. Because let me tell you something, being a pastor is not an easy job, it's a hard job, but at the same time, it's a hard job that someone needs to do. The reason why our country is in decline is because of pastors' faults. It is the pastor's fault, it is the shepherd's fault in this nation, in this country, why we're in the situation we're in. It is the churches that are the spiritual leadership of this nation, and we're declining spiritually because of the pastors, because we're filled with pastors in name only, and it's partly responsible, you know, who's partly responsible is the congregation itself, is the Christians themselves for not giving the church what it needs. They're not equipping the right men, and they're not giving the right men what they need. We need both. We need to equip the right men, and then we need to give the right men what they need in order to succeed in this country. Now, go to chapter 4, you might not even have to turn the page and look at verse 16. Look what the Bible says about the pastor. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine, continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. Notice that the way that the pastor lives his life doesn't just affect him, it affects other people. And so it's important for the pastor to set a good example and to take heed to really good doctrine, because by him taking heed to good doctrine, it's gonna actually benefit other people. It's gonna save other people, it's gonna help other people in their lives, and it's a really important job that he needs to take charge. You know, when the pastor shows strong spiritual authority and just strong authority, it helps model for men how they're supposed to rule their lives, how they're supposed to rule their wives and their children and their houses and their businesses, and really even just the country in general. The church house should be a model and an example of how every institution should be run. Even this country, even this nation, should be run. You know, the president should be looking to the pastor and saying, I should run this country like that pastor's running that church. And men should look at the pastor and say, the way he's running that church is how I should run my family. And of course, how he runs his family and his children and everything else, just that is the example. So we need men to set the right example and the right patterns so people can follow after them. You know, in software development, this is really important because in software development, you have what's like lead architects or the main designers of making code. And typically, most junior or mid-level developers, the vast majority of what they do is just simply repeat the patterns in existence. So whatever's in a code base or however the code is architected, all they simply do is just repeat whatever patterns are already in place. They're typically not making better patterns. And so a lot of times the reason why coding or software or websites or these things are bad is because they had a bad initial architect or a bad initial senior developer who created a bad pattern that was then copied and copied and copied. The same is applied when we talk about here at church, if you have the bad pastor, typically people are not going above and beyond what the pastor is setting as an example. They're simply at best copying what the pastor is doing, many times even worse. And so when they already have a bad example, then it's just copy bad, bad, bad, bad, and it just emanates from there, and it's just a horrible basically multiplication issue of just bad example after bad example after bad example. And so it's important that we have real pastors that are in charge, they're throwing people out, they're setting the vision for the church, they're making good decisions, and they're ruling well. And if they're ruling well, you know, we should never attack the pastor that's ruling well for something carnal, you know, like whatever they were being paid or something. A lot of people try to attack pastors for what they're paid, and I'm like that's not the big issue here. You know, there's a lot of issues that are way more important than that. Maybe you must have some kind of love of money or something since you're always so fixated and focused on how much people make or something like that. That's just bizarre. Go, if you would, to 2 Timothy chapter number 4 now. Just flip to the right just a hair. You know, and I've seen this because I've been to some business church meetings before of other churches where, simply put, you know, you have all these women getting up and commenting on how much the pastors make at the church. Like I've been in the church meeting and people get up and be like, I don't think the pastors should make that much money or I don't like, you know, this just seems like too much or whatever. And I'm thinking like, you don't even run your own house. And why are we even letting women talk in the church anyways? Number 1. And then why are we letting old women decide, I mean, she's like, I remember when I was, you know, young, a hamburger was a nickel. Okay, grandma, well sit down. You know, you're not supposed to be talking in church. Sorry the church let you talk or you thought they were going to let you talk. But you know, inflation hit us hard, grandma. Sorry you live with so-and-so. Sorry you live in the nursing home or whatever and you don't really understand what's going on. But you know what, men in the real world make the decisions and you know what, it's not right to have the women criticizing the pastor's pay. Like that is insane, okay. That is why churches, I mean, and then the pastor is embarrassed or ashamed or seems, you know, basically handicapped based on how women perceive his paycheck. I mean, this is weird, folks. Of all the problems that are going on in the world, of all the things that are happening, how profitable it is for a pastor to get up and let the old women comment on his salary. Like that, you already tell me you just failed as a church. You're already just in a bad spot and a bad situation to let that kind of stuff happen and you know, that's really just a weird behavior. How did you even get to that point? That really just shows who's running the church, who's really in charge. Because you know what, we don't do, we also don't let all the women look at your paycheck. I mean, how would you feel if we just said, alright, now we're going to bring up so and so and we're going to all look at his paycheck and talk about it too. I mean, that's weird. You know what, we don't do that because that's private and that's not even really an important thing is to just be checking everybody's pay. Like, is that really what the church has devolved to? But isn't that what corporate world's about? I mean, corporate world's about pay. I mean, corporate world, that's all it is about pay and how much people are getting paid and it's like, that doesn't really matter. I'm sure there are great pastors out there that are making very little if nothing and I'm sure there's terrible pastors that are making a ton. Okay, the money doesn't really matter. But if you do have a good pastor and they do have the financial wherewithal, you know, pay him, you know, good money, right? Pay him enough money to be focused on what he's supposed to do. Don't let the women run the church. Don't let the deacons run the church. I mean, hey, in this church, women say amen. Women let the kids say amen. Now, of course, sometimes people do that or visitors or they don't know any better. But you know what? That's not what should be happening, let alone commenting on the pay or commenting on how much we spend on missions trips or something. I'm sure someone would criticize me if they saw how much money we spent on missions trips. They saw how much we spent on the Bahamas trip? Oh, man. But you know, we got almost a thousand people saved. What's that worth? I mean, you're gonna start telling me, what's the number worth? I don't care if you spent a million dollars on it, it was worth it. Because I don't really care about those kind of things. You know who cares about those kind of things? Carnal people. Carnal people are just so obsessed with the dollars and the cents because you know what? They're obsessed with dollars and cents. They're obsessed with how much people get paid or don't get paid. You know, pay in this country is all over the map, too. Because if you live in certain parts depending on what you make, it's dramatically different what your living situation is. I mean, if you live in like San Francisco, I mean, it's insane. It is literally insane. I remember Pastor Anderson saying that I should consider starting a church in San Jose. And I looked at like the cheapest house that I could find on the market for sale that wasn't pending and it was a million dollars. And it was like a 1200 square foot three bedroom, two bath that needed completely remodeled. And I was just like, whoa. Whereas you could take that same price tag, a million bucks, and just go like out in boonies over here and you could have like a five car garage, like 7,000 square foot really nice house with the exact same price tag. Okay. So why is the number really even matter? And look, if someone did that, I don't really care because it's not really any of my business. It doesn't really matter to me because I'm just not obsessed with the dollars and the cents. Okay. We should let pastors lead. Even if he's paid a lot or if he's paid none, let him lead. Let him make the decisions. Go to a church where the pastor's in charge, not you. You know what that takes? Humility. You know what it takes? It takes obedience. It takes having a spirit of being a servant rather than, oh, I got to be in charge. But a lot of people, they don't want to go to a church where someone else is in charge. They don't want to go to a church where they're going to be told what to do. They don't want to go to a church where they're going to be pastored. Well, you know what? The Bible warns about a time when people don't want to go to a church where they're getting pastored. Look at 2 Timothy 4 verse 2. Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. So the Bible says there's a time coming in the future where this is going to be on a massive scale. Of course, this has always been happening, at least to some degree or in some scale or in some parts of the world. It's always happening throughout every generation. But the Bible is saying there is coming a time in the future when virtually all believers and even just what we think are believers are going to not want to hear what the Bible says, they're not going to endure sound doctrine, they're going to heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, they're going to turn away from the truth and be turned unto fables. What is fables? Stories. And you know what? A lot of preaching today, a lot of churches has just turned into a glorified story time. A glorified, just fable telling from the pastor where he's just getting up and probably exaggerating, probably ad-libbing, probably just saying all kinds of random stuff that is not even really true instead of preaching the word, instead of preaching the Bible, preaching what the text actually says. And notice, they won't endure sound doctrine. What was the instruction to Timothy that he was supposed to continue in the doctrine? Because that was going to save him and the other people. So the doctrine is what's important. We need good doctrine. We need to know what the Bible says in every single area. And we need preachers that are going to preach the word, that are going to preach doctrine. So I really only have two points this evening. But point number one, why we have so many pastors in name only is because they're not in charge. And number two, because they don't preach the word. And we need pastors that are in charge. Why? So they can preach the word. That's the point. When their pay is not going to be affected directly from what they preach, then they're going to preach the word maybe. They're actually going to be convicted to preach what the Bible says. You know, if I make a salary and I don't even take a paycheck from the church, what's going to hold me back from just preaching whatever the Bible says? Or if you are paid and the church is doing well and you're getting paid and you have the ability to go back to that if you need to or whatever, then you're just like, hey, I'm just going to preach what the Bible says. The church grows. Praise God. If it shrinks, I can go get a job. But what I'm not going to do is compromise on what the Bible says. Whereas the preachers that are being led by the deacons' wives, which are being led by the elders, which are just looking for the next career advancement, they won't preach the word because they're just simply there to entertain. They're a jester. They're just there to put on a comedy skit for everybody to be, you know, appeased or to just, oh, let's just enjoy the next 15 minutes. And it's destroyed our country. It's destroyed Christianity. It's made a mockery of Christianity. Many people today mock Christianity at how weak, how lame, how effeminate it is. But you know what? This type of preaching, this type of pastoring is not effeminate at all. It's 100% in charge. It's real masculine. It's real patriarchy. It's the toxic masculinity, okay? I want that shirt. I want a shirt that's just like I am toxic masculinity, okay? Whatever that is, I feel like I'm all of it, okay? And you know what? I'm not afraid of that because there's nothing wrong with being masculine. I'm a man! Okay? You know what? We don't want women to be masculine. That's called the feminism movement, which is so weird because it doesn't make women feminine. It makes them masculine. And then they try to make men less masculine by saying, oh, that's toxic masculinity. Well, we need a little bit more toxic masculinity in the pulpit, where men are actually in charge, where men say amen, where men actually show up at church, where men dress like men, where men are concerned with the things of the Bible, where men like hard preaching. They don't like some kind of effeminate, watered-down, effeminate message that's just going to tell them, hey, don't hurt anybody's feelings. Why don't you let your wife tell you what to do every once in a while? I'm going to let my wife come and share a message with you all, okay? She's going to come up here. You all be nice to her so she doesn't gripe at me when we go home, okay? I mean, that is the kind of message that's happening today. That's the kind of world we live in. We live in this world. This is a reality. The vast majority of people going to church right now are going to a church with a pastor in name only. It's really a church in name only, too, if you ask me. But go to Ecclesiastes chapter number 12 for a moment. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 12. I want to turn to a few more places here as we learn about the importance of what a pastor is supposed to do. He's supposed to preach the Word. He's supposed to preach the Bible. He's not supposed to make people feel comfortable. The Bible doesn't necessarily make you feel comfortable. And, you know, we need to bring back the idea of people feeling a little bit uncomfortable in church. Because our country needs some uncomfortable preaching. It does not need... Like, we've been comforted. We've got a lot of grace. We've got a lot of long suffering. You know what this country needs? It needs an unleashing of hard preaching. It needs someone to get up and scream and yell and rant about what's wrong because the nice isn't working. The nice doesn't work. It's like at the grocery store when you see the little brat screaming for the candy bar and mom has explained a hundred times nicely why he's not going to get it. No, you don't want to ruin your dinner. Don't scream. Little Johnny is like, I want a cookie! I want a candy bar! And you already were fed up 20 minutes ago. And you're like, it's time for mama bear to come out. It's time for dad to come around the corner and grab the kid and show him why he's not going to get a candy bar. Okay. And that's what we need spiritually speaking. America needs some chastisement. America needs a spiritual spanking. America needs to be paddled on its rear really hard over and over again and be told that it's wrong. Be told no. Be told that they're wicked. Be told that they're doing wrong. And you know, our job as a pastor is not so much to be careful with your feelings, it's to be careful with the truth. Ecclesiastes 12, verse 9, the Bible says, Moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge, yea, he gave good heed and sought out to set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. So when the pastor's seeking out, well, what do I need to say? What kind of words do I need to use? The ones that are right. The ones that are true. He doesn't say, well, the ones that are nice. The ones that are comfortable. The ones that feel good. No. What's true? No. What's right? No. You know, a lot of people would love to hear lies preached to them, and we're going to get to a passage on that in a moment, but you know, for the preacher, he's not to decide what to preach based on what he thinks people will like. He's supposed to preach based on what is true. And when I judge sermons, that's typically the most important criterion for me, is just, is what was communicated right? Is what was communicated true? You know, I'm way less concerned with how well it was delivered than what was delivered. And at the end of the day, I'd rather have a dry steak than the best soy burger. Like, you can fancy it up and make it look all nice and put a lot of prep into it, but you know what? I'll just eat the dry steak while you eat your soy burger. Okay? And that's the reality of preaching today, is we need more people that are willing to just put out a dry steak, if need be, than to be so concerned with putting out, you know, some kind of a soy milk or something. Or it's like, what is this? You know, gluten-free bread. It's not bread. Sugar-free icing. What? Icing is sugar. Like, what do you mean, icing-free sugar? Like, what is wrong with these people? Okay? And it's like, truth, it's like missing truth preaching, right? Truth-free preaching. Oh! What a wonderful discovery that false preachers have made, where they don't deliver anything that's right, but it sounded good. You know, it's like watching a fiction movie, and you're like, I really enjoyed it, but it's just not true. But it just didn't really happen. Okay? You know, like reading books, I'm not the most excited about reading books, but I really don't love nonfiction. Like a boring, I'm sorry, a fiction. I said that wrong. I really don't like fiction that much. I do enjoy nonfiction. Why? Because I'm like, if I'm going to spend time reading something, I don't want to just rot my brain on nonsense. And you know, the best, you know, fiction, while it may be somewhat entertaining, I don't feel like it adds that much. Whereas a really boring nonfiction, at least I'm kind of learning something. At least there's some kind of value in the work that I'm doing. Okay? Go to Jeremiah chapter 1. You know, the Bible says in Proverbs 27, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. You know, instead of coming to church hoping that the pastor says something that you like, you should be willing to be wounded every once in a while. And you know, the Bible says faithful are the wounds of a friend, meaning that it's actually a good friend or a good person that will sometimes hurt your feelings a little bit. And you know, we should come to church to get our feelings hurt a little bit, because the world is not going to hurt our feelings in the right way. No one else is really going to hurt your feelings the way that the word of God and the way a pastor preaching the truth can. And that's one of the major issues with our country is we just don't have real discipline. We don't have spiritual discipline being applied from the pulpits of America today, because preachers are not preaching what the Bible has to say on certain issues. And so people feel too comfortable in their sin. People feel too comfortable disobeying God. People feel too comfortable doing nothing for God. People feel too comfortable looking like the world, smelling like the world, and acting like the world, while the church embraces the world, instead of a preacher saying, we're going to be separate, coming out from the world and not acting like them, and being willing to even wound people sometimes. You know, sometimes people come to our church excited, and then they hear the sermon, and then they never come back. And look, I don't want that to be you, because I don't hate any of you. I like all of you, and I love all of you. But sometimes what I say needs to be said, because no one else will say it to you. And I'm sure if you've been to this church for a while now, you could probably say that. Like, Pastor Shelley said things that I've never heard anybody else say, okay? Or if you've said it that way, or whatever. But, you know, it's like, but was it in the Bible? Is there a place in the Bible that's saying that? And it's like, well, yeah. And it's like, okay. You know what? That's right. If I'm saying something that's not in the Bible, then you can forget it. You know, I'm wrong, or whatever. But if it's in the Bible, you better believe it. And you better know that God's word is always right. Jeremiah chapter 1, look at verse 6, Then said I, Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child. But the Lord said to me, Say not, I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, sayeth the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. You know, I shouldn't be embarrassed to preach what God said. Doesn't that seem, it almost seems a little too obvious, but I think it's important to just state it, right? When I say something in the Bible, it's what God said. Why would I be embarrassed or ashamed of what God said about any topic, about any subject, about any situation? This is what God said about it, let alone my own opinion. I should be more embarrassed when I just give my own opinion about anything rather than what God really said. But there is a temptation to not preach what God said because you're afraid of how people will respond. You're afraid of people's faces. And I'll be honest, when you preach certain things, people's faces will change. They'll contort, they'll, you know, they'll make, they'll kind of like do this, or they'll, you know, whatever. Or, I mean, to me, you know, I'm not as much worried about the faces, it's just, it's annoying when the apathy, like that's the one that I really hate. It's just, you like, you're preaching something really important and you know like it would help people, but they're just kind of like, whatever, no. And it's just like, why are you even here? But, you know, again, apathy's like the hardest thing to cure. I don't know how to cure it. It's a really frustrating problem. And it's destroying America too. But, you know, that isn't going to cause me to stop preaching. You know, I can look somewhere else or I can look right at you. I mean, it really doesn't stop me from preaching whatever the Bible says, but it is a common thing, especially in a more personal setting. Like if you were to talk to a family member or friend, you know, tell them what the Bible says. It sometimes hurts, you know, it kind of hurts to tell them what the Bible really says. I remember hearing certain sermons in my life and thinking about a person that I wish would listen to that sermon, and thinking like, I don't even think they would sit through the whole thing. This is so on point for them. Like whether they're struggling with gambling or drinking or fornication or whatever their problem is, it's just hitting the nail on the head so hard and I'm thinking like, I wish they would listen to this, but I don't think they would. I don't think they would sit there and hear it. But, you know, that's why church, it was so important that every preacher is following this same model so you can't go to church and escape it. There's so much escape today because we're filled with pastors in name only where people can keep going to church not hearing what they need to hear, not getting convicted of their sin, not being told that they're doing something wrong, and they just basically become dull and apathetic to the things of God. It's frustrating. Good Isaiah chapter 30. Good Isaiah chapter 30. But, you know, the Bible says in Ezekiel, I'll just read for you, Son of Man prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy and saying to them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God, Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. You know what? Woe unto the preachers today that won't preach the word of God. Woe unto the pastors and the churches today that are not preaching what the Bible says on these subjects, on any subject virtually. You know, what does the Bible say? Isaiah 30, verse 9, that this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord, which say to the seers, See not. And to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things. Prophesy deceits. Contrast that with what we read in Ecclesiastes. He was, the acceptable words, the words that the preacher was seeking out were the right words, the upright words. This one saying, Don't preach to me what's right. Preach to me something that's smooth. Preach to me something that feels good. Literally preach lies. And, verse 11, get you out of the way, so like stop leading, turn us out of the path, quit giving us a vision, and cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. He's saying, You stop leading, you stop teaching, and you know what? I don't even want to hear what the Bible says. That's what they're saying. And you know what? You look at churches today, and that's exactly what it is. The pastor has been, he's out of the way, he's out of the path, and you know what? Even the Bible, it's just gone. You'll never hear Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah and all these different hard passages of the Bible being taught in context. They ceased. They won't preach what the Bible says. They won't preach standards in churches anymore. They won't preach that women should actually dress like women anymore and wear skirts and dresses, because that will offend all of the Ellen degenerates and pants. They won't offend by telling men and women that they should wear clothing that goes down to their kneecaps, and when they're not, they're showing off their nakedness, because most of the women in their churches dress naked all the time. And those pervert pastors, they'd probably love to have it that way, because they'd probably love to ogle all of their neighbors' wives. And so they won't preach standards. They won't hold standards for themselves. They won't hand standards for their own children, and they just won't preach standards, because you know what? They're a pastor and name only. But you know what? Someone needs to say, stop dressing like a whore. I mean, do you really think in the last 10 years, women have started dressing more modest or less modest? Let me tell you something. It's because preachers stopped preaching what the Bible said. It's because preachers don't have standards anymore. It's because preachers love to look at women dressed naked. That's why. You know what? We need preachers to actually make people feel uncomfortable again and say, why don't you dress like a modest, godly woman? Why don't you have men today enforcing this in their households and telling their daughters to not dress like whores and literally not even allow the outfits to be in the closet? Throw them away. Buy them different clothing. Don't let them do this. They're too concerned with, quote, reaching people and growing the church to ever preach that. They'll say, how are you going to reach people with that kind of message? Well, you know what? I'm not going to try and reach the skank whores that want to come in here and ruin the church. Oops. But you know what I will do? I'll go out there and give her the gospel. I'll invite her to church. And we'll be like, hey, put on a dresser skirt. We'll tell her husband to buy her one. You know, when was the last time women hated shopping? I'm pretty sure they like shopping. Okay. But here's the problem. Our culture has become so degenerate it's even hard to buy dresses and skirts these days, especially modest ones. I mean, it is very difficult. You can buy a lot of skirts and dresses, but they're not modest. They're not covering the body appropriately. And of course, preachers don't want to say this, do they? Why? Because they're a pastor in him only. That's why. You know, why don't we have preachers also getting up and saying that we should have zero women in politics? There are pastors and preachers today that will have people like Nikki Haley come to their church and speak to their church. They'll vote for the women governor or the women. And they'll say like, well, I'll vote for her because she's more conservative than the Democrat or whatever. And it's like, why is the demon's ex-wife better than the demon? I don't know. I mean, does it really even matter? And you're like, oh, you hate women. I don't hate women, but you know what? I like the truth. And the truth is the Bible says that it's a curse for women and children to rule the nation. That's what the Bible says. And the Bible says that he doesn't suffer a woman to usurp the authority over the man. Adam was first for him, then Eve. So it doesn't say that she was first. And you know what's wrong with America? Women are in charge in our nation. You know what's wrong? We have women governors and women senators and women politicians. I mean, pretty much some of the worst politicians that ever lived are women. Nancy Pelosi. Hillary Clinton. I mean, look at some of our Supreme Court justices. In fact, I think very recently there was a pretty controversial Supreme Court ruling, and it was like all the women on one side, they all voted in unanimous support of one another, and they basically said that Texas can't defend its own border. They were trying to say the federal government can allow these illegals and destroy Texas' state borders because of some kind of a foreign policy issue. And it's all women. It's like I wonder how much they would love that if there was a bunch of bandits trying to get through their door and they were like, you're not allowed to have doors and locks, sorry. I mean, what kind of nonsense? It doesn't even make sense. Women wouldn't even do this naturally. It's just an obvious blindness. It's a curse on our nation. You know, pastors aren't going to get up there and say that. You know what they're going to say? They're going to say, vote red this year. Vote for Donald Trump. God's mad at you if you don't vote for the Republican. Where does the Bible say that? Where does the Bible say, like, vote yourself out of problems? You know, they never seem to vote the right candidate in the Bible either. You know the problem with our country? Sin. You know the problem? We don't have preachers preaching what the Bible says. You know we don't have preachers getting up and screaming and yelling about how you should stop drinking alcohol when literally millions and millions of Americans are drinking themselves drunk right now watching a stupid football game. And that's the only thing that anybody cares about right now. And they're celebrating. This is not a time to be celebrating in our country. It's a time of mourning. Joe Biden is our president. We literally are just bringing in all kinds of evil across our borders. Inflation is skyrocketing. We're literally being run by Jews and Catholics. And then we're going to go and celebrate and drink poison? What's going on with our country and our nation? Oh, that's not going to bring people in. I don't care! Go watch the football game. Go get drunk with everybody else. Go love and be a rebellious and lying person. Love deceits. Why don't you go to Life Church where they literally dress up as the Kansas City Chiefs and have their mascot in the church service? Why don't you go there? I mean, Life Church, they've got campuses everywhere now. I mean, you can go to Life Church virtually in almost every state in this country, it seems like. I looked it up. Life Church is now in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. You can go to Life Church. And in fact, you know, you don't even have to drive that far because they got a branch in Keller, Fort Worth, Arlington, and McKinney. So you guys are all covered. You know, whichever direction you're coming from. You can go to Life Church, and you can just watch the Super Bowl and get your picture taken with the Kansas City mascot, and you can just drink your beer and just enjoy. Just enjoy. God bless America! You really think that we're blessed? You know why America exists? Do you want to know why America exists? Because a bunch of Christians were fed up with the Christian tyranny of the Catholics and the Protestants, and they fled. They literally fled, and they hated Jews too, by the way. And now we're in a country that's being led by Catholics and Jews again. I mean, what is wrong with you people? It's because you've forsaken the God of the Bible. It's because preachers are pastors in name only, and they're not getting up and ripping on the Jews. They're not getting up and ripping on the Catholic. They're saying, let's go grab a beer with them and watch the football game. Because you know what? The Jew is my banker, and the Catholic is my priest. He's my father, and you know what? We all get drunk together and watch trannies at the halftime show. I mean, that's basically what it is these days, right? Watch trannies on the overpaid commercial. You don't think there's going to be trannies in the Super Bowl commercials this year? You're queer lite or whatever you drink? Oh, they're rebranding. Yeah, after they lost a bunch of money. But you know, people didn't care enough. People don't care enough. Go if you would, Isaiah chapter 3. You know, the Bible says in Leviticus chapter 19, it says do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom and the land become full of wickedness. America has become full of wickedness. In fact, I looked it up. America leads. We are number one. We are the best country at adultery. Isn't that amazing? Yeah! Woo! Way to go! What an accomplishment. I mean, isn't there literally millions of people screaming and yelling today at the Super Bowl game? Say, why are you screaming and yelling? Well, isn't there a bunch of guys screaming and yelling at refs who are making a bad call? Why can't I get up and scream about some bad calls? Scream about some pastors making some bad decisions, not being able to see. They're going to talk about how blind the refs are. I'm going to tell you how blind the pastors are that aren't preaching the word of God. And we're just filled with a bunch of pastors in name only that won't call whoredom out. Whoredom has destroyed our country. The infidelity is extreme. I don't know what statistics to believe. I looked at all kinds of different ones. Some say that 20% of people are committing adultery. Some say that 70% of people are committing adultery. 70% of marriages are committing adultery. I mean, the Bible says that when they fed them to the fool, they all went, like, troops into the harlot's houses and they lay with their neighbor's wives. I mean, I don't know if that's what's really happening, but woe to our country. Woe unto our nation. I mean, it's insane the level of wickedness that our nation has risen to. And you know what? We need a moral party to rise up, not the Republican Party. That is a fake party, folks. I have a good source on this that said when you go to these conservative Republican events, 50% of the women there are literal prostitutes. Like, they bring these women in and they make them seem like this is my girlfriend or whatever. They're just a literal hired prostitute at these conservative conventions. People are literally giving millions of dollars to these Republican conventions, to Turning Point USA or Conservative Whatever, Inc. or, you know, the Conservative Political Action Committee or whatever. It's like literally half of them are prostitutes. They're all doing drugs. They're all having wild parties. They're all doing the most unimaginable things while then pretending like they're the conservative voice for America. While they're going out and putting out calendars of the conservative women. This is how ridiculous our country is. Literally, the conservative women have their own calendar. How can you be a calendar girl on a conservative calendar? What does that even mean? It's such an oxymoron. Instead of women being moderately dressed at home making babies and sandwiches, now they're flaunting off their bodies and they're not a dude. That's the conservative movement now. It's that the half-naked woman isn't actually a woman. That was the conservative part. Okay. The Democrat Party is actually a dude, so it's a double-lose, all right? It's like that's how far we've shifted. We need a real moral party to come out of America. We need people to say, hey, can't we get a candidate that's not going to literally allow his son to sleep with prostitutes and whores and drugs and just be a fence for money? Can we have a political candidate that doesn't have multiple wives? Can we have a political candidate that actually cares about our nation and cares about God and will say what the Bible says on issues? You know, a lot of people were shocked and horrified. I think there was like an Oklahoma politician that proposed banning pornography on the Internet. And I'm thinking like that should just be a no-brainer. Yes. But you know, and people like criticize and act like that's weird. That should be normal. We should have all kinds of politicians constantly proposing legislation like this, constantly pushing what the Bible says, not what conservative ink thinks, not what the conservative Jews will pay for. You've got to realize the Democrat Party is run by Jews and paid for by Jews. The conservative side is paid by the other side of the Jews. To fix our problem, we need to stop being sponsored by Jews. We need to stop being sponsored by Pfizer. We have to stop being sponsored. Just be someone that actually just cares about truth. What does the Bible say in Isaiah 3 or 11? Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him. You know, woe to our nation. I'm going to just run through a lot of verses. Chapter 5 or 11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night till wine inflame them. You know, woe unto all the people that are going out and getting drunk right now. That is fixing nothing. You are destroying your liver, you're destroying your stomach, you're destroying your brain, you're destroying our country, and your profits are going to pay trannies, literally. You know what? If you don't like how we spend our money, go give your money to Bud Light so they can give money to trannies, and then come talk to me. Right? It's like, oh, we're going to criticize the pastor, but then I'm going to literally go buy beer, poison, drink it, and then I hope that they give some of that money to trannies to promote them online. And then I'm going to criticize the pastor for how much he gets paid. That's the nonsense that our world's really going through. And granny's drinking a Bud Light. Isaiah, chapter 5, verse 20. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. You know, people would say, oh, this church is evil. This church is bitter. This church is bad. But you know what? Woe unto them. Woe unto them. Verse 21. Woe unto them that are wise Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink, which justify the wicked for reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him. Notice what drinking does. It doesn't destroy you. It destroys the righteous. All the righteous people in the nation, they're going to take the righteousness away from him too. And you know what? Our country has become just completely unrighteous because everybody's a drunkard. Everybody's fallen out of whoredom and we're just a nation full of whoredom and drunkenness, just like every other nation in the Bible that was destroyed for the exact same things. How in the world can a preacher get up and not talk about this? I mean, what parts of the Bible are you preaching? I mean, I can just let the Bible fall open and I'm going to probably be rebuking some whore or some drunkard or both. I mean, where do you? Oh, I like Proverbs. Oh, how about Proverbs 5, 6, and 7? Have you ever read those? How about Proverbs 23? How about Proverbs 20, verse 1? I mean, what verses are you even looking at in the Bible? Ah, how dare you preach this? Well, how dare you show up at a Bible where we're going to preach it or show up at a church where we're going to preach it? Hey, I'm going to preach what the Bible says. If you don't like the Bible, you can go to any fake church out there. You can go get a pastor in name only and he'll preach the nicest lie to you you've ever heard. Hey, you want to come to our Super Bowl party? Our country's doing great, man. Trump's going to really do good. I feel it. I feel we're going to outvote the fraud this year and Trump's going to be president, man. We're going to really do it. Now I'm going to let my wife come up here and preach to y'all a sweet little ditty, okay? How is that fixing anything? What guy in the Bible sounded like that ever? Not even the false prophet sounded that gay, all right? Isaiah chapter 10, the Bible says in verse 1, woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees and that right grievousness which they have prescribed. Woe unto our Supreme Court that's writing unrighteous laws and our Congress that keeps passing bills and keeps laundering money and bribing each other and doing all... I mean, we are just... You don't even understand the financial ramifications of what our country is doing. I mean, they are robbing us blind so badly. I mean, imagine someone came in and literally took advantage of your daughter, stole all the money out of your bank account and then set your house on fire and then you rejoiced. But that's like what's happening in our country. The women in our country are being violated. Our money is being stolen from us in plain sight and our infrastructure is literally being burnt down before our eyes and then everybody's going to go, oh, the most exciting Super Bowl ever. Oh, let's watch Taylor Swift watch the game because it wasn't boring enough to watch the game. Let's watch somebody watch the game. Let's watch some whore like Taylor Swift who's a literal whore who dresses like a whore who's been with every guy in town and has every disease. That's why Travis Kelsey needs all those injections to be covered from all the diseases he's going to get from Swift. Oh, they're a match made in heaven. Yeah, they're a match made in hell. Anybody that's promoting all those kinds of evils and wickedness, Mr. Fizer. I mean, the best thing that could happen to that guy is he breaks his leg because you know what happened? Taylor Swift would break up with him immediately because she doesn't love him and all the endorsement deals would immediately leave him and maybe in all of his just losing, he could actually like wake up and hear the gospel and get saved. People don't want that. People want him to score the touchdown and propose to Taylor Swift after the game. And then we'll get to see like six months of the wedding planning on news. And then the honeymoon and then the break up and then it's like rinse and repeat. It's just so they can sell tabloids for the next two years or whatever. It's just a distraction while we let our country literally burn to the ground because they have nothing else to really report on. So let's just focus on a fake relationship that's not real, not sincere, they don't love each other and we'll just pretend like our country is doing fine. Just like the pastors are pretending like our country is doing fine. How are you going to reach me with this kind of message? Well, you know what? You're not reaching anybody with spiritual truths so why does it matter? What does it matter if everybody gets to hear me deliver a message and all I did was just lie to them for 20 minutes? How did that help? I would rather reach five people with the truth than a million people with a lie. Isaiah 17, the Bible says this, because thou has forgotten, in verse 10, because thou has forgotten the God of thy salvation and has not been mindful of the rock of thy strength. Therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants and shalt set it with strange slips. In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish. But the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. Whoa! To the multitude of many people which make a noise like the noise of the seas and to the rushing of nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters? The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters, but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. And behold, at evening tide trouble, and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us and a lot of them that rob us. The Bible says in Isaiah that the kingdom of the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, are going to come like this mighty roaring army and they're going to destroy them. But he's saying, woe unto them too. You know, you might think like, oh, America's right because we always win every battle. We win every war. We won World War I and won World War II and we invaded Iraq. And we did all these exploits. But you know what? Woe unto those people because we're not doing it in righteousness. We're not doing it in true holiness. There's a lot of shady things going on in all those wars if you don't know. Woe unto us to just invade Iraq and kill a million people. For what? Oh, 9-11? Yeah, that was fake, buddy. It's all about oil and it's all about controlling the dollar for the Jew. That's what it's all about. It always goes back to money. It always goes back to them. And instead of preachers getting up and preaching what the truth is about Jews, we just keep loving their money and they keep preaching a pro-Zionist message so they can keep getting those Zionist dollars because that's the only game they're really playing. Nuts to it. Oh, well, you're not going to stay on YouTube with this kind of sermon. I'm not on YouTube. Ha ha! Well, they might cancel you on Rumble. Oh, whoo! You might not even be on the Internet ever again. Good! Who cares? Oh, you know, you're going to get censored. Well, you know what? Then let the next guy preach it. Amen. You know why our country's being destroyed? Because people are afraid of YouTube. They're afraid of losing things. Oh, well, you'll lose your PayPal account. Done. You'll never be able to bank America again. Done. I thought it was just our church and stuff, but then I tried and they're like, you as a person, you're just too risky of a person. You can't do any business with the Bank of America. I mean, Pastor Shelley is a terrorist to America, but you know what? Eligals can come in and get a bank account like that, right? I mean, you could literally be from the Middle East, cross our border illegally, and Bank of America set up you an account, but Pastor Shelley can't get an account. Well, you know what? We need more pastors to lose their bank accounts, okay? Lose it all! Burn it down! Why? Because our country is literally burning down. What are you trying to preserve in this fake game? This game that's a monopoly game designed to destroy everything that you have, keep you as a slave. You know what happens when you reject the Word of God? You become a slave. Communism, tyranny. They rape and pillage your women and your children. They take everything away from you. You know, the only reason we even have liberties is because of the Word of God, because people used to preach the Word of God. We used to stand on the truth. As soon as you stop standing on the truth, you're going to lose all of your liberty. Well, but did you catch the game? No, I was too busy reading Isaiah. Look, I'm not against football. Football's not evil here. It's what it represents. Why does football have to be on Sunday? Why does football have to be in churches? Why is it that churches are not preaching Sunday night anymore? Well, we've got to catch the game. Right? I mean, there's so many churches in this area right now. The table. Believe it or not, that's the name of a church. Okay. It sounds more like a Mexican restaurant, if you ask me. Because if you notice, Mexican restaurants, they just name their restaurants things that are just random objects. La mesa. It's like that's just the table. Okay. Or it's like el obol, the tree. You know, el perro. Okay. It's like there's one, it's called nidir from scratch. I'm like, you didn't even stay consistent. This is like Spanglish. My day from scratch? What does that even mean? It's a real Mexican restaurant in this area. Nidir from scratch. You know. It's like the table. Imagine having a real conversation with someone. Are you going to church? Yeah, I'm going to the table. Imagine talking to someone that doesn't know English well. They'd be like, what? You're going to eat at a table? Like, what are you talking, you're going to build a table? No, I'm going to the table. What are you talking about? We're going to the Super Bowl watch party. Right now, their church, instead of having church, they're just watching Taylor Swift watch the football game. That's what they're watching. In Frisco, Texas, right now, Pastor Connor Baxter. Woe unto him. He is a pastor in name only. He even says on their website, they're led by a team of elders. Crossroads Church in Ohio, they have a Super Bowl event for their church service to like mimic the Super Bowl. So they're saying they're going to have a church event that looks like the Super Bowl and acts like the Super Bowl, but it's not the Super Bowl. So it's even lamer. Like, instead of just watching the game, like basically they're going to have like a game, but they're going to have like church people doing church stuff, then they're going to have their own halftime show, and then they're going to have their own commercials. They're going to literally have commercials in church. What? And this is their slogan. This is the most fun you'll ever have in church. Who said that we're supposed to have fun? Fun? Why is that? And look, what is the mega church now? Just fun. It has nothing to do with the Bible. I mean, if you take your kids to one of these churches, I guarantee they will have fun, because I grew up in one of these churches, and I worked in their kids' programs. The church that I went to, they had the largest indoor playground of like any building or organization in the entire area. They had like one of the nicest. I mean, they put the Chick-fil-A playground to shame, folks. This thing was giant, and when you take your kids there and drop them off, they're going to get special name badges. They're going to get unlimited goldfish, crackers, juice, pretzels, unlimited snacks, sometimes even just candy, sometimes just M&Ms. I mean, if I told your kids, you're going to get to play in the coolest playground with unlimited snacks and listen to hypersounding music and play with your friends, like, why are we not going to this church to have? Like, what's going on? That is what's happening. Instead of having to sit here and be quiet, which I know they don't want to do, they can't do as well, they take them to these fun centers and they just drop off their kids so they can hear a little 20-minute sermonette from Mrs. Pastor. That is our nation. That is what the vast majority of Christians are doing. It's called Life Church. Life Church. And then you can get a picture with Casey Wolf after the service. We're going to have a Super Bowl-themed service and everybody's going to dress up like cheese fans with your pastor, Craig Groeschel. Pastor and name only. I mean, they're in 11 states and counting. The last time I checked, they were in like one. I don't know. They're in 11 already. I mean, this is going to literally take over our country. It already is. I mean, people aren't going to go to the Methodist Church. People aren't going to go to the Church of Christ. Everything's becoming non-denominational. Pretty soon it'll probably just be like non-denominous because they're just soaking everything else up and we're going to be filled with a nation of people that just love to just hear lies. They have their itching ears and they're going to say prophesied deceits and the last thing we need is more pastors in name only. We need to empower more pastors and you know what? Praise God. I think this year, Pure Words is going to get its own pastor and our Oklahoma City church is going to get its own pastor and the last thing we need is two more pastors in name only. I hope that people rally around those men and allow them to have the authority that they need and allow them to have the finances they need and allow them to do their job and that they themselves will be not motivated by money or greed or lust or whatever but rather they will preach the Word and say, Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord. They'll say, Woe unto the drunkards and woe unto the whores and woe unto the dads that allow their daughters to become whores. I can see why people are drinking now because your daughter is a prostitute. Because your daughter is not only fans and you subscribe to her on accident. What a loser! What a loser! And then I had to read the stupid headline on Twitter about how daughter's embarrassed that her only subscriber is her dad. And let me tell you something. They are trying to push women to prostitute themselves for literally nothing. I saw some statistic and it was like some lady saying I was in the top 30% or 37% of earners for OnlyFans this month. So she's in the top 37%. She said she made $80 that month. So literally women are just giving everything they have and exposing everything they have online and the vast majority of them are getting nothing for it Literally nothing. That's what's happening. That's how brainwashed and stupid because there's all these ads out there. Women think like, oh if I just prostitute myself I'll make a bunch of money. This is what's really sad. Prostitutes make almost no money. Like they always say like oh there's all this money in it. It's a lie. It's a scam. Most women that go into prostitution don't even realize how they don't even make good money at all. They're dirt poor. They're not even making the money that everybody wants them to believe. They hate their life. They hate their job. Their entire family turns on them. They've destroyed themselves and then their dad is just so miserable he just goes and drinks himself drunk at the football game or kills himself. Suicide is astronomical these days because people are just destroying themselves and they don't have anything to live for because they're not serving God. As long as you're serving God you always have something to live for. I don't think that people realize how bad our country and our nation really is. It is way worse than we think. Just to give you an idea like I preached this sermon at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship called Blackpilled. I almost didn't even preach the sermon because I didn't I was like I don't even think I need to preach a sermon like that or I just kind of preached it on a whim and then like a lot of people actually talked to me and said like they needed that or it was important or it helped them and it just kind of like woke me up to the fact that things are worse than we really perceive. People are more depressed than ever before. People are more dissatisfied dysfunctional. There's a lot of issues and it's because preachers aren't preaching the Bible and it's because people aren't reading their Bible and it's because people aren't thinking about spiritual things. Let me tell you something this world is almost on a 24-7 routine to make you depressed and upset and the world is focusing in on just the bedroom like that's the only thing the world like thinks about. That's like all that movies is thinking about that's all that Hollywood is pushing that's all that music is pushing that's all that the internet is pushing that's all that people in this world are pushing just their next hook up their next I mean most of the apps coming out are dating apps and hook up apps and the young people are just so concerned with who they're going to date who they're going to be with and just all their partners and it's just so obsessed and it's like look the bedroom is supposed to be a private thing and it's not even the most important thing in your life it's not even close. You know when you get this is crazy but when we get to heaven that doesn't even exist anymore. There's no marriage and all this stuff anymore. Like that stuff's done we'll be like the angels we're not given a marriage. Christ was really clear on that particular subject. You know just like little children aren't interested in that and all apparently we won't be interested in that ever again. Okay we're just brothers and sisters in Christ and it's like our whole culture is obsessed with this one thing. Why? Because it's to try and make you depressed because the reality is almost no one is happy in that area almost no one only pretty much just like really healthy people that are like healthy marriages and even then no one it's like perfect everyone can always improve and so by getting obsessed with something that you can't be happy about you know what it causes you to be sad, depressed, angry you feel like everybody's having a good time and you're not but the reality is no one's having a good time. You know there's this thing I was reading some statistics on this stuff and it was like saying how much enjoyment do people have in that area from like a single perspective versus a married perspective and it was like people who are dating one person people are dating multiple people and what was crazy is the people that had the most satisfaction and had the most frequency were always people that were monogolously married to their only partner and it always went down the more ungodly it was so the people that are married but both of them have been around the block they had the most dysfunction the least frequency and then the people that were single or divorced it was the worst when they had one partner and the people that had multiple partners it was like even less and it was like basically these people that act like they're just these hot studs it's all a lie it's fake it's not real you want to know the people that are probably the happiest the people have like 12 kids those are probably the people you know and it's private you don't know anything about it the people that are bragging and going online doing this stuff it's usually fake it's not real just like the people that brag about being rich are never usually rich never even really have any money it's just funny because when I worked at the bank I actually knew in real life you have no idea you have no idea if the guy driving the Lamborghini and has all these women and has all the nice houses in the car and you think like that guy must be rich and then you look and he literally has a negative net worth you're like whoa he's about to lose his car and then usually they lose their car and then they get another one on lease or something and then they're just like oh I was just kind of done with it so I got rid of it but it's like really it got repoed and it's like the people that are flashy and bragging and whatever it's all fake everything's fake the internet is fake the pastors in our nation are fake the churches in our nation are fake this is real your life and your wife and your children they're real God is real let us focus on things that are real and tangible and have meaning and a value and let us go to a church where we have a real pastor not a fake one not the one with the little you know microphone and the skinny jeans and the purple lights and he's not even preaching tonight he's watching the game with you in a chief's jersey I mean I don't know what else to say that's how bad it is but you know praise God there's some people that would come to church on a Sunday night you know try not to be offended by the word of God try to be offended by the evilness in our nation don't be ashamed of the Bible be ashamed of what's going on out there be ashamed of all these churches and you know go to the right kind of church teach your children to go to the right kind of a church and try to help other people go to the right kind of church because that's the only thing that will really fix anything that will fix our country and it may be too late for our country but it's not necessarily too late for us it's not too late for our family and our friends and this area and we need to preserve as much as we can and we need to help other men become great pastors teach your children to be the next pastor go to a church and support a pastor and help him to be a real pastor not a pastor in name only let's pray thank you Heavenly Father so much for the word of God and for this church this institution that you've given us I pray that you would just help us all to desire the right things whether they hurt sometimes or they're uncomfortable I pray that you would just raise up a generation of real pastors and real preachers in this country our country so desperately needs to hear the word of God so desperately needs to hear it thundered forth people need to be rebuked for their sin and we need someone brave enough to do it we need someone brave enough to call out the serious issues going on in our world and I pray that you would just embolden and give courage to a generation of real Christians of real men of God and that we could just destroy a lot of this fakeness a lot of this garbage if possible you could give us revival through the preaching of your word in Jesus' name we pray Amen Alright for our closing song we're going to go to song number 374 Send the light oh I'm sorry it's 439 excuse me 439 count your blessings song 439 count your blessings we'll surprise you what the Lord has done count your blessings name them one by one count your blessings see what God has done count your blessings name them one by one count your many blessings see what God has done are you ever burdened with the load of care does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear count your many blessings every doubt will fly and you will be singing as the days go by count your blessings name them one by one count your blessings see what God has done count your blessings name them one by one count your many blessings see what God has done when you look at others with their hands and bones think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold count your many blessings that he cannot find you're reborn in heaven though you're all on high count your blessings name them one by one count your blessings see what God has done count your blessings name them one by one count your many blessings see what God has done storm in the conflict whether great or small do not be discouraged God is over all count your many blessings angels will attend help and don't forgive you to your journey's end count your blessings name them one by one count your blessings see what God has done count your blessings name them one by one count your many blessings see what God has done you're singing everybody you are all dismissed