(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Part of the chapter I want to focus in was starting in verse 1 where the Bible read, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering 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. And we see here in this portion of Scripture, a strong command of God towards preachers, from Paul to Timothy, that they are supposed to preach the word. They're supposed to be instant in season, out of season. They're supposed to constantly reprove and rebuke and exhort. And the question is why, but it's answered here. The answer is because there will come a time when people don't want to hear it. They will not endure sound doctrine. They have itching ears and they're going to be turned unto fables. And the title of the sermon this morning is, We Need Hard Preaching. We Need Hard Preaching. Now, some people, they don't understand what hard preaching is. They don't understand what the Bible says about hard preaching. But the reality is every single person on this planet needs hard preaching and a lot of it. Now, here in verse three, he talks about people having itching ears. What's itch? What's the itch mean? Itch is a feeling of desire. It's a, it's a strong, restless feeling. You just, you got to get to it. You know, you got that thing on your arm and just, man, I got to, I got to scratch it. I got to, I really got to get that itch. Right? And we see here in the Bible, the Bible is saying there's some people, they want to hear lies. They want to hear false doctrine. You just want people to tell you how great you are when you're not great. It's this itch that's just inside every single person. And what you really need to hear is some hard preaching. What you really need to hear is some reality, is some truth and be woken up and get a kick in the pants and say, you know what, this is what's really happening. But today, people, they just want to be told how great they are. You know, you go and you perform some kind of a song and you're a terrible singer. You want people to be like, you're so great. You're the next star, man. You don't want to hear like your tone deaf. You literally can't carry a tune. Everything you sang was awful. My ears are bleeding because of what you just sang. But if that's the truth, if that's the reality, let me help you out. That's what you need to hear. And today people, they don't want to hear what the Bible has to say. They have this itch inside of them. They just want to be told lies today. And the reality is what they really need is some hard preaching. And we see there's three reasons why. Because they won't endure sound doctrine. Because they have these itching ears. And because they're turned into fables. That's why we need hard preaching. And look, no one in this room is immune to any of these problems. We all have these naturally inside of us. All of us want to turn away from sound doctrine. Just in our flesh. Just because of the pressures of this world. We all want to hear good things about ourselves. It's just natural. It's just normal. So it's normal that we'd have itching ears. And it's normal for us to want to hear these fantastic stories and just hear how everything's great and just listen to fables today. I mean, you go to the library, is it filled with more fiction or nonfiction? Fiction today. I mean, people just love stories. People just love to hear about everything's great and wonderful. And the majority of fiction stories, how do they end? Happily ever after those days. Oh, it's all great rainbows and unicorns. But you know, the Bible has a lot of bad endings to certain stories. I mean, some stories just end terrible. They end horrible. Now, obviously, when you look at the Bible as a whole, we all get the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, that's a small remnant that gets that. The majority get a horrible destruction and a lake of fire. Now, what is hard preaching, okay? What is the cure to these problems? It's hard preaching. But what is hard preaching? Well, I'm not going to go through this for the sermon, but just to give you an idea, hard preaching in my mind has three elements. It must be biblical for it to be hard preaching. Just because you get up and scream your opinion, Ben Shapiro, doesn't mean it's worth a dime. It's garbage. There's so many liars today. There's so many deceivers today. And they think that their opinion is hard preaching. No, hard preaching is biblical. Hard preaching comes from God's word. That's where we get the real strength. That's where we get the real power. Secondly, hard preaching is specific. Hard preaching is not just this vague generality. You know, some people are doing bad stuff in here. Nobody feels bad about that. They're like, oh, it's probably that guy. You know, it's my spouse. You know, oh, it's my kids. You know, it's everybody, you know, it's hard for you to apply the sermon to yourself. That's why you need a man of God to actually stand by in the pulpit and just tell it how it is and make it plain to you and put it right in your face so you can say, you know what, I need to make a change. You need someone to just tell you exactly what's going on. Name the names saying this guy is a false prophet. This guy is teaching this false doctrine. You ought not believe it. You ought not get into this sin. Actually making it very practical and, you know, appealing to the people to where they can say, you know what, I actually understood the message. A lot of times people walk away from a sermon, you know, especially these mega churches. They walk away from the sermon. They're like, I don't even know what that was about. I don't know what happened. You know, my goal would be to sit here and repeat the same message over and over to where the fact is everybody walks out and they're like, well, you know what he was talking about. Well, you know what that message was about. I actually heard that one. But the reality is in order for it to be hard preaching, it has to be specific. Hard preaching is not just getting up and screaming your opinion. You know what it is? It's preaching the Bible and making it practical, making it specific to how people live today. You know, some of you want to, you have to go back to the culture of that time to understand the Bible. No, the culture of the Bible is today. God's Word is timeless. All of the stuff in the Bible is relevant for you right now. That's why we have to make practical application and actually show you how the things in the Bible are pertaining to life now. God realized that you were going to exist today. God put you here for a reason today. And God gave you His Word so that you would know how to live today, not just 2000 years ago, not just 4000 years ago, but right now. That's why we need the hard preaching. We need to make it specific. And lastly, hard preaching must be corrective. It must have reproof, rebuke, even exhort. You say, what's exhort? Exhort is when you're trying to tell someone to do something. But here's the reality. If you're not soul winning, and I'm exhorting you to go out soul winning, that's in some level corrective. It's still telling you, hey, you need to do this. So you get two versions of wrong, bad, okay? Then you get one example of good, but it's all trying to correct you. It's trying to guide you to do something different. Not come as you are and stay as you are. No, come and get better. Come and hear God's Word. Come and get the hard preaching that you needed in your life so you can be a godly Christian. This world today is trying to make you a wicked person. The only place that's going to try and make you a godly person is here. The DMV is not going to do it. The public pool system is not going to do it. The TV sure as hell is not going to do it. Why? Because this world wants to corrupt and defile the minds of the young today. They want you to go out and do that which is of the god of this world, the wickedness of Satan. You know what? The only place where you're going to be encouraged and exhorted to do that which is right is the local church. That's why you need to come to the local church and hear some hard preaching. What? Something that's biblical, something that's practical, and something that's going to tell you what's right. Okay? That's just the introduction, alright? Let's go to 2 Kings chapter 21. We need some hard preaching today. And you know what? We need men that actually want to preach hard and get up behind the pulpit and do it. And you say, how can I preach hard? Well, make sure it's biblical, make sure it's specific, and you know what? Make sure it's corrected. It's not that hard. The hard part is that somebody being willing to do it. The hard part is someone actually getting alone with God with their Bible and actually learning what the Bible says and then applying it to people's lives. Actually not having fear of man but having fear of God and deciding, you know what? I want to get up behind the pulpit and preach what God's word says. Well, aren't you going to lose people? Yeah. Are you going to build this great mega church? No. You know what? I'd rather be in judgment from God for doing what He said rather than going out of my own opinion and having Him curse me because I'm afraid of what He said. Why would my opinion be better than God's? It's never better than God's. God's opinion is always right. That's why this church is named Pure Words Baptist Church. Let's look at our first point. What was our first point? Why do we need hard preaching? Because people cannot endure sound doctrine today. People don't want to hear it. People are not interested in sound doctrine. Here's a really sound doctrine nobody wants to hear. Judgment. I mean, you go out soul winning. You don't talk to anybody. Judge not. Judge not. Don't judge. Don't ever judge anything. It's wrong to judge. If you actually read your Bible, you'd realize it's full of judgment. There's constant judgment coming off every single page, every single verse. In fact, you know why we need hard preaching? So you can be judged and told you're not saved and we can help you get saved. When you go out and you preach the gospel, let me help you out. It's hard preaching. Why? Why is it hard preaching? First of all, it's biblical, isn't it? I mean, you preach the gospel. What's more biblical than the gospel? Second point is the fact that it's going to be specific. If you don't believe this, you're going to hell. You know what? It's corrective saying because you're not believing the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to repent and believe the gospel. Look, every single person needs hard preaching today. You know what? The unsaved, the only message they need is Christ and him crucified. But look, we all need hard preaching. And then for the people that are saved coming to God's house, you know what they need to do? They need to be told that they're wicked and they're living sinful lives and clean up their lives and go out and preach more of the gospel and get more people saved. But people don't want to hear that today. People don't want to hear the judgment that's coming from God. But let's hear some really hardcore judgment that's in our Bible this morning. Second Kings chapter 21 verse one. Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign and reign 50 and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hecuba. And he did that which was evil on the side of the Lord after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah's father had destroyed. And he grew up altars for Baal and made it grow as did Aab king of Israel and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars in the house of the Lord of which the Lord said in Jerusalem will I put thy name. And he built altars for all the host of heaven and the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he made his son pass through the fire and observed times and used enchantments and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards. He wrought much wickedness in the side of the Lord who provoked him to anger. And he set a graven image on the grove that he had made in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son in this house and in Jerusalem which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel will I put my name forever. Neither will I make the feet of Israel move anymore out of the land which I gave their fathers only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them. But they hearken not and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel. And the Lord spake by his servants the prophet saying because Manasseh king of Judah had done these abominations and had done wickedly above all that the Amorites did which were before him and it made Judah also to sin with his idols therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel behold I am bringing such an evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that whosoever heareth it both his ears shall tingle. What is the bible saying? The cure for your itching ears is some tingling ears from the judgment that's coming from God's word. Now when we read this story it's very sad. The children of Israel have a king Manasseh the children of Jerusalem have a king and he's exceedingly wicked. The bible says he's literally causing them to do more abominations than the wicked children that were displaced by the children of Israel. I mean those heathen wicked ungodly nations that were worshiping false gods that were filled with sodomy and bestiality and all kinds of fornication and they're worshiping these false gods and they're murdering their children Manasseh did it worse is what the bible's saying. So the children of Israel they go bad then the children of Judah and Jerusalem they're going bad and they're committing more abomination and they're getting more wicked and then finally they get Manasseh and guess what it gets worse he's causing them to do even more unimaginable things it says he made his son pass through the fire what could be more wicked than causing an innocent precious little child to die a gruesome death like that to worship false gods to seduce a whole bunch a whole nation to do these kind of wicked abominations and God says look I'm going to judge you guys and the judgment is going to be so harsh that even just hearing it would cause your ears to hurt what does it tingle it's a burning sensation it's uncomfortable you know if you hear a really annoying sound or a really high-pitched scream it just hurts your ear he's saying just hearing the judgment that's coming from God is going to make your ears bleed it's going to make your ears hurt this morning oh man would to God we wouldn't have any judgment look not just the judgment just hearing just hearing how God's going to judge them now let's make practical application of this okay because you think there's any nations today where maybe they just kind of get worse and then it's like oh man now they're getting worse and then they're getting more wicked and they're doing more abominations how about a country named America how about a country that just keeps waxing worse and worse and worse and what were some of those dividing lines oh yeah abortion right for the last 40 50 years we've just been murdering babies like it's just you know fun or something like it's just nothing just like popping a pill or something you know they're just killing innocent children just wholesale millions and millions of children are being murdered in this country every single year how about worshiping false gods i mean the expanse of more religion in this country is only getting you know greater more and more people are less christian more false gods more idolatry i mean the catholic church is full of idolatry those that are in other kind of religions hindus coming into this country worship idols they worship devils they worship demonic forces there's a rise of atheism in this country worshiping man worshiping the creature i mean if you look at America right now and you've looked 20 years ago it's a lot different you look 40 years ago it's a lot different and when you look at Manasseh and you look through the children of Jerusalem it was getting worse and worse and worse you know what that tells me god's judgment is getting worse and worse and if we were to hear the judgment that god has for this country our ears would hurt it would be a tingling sensation in our ears we couldn't even handle it go to mike malachi chapter two malachi chapter number two let me give you some proof on why our country is getting so worse some of the stats that we have today it's mind-boggling malachi chapter number two is america getting worse well let's just find out what god thinks about certain sins i thought my Bible said judge not well you know what whether you think it says that or not god's gonna judge god's gonna judge sin and he has constant judgment for wicked nations he has constant judgment against sin god hates sin god sends people to hell i'm sorry to wake you up again the god of the bible is not this just free caring you know oh who cares that they sin no god will judge be not deceived god is not mocked for whatsoever man so if that should also reap and you know what our nation is reaping so much wickedness right now god is going to judge it so severely read revelation about what god does to babylon that's what god's going to do this country even if it wasn't babylon that's what he's going to do this country just because of the wickedness that we've done i believe we probably are babylon it makes a lot of sense look at malachi chapter 2 verse 16 for the law for the lord the god of israel saith he that he hateth putting away for everyone to cover the violence with his garment saith the lord of hosts therefore take heed to your spirit that you deal not treacherously the bible says that god hates divorce god hates putting away what do you think our country's like though i got some statistics for you almost 50 of all marriages in the united states will end in divorce oh but god's not going to judge that god's not mad about that no god hates divorce god hates putting away almost half of all marriages are literally ending in divorce today in this country i mean just it's so mind-boggling it's like every nine seconds there's a divorce i can't even get through this sermon without there being like hundreds of divorces right now 100 it was something like there's like 10 divorces before the people are able to give their prenuptial or their uh pre their vows or whatever right before their vows when they're they're trying to get married people are getting divorced so quickly they can't even get through their vows before like 10 people have already gotten divorced research suggests that 41 of all first marriages end in divorce 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce 73 percent of third marriages end in divorce i see a trend i mean i don't know what the fourth one is maybe the fourth one just never even you know goes all the way to the end till death it's just till divorce do is you know till divorce separate us or whatever till death do us part till divorce do us part you know i mean after you just get one divorce then it's another one then it's another look divorce is never the answer divorce is not going to lead you into happiness and you know what not only is it a bad decision for you god is going to judge this nation for the divorce in fact when i drive down here it just makes me angry every time i drive down to houston i see this stupid billboard on the side of the road okay it says this double the space in your closet say double the space in your closet and then it says get a divorce as a divorce attorney phone number how ungodly is our nation how take all my closet i would never want to take oh i'll trade my closet for my wife what a wicked ungodly attitude what kind of nation are we living in that that would actually appeal to somebody but you know what joke's on you because you know what i don't even have half the closet have you ever been married it's like increase it by a tenth you know you can have the tie section all right so joke's on you you know obviously this woman's never been you know married apparently half the closet what a joke this country's so wicked today why would i want to have more clothes you know i'll just wear the same clothes and be married to the same wife i don't i'm not interested in having more closet space obviously that was never appeal to me because you know i didn't have much closet to start with anyways go to matthew chapter 19 matthew chapter 19. now these are just statistics from a lawyer's office they said that women that lose their virginity as a teenager are more than twice as likely to get divorced so you know what being pure actually has a benefit you'll probably stay married you'll probably actually have a lifelong committed partner with you whenever you decide to keep yourself pure whenever you come tainted to the arrangement whenever you come tainted to the marriage when you come defiled as a whore the statistics are they'll probably not stay with you oh man there's no benefit in being a virgin how about the benefit of the fact that you'll stay married that sounds like a pretty good benefit to me the fact that the person that wants to marry and look it makes a lot of sense because the person that wants to keep themselves pure they have a lot of respect for marriage they have a lot of respect for their future spouse that they wanted to keep themselves pure or most likely they had a lot of respect for god they had fear of god and look someone has fear of god is going to want to stay married someone has no fear of god they could just they don't care what's the point i mean they just go on to the next spouse next one the next one next next one i mean it's just a shorter burn cycle after the first divorce i mean you just cool the cool down period is not very long after the first divorce it says a 2011 study at the university of iowa found that for both men and women the loss of virginity before age 18 was correlated with a greater number of occurrences of divorce within the first 10 years of marriage look whether you're a whore or a whore monger according to just normal statistics today you're more likely to get divorced look there's ramifications for fornication don't think that you can just commit fornication and get away with it and you know what the appeal is to most teenagers today hey i committed fornication nothing bad's happening to me okay how about nine months later when you get that baby how about three months later when that std shows up how about in a few years from now whenever you get married and that person desserts you because you were already a whore you were tainted and they didn't really have that much respect for you anyways and look i'm not trying to say that because your spouse committed fornication that's justification to get divorced you should never get divorced i'm just saying the reality is people will divorce you because of this people get you know they're like well who cares look at matthew 19 verse 3 the pharisees also came unto him tempting him and saying unto him is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause now look there's no new thing under the sun what what are they interested in at the time of jesus christ what are the pharisees you know what what are the issues of the day divorce oh man that doesn't sound like a popular thing today that doesn't sound like something people talk about today oh yeah there's a billboard that i just passed by double your closet space but what did jesus say let's look at verse number four and he answered and said unto them have you not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female and said for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh what therefore god is joined together let not man put asunder the bible's crystal clear never divorce you know what that's not a popular message today you know why because most people are unhappy in the marriage most people want an out most people want some kind of excuse that's why they go to the church today and the pastor lies and says well if they're not treating you right god wouldn't want you to be an abusive relationship you know whether it's even physically abusive or not i mean it's just like hey whatever relationship you're in god doesn't really want you to be unhappy god wants you to have joy and prosper and have health and they'll just line people up to get divorced and then come through their marriage cycle again just turn them around turn it in look i've been to independent fundamental baptist churches where they're just playing wife swap not in this church that's not welcome here i'm not interested in that i'm not going to encourage the children to go out and trade spouses that's wicked god hates that god's judgment is going to come on this nation for all the divorce and notice within this passage we got another you know jim here didn't he say that he made them male and female what's going on in our nation today when we have this stupid gender identity garbage god didn't say there was 500 genders there's two you're either male female or reprobate that's your option all right i mean that's the only genders if you're not a male or a female you're going to hell so i don't even care anymore but you know you go on facebook you can put in a custom gender just just make it up i'm a tree you know i i got i took off a tree branch and i i taped it to myself so now i'm a tree right i mean whatever i feel today i feel like a dog i feel you know this is what people are really doing yeah go to mark chapter number five mark chapter number five it's crazy the world that we live in is psycho you think that god is looking down from heaven oh who cares if they have custom genders no he's thinking y'all are disgusting y'all are perverted y'all are defiled that didn't even come in my mind is what he's thinking you know what the custom gender though they still have to refer to you with lots of pronouns okay so then you get to choose what your pronoun is he she and then the only other option is this them them i was like i don't wait there's no new thing out of the sun there's a them in the bible let's read all right mark chapter five verse nine and he asked him what is thy name and he answered saying my name is legion for we are many the only time i see a plurality for your pronoun is when you're demon possessed and you know what these trans freaks are demon possessed the devil just comes in and out of them and makes them do all kinds of wicked unimaginable filth today you know what oh we're them what are what are them going to do today look that's a demon possessed person i'm a he i'm just me all right and you know what greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world's what the bible says you know what when you believe on the lord jesus christ you can't be filled with all these demonic spirits the only time i see that in my bible is these demon possessed freaks my name is legion who for we are many you know where's that gender we see manasseh i mean he's leading his people down a dark road and guess what america's no different you know why god wrote that story to us so that when we see a nation doing the same thing we realize that the judgment coming is going to tingle your ears the destruction and the outpouring of god's wrath on the children of is unimaginable they were literally eating their own children they were starving so much that's how i mean god's causing them to be blind mad all kinds of cursing rebuke i mean to get so hungry that you would eat your own child that's got to be pain my friend and they went through a lot of pain and suffering for what their sin and you know what there's judgment today for against god's commandments when you break god's commandments you will be judged go to isaiah chapter 30 you know the evangelizing of the world in sodomy today that's what america is doing trying to get everybody to embrace the worst filth i mean even our own president got up and says he wants to evangelize the whole world inside of me he wants it to be legal in every country in the whole world why does america care what another country does why do we have to enforce our you know filth down other countries throats and say you must be exactly like us is this a dictatorship now is america just already in charge of the whole world or what i mean they're trying to they're trying to exert their their muscle they're trying to say you know what bow down accept the freaks accept the worst filth i mean it's it's crazy the way we're going and look as much as i don't like it america does have a lot of muscle to flex i mean when they put pressure on these other nations they can do a lot of damage they could stop you importing and exporting goods they have a lot of military prowess they have a lot of partnerships and trade agreements i mean if america wants to put pressure on you they can do a lot of damage it's scary what the world's doing isaiah chapter 30 the bible says god's gonna judge but you know people don't want to hear that today why because they can't endure sound doctrine they don't like hearing all that judgment that didn't make them feel excited they're like oh i want to enjoy a quiet lunch and think about god bless america not gonna happen so what do they do isaiah 38 verse 1 a woe to the rebellious children say of the lord that take counsel but not of me and that cover with a covering but not of my spirit that they may add sin to sin that walk to go down into egypt and have not asked at my mouth to strengthen themselves in the strength of pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of egypt therefore shall the strength of pharaoh be your shame and the trust in the shadow of egypt your confusion so according to the bible the children of israel they want to trust in man they're going to go find their egypt they're going to find their sin they're going to go find their little buddy to help them out and you know egypt is not going to help them okay but look at verse number eight now go write it before them in a table and note it in a book that it may be for the time to come forever and ever 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 the prophets prophesy not unto us right things speak unto us smooth things prophesy deceits get you out of the way turn aside out of the path cause the holy one of israel to cease from before us wherefore thus saith the holy one of israel because you despise this word and trust and oppression and perverseness and stay therein therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall swelling out in a high wall who's breaking cometh suddenly at an instant what is the bible saying it's saying literally god's people got to a point where they despised hearing god's word so much that they're saying don't tell us the truth just lie to me and in fact get rid of the bible i don't want to hear the bible don't come in with the bible look i've talked to people in my own personal life they say if it's in the bible i don't want to hear it not interested not interesting hearing the doctrine of the bible not interested in hearing what god said don't prophesy that into me and then they go to another church where they'll constantly be fed lies well they're constantly spoon fed how everything's great and everything's wonderful and god's blessing america oh look our economy's doing so great because trump's in office but we're voting more filth and debauchery and sin and wickedness so i guess we're you know supposing that gain is godliness right supposing that because our country has prosperity well we're good all right i forgot all the babylons of the past they all were financially prosperous weren't they rome financially prosperous babylon financially prosperous but they were the most wicked ungodly places that's you know we could ever even imagine we can't even imagine how bad they were oh yeah sodom and gomorrah you know it's a very prosperous place that's why i like why a lot liked it so much well i liked it because there's lots of money there lots of wealth there you know why people like america money and you know what they have to accept a lot of filth and debauchery and defilement to get there and we notice they don't want to hear right things they want to hear smooth things you know what that tells me smooth preaching is not right we need hard preaching not for me to get up and tell you lies that sound good you're so wonderful everything you're doing is right god's not mad at you god loves this country god wants to bless donald trump god wants to bless you guys let's all just sign a pledge to the american flag right now no that's not right things smooth things they just sound so good oh i'm just a great orator you know i don't think the preachers of the bible are these excellent orators they just got up and preached the word of god they just made it plain they just said exactly what the bible says we even have their sermons recorded with stammering lips and another tongue while i speak unto those peoples what the bible says you don't have to be this great orator why don't you just preach right things i'm not a smooth preacher great sounds like you have the opportunity to preach something that's right oh i can't preach so silky smooth well it sounds like lies the smooth talking salesman what does that mean the guy that'll come up and sell you something that you don't want lying to you ripping you off using flattery to deceive you you know the bible talks about smooth it says in proverbs five when it talks about the strange woman it says her mouth is smoother than oil she's coming unto you lying to you trying to lie with you but you know what the bible says that her that her way is the way to hell proverbs six and seven that's your smooth preaching proverbs 55 or yeah psalms 55 says the words of his mouth were smoother than butter but war was in his heart his words were softer than oil yet were they drawn swords you know these politicians they get up and they sound silky smooth you know war's in their heart war in iraq war in syria war with christians war with everything that's godly and righteous and wholesome war against our economy even war in all kinds of different ways war against your freedom war against the constitution look they'll get up and tell you how wonderful they are and how wonderful the policies are and how they want to change america for the better but they're lying they have war in their heart they're warring against you spiritual wickedness and high places today and you know what we need some rough preaching today that'll tell us what's right and tell us that judgment's coming on this nation judgment's coming because we keep committing sin because we're so wicked and filthy and abominable because our nation is so ungodly today and you love america people love america today people are going to churches today and they love america how can you honestly look at the attributes of america and say i love you you adulterous murdering whore that's what america is promoting filth and debauchery everything that's ungodly what's righteous about it i can't even think of anything anymore go to zekiel chapter 30 let's get some tingling in our ears okay he said oh man judgment's gonna come is it really that bad well let's get some bad ezekiel 30 look at verse 19 thus will i execute judgments in egypt and they shall know that i am the lord so we see god's gonna finally judge and you know who was it that they were trusting in we just read they wanted to trust in egypt didn't they they want to go in the safety of egypt but let's see how god is going to treat egypt here in a minute son of man verse 21 i have broken the arm of pharaoh king of egypt and lo it shall not be bound up to be healed to put a roller to bind it to make it strong to hold the sword therefore let's say lord god behold i am against pharaoh king of egypt and will break his arms the strong and that which was broken and i will cause the sword to fall out of his hand and i will scatter the egyptians among nations and will disperse them through the countries and i will strengthen the arms of the king of babylon and put my sword in his hand but i will break pharaoh's arms and he shall groan before him with the groanings of a deadly wounded man when i read this it makes me hurt just the idea of literally me taking your arm and twisting it and twisting it and getting to the point where it snaps and it's broken and it's hurt and it's in a cast and you know what i come back two months later it's not healed yet and i come back to that broken arm and i say you know what round two and i twist it and i twist it and i break it and it snaps that's the tingling of god's word that's the judgment of god's word saying you know what i'm gonna come and break your arm twice oh that doesn't sound pleasant yeah there's a reason because people don't want to go to church today and hear what god's word says today because there's judgment coming on america he's gonna break her arms twice but today people just want to hear oh america's great america's wonderful my bible says he's gonna be groaning with the groanings of a deadly wounded man that's horrible horrible but people they don't like it they don't like the sound doctrine they don't want to endure that you know what they want this morning sweet and nice oh so what they have to have itching ears so first of all we realize they can't endure sound doctrine go to jeremiah six jeremiah chapter six they can't endure that that sound biblical preaching of the judgment they don't like hearing about a guy's arm being broken twice so you know what they have to hear something wonderful something sweet something light something nice they refuse the hard preaching and they have the itching preaching so they want to hear something else look at jeremiah chapter 6 verse 13 the bible says for from the least of them even under the greatest of them everyone is given to covetousness and from the prophet even in the priest everyone dealeth falsely they have healed also the hurt of my people of the people of my of the daughter of my people slightly saying peace peace when there is no peace were they ashamed when they committed abomination nay they were not at all ashamed neither could they blush before they therefore they shall fall among them that fall at the time that i visit them they shall be cast down say the lord thus sayeth the lord stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old paths wherein is the good way and walk there and you shall find rest for your souls but they said we will not walk therein also i sent watchmen over you saying harken to the sound of the trumpet but they said we will not harken so i see the spirit of not being able to endure sound doctrine i mean literally they're being presented the right path and they say i'm not going that way no i see it i see how that's the right path i see that's the way i'm supposed to go i'm not going to walk that way i'm going to walk this way i'm going to walk towards uh hollyweird towards the world towards the filth today i'm not interested in following what the lord jesus christ said what the bible said not only that we say they don't even want to hear they have a watchman saying look watch out you're in danger there's an enemy coming there's judgment coming no i don't want to hear that i don't want to argue that what do they want to hear lies because they have the itching ears they want to be prophesied unto they want to hear peace look you could be in the midst of a battle and they just want to hear peace and look in jeremiah they're constantly being besieged by the babylonians they're coming in taking the best men from them taking their goods and then guess what a few a little bit later they come back and do it again and then guess what they come back again and then the province are getting up peace we have peace you know the babylonians will never come in here they'll never enter into our city they've already done it multiple times what are you talking about i mean you look at america today and it's like peace just wonderful stuff god's blessing on our nation we're just murdering babies like crazy but it's just blessings you know showers of blessings falling down on our country you know constant hurricanes and earthquakes and devastation and murder and filth and abomination peace peace they just get up and they want to preach so much peace i mean literally this entire city is just flooding the gates of hell this morning and they're like peace oh peace you know and they're not even ashamed of their sin people are going to church today and they have no shame of sin how many people are in church this morning and they're in wicked sin right now and they don't feel bad at all you know why because they're not hearing any hard preaching because the preacher's getting up and lying to them and not telling them what they need to hear you know that the majority of americans 97 percent have committed fornication before marriage were they ashamed i mean is our nation just mourning right now for all the fornication i mean god literally killed the children of israel for committing fornication today my bible says you know that it's a very wicked sin that we're supposed to flee fornication and the statistics today say 97 percent it might even be higher because that's the ones that admitted it you know 97 commit fornication before marriage and our nation just doesn't care do they you know the cdc this is a quote from somebody that works at the cdc we are sliding backward i mean the cdc is more of a hard preacher than your average independent Baptist church today than any church today and in fact if you go to one of these liberal churches you know it's a term that you'll never hear someone is backslidden but this is a common term this used to be a term that every church would know about talk about preach about but that concept is so foreign to the the non-evangelical mega churches today they wouldn't even know what you're talking about if you said hey this person's backslidden what are you talking about we're not supposed to judge people they're like what i mean the concept of even being backslidden is so foreign to them because they think everybody's right with god well god's not mad at anybody god just wants you to come god just wants to have a relationship god doesn't care if your buddy you know is so backslidden because they want to make everything about a relationship because you can see how you have a friend who's like a wicked person and you just still hang out with him for whatever reason you're like oh i don't care i just want to be buddies anyways that's not how jesus is jesus is not looking for this backslidden relationship you know what he's looking for people to serve him he's looking for good servants for people to follow his word it's sad when the cdc is more fundamentalist than churches today than the fun center today but why they have an itching ear and you know what talk about an itch when we talk about fornication you want to talk about an itch there's 110 million sexually transmitted infections in the united states right now talk about an itch man oh i have itching ears you're gonna get something else that's gonna itch 110 million that's a lot oh but god's not judging us look if we were to describe stds and describe the symptoms of stds it would make all of our ears tingle okay it's god's judgment it's terrible it's horrible that burning sensation will be in your ears just from hearing it let alone the burning sensation you get when you actually have one and this is a large number put back to chapter five but you know what people don't want to hear that people aren't interested in hearing that people just want to hear you know love and well if you love the person it's okay to go to bed with them and you know it's just all about love and relationship and being good look it's not good to commit fornication it's wicked and god will judge you that's why we need hard preaching jeremiah 5 verse 31 the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests bear rule by their means look at this and my people love to have it so and what will you do in the end thereof they know they're lying it's not that they don't know they're lying they realize they're going to a church they know the pastor's lying to them and they like it they love it they want it they're excited about it they like coming to church and being lied to they like the fact that they won't be told they're doing something wrong and you know what in our flesh we like being lied to like i said earlier when you're terrible at something for whatever reason your flesh still wants to be told you're great at it no you're the next star you could be the quarterback on the texans you know i mean i know you can't even throw a spiral but you know more than 20 yards but i'm sure they put you in a quarterback you know you're so fast and strong and handsome and a good singer and you're wonderful i mean that's what people want to hear people go to their job they're lazy they don't show up on time they don't do the work right and you know what they want their boss to come to tell them you're so good i'm gonna give you a raise that's what they want people like being lied to even though in their heart they realize i haven't been a good employee i could probably be fired but they still want to be praised somehow it's ridiculous but we see this is the nature of your heart and so you know you need heart preaching we need hard preaching to combat those itching ears that you've got inside you you know we need this preaching to encourage us to do the right thing but what do they like to do well here they still have their motivational speeches if you go to one of these churches they're still going to tell you to do stuff they're going to still try to motivate you what be a do-gooders club oh we help so many people you don't understand we give back to the community we love the community we we feed the five thousand everybody likes that part of the story now go to john chapter six let's get that story john chapter six they have this motivational style preaching which is a carrot only carrot only preaching carrot baptist church where they say you know what rewards and wonderful things and blessing they never get motivated with the stick you know what motivates my children to do the right thing the stick you know it never motivates them carrots literally and you know figuratively they never get excited i mean i'll make them eat carrots but okay but the carrot is for the horse okay it's kind of a pun it's kind of a metaphor in the sense that are you gonna do something out of motivation because of reward or you can do a motivation out of being punished and we see according to the bible it's a lot more punishment motivation than it is the other kind of motivation and look i'm for both as a preacher we need to get behind the pulpit and preach hey god will reward you according to your labor god will reward you if you serve him god will bless you if you do that which is right you know it's much more common in the bible god's also going to punish you when you disobey him god's also going to bring you know all kinds of judgment in your life when you break his commandments that's why we gotta fear him look you know why i went that decided to believe on jesus christ to go to heaven not for the reward of heaven but because i didn't want to go to hell that stick was way more motivating than the carrot when it came to salvation just being honest with you okay now look i'm excited to go to heaven that sounds great but i'm way more excited that i'm not going to hell and i'm not burning in a lake of fire forever and we need the stick preaching today that's going to motivate people you know it's going to be hard for you to motivate anybody soul winning if you don't preach on hell hey heaven's a great place can i tell you how to get there well if you don't you're going to hell okay now i'm listening now i'm actually interested okay john chapter 6 look at verse 10 and jesus said make the men sit down now there was much grass in the place so the men sat down and number about five thousand so it's a feeding of five thousand and look every loves this story there's all these people they want to hear jesus preaching but then you just go a little bit further down the story okay a little bit later after this verse 60 the bible says many therefore of his disciples when they had heard this said this isn't hard saying who can hear it so they like it when jesus is feeding them you know they don't like it when he's preaching to them when he's feeding them spiritually when he's actually opening his mouth and making known the mystery of the gospel the word of god in verse 61 it says when jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it he said to them does this offend you what and if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before so you know he's like hey is this defending you let me tell you something more offensive what if you had saw me go back up to heaven you don't believe i'm jesus well guess what what if you just saw me go up to heaven let me make it more plain you know and it offends them even more he's telling them to eat his flesh and to drink his blood and they're just like i can't hear this i don't want to hear this preaching verse 66 from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with them then said jesus into the 12th will you also go away oh jesus you're losing people yeah that's the bible sorry to wake you up you say hey if you're a biblical church will you lose people i hope so otherwise it must not be preaching like jesus did because when jesus opened his mouth people left now if we just start you know food pantry and we're just giving away food lots of people come look whenever we have a sunday morning service and we're having food and fellowship more people show up every time when it's just it's just preaching not interested when it's just a bible study on thursday way less people but hey we kicked it up with a food pantry again hey we're gonna have pizza and fellowship let's show up you know we see the people like the food they don't like the preaching so you know what churches have realized let's let's pump up the food and tone down the preaching because we want to maximize attendance we want to go back to that church where there's the 5000 we don't want the 12-person church jesus christ had the 12-person church before he started with 5000 he grew to 12 and one was a devil okay and not even all of his church members were great and we see hey what is this church going to be like well i don't want to shrink to 12 but if we need to let's shrink to 12 i'd rather have 12 people with one devil than 5 000 people that i can't even preach to you know what it's expensive to feed people jesus is doing it by miracles all right i don't it'd be miracles for us to be feeding 5 000 people right now too go to matthew chapter 8 look people want to hear this preaching that's going to help people and look these churches have become do-gooder clubs if you go to the big liberal mega fun center church what do they do they're constantly feeding people giving money to people helping people oh we filled up all these backpacks and we're giving them to kids for school oh we did a luncheon for all the school teachers oh we went out in the community and we painted some fences oh we built this thing look they're just going out and giving money and feeding people but they're not actually opening the mouth and preaching the gospel they're not actually saying what jesus said they're not actually trying to get anybody saved and look people get all excited to go out and paint a fence and to feed people it's cool they like the miracle they like the they like the giving out of these fun things but that's not hard preaching that's not what the bible motivates me to do you know what the bible motivates me to do preach the gospel and they only want to get involved if it's convenient for them you know they actually most of them don't even want to do the serving they just want other people to serve matthew chapter 8 verse 19 and a certain scribe came and said and a master i will follow thee whithersoever thou goest and jesus saying the fox have holes and the birds of the year have nests but the son of man hath not where to lay his head hey i'll go i'll go anywhere why don't have anywhere to go oh i'm not interested why it could be hard you know people say hey i can't wait to help you well here's how you can help that's hard i don't want to do that i have to give up my saturday go soul winning not interested in that i have to come to church on thursday nah i have to sit through an hour-long sermon of someone screaming at me not interested oh you know i have to read my bible by myself where nobody else is paying attention yeah i'm not interested i have to pray in my closet just my father in secret not but if it's convenient you know can i give online do you have a place where i can get some money online oh i feel so good now i'm just helping out so much i mean swipe my card you know they'll come up using a little promise you the moon i'll do anything here's what you need to do not interested hey what good thing must i do so all that thou hast oh not interested anymore you know the people that come up to you and often say i'll do anything are usually just being honest not good people and they're not interested in even doing hardly anything i mean it was maybe like lifting a pencil because they'll say hey i'll do anything you're like what about this now oh we could use someone to clean the church not interested in that no do you have anything more prominent like maybe the bible reader maybe can i can i do that or maybe i can give some money and we'll put a plaque on the wall that said i gave money to the church do you have any options like that what kind of packages do you have here you know what kind of options do you have i'll take the traveling guy you know for five thousand it's like look that's not how it works when you come to the church you serve and it's hard it's hard work it's not glorious it's not glamorous you're not gonna get your name on the wall look it's just going out and serving people people want to give lip service look at verse 21 and another disciple said in them lord suffer me first to go and to bury my father but jesus said in him follow me and let the dead bury the dead people want to serve when it's convenient for them jesus says you know what it's convenient for you to just help now just get involved now whatever the cost sell all jesus christ is hardcore he's not looking for watered down weak people to get involved he's saying look you want to get involved all right sell all to the hasks be be ready to be put to death be faithful unto death any man you know putting his hand in the plow and looking back is not fit for the kingdom of god he says to count the cost he says you know what take up the cross daily and follow me jesus christ is saying look it's hardcore and you know what people aren't interested in hardcore christianity they're interested in convenient baptist church let me go to convenient baptist church where i can give just as little as possible and feel as good as possible about it i gave my five extra bucks for the faith promise missions and now i feel great about it we're reaching the world of the gospel that five dollars man it's going all the way we're gonna get so many people saved it's crazy look they're just lying to the people go if you would to first john chapter four first john chapter four you know what people don't want to hear this kind of preaching they want to hear stuff that'll help them they don't want to be identified with any kind of sin either you know when jesus is preaching against the pharisees the lawyer's ears perked up and they said master that's saying now approaches us also and he just lays it lawyers you know people don't want to go to church where the pastor is going to preach against the lawyers people don't want to go to church where the pastor is going to preach against all the the people you know selling money for usury the bankers the banking system the lawyers the criminal justice system i mean there's so many wicked things going out today that if you just preach the bible you just offend people left and right people don't want to hear that kind of preaching they don't want to be identified with the preaching because whenever you point out hey here's a sin you know lending money on usury is a sin well the banker that's the deacon he's sweating bullets now he doesn't like that so he wants to go to the church where it'll never be preached never but there's so many churches today where they will not preach on the sin of usury you know why because they're so afraid of all the rich bankers in their church getting up and walking out i say do it and look if someone is a baker i'm not mad at you you know we're all sinners i'm sure if we looked at every single person with a magnifying glass we would be like all right you know but the reality is people need to hear what's sinful so they can change their life you know what i got out of banking because i was like this place is wicked this place is just has the love of money written all over it i'm not interested you know preachers that want to be popular they have to silence the unpopular message there's things you will never hear why because people have itching ears because they want to hear the lies so they'll never talk about fornication the way it should be how can 97 percent of people in america be committing fornication the way they are if people are preaching what this book says about it it doesn't line up they're not talking about it look i went to church and i never felt i never heard anything about fornication hardly they had promised creepers but other than that i mean they were not sitting up here ripping on fornication and saying that god killing people and you know all these diseases and all these they're not saying that i mean the hardest preaching i got was from the sex ed class in junior high when they started showing pictures that was pretty hardcore but you know what it wasn't good enough i needed god's word that's what has the power you know they're never going to hear about abortion being murder because most of the people in their church probably commit abortion they're not going to hear about how wicked fags are and how they're rotten to the core and the predators because they have them working in the nursery and that'll scare you from putting your kids in the nursery look there's a church there's a baptist church in dallas where the the university minister is an open faggot married to a dude you're literally taking your 13 year old child into a predator's den and saying here watch him while we go into this service who knows what they're doing to the kid a literal open faggot is the university minister royal lane baptist church in a baptist church what is the what's the world coming oh god's blessing us when baptists are letting faggots be the university minister it's ridiculous they'll say you know we got to hate the sin and love the sinner i wish they even did that they don't even hate the sin of being a faggot anymore and you know what if you actually hate sin and love the sinner you know you'll do you'll rebuke the sin upon them you'll tell them that they're wrong you'll tell them that they're wicked you know you're not going to silence the word of god you're not going to promote filth that's what they want to do they want to say we're going to love people they're just propagating atheist agendas a feel-good message so that's my third point all right we talked about a few different things we need hard preaching why do we need hard preaching because people don't want to endure sound doctrine because people have itching ears and ultimately you know what that leads to you turn into fables and if you go to the church today if you go to a big church just go to find the biggest church in houston i guarantee you'll he'll hear all kinds of wonderful stories all kinds of fables but they're not true they're not reality first john chapter 4 verse 4 says year of god little children and have overcome them because greater is he that's in you than he that is in the world they are of the world therefore speak of the world the world heareth them we are of god he that knoweth god heareth us he that is not of god heareth not us hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error notice in verse five he says they are that are of the world speak they of the world and notice the world heareth them why do people like the fables because they're of the world people are preaching worldly messages and it appeals to the carnal it appeals to the worldly christians today they want to be told how wonderful the world is because they love it so much they love hollywood they love the movies they love the tv they love the fashion they love everything that's going on in this world they love the covetousness they love the fancy cars they love the fancy houses they love all the things all the sporting events and all the filth and abomination they love to make fun of the faggots they love will and grace and modern family and all these different tv shows they want to go and be entertained and look there's no new thing under the sun they love it so much so you know what they have to go to hear preaching how wonderful it is they have to go to a church where they're going to get up and say hey we're all going to the football game later right we're all going to watch the wicked movie from hollywood right and we're going to do these things that are worldly and carnal and they love money look at my new fancy watch that i got everybody look at my new car you know that's what's coming from the pulpit today it's coming from people why because worldly people love that message and then the pastor gets up and says you know what if you serve god he'll bless you i'm up here i'm loaded you know like is there a profit for money they're a profit for their belly and it appeals to the carnal because they're coming to church thinking like i'm not as rich as that guy i want to be rich like this guy you know we're sitting in this 50,000 square foot building that guy's driving a mercedes he's living in a mansion he you know supposing that gain is godliness and the love of money is the root of all evil why are people filling into that church because they want to be rich like that lying false prophet and if they have to tell lies so be it they love to have it that way they love trusting and oppression and covetousness now what's some of the fables that you're hearing let alone all that right they don't believe anyone's a false prophet today why do we need hard preaching because no one else literally is preaching about anybody being a false prophet when i went to church i didn't hear anybody the false prophet i did i thought every church was good i went to a non-denominational church and i thought everybody was saved and everybody loved jesus and there's no bad preachers everybody's great i didn't know any of them believed i didn't know any of them taught and the the hardest preaching i got was this there's some people they think that they're going to heaven because they're a good person but we have to believe in jesus that was the hardest preaching i got and i always wondered who are these people i just thought it was like unchurched people like people that didn't go to church they were the ones trusting in themselves to get to heaven you know it's really those people the people that are in church they're in the catholic church they're in the methodist church they're in the presbyterian church they're in all these pentecostal churches right here all these churches teach work salvation right here so you know when they when you're trying to guide someone to our church be like go to this one okay why because you don't want to go and hear lies you don't want to go hear a false doctrine about you know how you have to be a good person to go to heaven you can lose your salvation you know hard preaching names names and it calls people out but they don't like that so they're gonna be turned into fables and they're gonna be told how wonderful everyone is i mean you go to these non-denominational churches they'll literally praise the pope that's a fable there's nothing good about the pope he's a den of iniquity they seek to please everyone that's why they're non-denominational you know what that means we don't want to offend anyone ever no one's bad catholic come on in methodist come on in atheist come on in a faggot wolf in sheep's clothing come on in we're non-denominational we don't believe anything we just believe what everybody believes we're just the world we're just a big fun center for the world to come in and hear a worldly message they're not evangelical they won't even call out a popular false teacher you know why because the popular people are the ones they like all the people to pew no church that's going down this model is going to call out joel osteen because everybody in their pew likes joel osteen the bible says woe unto you and all men shall speak well of you for so did their fathers to the false prophet look these big popular preachers are false see how do you know because the bible told me you show me where there was a man of god that had a huge following how many people got on the boat with noah his family i don't even think all of them wanted to i mean abraham can't even keep locked with them i mean you look at the prophets jeremiah's by himself they throw him in the dunk pit okay ezekiel he's laying on the side by himself i mean you read all the prophets nobody wants them nobody likes them get out of here amos you're from jerusalem go back to jerusalem we don't want you up here in israel telling us what to do jesus let's just crucify him the apostle paul well they just keep stoning him and throwing him outside the city i mean what what popular preacher do you have in the bible where there's just millions of people following him i mean you have the five thousand with jesus for a very short space and guess what story these false prophets love to emphasize you go to the non-evangelical church the mega church they will tell you all about the feeding of five thousand constantly that's one of their favorite stories look it's not reality the reality is the men of god they constantly had people going away from them leaving them deserting them hating them why because they're preaching what god's word said and people don't like it they want to hear stories they want to hear the fables you know they're not what's the difference between a non-denominational church and a charity just your regular company charity nothing nothing in fact most of these charities they have higher standards than your regular non-denominational church you know a lot of just regular charities they have dress code standards and they have like morality and virtue standards and they'll even exclude certain people the non-denominational church no clothing standards we won't ever exclude anybody i mean look if you're just in the business world and your company supports some kind of charity and you go to one of their meetings it sounds just like a church service at one of these non-denominational churches you say what's the what should be the difference between one of these secular charities and god's house biblical preaching hard preaching a man of god getting up and offending people with god's word telling them what they don't want to hear rebuking them you know what that's not going to build your charity and that's what these big churches are just big charities they just want to go out and reach as many people as they can number two they lie about their effectiveness in reaching the gospel you go to these churches they don't think that they're not reaching anybody they're not saying look we got literally zero people saved and and you know all our baptisms were false because nobody was even saved they're not going to get up they're lying about it we we got five thousand salvations why because the same hundred people raised their hand every service okay and then they keep re-baptizing them you talk to some of these people yeah i've been baptized like seven times and you know eight times it's like you know so they just inflate their numbers then they'll talk about some trip they took to africa where millions are getting saved it's all lies it's all fables you know their outreach their foreign mission work even their independent fundamental baptist church today you know what they do they give 25 a month to some foreign missionary he goes over across the seas and he reaches one and a half people okay that half person he's trying to get to church you know what he writes his letter and he writes it to like 500 churches all 500 that are supporting him with a nickel and then he sends it back to them and then they all hear the same story how one and a half people are being reached and they're all like whoa look at all these people are reaching you don't even realize that 500 other churches all have the same view for that one and a half person i'm glad that 500 churches can get one and a half people saved in a year you're just reaching so many people even though we literally have hundreds of thousands of people dying every second in this world but you're one and a half people oh man we're just storming the gates of hell aren't we but they have to lie about their reach you know why some people feel comfortable look if right next door right now okay if there's thousands of people in this building right next to us and the building's on fire and people are literally dying right now wouldn't we all kind of feel bad just sitting here watching it i'd be like oh that sucks for them that's terrible that's awful look at that person running it through the parking lot on fire maybe we'd actually help them right you don't feel comfortable but if we said oh there's there's there's thousands of people helping them the fire the fire you know trucks are there everybody's there there's nothing we can do we can't help them then you don't feel that bad but what if it was just a story what if i'm just lying to you there's really no fire trucks there's no firemen there's nobody helping them this is what the churches are doing today they're trying to lie to you and tell you oh there's all these people preaching the gospel there's all these foreign missionaries we're reaching so many people to god be the glory and they're lying to them while the whole world goes to hell and look this church has been doing some great soul winning but let me wake you up we're a drop of water on a hot stove right now houston is going to hell in a hand basket and we need to do more today we're not even doing close to what we need to be doing we're not reaching enough people with the gospel these other people are lying and saying oh we're just reaching all these people no we need more people to get serious about their life and decide i need to go out and preach the gospel to more people i need to go out and be dedicated to the work of the lord i need to actually make sacrifice in my personal life so all these people on fire can actually go to heaven one day i'm not going to sit here and lie to you and say oh 300 people in a city of 8 million i mean we're just it's nothing and that's just our city let alone all the other areas in the world look i'm not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you oh we're just doing so great you know we need to do more look we are on the right path but we need to keep walking that path and you're not making people feel uncomfortable for getting off that path for deciding not to do more to be encouraged and exhorted to get more people the gospel and reach more people you know i'm not going to sit here and lie to you and say oh our 300 we're good let's just do 300 a year for the rest of our church existence that's terrible that's not enough reach and look other churches are getting the same one and a half person report every year and they think that's sufficient why because they like lies because they don't want they don't feel comfortable going out and taking a nap on sunday afternoon when they realize everybody's burning alive in hell the world's gonna bobsled to hell today but you just want to enjoy your sunday afternoon brunch so you know what you have to go to a church where it's gonna lie to you so you can go and eat your your brunch and be like oh it's so good life's so wonderful i'm so great look at all my money i'm gonna go just enjoy my life you know what hard preaching is actually going to impel people to do more soul winning you say why preach hard pastor shelly because it's actually going to take people that weren't going to go soul winning and now they are going to go so it's going to take people that weren't going to show up to church and now they're going to show up to church it's going to take people that weren't going to read their bible this week now they're going to read their bible this week it's going to take people that weren't going to pray at all and now they're going to start praying it's going to take people that have the scales on their eyes and look at this world with the wrong idea and say you know what it's actually worse there's more people that need help that's why we do the hard preaching you know what they want sermon illustrations about their little toddler soccer practice because that's so important right about the mother's day activity that they have going on at the church their back to school luncheon their christian school program their arts and crafts their drawing on rocks their weekend golf tournament they're filling backpacks their school supplies oh they're a difference maker in their community why because they want to hear that lie so they don't feel ashamed that the whole world's going to hell they want to hear these lies you know the bible says the harvest truly is plenteous but the labors are few that's what the bible says my bible tells me there's not enough people going out and preaching the gospel you know what there's no new thing out of the sun right now there's not enough people to preach the gospel we need more people to preach the gospel and you know what i don't remember and reading the book of acts all the little arts and crafts activities the apostles did and all the little fellowship gatherings and all they're going out oh we did a brunch in for all the school teachers how wonderful are we the church at coreth they're reaching their community oh they're a difference maker no you know what difference you're making you're sending more people to hell with your lies why don't you actually tell hey most of these people in this room aren't even saved let alone the people outside these walls and these big big mega churches why don't you actually preach something has some division to it you know what they don't like division getting ahead of myself but you know what's going to really make a difference you opening your mouth and making and making known the mystery of the gospel preaching the gospel but that makes people feel uncomfortable they want to hear fables but my bible says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of god the only way people are going to get saved is by people preaching them the gospel and you know what i cannot preach the gospel of this city by myself i can't do it i need other people to go with me and open their mouths and preach the gospel of the city too that's why i have multiple so many times that's why i have other people stepping up and putting in leadership positions so they can go out and preach the gospel so we can actually make a real difference in this world they want to talk about the texas game you know i can't wait until after church we all go with the texas watch the texas game how about watching people get saved from hell that sounds like a good motivation for me hard motive hard preaching will motivate you to get off your rear and to put down your selfish carnal desires but people don't want to do that people are not interested in that so why would you want to hear a message in something you're not going to do remember earlier they saw the path we're not going to walk that way we heard the message we're not going to do it so you know what they're going to do go hear lies i don't if you're not going to do it why go listen to it that's what their that's what their thought process is these these churches they're lying about the state that we're in they say that there's peace when there is no peace oh trump's going to protect our churches they're so glad that we don't have hillary in president you know because trump is going to protect our churches they're putting their trust in egypt but you know what god's going to break his arm twice he's wicked as hell my friend you know they they say uh that the other people would uh condemn our churches for hate speech trump hates speech they hate speech too you know and we ought to love and embrace hate speech and pour that which is evil but they don't like that they don't like it when the bible says that god hates the workers of iniquity they don't like it when jesus christ said that he hates the dees of they don't like god's wrath and revelation they don't like the story of sodom and gomorrah they don't like the old testament so they're going to go to a church where they never have to hear it i never heard the story of sodom and gomorrah i never heard judges 19 going to one of these churches never why because they like sweetness and light the reality is though they don't even like the sweetness and light they can't even handle the real sugar you know the real sugar would be the king james bible would be the good verses in here but they don't even like that they have to get an niv they like sweet and low aspartame the artificial sweetener they have to actually embrace lies because they can't even handle the real sugar let alone fruit i mean they can't even handle strawberries and bananas they can't even handle the meat and potatoes the vegetables that's not interesting a bible study through the book of leviticus i don't want that kind of you know asparagus i don't want that broccoli they think that division's bad go to luke chapter 12 we're almost finished this morning i got to make up for some lost time all right these mega churches today they don't want to preach hard for so many reasons but the ultimate thing is people don't want it and they don't realize that they need it and you know what you're no different there's going to be a point in time where you don't want to hear the hard preaching but you know what you need to say i need it my kids need it my wife needs it my family needs it i need to go to a church that's gonna actually preach me the bible even though i don't realize it because i need it you know what i eat vegetables not because always i love it because i know i need it sometimes i just do stuff because i know i need to sometimes i need to just go to bed sometimes i just need to exercise sometimes i just need to eat things that are right sometimes i need to just do some hygiene you know brush your teeth take a shower use a bathroom whatever it is the reality is we just need certain things and we just got to do it look at luke trail verse 51 suppose you that i'm coming to get peace on earth i tell you nay but rather division from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided three against two and two against three the father shall be divided against the son and the son against the father the mother against the daughter and the daughter against the mother the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law the bible says that church is going to be divisive but they are non-denominational they don't want division in fact they make fun of churches that are divisive they'll say well we don't want to get real strict on doctrine because that divides people you're right the bible tells us to do that we should be dividing on doctrine the bible says wherefore come up from among them and be separate saith the lord not everybody's welcome in our church like they want the people that are dressed like freaks to come on in i said get out they want the literal freaks to come in i say get out they want the pedophiles to come in i say get out they say everyone's welcome not everyone's welcome in this church you better be saved and want to follow christ if you want to stick around in this church some infiltrator come in some wicked person and look if they're unsaved let's get them saved you know what this church is for the safe it's not for the wicked the last point i have is they think everyone's good this is a lie that people want to hear i have a statistic there's a statement everyone sends a little but most people are good by nature more than 50 percent of evangelicals agree with the statement they think that people are good by nature have you ever been outside you just let the tv roll a little bit i mean this world is so wicked how can anybody think that oh yeah because they never been told anything wrong because they don't know what hard preaching is look the way the world's is wrong you need to be told that you need to be told the way the world thinks it's wrong you need to be told that hollywood and the tv and the music today it's wicked it's wrong it's filthy it's disgusting it promotes feminism it promotes adultery it promotes alcohol it promotes symmetry it promotes atheism it promotes gender identity we already talked about that it's garbage it's foolishness you need to be told that it's wrong you know what if you were told everything's wrong your mentality wouldn't be everybody's good you know your mentality would be and we know that we are god in the whole world life and wickedness you get first john chapter five in your heart go to first john two the last place i'll have you turn will of grace is of satan it promotes pedophiles it promotes predators like modern family this garbage show that came on with two dads who adopted little girls and now we see in our country homosexual couples are adopting children by the droves and they're constantly found out to have put them in all kinds of you know sex trafficking rings and abusing them and letting strangers abuse them they don't have any love in their heart they're pedophiles but you love that show you want to watch that show because it's so funny and it's so cute it's lies and people love to hear the lies today they love to hear how good people are they want to hear how the filthy disgusting reprobate is good well he sins a little bit but he's good at nature no he's wicked by nature he's rotten to the core he's a predator he wants to tear your family apart fornication adultery in the tv and movies even your precious little james bond the whoremonger look i grew up watching that stuff oh i'm shocked that every guy wants to be a whoremonger when literally every single one of the people they idolize and worship and watch is a whoremonger look i want to be james bond i want to be all these superheroes and these you know really cool guys you know what they all were whoremongers and then guess what every guy wants to be a whoremonger where was the superhero character that was pure that was a virgin that wanted to be wholesome and righteous doesn't exist the world promotes its filth and then what happens the world we just embrace the filth i mean back 50 years ago what was the tv promoting fornication then the whole country gives them the fornication then what do they start promoting adultery now is the country into adultery then it starts promoting faggots now there's a whole country into faggot now what is it promoting like bestiality and pedophilia it's coming if you see the pattern it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse and worse and look this whole world is not good there's nothing to do with good no not one is what the bible says and look we need hard preaching today why because people can't endure sound doctrine because people have itching ears and because they've been turned into fables first john chapter 2 verse 15 love not the world neither the things that are in the world if any men love the world the love of the father is not in them we need hard preaching so that we can love god more and not love the world so much that's why we need it and people criticize hard preaching they'll say oh y'all are a cult and y'all are against everything yes we're against everything but no to the cold sorry let me fix that yeah i am against everything you know it's not a cult because people constantly leave and we're not interested in people that you know are don't want to come here and hear the preaching you know what you need to drag yourself to hear someone preach hard to you so that you can love god more let's close in prayer thank you father so much for your word thank you for this great church i pray that we would just get more love in our hearts towards you to your word that we would embrace our preaching that we