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

Amen, all right, well, it's the last night here, and I wanted to preach something positive, so. There's gonna be some positivity in this sermon, but I wanted to preach a message that I just couldn't, I kept thinking, what am I gonna preach about, and this just kept coming to my mind, so. But I did wanna say, before I begin, thank you to everybody, people that came from the States to be here. And I appreciate you coming, Ms. J.C., of course, the brothers from Steadfast, Jacob and Jared, and also just everybody that, I know you guys, the traffic is bad around here, and it's hard to get here, especially on a Wednesday night, so I really appreciate everybody that made the effort to come out, and I just wanted to thank everybody also for those that are listening at home that maybe couldn't make it, and we're very blessed to have this church here. I'm very confident in this church moving forward, and I'm very happy with the results of it, and even though we lost a third of the people just recently, you guys are still just powering through, and that's something that I definitely wanna preach about tonight, some things to think about, so let's go ahead and look down at our Bibles at verse number one in Psalm chapter 109. The Bible says, hold not thy peace, O God, my praise, for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me. They have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They compass me about also with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause. For my love, they are my adversaries, but I give myself unto prayer, and they have rewarded me evil for good and hated, or excuse me, hatred for my love. Set thou a wicked man over him and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned, and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few, and let another take his office. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for the scriptures tonight, and Lord, I just pray that you'd help me to preach what you laid on my heart tonight, and God, I just pray that you would just bless this church, continue to bless the leadership here, and Lord, all the church members. Lord, I pray that everybody would be in one accord and striving together for the gospel's sake, Lord, and for the truth's sake, and I just pray that you would just continue to bless Sure Foundation Baptist Church here in the UK, and Lord, let us charge forward, and Lord, just be a bright and shining light in a place that has a lot of spiritual darkness, and we pray these things in Jesus' precious name, amen. So in this psalm, and obviously a lot of you probably already know this, that this psalm is talking a lot about Judas, and Judas Iscariot betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ, and even though he walked with him and was taught by him, he was personally chosen by the Lord Jesus Christ, and everybody was, I'm guessing that everybody there was friends with him. Everybody was friends with Judas, including Jesus Christ himself, even though he knew what was going to happen with him, but there comes a time in every church, every church is gonna go through this if they're a proper church, that Judas is going to betray us. Now, Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, he's one specific person, but throughout the Bible, you see multitudes of people that have seemed to be good, seemed to be right, but then they just surprise their Judas Iscariot, and so the title of my sermon tonight is When Judas Betrays Us, When Judas Betrays Us. Now, Judas, for the intent of this sermon, just means simply someone that does betray you. Now, not everybody that betrays you is going to be like a reprobate, God-hating Judas Iscariot, but what is Judas famous for doing? He's famous for betraying the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And he was a definite reprobate. There's no doubt about that, but someone that, I've called people to Judas before, and they're like, how dare you call me unsaved? And I'm like, well, I'm not calling you unsaved. I'm just calling you someone that's betrayed me. Someone stabbed you in the back. And sometimes people will stab you in the back. Even Saul promised that he wouldn't hurt David and try to attack and kill David anymore, but what did he do? He tried to go back and kill him again. So Saul was a saved man, but yet he betrayed David and tried to have him killed multiple times for no reason. And so obviously David is the one that's authored this psalm here talking about Judas, but the title of the sermon is When Judas Betrays Us. And point number one tonight, Judas will betray us like he betrayed Jesus. Now again, what I'm saying is that there's Judases that are going to come and betray us. And this church has just recently gone through a big betrayal. And so I wanna preach to you about this thing, and I don't want people to get discouraged with this fact because it's gonna happen again, all right? So it's going to happen again, but how we respond to Judas betraying us is very important to how the mission continues to go on. Because I preached a couple of sermons on Sunday about making England King James again. And people will say, well, it was never meant to be a monarchy. What God put together, he never meant to be a monarchy. Well, isn't he the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Isn't it called the kingdom of God? Isn't it called the kingdom of heaven? That's the kingdom that we need to be a part of. The kingdom of God is not the kingdom of men, but it will be one day. It'll be where he's the king of everything. But yeah, I mean, people will say, well, it's not meant to be a kingdom, but it is a kingdom. And we need to continue to push forward the agenda of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't matter who the King of England is right now. What ultimately matters is that our king is the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we should push through and do our best when things like this happen. And look, sometimes when Judas betrays us, it might take a while, but then Judas might come back. Judas might come back and try to mess with you, or try to get you to leave the church or something. And that's ultimately what they wanna do. They wanna come in, cause havoc, try to overthrow the church, and then they want to drag as many people out as they can once they've been revealed. Now let's look at Mark chapter 14 tonight. Mark chapter 14. Number one, Judas will betray us like he betrayed Jesus. So just count on the fact that a Judas is gonna come out and betray us. And sometimes it's multiple Judases. Sometimes it's multiple people and people that wanna split a great church. There's something wrong with those people. And I'm not saying that those people aren't reprobates. I kind of tend to think that they are. But anyway, Mark chapter 14, verse 41. It says, and he cometh the third time and saith unto them, sleep on now and take your rest. It is enough, the hour is come. Behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hand of sinners. So this is Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane. He's trying to get the disciples to stay awake with him. And that's kind of a picture too. It's like sometimes the church falls asleep and they don't see the wolf coming. And we need to be obviously being vigilant and diligent and making sure, you know, but obviously without having to blame and try to pin the tail on the Judas all the time. There's a fine line. There's like a, it's like a middle. You can't be all the way over here or all the way over here. You kinda gotta be in the middle a little bit. And not everybody that gives you a red flag is necessarily a Judas. Sometimes people just are flaggy, you know? Sometimes people just aren't, haven't grown up in a Baptist church. Not faggy, but flaggy. So sometimes people are flaggy, right? So sometimes they might have a weird thing that they believe or something like that. But you know, when you get saved, you don't automatically believe every single doctrine in the Bible. I don't know if you guys realize that or not, but we all didn't believe the right things when we first got saved. It takes time to learn those things. And so if someone believes something that's kinda weird, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're a Judas or whatever, but we should look for the red flags when they're there or just log them in our memory bank and say, that was kind of a weird thing. And so then when it comes out, then it's not such a big surprise to you. But you know, we wanna give people the benefit of the doubt, don't we? We wanna give people the benefit of the doubt because if everybody that came to this church, we were just like, where'd you come from? What's your background? You know, and just like give them the third degree. And if we're like that, maybe we should be a little bit less like that and be a little welcoming. I mean, it seems like this church is pretty welcoming. I appreciate that. But anyway, Jesus is here and his disciples have all fallen asleep and he has just gotten done praying and he's about ready, he knows what he's about to go through. And he says in verse 42, rise up, let us go, lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand. And immediately while he yet spake cometh Judas, one of the 12 and with him a great multitude of swords and staves from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now, if you remember in the book of John, Judas, he stands up, remember Jesus says, hey, whoever I dip the sop, you know, they're saying, who is it that's gonna betray you? And he's like, whoever I dip the sop and hand it to him. And then like, Jesus dips the sop, hands it to Judas and then go, is it me? You know, like, that's how slick and that's how good he was is that people actually thought it was them. It's like, don't you think you know yourself better than that, like to say, is it me? Could it possibly be me? And then instead of the person that Jesus said it was when he dipped the sop and handed it to him. So, you know, Judases are very slick and very good at what they do. But here you have, I said, Judas will betray us like he betrayed Jesus and how did it happen? Well, he did it secretly, but then it was known to everybody at that moment when he did it. And that's kind of how it happens. It's like, we don't know when they're gonna, you know, these reprobate sleeper cells are gonna just pop up and explode and do the things that they do. But this is what Judas did, is, you know, the disciples are thinking, is it me? And then like, not too long after that, they see who it really is. Judas is the same person that Jesus said it was. But we don't always know who they are. We don't always know for sure who they are because they're very good at blending in. Now, obviously there's some that are kind of like low level scum that like you see them, you see that they're halfway wolves as soon as they walk in the door, they're like, okay, this person isn't very, you know, it's like, I'm a sheep. And it's like their ears hanging out, their tails wagging. It's like, yeah, I don't know about that. You know, they believe some weird strange doctrine or they're just, you know, some people like, we've had some low level wolves when we first started our church in Vancouver. But anyway, look at verse 44, it says, and he that betrayeth him had given them a token saying, whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he, take him and lead him away safely. So Judas had given them a token that this is what he's gonna do. He's gonna kiss the person that is the one. And so, remember, look at what it says, he that betrayed him. See, Judases are betrayers. They're backstabbers. They're people that want to hurt us. They're people that want to hurt the church. But Judas said, whomsoever I kiss, the same is he. And in verse 45, it says, and as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him and saith, master, master, and kissed him. And they laid their hands on him and took him. So Judas had given him a token. And I find that very interesting that it says that he had given him a token, you know. And what is the token of knowing that Judas was this betrayer, this wolf in sheep's clothing, this, you know, his name is Judas. And, you know, what he is, you know, when we talk about him post-Judas, is he is a Judas, you know. Well, his word has become a byword. Nobody in this room has the name Judas for a reason, because it's just a byword now, isn't it? It's a name that we don't want to name our children because it's synonymous with Jesus Christ being betrayed. Look at Philippians chapter one, verse 28. Philippians one, verse 28. But the fact that it says he had given them a token, and we know that Judas is called the son of perdition, right? I preached a sermon recently about how Judas pictures the antichrist, and one of the things that make him picture the antichrist is that he's called the son of perdition. Jesus said he was never saved. He never believed. He didn't lose his salvation. He never was saved. That's the problem. And, you know, we just sometimes, we just don't know who those people are gonna be. But how do we know the token of what Judas was? Well, the token was is that he walked up to a person that he'd been with for three years, that he'd ministered with, you know, that ministered with him in front of all of his friends, and walked up and kissed Jesus Christ on the face, signifying the betrayal that he was gonna betray him with. Look at Philippians 1, 28. It says, and in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition. See, we're gonna see when, you know, when someone is bad or someone is a Judas in our church that, you know, there's gonna be a token. There's gonna be something that we're gonna see in them eventually that shows us that they were never, that they're in perdition. There's someone that's not saved. So someone that's in perdition, if you just do a study on the word perdition, you're never gonna find a positive mention of someone that goes into perdition or a positive thing about that statement. It's always someone that's headed for hell. That's what it means. It means, perdition means damnation. Perdition means that they're gonna roast in hell eternally. That's what it means, okay? And it says, but to you of salvation and that of God. Now, text and constant online stalking is something I've been dealing with for a while. And it's funny, these people that leave our church and things like that, it's like only people with our phone numbers would know to just stalk us online. And I don't know what their aim is. Maybe it's just to terrorize us like this verse says. But I've been getting a lot of weird text messages and, you know, I get signed up for emails email addresses that I've never signed up for. And it's just like goes into, you know, it's basically what I'm receiving now is like online harassment. I've been getting it a lot lately. I'm sure that maybe some of you guys get a little bit of harassment online. I'm not sure, but this is one of the things that has been happening lately. And it is against the law to do this. But I know there's apps out there that can like, just people can, you know, if they have your number, then they can just text you from some rando number or whatever. And they text stuff like, hi, or hello. Hey, haven't talked to you a while. You know, and just, I think, well, I don't know what they're trying to do, like trying to engage you into some kind of conversation. But a lot of times that they'll just say, hey, it's brother Robert. And it's like, this isn't brother Robert's number. Like, what are you trying to do here? But this is just an example of things that people do to try to terrorize you. Now, obviously, I'm not afraid. I just push block, right? But people will do all kinds of strange things once they've left the church. And it's like, you know, normal people, that's why I'm saying it's a token. When someone tries to terrorize you, it's a token of their perdition. Because normal people, when they leave a church, or even if they got kicked out of a church, if they're just a normal person, maybe they just, you know, did something wrong and just need to be kicked out, they're not reprobates, okay? Normal people just move on with their life, don't they? Like, I've gone to other churches, and when I left, I didn't continuously stalk the pastor on every online ability. I didn't download an app where I could text and harass the person. I didn't download an app where I could text and harass all the people that go to that church. That's, isn't that weird? Isn't it weird when people just continuously stalk and harass and all these things? And that's what Philippians chapter 128 is saying. It's saying that when, you know, don't be terrified by your adversaries. You know, understand this, that it's an evident token of perdition. It's the evident token that there's something wrong with that person, and they wanna just try to terrorize you. And we shouldn't allow those things to terrorize us, we should just know that when someone is doing something weird like that, or just making up all kinds of weird online personas, and calling themselves, you know, whatever, anything besides their real name because they're really, in reality, they're cowards, aren't they? They won't face you with their real name because they're just total cowards and scumbags. As Brother Ian would say, peer scum, right? That's the type of people that try to, there is a difference between someone that's just, you know, maybe they just got kicked out for doing something wrong, and a difference between someone that's a total reprobate, okay? And reprobates will try to continue to terrorize people afterwards, because that's what psychopaths do, right, don't they terrorize, and they're like predators. Look at the, look at back at Psalm chapter 109, look at verse, verse number three. It says, they compass me about also with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause. Well, I mean, what kind of person fights against someone for no reason? A scum, a piece of garbage reprobate, right? Look at verse two, for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me, they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. This is another thing that these types of people like to do, they just like to lie and make things up. Look at verse number four. For my love, they are my adversaries. So he's saying I gave them love, and what are they? They're my enemies because of the love I've shown them. But I give myself unto prayer, verse five, they have rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my love. This is a, I mean, this is such a bad person, it's just unimaginable to someone like us, because, you know, we don't go to, we don't wait and go to sleep and think, who can I try to destroy before I go to bed at night? The Bible talks about people that aren't even able to sleep until they've done mischief, and mischief doesn't just mean like they play a little prank or something, but it can mean that. But these are people that wanna try to destroy someone, and they can't even sleep unless they've done somebody wrong or evil. And when we love somebody and they hate us in return, you know, and I'm talking about in the church situation, not just random unsaved people, this is a very strange phenomenon that we have to deal with, because you notice you won't see a lot of churches, like just regular churches that aren't doing anything for God, they don't really have this issue. This is a phenomenon I've never seen until I started, you know, being new IFB or whatever. But you know, when you think about it, there's a lot of churches that have been conquered already, so why is the devil gonna try to mess with them? Why would he care? He's gonna focus his energy on people that are trying to do something that's good. He's gonna try to focus his energy on people that are trying to get out there and preach the gospel, right, because he wants to drag as many people to hell with him as he can, and so wouldn't it make sense that the people that are his children, the children of Belial, that they would act the same way? They wanna come in and try to drag as many people out as they can and make them unfruitful. I mean, you can't make them unsaved. You can't take away someone's salvation, but you know what you can do? Take them out of the fight. You can take them out of the church and get them disgruntled, and that's kind of how they operate. They still operate on the outside like a wolf would, because wolves are scared of the shepherd. Those wolves that got kicked out, they're not gonna come back in here and try to start any crap. They're not going to. Just like, you know, they played a tough guy here, but when it came down to it, they just got walked out. They didn't do anything. There was nothing tough about it. They're scared. Once they get realized, once people realize what they are, then they'll just circle around. Actual wolves do that. They circle around trying to find the weakness in the camp. They try to find the weakest animal they can attack. They try to attack the weakest person they can. Maybe it's a child. That's like these reprobates are all like predators. That's what they do. They just circle around trying to find a weakness that they can attack at, and that's why it's good to have people like this gone from our church. And so, number one, Judas is going to attack. It's gonna happen. He's gonna betray us just like the Lord Jesus was betrayed. He's gonna betray us. And what do I mean by that? Well, number two, when Judas betrays us, it's going to hurt. Why is it gonna hurt? Well, let's look at Matthew chapter 26. There's a parallel passage to Mark chapter 14, and it gives us a little more detail here. That's why the gospels are so great, because it's gonna give us some more detail and insight from those men that wrote the gospels down for us. But Matthew chapter 26, verse 21, it's a very long chapter, but let's start in verse 21. It says, and as they did eat, he said, verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me, and the Son of Man goeth as it is written of him, but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It had been better, or excuse me, it had been good for that man if he had never been born. So Jesus is talking about Judas here. It says in verse 25, then Judas which betrayed him answered and said, Master, is it I? And he said unto him, Thou hast said. I love how Jesus does that. People will ask him a question, and they'll go, that's what you said? Because it's like he knows what's in their heart, he knows what they're thinking about. But it's interesting that he says it had been good for that man if he had never been born. What a sad thing. And he's talking about someone, again, who he's had to be around for three years. So don't get all upset if you have to be around someone for three minutes. Jesus put up with this guy for three years, and he knew that he had some kind of wicked devices and influences, and that ultimately he was gonna betray him, but he still allowed him to be around the other disciples. And that should just tell us that the same thing is going to be for us in our church life. There's gonna be people that are gonna just get in here, and then they're gonna just slowly fester until they reveal themselves. And it took about a year and a half for these people that were kicked out of here to finally get where we had two witnesses against them to throw them out. So look what it says, skip down to verse 47. It says, and while he had spake, lo, Judas, one of the 12, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, whosoever I shall kiss, that same is he, hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus and said, hail, master, and kissed him. He even said, hail, he calls him master. And look what Jesus says to him in verse 50. He says, and Jesus said unto him, friend, wherefore art thou come? Isn't that interesting? Jesus knows how bad this guy is, but yet he still calls him friend. You know why? Because Jesus treated him like a friend. Even though he knew what he was, Jesus still treated him well. And sometimes we can know, like sometimes the leadership will see things that you don't see. So don't feel bad that maybe you got duped by somebody that brother Ian kind of sniffed out before. Don't feel upset about that, but here's the thing, as pastors and evangelists and things like that and church leaders, we can't just jump on everything that somebody does. You have to have two witnesses. You have to, right? Otherwise it's not a biblical thing to do. And so the way it was done, a lot of the people were here, were sitting here when it happened, and how it went down, I believe that God just confounded their minds to do something so brazen and stupid as to just say, oh, he was yelling at my wife. He yelled at my wife for 28 minutes or whatever. I mean, what a dumb thing to be revealed as, but God is the one that's gonna give that confounding to them so that they get caught and just how it happened was just masterful. And I'll explain that here more in just a minute here, but Jesus says, friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they and laid hands on Jesus and took him. The last thing that Jesus says to Judas is he asks him a question. Friend, what are you here for? Friend. Jesus kissed Jesus on the face, and it's basically like kissing the very door to heaven, and then he still goes straight to hell. That's how bad Judas was. Who does that? Someone really bad. And when Judas, in our lives, reveals himself, it's usually someone that we call a friend to, isn't it? It's not the person with the black eyeliner underneath his eyes that's like, heh, heh, heh. It's somebody that we think is charismatic. You know, there's someone we call friend, there's someone that we prayed with, someone we prayed for, someone we spent time with, someone we counseled together with, someone that we helped, someone that our church helped, someone that we gave marriage counseling to, someone that we married possibly, someone that we did funerals for their family. You know, I'm talking about the leadership in those cases, but someone whose children we led to Christ, someone that we called a friend. That's who it usually is, someone that's been around for a while, and we don't think that they are what they really are, but see, Judas will reveal himself. And so we have to understand that when Judas reveals himself, it's gonna be someone that we know or we're friends with. You know, and not everybody might be friends with them. Maybe someone's like, I knew he was bad the whole time. It's like, yeah, people always say that, you know? I knew Garrett was bad the whole time, but Garrett Kirchway. But that's probably because you had a red flag in your mind about that person, and you just tucked it away, and you're like, you know what, that might be kind of weird, but I'm still gonna show this person Christian love. I'm still gonna be a brother in Christ to them. I'm still gonna help them. There's people that have betrayed me that they were very good friends of mine. I trusted them with everything, and then they stabbed me in the back, and it hurts. When Judas betrays you, it's usually a friend, and it usually hurts. It's not just like, ah, yeah, well, I just wanted to get rid of them anyway. It's not always like that. Maybe sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's someone that you cared for, you prayed for, and all these different things, you know? But Jesus Christ loved Judas. At some point, he loved him, didn't he? I mean, if he called him friend, he called him even though he knew that he was bad. He ministered unto him. He taught him things, and you know what Judas did? He returned evil for his good, hate for his love. But that's what's gonna happen when we are in the church life that we're in, and it's just something we have to get used to. You know, when it happened, I'm sure that a lot of people were probably really shocked, and I'm not even gonna ask for a call of hands of who was shocked. I'm sure it was shocking to some people. But when we get burned by a Judas, it could just be even a disgruntled church member. It hurts, it's very disappointing, because sometimes people that are good people, but they're just kind of weak in the faith, or weak mentally, or just, you know, they just don't have it all together, those are the people that the wolves pull out with them. Because they are like predators. You know, the Bible teaches that they are like predators. They compass about. And then they target the weak. Wolves don't generally just go after the biggest alpha male bull in a load of cattle, do they? They don't go after the big one that can just rip them to shreds with their horns. They go after the little babies, don't they? They go after the ones that are maybe injured, maybe they got a little limp. They target that person, or not the person, they target that other animal, and then they focus their rage and their pain. Try to eat that one that's weak. But that's, we have to understand that's what's gonna happen here. And so, there was three, there was four couples that were kicked out, but there was three, you know, two, one couple's been restored, but they weren't part of what the main thing that happened, where they actually literally stood up in our church, and lied through their teeth in front of everybody here. These people are Alex Affetado, is it Affetado? Is that how you, and obviously his wife, him and his wife Holly are both kicked out. Alex didn't get kicked out to the very end because he tried to change his story in the middle of it. But the reason why I'm mentioning names is because I wanna make sure that these people are publicly marked. Because there's not, the video that we, that where all this happened is not public, but I wanna make sure that they're publicly marked because I don't want them running around to other churches thinking that they have an inroad there. So as the pastor of Church Foundation Baptist Church, I'm publicly marking Alex and Holly Affetado, Doran and Elena Lazar, Ben and Nick Franklin. They're all marked, and basically, according to the Bible, we're to have no fellowship with them. Okay, and I know the brother Ian probably has already said that, but I just wanna make it clear that I stand behind Ian with those people being kicked out, and they're never coming back. And I'll tell you why. I'll explain that in the rest of this sermon, but number three tonight, when Judas betrays us, we must judge right and true without pity. When Judas betrays us, we must judge right and true without pity. This is what the Bible teaches, folks. And like, this is some kind of nasty, it is a little bit of a nasty business, isn't it, dealing with these types of people. Let's turn over to 1 Corinthians 5, and brother Ian's preaching a series right now about people that should be kicked out of church. I think that's the, isn't that what the series is called? People that should be kicked out of church. And so, you know, I know that church, maybe in your past, might not have been like this, and when you saw the showdown that happened here, it was pretty dramatic. Like, if you weren't here and did not see it, I watched it same day, and I was like, dang, that was gangsta. But anyway, it was pretty, you know, like, it was just a normal day at our church, and I'm sitting here watching, like, this showdown happen of wicked people. But basically, just what happened is that Ben, he basically false accused Ian of a bunch of things over a meeting that happened. And Ian brought two couple, he brought in Doran and Elena and Ben and Nick, and he wanted to find out whether, you know, it really wasn't a big deal, but he wanted to find out, like, whether she was, like, Elena was gossiping to somebody else. And that's really how it all kind of started. Seems like a petty deal. Some people might think, well, that's pretty petty. It is, but here's what's not petty. Saying that Ian is a hypocrite and that Ian is a liar, and like, he had a, I mean, a 10-page, basically, essay that he sent to me, like, accusing Ian of all this stuff, and it's like, I had already heard the recording, though. I knew exactly what was said, and his accusation is, you know, first it started out he shouted at my wife and made her cry, which wasn't true. Who was here when that happened? Raise your hands. So did he shout at his wife and make her cry? No. Did he shout at any time in that whole recording to make his wife cry? No? Yeah, and so that's kind of what took place, is that, you know, Ben basically told me that he had three witnesses, and I was like, because I had told Ben that he needed to apologize and just move on. If he wants to come to this church, he's gonna need to apologize or respond to the letter that Ian wrote back to him answering his accusations or, you know, or just move on, apologize, and be done with it. But he just really got bold. I think that he just didn't realize, obviously, that there was a recording of everything that was said there, and then he just doubled down and then said it was like he shouted at them for 28 minutes or whatever it was, a half hour. So then, you know, that's when the three false witnesses stood up, and like Alex's, you know, his arms, you know. But then like once he, I think he kind of backed down a little bit of what he was saying, but still said, I listened outside and I could hear what they were saying, and it was just like, so Ian waited to kick him out for the dramatic ending, but, you know, we were hoping to not have to play that whole thing and Ian to have to give all the commentary on it, but it ended up being that it had to be done. So anyway, you guys all, everybody that goes to this church already knows that, but, you know, basically what they did was so evil and so wicked that I would never allow someone that did something that brazen to come back to this church again. Look at 1 Corinthians 5, 4, it says, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you're gathered together in my spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such and one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So what is the Bible talking about here? Well, it's talking about this guy that committed fornication with his father's wife, and they were like not wanting to kick the guy out. Paul says you gotta kick this guy out. But what's the Bible say here? It says to deliver such and one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh. What happens when someone's kicked out of this church? The Bible says that they're given over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Now look at verse six. Your glory is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? So when you have this type of leaven in your church, you have to what? Get rid of it, that's what it says. Purge out therefore, verse seven, the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump. And so now this church has purged that leaven out of our church. We had to kick them out because you know what? They stood up and railed and lied about something. It doesn't matter how stupid it was, it's still railing and lying. And so in order for this church to be a new lump and to continue forward, then they had to be purged out of here. Does it say purge out the old leaven? That ye may be a new lump? As ye are unleavened for even Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company. If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater, or what's it say there? A railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such and one know not to eat. We're to have, it says not to keep company. What does that mean? You don't hang out with them. You don't eat with them. So if someone's kicked out of this church, that means you're to have no fellowship with them. And that's not just like us like trying to control you or something. That's what God says. Why does he say that? Because they're leavened. Because there's someone poison, they're trying to poison the well here and you don't want to be outside hanging out with them. We're like, well, yeah, but the Bible says to restore them that are, you know, if you either spiritual restore them, that's not what it's talking about here in this case. Because what they did was way more brazen than just someone, if someone is a railer, can they be forgiven? Yes, they can be forgiven. But what they did here was different. It was a different level. And that's why the other couple that got kicked out was forgiven for the, and after they repented, okay? So look at verse 12, it says, and what have I to do to judge them that are without, do not you judge them that are within? But them that are without, God judges, therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. What's the Bible say that we're supposed to do with these types of people? We're supposed to put them out of the church. God's gonna deal with them. God's gonna judge them. And you know what? If they're not what I think they are, then, you know, they'll thrive someplace else. But what I've seen is that some of them are reaching out online to other pastors. They're still, see that, because that's what they're gonna do. They're gonna use other angles to try to get into other circles, because we don't all know each other who hangs around each other necessarily. But all it takes is one of these wolves to just, you know, they're gonna, I just wanna help to warn other pastors about these people, because if they're gonna come in to another church, I want to warn that pastor. Now, if someone doesn't wanna take and heed to the warning, they don't wanna take the mark that we put upon them, then that's their problem. And they can just deal with it themselves. But I'll tell you what, you know, people should take heed when someone's been marked publicly by a pastor. And you know what? It's not like I'm just on a hair trigger to do this type of thing. I'm not just kicking people out left and right every single week. But even if I was, and I'm right, then it's still not wrong to kick someone out and enforce a mark upon them. Turn to Romans chapter 16, verse 17. Romans chapter 16, verse 17. Romans chapter 16, verse 17. See, the Bible tells us we're supposed to throw people out. We're supposed to not keep company with these types of people. And we're supposed to judge those people from within. And you know, I allowed the church to judge the situation. See, what was brought forth was their false accusation. And then they got to say what their false accusation was. All three of them, didn't they get to stand up and say what they said that they saw, right? And then the recording was played. And then everybody here knew that they were liars. But had that recording not been there, then what would have been stopping them from trying to overthrow Ian and the church? What would have stopped them? So we have to deal with things. Look at Romans 16, 17. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you've received. And what's it say, hang out with them? Go to tea with them? Eat dinner with them? Talk to them? Message them? Text them? What's it say? Avoid them, doesn't it? Isn't that what it says? And I'm not saying anybody here is talking to these people that were thrown out. But I'll tell you what, and look, I'm not gonna single you out or whatever, but you know if you are talking to them, and if you are talking to them, then shame on you. You're not right with God, and you need to repent of that. And you don't have to come tell me. You don't have to come tell brother Ian, but let me tell you something. If you're hanging out with them, they are gonna drag you down. They're gonna drag you down. Look, God gave that to us because, I'll tell you what, they had done a lot of weird things up until that point. And I'll list for you some of the weird things that they did later. That just, it's just a textbook. It's a playbook for these people. This is what they do. This is what they always do. And I'll run through some of those with you, but let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15. Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15. While you're turning around, I'm just gonna read the rest of Romans 16 verse 18. It says, for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Look, you don't want to be hanging around these people. That's why we're supposed to mark them. That's why we're supposed to avoid them so that you know who to avoid. And if their names are named publicly, and you're like, well, that's just not right for you to name their names publicly. Well, how come Paul named people's names publicly then? How come John named people's names publicly? How come Jesus named people's names publicly? You're like, who? How about Herod? Called him a fox. You know, and you guys know what foxes are like. They're bad, aren't they? All right, so, but you're in Deuteronomy. Look at verse 19, verse 15, it says, now this is what made me, I was reading this just in my daily Bible reading, and I saw this, and I thought, well, this really bears a lot of weight in my decision to never allow them back. You know, and the other thing is, they never tried to repent afterwards. They just said, well, you know, there's more to that recording, which is a total lie. If you listen to it, then you know that there's nowhere in that recording. It's like you heard it from beginning to end, and I made sure that he was gonna play the whole thing in its entirety. But then I got a message from Doran, just like right after it, and said, there's 10 more minutes missing from that. It's like, no, there isn't. I didn't even answer him, because I don't wanna talk to him at all. But these people are slithering around in our circles still, and I just wanna make sure that like, anybody that wants to can just listen to this sermon, and they know these people are marked permanently from our church, and if you wanna hang out with them, then that's your problem. But, you know, I would advise against it. Look at what it says in verse 15. One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth, at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. So that's why, so when he said, see, he wanted the three witnesses, and when they stood up, they had two or three witnesses, right? And they thought they were gonna smash Ian into oblivion, and that would've smashed this church into oblivion. Do you understand how pivotal that day was to this church's moving forward? It was very pivotal. It's a big deal. It's like, you're being dramatic, Pastor Thompson. I'm not being dramatic at all. It was pivotal. It says, if a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him which is wrong, then both the men between whom the controversy is shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days. And the judges shall make diligent inquisition, and behold, if the witness be a false witness, and have testified falsely against his brother, then shall you do unto him as he had thought to do unto his brother. So shall thou put the evil away from among you, and those which remain shall hear and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more such evil among you. And thine eye shall not pity. You see that? Thine eye shall not pity. But life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. So whatever those false witnesses' intentions were to this church and to the leadership of this church, those things should be done unto them. What were they trying to do? They were trying to overthrow Brother Ian as the leader here. And so, and what would have happened? Do you think Ian would have just stayed at this church, or do you think that they would have made him go if they had gotten their way? They would have made him go in shame because he didn't have the witnesses that he needed, and they would have stood before him as three false witnesses. Isn't that what Jezebel did to Naboth? He had a vineyard that Ahab really wanted pretty bad, and his wife was like, aren't you the king? And then she hired false witnesses to stand up, and supposedly it was a big celebration for him, but really the false witnesses were standing up to murder him, and that's what happened. They bore false witness against him, and everybody threw rocks at him until he died. Now, we're living in an age where these things, like we don't live under God's government right now, but this is what God says should happen. Now, they weren't trying to stand up to have him put to death. They were trying to stand up to have him thrown out of this church. So shouldn't what they wanted to do happen to them? Yes. Do you think that they would have allowed him to stay? Do you think they would have allowed him to come back? No, they would have just turned, this church would have turned into a nightmare fanboy garbage church. Turned into a trash can. See, that's why I know that God is with this church, because God stood up for us when we didn't have, you know, we didn't have everything we needed, and he just allowed that to happen. I mean, over something so trivial, but he still allowed it to happen, and it's like we got, you know, three for the price of one or whatever, you know, one stone, three wicked families thrown out of this church. So in the New Testament, we can only go as far as our judgments are allowed to go by law. So the extent of the power of our church is to cast them out, right? We can't just do what would have been done in the Old Testament, we have to just cast them out. That's why 1 Corinthians 5 is there, so we know what do we do in this situation? You throw them out, you get the leaven out of the church. If someone murders someone in our church, the police come and take them away, hopefully. That's what would be done. So like, whatever we have in our power is what we can do, and instead of like, stoning false prophets or whatever, you know, stoning sodomites and pedophiles or whatever, we have to just call the police on them, but a lot of times, even nowadays, the police won't come. They wouldn't come, if they said, we got a sodomite down here, Sir Foundation Baptist UK, come quickly. They'd be like, yeah, we're gonna take you to jail. That's basically what happened, but what can we do? We have the right to throw them out. That's what we have the right to do, and that's what was done. So turn to 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Corinthians 6. So the only thing we can do to punish these evildoers is throw them out of the church. That's what the Bible says to do. We don't live under the Levitical priesthood. We don't live under the Old Testament laws. Not that they're not still good, not that they're not still right. Of course they're right, of course they're true. The law of the Lord is perfect, right? But the only thing we can do is just get them out of here. So when Judas attacks, you know, first of all, we need to understand that Judas is going to attack, and number two, when Judas attacks, it's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt our church family members. It's gonna hurt our church in some way, shape, or form, but we also need to not, number three, we also need to not pity these types of people when they're thrown out. We gotta judge rightly, and hey, it doesn't matter how much you liked them, doesn't matter how much you loved them, doesn't matter whether they helped fix your car, doesn't matter, whatever it is that they've done, that has nothing to do with judging rightly according to what the Bible says. So if someone is supporting you full-time, it doesn't matter. If they're like helping you in every way, shape, and form, if that person is a false witness or a false prophet or just anything said in 1 Corinthians 5 and they're gonna be thrown out of the church, that should be where you just like cut everything off and say, you know what, what God says is right. I don't care how good of a friend they are. The Bible says if someone's a false prophet, in Deuteronomy chapter six, if someone's a false prophet, even if it's your own spouse, you were supposed to rise up and put your hand on them first and then to be stoned with stones. I mean, God looks at things a lot differently than we do. We get all sympathetic and sentimental and things like that, and again, I'm not saying that that's what we should do now, right now, but there was a time when it was supposed to be done, and the reason why Israel was always overthrown is because people just refused to do what God said. In the future, it'll be like that, when the kingdom of God has actually come unto us and we're judging with the Lord Jesus Christ, things are gonna be a little bit different, a lot different. So here in 1 Corinthians 6, one, look what it says. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are you worthy, or excuse me, unworthy, to judge the smallest matter? So what's the Bible, what's God saying here? What's the Apostle Paul telling us here through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he's saying, hey, we should be able to judge small matters in church, and we're gonna judge the world someday, so we can't judge a simple matter in a church service? Says, look, know you not that we shall judge angels? How much more the things that pertain to this life? So, you know, these people that say we're not supposed to judge, I mean, this is the opposite of what's being taught in scripture right here. If then you have judgments of the things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. And I wouldn't say that there was a bunch of people that were least esteemed, but I allowed this church to, I mean, when Brother Ian said, you know, what do the people of the Lord have to say? And they're like, you know, all in unison, saying, you know, he's like, did I shout at them? They're like, everybody was like, no! You know, it was pretty cool. Because anybody can listen and judge and hear, we should be able to judge these things for ourselves. And I mean, they kind of just let us set it up and knock it down. I was just like really surprised, actually. But you know, God, you know, for all these things, all the wicked and evil things that they do, and all the plans that they make, and all the plots that they make, and whatever they're doing with these computers trying to harass us all the time, trying to call the authorities on us and tell them we're bad parents, and just whatever it is that they're trying to do, these people are always gonna try to do something, but you know what? God is always going to be our benefactor. You know what, having the benefactor that rules the whole universe is a pretty good ally to have, isn't it? I'd rather have God than any of their little, you know, he could set them up, the devil, the God of this world could set them up with everything he wants, but you know what, I'd rather have eternity and being right with God, and then having some bad things happen to me here, than to get what they get, which is, you know, the devil just treats them right while they're here on this earth, but then they're gonna go and roast in hell for all eternity. Number four tonight, when Judas attacks, we need to get on the right side of things. So our church got on the right side of things, but look, this isn't the only time, maybe something as dramatic like this might not ever happen again, but I mean, I believe that God just allowed you guys to see what, you know, the leadership sees, and hear what the leadership hears sometimes, because it was just like, it was in front of everybody. I mean, you got to take that picture with Ian and live real time, as they just slandered and lied, and everything that they said was just, was false. You guys got to be with that, in that situation, you guys got to judge that situation, and see it all played out. That might not happen again, but turn to Exodus chapter 32. But here's, you know, if you're on the fence, and I'm not saying anybody is, but if you're on the fence about whether these people are bad or not, you know, just judge the situation. Did they lie or did they not? Did they stand up in this church and proclaim false witnesses to try to get a man of God slandered and thrown out of here? If that's what they did, then you need to get on the right side of things. It doesn't matter what they think now, they're out of here. And so we need to get on the right side of things when we realize when Judas attacks, we got to get on that right side. So look at Exodus 32 verse 25, it says, and when Moses saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies, then Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me. So Moses comes down, he smashes the 10 commandments. Moses is furious, he's angry. And you know, Moses was, he had a temper, didn't he? He comes down, they're all dancing, they're all naked. There's two golden calves there. He just is up, you know, on the mountain top with God, just getting all spiritual. And he comes down and sees everybody. He's not even gone for very long. And they've totally corrupted themselves, he's angry. And when he comes back down, he said, you know, he smashes it, he's just upset. He said, who's on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. So there was a faction of people that were doing something wicked and bad. And how they handled it was this, verse 27. And he said unto them, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses and there fell of the people that day about 3,000 men. For Moses had said, consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, even every man upon his son and upon his brother, they may bestow upon you a blessing this day. And it came to pass on the moral that Moses said unto the people, you have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up to the Lord, pray adventure, I shall make an atonement for your sin. And so basically Moses, you know, he even though all these people sin and everything, but the people that were the rebellious ones that didn't want to get right with God, what happened to them? Moses said, kill them, get them out of here. And the only way we can kill, you know, people here is spiritually throw them outside of the church and let God deal with them. Let God sick Satan on them and allow them to be destroyed. But you notice he's saying, who's on the Lord's side. See, when Jesus reveals himself and betrays us, we should immediately get on the Lord's side. We don't want to get on the side of the wicked and evil people and allow them to mess with our minds and do all these things. Now, here's some things to look out for when it comes to these types of people, these false brethren coming in unawares. So flattery, don't allow people to flatter you. If someone just comes out, oh, you know, your sermon's so good, it's so much better than Brother Ian's sermon. I really like the way you preach. You know what, I think you're the best preacher that ever lived. People will lay it on thick. I think you're the best parent. I think you're the best dad. You're the best Bible reader. Whatever it is that they're saying, just don't allow, once people start flattering you, just know that lies are coming out of their mouth afterwards. You're not the greatest thing that ever lived. You're not the greatest preacher that ever preached. You're not the best thing since sliced bread. And some people don't slice, you slice your own bread, whatever. But yeah, you gotta watch out for flattery, okay? Flattery is going to be the key to where people try to get into your hearts. They're gonna tell you how great you are, and then they're gonna lavish you with gifts. You know, a gift perverteth, it's gonna pervert you and your judgment. And so when someone does something really nice or gives you a gift or something like that, that's just to butter you up, isn't it? So they flatter you, they give you gifts, and then they kind of feel like they have the hook in you. So when they drop their mask, and they wanna teach you some wicked false doctrine that they believe, then it makes you feel like, well, they've been so nice to me. They've said all these compliments to me. They've given me all these gifts, and if I say anything, I'd feel bad about it because they've helped me out so much. Isn't that what they do? Come spend the night at my house, brother. Oh, brother. And they talk all spiritually, don't they? I love you, brother. They get, it gets weird, right? So, but that's the kind of things they do. And this is what these types of people do. Also, when a new person comes to the church, they'll say, hey, why don't you come stay at my house this weekend? And then, hey, let me give you a ride. Hey, can I get your email address and contact information? When I told Pastor Mendez, and this is before this ever took place, but I already knew that there was kind of a showdown brewing, and I already knew that there was some bad, that there was some bad faction in here, and I was just telling Pastor Mendez about it. I didn't say like who they were because he wouldn't know anyway, but I just said, this is some of the things that they're doing, and he goes, they're bad. That's what he said, they're bad. He's like, I don't have a Bible verse for it, but they're bad. And I was like, okay, well. I mean, I trust Pastor Mendez's judgment. And really, there is no Bible verse for saying, but they will try to take you aside, take you into the corner, teach you stuff that's not right, teach you false things, but first they'll flatter you. They'll get your contact information. Here's another thing to look out for, the video, the people with the video game numbers. Apparently, Doran got the whole hospital saved when he had broken ribs, right? And then lifted someone's car like the day he got out, or I don't know, was it the day he got out? With broken ribs, lifted up someone's car that goes to this church and broke their bumper off or something? I don't know, it's like that was, the demons giving him power or what? But I had my ribs popped out before out of joint, and I couldn't, they hurt for six months. If someone has broken ribs, they're not gonna pick up a car the next day or whatever. That's pretty crazy, right? But I'm just saying that they will just video game number, they'll say, I got 10 people saved, I got 20 people saved. It's like, no, you didn't, man, come on. I mean, if a place is receptive, it is possible to get five and six people saved in a day. If you're going out for like hours at a time and you're in a very receptive area, it's possible to get a lot of salvations, but like, I mean, if you're coming back with 10, 15 people saved, it's like, eh. I've got 10 people saved in a day one time and my whole time I've been, you know, soul winning. And I was out for hours, and I got six kids saved at the very end of the day, and they were all paying attention. I didn't count everybody that I was preaching to, but I'm not trying to put myself, I'm just saying that like when you get a day like that, it's very rare. It doesn't just happen every week. If you're in the Philippines and you're getting 10 people saved a day, that's normal. But if you're like getting 30 every single day, unless you speak the language and like giving people, you know, just they're preaching the gospel and over and over again, it's just, you know, people just like this, we're gonna do the video game style numbers. And they're also very hyper spiritual and talk very spiritually. Amen, brother, God bless. And there's nothing wrong with saying that kind of stuff. Obviously we're Christians, we should have somewhat of a Christian vernacular, but if everything is just over the top, brother, brother, you know, God is good, praise God, over everything, it's like, my cat got run over last night, praise God. You know, it's just like, it gets pretty weird. But anyway, they're hyper spiritual, you know, and then a weird and erratic belief might pop up. So watch out for that. And then again, like they'll drop their mass from time to time, but they know that they have certain people hooked to the point where they're not gonna say anything. But if someone does something, says something really strange, really weird, then you should just let brother Ian know. You know, don't keep those things to yourself. Watch out for highly ambitious and self-willed people. I'm not talking about people that are zealous. There's a difference between being zealous and highly ambitious and self-willed. See, the Bible says as a pastor, you're not supposed to be self-willed. That means that you're what? Everything is for yourself. Everything is for your will, for yourself. And so we gotta be careful around people that are just so ambitious and so ready to jump into leadership. And I want people to be in the leadership. I don't want you to be freaked out and say, well, Pastor Thompson said, you know, I want you to be, I want people to step up and be leaders, but not to the point where you're, you know, stabbing your way up to the top, right? If you know what I mean by that. And then watch out for people that are covetous. The covetous, you know, secretly they're covetous and want things that they shouldn't have. So, and then we should not also seek to justify the wicked. So these people have all these weird things. They get thrown out and then people will still be like, they're not that bad. It's like, what are you talking about? The Bible says to throw them out, you know, God just doesn't tell us to throw people out for no reason. Don't justify the wicked. You know, turn to Numbers chapter 16, verse 41. Numbers chapter 16, verse 41. The Bible says in Numbers 16, 41. And so this is where, you know, Korah comes out and basically tries to take over from Moses. And there's the Korah rebellion that happens. And it's obvious whose side God was on because they all dropped into hell later on in the story. But actually, so this has already happened. So they'd all dropped down into hell. They rebelled against Moses. They rebelled against Aaron. God showed everybody whose side he was on. And then the people that were with them, here's what they said, verse 41. But on the morrow, so the day after this happens, all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, you have killed the people of the Lord. I just find this such a strange thing for them to say. You know, people that are saved don't drop into hell. People that are saved cannot go to hell. So they're like saying, you've killed the people of the Lord. These aren't the people of the Lord that were killed. And number one, Moses didn't kill them. Aaron didn't kill them. God killed them. Moses just said, well hey, you know, if they die a normal death, it's just all of a sudden that earth opens up and kills everybody there, right? And then these people are like, you've killed the people of the Lord. And it came to pass when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron. So not only do they say that, they gather against them and then look toward the tabernacle of the congregation. Behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared. And Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of the congregation. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, get you up from among this congregation that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces. So, you know, there was a big amount of people that fell because of this Korah rebellion. Even after Korah and all of his people went into hell, these other people stood up against Moses so that, what were they on? They were on the wrong side of things, weren't they? They're so wrong that they actually think that people that are saved can go to hell. That's how wrong they are. How are you gonna call someone that gets smoked like that the people of the Lord? We gotta be on the right side of things and we need to judge things correctly. Number five is my last point. Turn to Acts chapter one. Acts chapter number one. Don't worry, the fish and chips are coming, old boy. Number five. When Judas attacks, we need to just move forward and continue serving. When Judas attacks, when Judas betrays, we just need to move forward and continue serving. Acts chapter number one, look at verse 14. So this is after Jesus betrayed. This is after Jesus is resurrected. This is after Jesus has gone up into heaven and now it's just the 12 or the 11, if you want. This is the 11 because Judas is dead and hanged himself by now. And you have a small gathering of people here. It says these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brethren. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of disciples and said the number of names together were about 120. Men and brethren, the scriptures must have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us and had obtained part of this ministry. Now the man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst and all of his bowels gushed out. And it was known until all the dwellers of Jerusalem and so much as the field is called in the proper tongue, eclodima, that is to say the field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, let his habitation be desolate, let no man dwell therein and let his bishopric let another take. So let's talk about obviously the verses we began with. Wherefore of these men which have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning at the baptism of John the same day he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be witness with us of his resurrection. And they appointed two, Joseph called Varsabas, whose surname was Justice of Matthias, and they prayed and said, Thou Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of the ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go in his place. So of course this is when they cast lots, Matthias is chosen, but they didn't just whine and cry. Oh, Judas, he was so good. What did they do? They got past Judas. They're like, we need to replace Judas. Judas is a wicked person. Judas killed himself. Judas is a reprobate. Judas is in hell. Let's pick somebody else and let's go forward. They didn't sit there and whine and complain and cry about it. They just continued forward. And that's what we need to do when Judas reveals himself is we can't just dwell upon these people and say, oh, they're poor kids or this and that. Look, hey, quit worrying about that. You let God worry about that. And you know what you need to do? Just continue to serve God with your life. Because you're not gonna bring, number one, you're not gonna bring them back here. And if you go and follow them, you're gonna follow them right off the cliff is where they're going to, okay? Don't follow Judas off the cliff. What happened to him? He fell headlong and his bowels gushed out upon him after he killed himself. We don't wanna follow Judas off the cliff. We wanna move forward. The disciples replaced Judas and moved forward. Look at 2 Timothy 3 verse 13. I got two more places to have you turn and I'm done. 2 Timothy 3, 13 says, did I say 2, 13? 2 Timothy 3, 13. We gotta understand this. We gotta just realize this is gonna happen, especially in a church like this. I wouldn't even get up and preach this type of sermon if it wasn't necessary. It is necessary because we have to know where we're going from here on out. And I want you to know that I'm standing with that guy right there, Brother Ian, to lead this church forward, okay? It says, but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. See, it's not gonna get better, folks. It's gonna get worse. And so, and again, when all churches are basically falling away from the faith, when churches are like standing, you know, rolling rainbow flags out, when churches are, you know, have women pastors, when, you know, I mean, like half the churches here have women pastors. It's like all the Church of England, what's going on? We have to be on guard even more and just realize, hey, the hits are gonna keep coming. But you gotta take the hit and keep on moving. It says in verse 14, but continue. See that word, but, those three words, but continue? No, you know, evil men and seducers are gonna wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, but continue. Thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. The Apostle Paul is saying, hey, it doesn't matter what happens, these people are gonna get worse and worse. Hymenaeus, Philetus, Hermogenes, all these people, they're gonna wax worse and worse. They're gonna, you know, pop out in churches everywhere. But, you know, what the Apostle Paul says to them, but continue. You know what, and he's trying to get his man, Timothy, to get his church motivated to continue forward. Now turn to Hebrews chapter 12, verse number 18. See, we have to continue going no matter what happens, no matter what kind, even if it's not Judas, just take Judas aside for a second and the things, the hits that come in your daily life. And life is hard, life is hard. And life is harder when you're a Christian in a lot of different ways. It's obviously great and blessed and peaceful. You know where you're going when you die and all that stuff. But, you know, it is hard. I always tell people when I'm at the door, I say getting saved is easy, but following Jesus is the hard part. And it's true. Because, you know, how far are you willing to follow Jesus? You better count the cost. Because the cost can be high. The cost can be very high, it can cost your life. Hebrews 12, verse 18 says, for you're not come upon, come unto the mount that might be touched and that burn with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness, the tempest, and tempest, excuse me, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which voice they had heard and treated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. Let's talk about when Moses said, hey, nobody's allowed to come near the mount, everything's holy. And God started to rumble and smoke started to come out of the mountain. And they heard the voice of God and they were terrified for their lives. They were scared, they told Moses, don't let him talk to us anymore. You know, whatever you say, that's what we're gonna do. And it says, for they could not endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it should be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. So even Moses was afraid. But you're come unto mount Sion and unto a city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, this is our future, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh, for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. So obviously that's the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about, whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. There's gonna come a day when there's gonna be a great big earthquake that will shake everything, all the buildings in the world are gonna fall, everything is going, you know, the Jerusalem's gonna be split into different parts. You know, they had like a local earthquake. They had like a local thing, but the whole world, it says even heaven is gonna shake. And this word, yet once more signifieth, the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. And so I just wanna encourage you with this. You know, the devil might shake at us, the earth might seem to be opening up on us, and fire is raining down in our lives, and it feels like we're living in our own personal earthquake. But you know what, it says, wherefore we receive a kingdom which cannot be moved. No matter what happens in our life, no matter what happens in this church, you know, we cannot be moved, the kingdom of God can't be moved, and so it says let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. And you know, anything can be happening in our lives. And you know what, things go wrong in our lives, and we have all these things, it seems like our world's falling apart and it's nice to just be able to come to church and like get a little bit of, you know, away from this world time. I think that's why God made the assembly, so that we could be together and we could just encourage one another because even though our world might be falling apart, we don't, I mean, I don't know what's going on in everybody's lives. I know that there's, you know, prayer requests, I know some things, but you know, nobody really knows exactly what kind of a hard time we're having. But you know who does? God does, and he says no matter what's going on, hey, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. And you know, like I said, our world might be coming apart and everything else, but you know, we have a kingdom that cannot be moved, and we need to, even when Judas betrays us, even when our friendships seem to be like, hey, that person was my best friend, now they're out of the church. Hey, move forward, continue. When your own personal life is going wrong, hey, find a way to make it to church. Do what you can. Because you know, we only have one short life here on this earth, and we shouldn't allow false prophets of wicked people to destroy that. We shouldn't allow our car breaking down to destroy that. What is it gonna take to get you out of the fight? You know, the devil's gonna try to do anything he can to get you out of this fight. He's gonna do anything he can to get you out of this church. He's gonna do anything he can to break your family apart, to break up your marriage, to have your children go astray. But all these things can happen to us, but you know what? We need to just put our face like a flint like Jesus did in Jerusalem. He said, I set my face like a flint. And when we just say, we're gonna serve God no matter what happens, no matter what befalls us, no matter what is shaken up in our lives, you know, everything might be shaken, but those things that cannot be shaken may remain. And you want the things, what's not gonna be shaken? The kingdom of God. No matter what happens, no matter, it seems like we're losing on every side. You know what, God's gonna come through for us in the end, and he's going to make sure that we, as long as we stand and continue and do what's right, God's gonna be on our side. You know, we're not perfect, nobody is, but you know, we shouldn't allow something like a big split like this to shake our faith, to shake our perseverance to serve the Lord in our lives. Number one, Judas will betray us, just like he betrayed Jesus. There's gonna be more Judases. When Judas betrays us, it's going to hurt because a lot of times that person's gonna be a friend of ours or someone that we deeply care about. When Judas betrays us, we must judge right and true and without pity. Number four, when Judas attacks, we need to get on the right side of things. We need to be on the right side of things, and that's most importantly the Lord's side, amen? And then number five, when Judas attacks, we need to just move forward and continue serving. And I would just say that applies to anything in our life, because Judas can attack in many different ways, not just in a church family, but it could be a family member, it could be anything out there, or just our daily lives. It's a hard world we live in, and this world has a history of misery, and it's because of sin. We need to still serve the Lord with fear and trembling and godly fear. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for this great church. Lord, I pray that you would just stand with them, and I pray that you would just help them and fight for them, Lord, and Lord, people are having health problems, and their lives might be shaken, and things might be falling apart, their finances, or whatever it is, their marriages. Lord, I just pray that you would just bless this church. Lord, help them, Lord, to get through the hard times, and that they would just focus on the kingdom, and Lord, that no matter what's going on in their lives, that they would just continue to serve you, and we pray that you would just bless this church, and keep it, and protect it, and Lord, tell kingdom come. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.