Acts chapter 17, we have the familiar story of the apostle Paul on Mars Hill. It says in verse 17, "Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with the devout persons and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoicks encountered him and some said, "What will this babbler say?" Other some, he seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus saying, "May we know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean." I want you to pay special attention to verse 21, "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell hear some new thing."
In verse 19, they said, "What's this new doctrine where thou speaketh?" In verse 20 they said, "Oh, we hear these strange things you're saying and it says that this is pretty much what they live for, just some strange thing." This is the mentality that a lot of people have today. On our preacher message tonight entitled some new thing, this is [inaudible 00:01:15] looking for, some new thing. They're looking for some strange doctrine or something different and the Bible actually warns us about this.
Go to Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4. Of course while you turn to Ephesians, Paul rebukes these people in Acts 17 and he tells them you're too superstitious. He says, "I saw one of your devotions that is an altar under the unknown God." He says, "Him therefore whom you ignorantly worship, I will declare unto you." He begins to tell them the truth of God's word.
Look at what the Bible says in Ephesians 4:11. It says, "He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Now stop right there. The body of Christ is referring to the local church and he's saying that within the church, he has given pastors, he's given teachers, evangelists, and so forth that would edify or build up the body of Christ. He says in verse 13, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive."
What's the Bible telling us here? That we should not be like children who are tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine, every new thing that comes along, every strange new doctrine, and we're just tossed to and fro meaning whatever is trendy, that's what we're going to fall for. Whatever is the new thing, whatever people are talking about. A person who's tossed to and fro is not in control of their destiny.
Think about a ship sailing in the sea and there are all kinds of men engaged and hoisting various sails and there's a man at the helm that's controlling that wheel and keeping the ship on course. When they encounter stormy waters or maybe no one steering the ship or the rudder's broken or whatever, you can imagine a ship just being tossed to and fro in the wave and it is not in control of where it's going. Something else is guiding it, just the weather, just the waves, and really just random chance.
What the Bible's warning us about is that there is a raging sea of false doctrine out there. There's a raging sea of just liars and deceivers and the Bible says that they will use cunning craftiness, they will be believable and that they lie and wait to deceive, meaning that they have an agenda and a goal of tricking you and fooling you and deceiving you. The Bible's warning you that if you do not grow up spiritually, you're going to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. You're just going to be carried along on the sea of what's popular, what's trendy, what the big name preachers are saying or what's going around, the buzz on the internet or whatever if you're not firmly rooted and grounded in what you believe. God said he gave you the pastors and teachers and people that could strengthen you and edify and most importantly teach you the word of God so that you could be rooted and grounded and not tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.
Look at verse 15, "But speaking the truth in love may grow up." What do we need to do? Grow up. Don't be like a child that can be tricked and fooled by anything and believeth every word. No. He said, "Grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ." Verse 16, "From whom the whole body ..." And what's the body that we're talking about again? What is it? The church. "From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." What does that say? We edify each other. We build up each other. It's good for us to be joined together so that we can all grow.
The Bible says iron sharpeneth iron so that the man, the countenance of his friend. What this tells me is that people who are not in a solid church are going to be tossed to and fro because God is saying one of the main reasons why we need church is to prevent us from being tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine and so that we can get the growth we need, get the teaching we need, have the pastor we need. A lot of people today are forsaking the assembly, they're getting out of church, and as a result, we see them being tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
You see, these people that were just looking for some new thing, these weren't Christians. These were unsaved hidden, pagan people and they just always wanted something new. They said, "Oh, it's a strange doctrine." Strange meaning foreign, they've never heard of it. "Oh wow, we want to hear this." The Bible says, "That's all they did every day is just they just want to hear something new." In reality, what we need is the old paths. What we actually need is the good, old time religion and the old fashioned truths of the Bible which is not a new book; it's old. It's been around for thousands of years.
What are people looking for today? A new translation, a new version of the Bible or they're looking for even new books of the Bible. This is what blows my mind. When someone who's never even read the Bible cover to cover is looking for other books. People are like, "Oh, but what about these other books? The gospel of Thomas and the gospel of Bartholomew. What about these other [inaudible 00:07:22]?" Stop. Have you read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Because why are you looking to Thomas or whatever when you haven't even read what's in the Bible. Have you even read the Old Testament? Have you read Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel and yet you want to read Maccabees or Tobit or these other crazy books?
Let me tell you something. Those books are not in the Bible for a reason. It always cracks me up when people say, "Oh, some council decided which books were going to be in and which books weren't going to be in and now it's just decided by someone else and they're withholding from you." It's like the devil convinced Eve like, "Oh, God's holding something back from you. He doesn't want you to have the best tree because then your eyes are really going to be open and then you're going to be like Gods." It's like, "Oh man, you've been with hell from the best gospel, the gospel of Thomas." This stuff is just people know the truth is being concealed from you.
Let me tell you something, those books are at such utter nonsense and garbage that it doesn't take a council of scholars to exclude them. It doesn't. Pick up any of these what they called [inaudible 00:08:39]. I don't know how to pronounce that word. Anyway, these fake books that purport to be the Bible, just pick one up and start reading it. Just pick up the gospel of Thomas; it's the most ridiculous, bizarre thing and I don't have the clips from it or the excerpts from it today but in other sermons, I've gone through and read excerpts from it, just how ridiculous and nonsensical it is. People just get real excited about, "Oh, the book of Enoch. Oh, the gospel of Thomas."
No one would have to be a scholar to figure out that those books aren't part of the Bible. It always cracks me up when Catholics will try to tell you, "Oh, we decided what books are even in your Bible and if it weren't for us, you wouldn't even have the Bible and you wouldn't even have it laid out the way it is in the books that you have." Well first of all, it doesn't make any sense since the Catholic Bible has 78 books and ours has 66. Sounds like they didn't decide which books went into our Bible because they have a different rundown.
If you look at the 12 that they have in that we don't, they're all nonsense. Read them, they're of such a lower quality that it will become very obvious to you right away that they're not God's work. For example, some of those books are like Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom of Jesus of Sirach, read those 2 books and they are a cheap imitation of Proverbs. I read the book of Proverbs. I love the book of Proverbs and every verse is just so wise and makes so much sense and when you read the whole chapter or the Proverb of the day like some people will take the book of Proverbs 31 chapters and they'll say, "Okay, there are about 30 days each month." On the 5th, they read Proverbs 5. On the 6th, they read Proverbs 6. They read the proverb of the day. I think it's a great thing to do.
Whenever I read proverbs, I'm always just blown away by the wisdom, just by the relevance to my own life and just by the advice that I can take from it. You open up these apocryphal books of Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom of Jesus of Sirach and you're going to be shaking your head and you're going to be doing the face palm and say, "What in the world? Are you serious?" It's not the same. Why? Because there's a colossal difference between that which God has written and that which man has written. You say, "Oh, it's just that ... It's that flowery language of the King James. That's why you think the Bible has power."
Well, the King James translators also translated the apocrypha so it's the same style, same wording, same exact translators and yet, it's ridiculous. It's not God's word and you don't even need to be a scholar to figure out that it's not God. You just read and you just say, "Well, this is inferior."
Now let me just explain something to you. God is omniscient. He is the most powerful being in the universe. He created all things. He has all knowledge, all wisdom, all power. Any book that he writes is going to be amazing and all 66 of these books are amazing and is powerful and nobody can duplicate it and people have tried. Joseph Smith tried with the Book of Mormon. Mohammad tried with the Koran, and people are constantly trying to do duplicate the Bible and no one can because God's work is amazing.
Now when I read something that's not amazing, that must not be God's word. If I read something that is not even good literature, that isn't even well-written, that doesn't even have any power behind it, it must not be God's word. Because anything God does is going to be powerful. Anything God does is going to be infinite and it's knowledge and wisdom and magnitude. That right there should show you. You said, "How do you know the apocrypha is not legitimate?" Oh, just read a few pages of it. How do you know the gospel of Thomas isn't inspired? Because it sounds like it's written by a lunatic if you actually read it. How do you know the book of Enoch is not real? What about this archaeology?
First of all, even if you look up the archaeology behind it, it's really shady. All you have to do is just look at the book of Enoch. It talks about giants that are 450 feet tall. Do you know how tall that is, 450 feet? That's pretty tall. That's taller than any building in Phoenix, to my knowledge. That's pretty tall. It's insane. A lot is just bizarre things in these books.
You know why so many people go after these and they go after the book of Enoch, they go after the gospel of Thomas, they are out searching for the gospel of Bartholomew? It's because they just want something new and there's something wrong when we are bored with or tired of God's word. It's a big, long book. This 1,189 chapters should keep us busy, but what it really is is that we don't love God's word like we should because if we love God's word, we'd want to read it and study it and learn about it. Instead, people don't even finish this book and it's like, "Oh, some new mystical thing." They want something new. They want something different instead of the tried and the true, and this is not a godly attribute.
The Bible says, "My son fear God and the king and meddle not with him that are given to change." There's somebody who just given to change. Remember in the New Testament when it talked about the bishop and the deacon and it talked about them not being given to wine. What would that mean [inaudible 00:13:55] to wine? What does it mean? They have a tendency to do what? They have a tendency to drink given the wine. What does it mean to be given the change? Just the tendency to change.
Now there's nothing wrong with changing, but some people have a tendency to want to change just for the sake of changing. There's no reason to change but they just have a tendency to just change for the sake of changing or just let's just find something new just for the sake of having something new when in reality, we need the tried and the true.
Now go if you would to Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13, what is the Bible saying? The Bible said that it was these pagans that are always looking for something new, some strange doctrines, some new thing. What does God say about that? It says in Hebrews 13:7, "Remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever." Verse 9, "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace not with meats which have not profited them that have been occupied therein."
Now what is the Bible saying here? Every verse in the Bible is there for a reason and these verses are in a certain order for a reason. God's building a thought here. He starts out by saying in verse 7, "Remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." He starts out in verse 7 saying that basically, those who are your leaders, your pastors who's preaching to you and teaching the word of God; he's saying consider the end of their conversation. Basically, what he's saying is there are people who have gone on before you who have studied the word of God and who have lived out various truths in the word of God, and you look to those people and follow their faith not because you're just blindly following men.
The apostle Paul said follow me as I follow Christ. You look at somebody who's actually following Christ. There are a lot of people who are not following Christ but you find people that are following Christ and that are mature spiritually. They didn't just get saved last week or last month or last year, but people who read the Bible many times and they've lived the Christian life and they've gone through different phases of life and they've gone through church and they know what's going on. He says you look to those people and you can consider the end of their conversation or how those people ended up or where that road took them.
Many says this, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever." Meaning that if it was right for them, it's right for you and it's going to be right tomorrow because Jesus is always the same, the Bible is always the same, and there are timeless truths of God's word. We don't need anything new. We need to get on the old paths that are biblical and that are tried and true and so forth.
Then he says in verse 9, "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines." Don't be carried about with diver ... What does divers mean? Various. Strange meaning foreign, unknown. This is [inaudible 00:17:16] Acts 17 and Ephesians 4 talked about, being carried about. Isn't that like being tossed to and fro, carried about with all these crazy doctrines and just being led astray so easily. He said it is a good thing that the heart be established. What does it mean to be established? You'll see sometimes a building and set in stone. There will be an engraving that says established 1925, some really old date, and that's when that building was established. It's firmly placed there, it's not going anywhere, and when the Bible says it's good for our heart to be established, it's saying we figure out what we believe and we need to be anchored and built up on the solid rock and not just built on the shifting sands of well, this is what I believe this week. Then I'm just constantly to the next to the next to the next.
Now obviously, there are times when you're wrong and you need to change. Some people, they take this to the opposite extreme and they just say, "Well, I'm just never going to change what I believe. Never going to change what I believe." If you're wrong, you need to change what you believe. Of course, if you see in the Bible that you're wrong and sometimes we'll be wrong about things and we need to change what we believe or you want to take it to another extreme that says, "Well the Bible says obey them [inaudible 00:18:40] which have the rule over you, who spoken to you the word of God, is faithful. Whatever my pastor says, I'm just going to go with it. I'm just going to follow whatever he says." No, that's taking it to the wrong opposite extreme where you just say, "Oh, I'm just never going to change and whatever my pastor teaches, it's always right and I'm never going to question." No, we should be searching the scripture daily whether those things are so.
Here's how we get established properly. You don't just get established by just deciding, "You know what, Pastor Anderson's right. I need to just not change and I need to just follow the pastor." That's not how you get biblically established. You know how you get biblically established? You get into the word of God, you read it, you learn it, you know what it says, you get the teaching and the preaching from the pastors and teachers and people that God has given you. You go to the scripture and you verify it and you get anchored on what you believe because you know what the Bible says. Then it's going to be hard for people to toss you to and fro because there have been a lot of times when people confronted me with strange doctrine and just instantly a verse will pop into my head that just proves that wrong and I just instantly know that's wrong.
Here's the thing, if you haven't studied the word, if you haven't memorized the word, then when you hear false doctrine, you might say, "Oh, really? Oh, wow." Whereas if you know the Bible, you're just instantly saying, "You know what? That isn't right. That isn't true because the Bible says over here this, this, and that."
Those are two wrong extremes. One extreme is just always looking for something new, just questioning everything to the point of ridiculousness, and just let's just throw out every tradition, let's just not listen to anything the pastor says. Let's just go out seeking after strange and new doctrines. Then the other wrong extreme just says we'll never change no matter what. The pastor's always right. These are two wrong extremes and they both have one thing in common, people who don't know the Bible because one is a person who doesn't know the Bible and so it's just whatever the pastor said. Then another person doesn't Bible so they're just, "Oh yeah, did you hear that it turns out that blah, blah."
People walk up to me and say stuff to me like, "Did you know that Jesus never one time claimed to be the son of God?" I just instantly ... When I hear that, I just instantly say, "Well, right here in John chapter 9, he says, "I'm the son of God." Then again in chapter 10, he brings it out to the Pharisees that he had said I am the son of God."
Now it's true that you won't find a lot of scripture of Jesus saying that he's the son of God simply because of the fact that during Jesus' earthly ministry, he didn't want everybody to know who he was prematurely. Remember the demons would say, "You're the son of God." He would tell them quiet out because his time was not yet come. It was not until the very end of his ministry that he began to reveal that he was Messiah, that he was the son of God. Before that, he spoke a lot of parables, did a lot of miracles, preached a lot of true things, but he did not want it to be known in the early day. People will try to twist that and even the new modern versions will change that verse in John 9 and get rid of the one place where he says I'm the son of God. What I'm saying is when somebody said that to me, I just instantly knew a verse.
Now another person one time tried to hit me with this doctrine of you don't need the word of God to be saved. You don't need the Bible to be saved. You could just hear the gospel and be saved, but you don't need the word to be saved. When they said that this is the verse that they quoted to support that false doctrine, they said the Bible says you should know the truth and the truth shall make you free. You don't need to hear the word of God, you could just have someone explain you the truth and the truth will make you free.
The moment that somebody said you should know the truth and the truth shall make you free, I instantly knew that is a quote from John chapter 8 and I instantly went to it in my mind the context when he said to them ... It says when they had heard these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus and to those disciples which believed on him, "If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."
See the sentence, "And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," starts with an and. It's not even a complete sentence and if you get the complete sentence, it says, "If you continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Isn't that funny that someone would get up, a pastor, a guy with a masters, and a doctor, and a bachelor, and an associate, all of the degrees lined up would get up and say, "You don't need the word to be saved. The Bible says you should know the truth and the truth shall make you free." When the verse says, "If you continue my word, then you'll know the truth and the truth will make you free." He's using that to prove you don't need the word. What in the world? He's a liar. That's not an accident. That's intentional deception.
I sat there and I heard that preacher get up and say, "You should know the truth and the truth shall make you free," and half the people that were sitting in that auditorium said amen. Why? All ignorant, all fools, all sheep, all people who don't know the Bible and don't know John 8. Look, even if you don't even now John 8, you'd know that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You'd know of his own will [inaudible 00:24:16] by the word of truth that we should be first fruits of his creatures. You'd know that we need to receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save our souls.
You might know Acts 11:14 when it says, "He shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved." You might remember David say thy word quick in me. It's the word that quicken it, the [inaudible 00:24:36]. The word that I say into you, they are spirit and they're life or you might just thought of the fact that that truth shall make you free. Jesus said in John 17:17, "Sanctify them through thy truth." Thy word is truth. Thy word is truth.
How can you say, "Oh, you don't need the word to be saved. You just need the truth." Thy word is truth. It's just ignorance and false teachers and false prophets and false doctrine, they all prey on ignorance. They thrive on ignorance. They seek whom they may devour, the ignorant, the unlearned. Do you want to be a victim of false doctrine and be carried away with false teaching? No. Then you must learn the Bible. You must read the Bible. You must say the Bible.
Now you say, "Well, if I just read it on my own." Reading it on your own is the most important part. It's 90%, read the Bible on your own but the Bible also warrants that you need to be in church in order to not be tossed to and fro so you need both. Read the Bible on your own but you need pastors and teachers and not even just the pastor but you need just the edifying of itself, the edifying of one another, just being in the body here because a lot of times, you might hear a strange doctrine or you might be confronted with something and then you might just bring it up to another ... Hey, have you ever heard of this? Then they're going to say, "You know what, that's false and here's why." It doesn't have to be Pastor Anderson to point out the error because anybody who knows the Bible can point out the error.
If you look at this trendy doctrines and these strange doctrines that are constantly coming on the sea, they can be easily disproven from the Bible by somebody who knows what they're talking about, by somebody who knows what the word says. The biggest example, and I know I harp on this way too much, the biggest example is this Hebrew Roots Sacred Name Movement, this Judaizer movement where they want to bring us back under the Old Testament, dietary laws, and the feast days.
It can be so easily disproven with scripture after scripture after scripture after scripture but you know what? That movement is spreading like wildfire because people don't know the Bible, like wildfire because people don't know the Bible. Oh wow, we're supposed to be doing all this stuff and you know why else? Because it's new. The new cool doctrine. Wow, we get to use all these fancy words in another language and we get to make these like ... Noises and everything. We get to say ... And speak all these Hebrew and spit and clear our throats and everything and it's so cool. You know what it is? It's exotic. It's exotic, and it makes me sound smart when I get around other people and I can say words that they don't know what it means. Shofar.
I could talk about Yom Kippur but you don't know what day that's on. Rosh Hashanah. I can talk about all these different things but listen, don't be carried away. There's a whole book at the Bible that refutes that movement. It's called Galatians. Anybody who's read Galatians and anybody who's read Colossians knows that that's a bunch of junk and Paul said, "I'm afraid of you that I bestowed labor on you in vain if this is what you're into. You're absorbing time. You're doing all this stuff. You want to be circumcised." He says, "Look, if you think you have to be circumcised to be saved," he said, "You're not even saved."
He said, "In Christ, circumcision avails nothing." He said, "I didn't tell Titus to get circumcised. There are Christians there who say, "No, we need to be circumcised. We need to abstain from pork. We need to celebrate all these Old Testament feast days and do all the stuff." That's the trendy new doctrine.
What are some other trendy strange doctrines that are going around. Somebody help me out. What are some of the things that are on the internet and it's just like a trendy new ... The Nephalem. Oh yeah, you need to learn about the Nephalem. As soon as you put a foreign exotic word that's not in the Bible, you go back to the Hebrew and throw this word the Nephalem, then all of a sudden, you got this new fun, new cool exotic, sci-fi doctrine. It's got everything, aliens, UFOs, giants that are 450 feet tall, and you got hybrids of angels and humans, and you got them breeding. There's this hours and hours and hours of YouTube videos and you learn about all this cool ... Or you could just open the Bible and read what the Bible actually says and it doesn't talk about any of that.
You know what, people are fooled by it because they don't know the word and they get tricked and they get sucked in to this stuff and that's a great ... Thank you Charlie. What else have we got? Help me out here. What other trendy doctrine? Yeah, the blood moons. Oh, yeah. I get asked about this almost every day. What do you think about the blood moons?
Here's the other thing I was going to ask about, The Harbinger. Have you read this book The Harbinger by Rabbi Jonathan Cahn. Rabbi Cahn, he's a conman. That's what he is. It's a con job. They say, "Oh, have you read this book The Harbinger?" Listen, instead of just going to our boring old Christian pastor at our Christian church, we're going to go to this Rabbi. Oh, it's exotic, it's fun, it's new, yeah. It's different. We're going to go hear from Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, and he's saying things that we've never heard of and the blood moons.
This is what they say. Correct me if I'm wrong but the blood moons is ... Somehow the moon just basically turns red through a phenomenon of like eclipses and things. Sometimes you look at the moon and it looks really big or it looks different colors. They're claiming that this is some fulfillment of Bible prophecy. It's something that the moon has always been doing all the time. You look at it, sometimes it's big. What do they call it? The harvest moon. Then there's the blue moon. You know, once in a blue moon which is about once every 18 months. You got this, "Oh, the blood moons."
Here's what I always say to people, no man knoweth the day or the hour of Jesus Christ return but you know what, I can definitely give you some days that it's not going to happen because it's not going to happen on any day that anybody predicts. Literally, if I had a calendar, I can't show you the day or the hour of Jesus Christ coming but I could put a lot of Xs on that counter and say, "We know it's not going to be on this day." Because any time a preacher predicts a day, you can cross that day off and say not going to happen on that day. Isn't that what the Bible teaches that nobody knows the day or the hour? We don't know. These people who claim to know are liars and they say, "Oh, these blood moons and blah, blah, blah and that Israel is blah." You know what it is? It's some trendy new ... It's not based on the Bible.
The Bible says that when the moon is turning to blood that the sun and the moon will be darkened and that the stars will fall from heaven like fig trees and that the earth is going to quake like an earthquake that has never been on the earth ever before. How can you sit there and say, "Oh well, you know what? These blood moons, it's fulfilled. We're already into the tribulator. Where already into whatever end times.
Where's the earthquake? Where are that mountains and islands being removed out of their places? Where the sun being darkened? Where are the stars falling from the sky? Where are all the other signs? Why isn't the whole earth ... Why aren't all the tribes of the earth mourning and crying out for the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of the land? Where's Jesus Christ appearing in the clouds? None of that's happening but they're going to tell you, "Oh, this is the fulfillment." You know who they're going to fool? People who haven't read the Bible, who don't know that this moon turning into blood is accompanied by the sun being darkened, the stars falling from the sky, an earthquake that will move every mountain and island out of its place.
You wouldn't have to have somebody sell you a book to figure out that it's happening when every mountain and island are moving out of their place. You won't need the book. You just notice that. You'll just see Jesus in the clouds. You'll just hear the trumpet. The whole earth will be quaking, sun and moon darkens, stars falling from the sky. You're not going to need some rabbi to break this down to you at that point.
That's a great example of ... Then The Harbinger. I don't listen to anybody who is named rabbi ever for any reason just like I wouldn't listen to a pastor calling himself father because the Bible says call no man father and be not called rabbi. Anybody who's calling himself rabbi is directly contradicting the teachings of Jesus Christ. I'm not interested in anything else they have to say. They're just going to ignore clear commands from Jesus to not be called rabbi and they're just going to, "I'm rabbi."
He probably also loves the greetings in the marketplace. You know what? He does. That guy does because you know what, he prayed at a presidential prayer breakfast. You know what that sounds like? A guy that loves the greeting in a marketplace because you know what? No real man of God would ever be invited to the presidential prayer breakfast. Obama hadn't invited me yet, and Bush didn't invite me either. If they invited me, I wouldn't go because I'm not going to worship with you. "Oh, but it would be so cool." No, it wouldn't. You know what? Obama should be lined up to come meet me because [inaudible 00:34:42] Obama is because any Bible-believing preacher [inaudible 00:34:50] Obama ever thought of me.
Basically if he calls me, I might take a few weeks to get back to him because I might just be too busy for people like him. For real. I'm serious. You think I'm impressed by Obama or Bush or any of these people? They're just puppets of Satan and I'm not interested. You know what? These trendy doctrines like the Harbinger, the blood moon, all these different ... The Nephalem. What else? Yeah, what was that like 2 weeks ago in the news. Turns out Jesus was married and had kids and all these stuff. People, they just fall for it. They just go with it. Just some new thing. It doesn't even matter what it is. Just some new things, some strange doctrine.
You know what? People who know the Bible aren't going to fall for any of it. We hear that and we instantly know that there are plenty of scriptures to prove that Jesus was not married. Plenty of scriptures to prove that these things are false. People who are unstable, they're going to go with this stuff because they don't know the Bible.
Let's keep reading in Hebrews 13 there. He said in verse 9, "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein. We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle for the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach for here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come. By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name but to do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."
What's he saying there? He's saying that they need to get away from the animal sacrifices and they need to forsake that system, they need to get out of Judaism. He's saying that they need to go unto Christ and that Jesus Christ was offered for our sins and that he wants us to offer sacrifices to him not of an animal because he already paid for it once for all. We don't have to keep bringing the beast. He explained it earlier in Hebrews. He's saying we need to offer sacrifice of praise to God continually for example. He said we need to offer ... The Bible says in verse 16, we need to do good and to communicate with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
He's saying we don't need to offer animal sacrifice. The sacrifices that we should offer are praising God, glorifying his name, doing good, and communicating. When the Bible says communicate there, it's talking about basically giving alms unto people who need help. Basically if you say the word communicate in the New Testament, that's what it means.
He says, "But to do good and to communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you." Now why does he basically book end this whole section which is about what? Not being carried away with strange doctrine, the fact that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, forever.
Why is it book ended with at the beginning in verse 7, "Remember them which have the rule over you." Over here, "Obey them which have the rule over you who spoken unto you the word of God." Why is it book ending this section? Because it ties in perfectly with what Ephesians 4 said that the pastor's job is to keep you from getting carried away with divers and strange doctrines. The pastor's job is to equip you and teach you the word of God so that you won't be a child spiritually [inaudible 00:38:50] and so that you will be able to be steadfast and unmovable and not carried away with this stuff. That's the purpose of church.
Listen to me, people that are not in church, I've noticed other people who get carried away with this stuff more than anyone else. People who use the internet as a substitute for church, they're the people who are getting carried away with this stuff. You'll notice that people who actually attend a physical, literal church to actually ... Imagine that, that actually walk in to an actual assembly of God's people and attended church where they actually commune in fellowship with other believers, they have much less tendency to get carried away on strange doctrine because church has a moderating influence on us and helps to keep us all straight so that we don't get off on crazy tangents and things.
If you came in here to [inaudible 00:39:44] and started talking all crazy, people would take the Bible and show you that you're wrong and that's good for you because then you're not going to go off on some crazy tangent. If you walked in here like, "Hey, I got this really cool book from Rabbi Cahn." [inaudible 00:39:58] and I wouldn't even have to do it. Five people would take you aside and show you scripture after scripture after scripture to get you off that thing.
In church, we'll do that for you. Church is good for you like that and it's not just the man trying to keep you down or something. You just want to get us in church so you can keep us down. You just don't want us to eat off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You just want us to be in darkness and under control. No. It's that these people are trying to lie to you and deceive you and church, not just the pastor, not just the leadership but actually the whole church is a moderating influence to keep you from following crazy doctrine.
Now go if you would to Luke chapter five. Actually let's get back. Go to Isaiah 58, Isaiah 58. Let me just explain it to you this way. A lot of people will accuse me of preaching a lot of crazy doctrine. A lot of people say, "Oh man, Pastor Anderson, he's crazy. He preaches a lot of wild stuff, a lot of crazy stuff." I would challenge anyone to point out to me what wild or crazy doctrine I have ever believed or preached but people, they all, "Oh man, he's crazy." Now look, just because I might be a little bit wild sometimes, but I'm not preaching anything wild and I'm not teaching any strange doctrine. Let me tell you something, there's nothing that I preach that is original with me, nothing.
By the way, when I go soul winning, pretty much 90 some percent of my soul winning methods I got from other people. I learn from other people. I didn't make any of it up. By the way, people seem to always be looking for cute, new, exotic soul winning methods, instead of just using the tried and the true soul winning methods. There's nothing wrong with just doing normal soul winning. You don't have to do some crazy, new, wild new way of doing it.
I've never had a desire to make some exotic, new, different way of soul winning. I pretty much just went soul winning with as many people as I could for years and years and I took everything that I liked, what I learned from people, and just took all the best and I put together a method or a few methods of preaching the gospel that fit my personality because I believe that God uses us for who we are. God uses us all different, and we're all different. I found some good soul winning methods that work for me and I found methods I could teach to other people that work for them. Everybody goes soul winning in this church a little different. Everybody's got their own personality.
You know what? I never wanted to just do some crazy, wild, different, just lets us reinvent the wheel, let's just revolutionize soul winning because soul winning doesn't need a revolution. Soul winning needs you to just get out there and do it. Soul winning just needs you to work on it because let me tell you something, the method of soul winning that I use and that most people in this church use and the people have used for many years in other church, it works. Use it. You don't have to get all crazy. Now of course, you're going to personalize it to yourself. You don't have to just totally change and be there, there's no point.
Let me say this, people will often accuse me of, "Yeah, he's just got all kinds of wild ideas and crazy ideas." Okay, name one doctrine that I preach that is unique to me or that I made up or that I'm the only one who's preaching it. Name one teaching that I preach and I can name a million people who believe the same thing. Tell me one doctrine and I will tell you a million people who believed the exact same thing. Why? Because there's nothing new under the sun and this Bible is the final authority.
Do we all have the same Bible here tonight? Everybody got a King James. We all have the same Bible, everybody who's saved, we all have the Holy Spirit. How many Holy Spirits are there?
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 1: Only one. Now what about somebody over in Timbuktu who is saved and who has a Bible and the Holy Spirit. Don't we have the same book and the same Holy Spirit? Aren't we going to come to a lot of the same conclusions and see the same things? There is nothing new under the sun. I heard somebody say this, "If it's new, it's probably not true." Anything that's new should be guilty until proven innocent because anything new is suspect. People will say "Oh, but you preach all kinds of new crazy things." Oh, really? Name one. People will say, "Well, but you preach all kinds of crazy." Okay, what is it? What do I preach that's crazy? Well, like people just all they have to do to be saved is just believe. Yeah, that's new. That's unique to me.
There are millions of people who believe the salvation is by faith and that no works are needed. There are millions of people who have been accused of easy believism before I ever came down the pike. Not new with me. Well, but you're against birth control. That's crazy. Yeah, me and about a billion other people on this planet. Somebody's reproducing out there, my friend. I know you're not with your 1.5 and 2.5 ... No, I'm just kidding. Anyway, there are people out there and I bet you, there are a billion people who believe the same way as me. Whoa wild, you wild man you.
I could find millions of people in the United States who agree with me on that. How can you say that that's me just preaching some strange, new, wild, crazy doctrine? You're against the pre-trib. The majority of Christian denominations have always been against the pre-trib rapture. It's only recently a phenomenon amongst Evangelicals and Baptist and Pentecostals to get on this pre-trib rapture. It's new and even right now as we speak, it's not the majority position. In the independent Baptist, 99% of them are pretty tripped because they've tricked and deceived and that's not my fault. The bottom line is I'm not alone on believing that the rapture comes after the tribulation because people actually read Matthew 24 before I was even born and actually just took it at face value.
In fact, listen, I never even taught my wife the post-trib rapture. Never even taught it to her because when my wife and I first got married, she was a brand new Christian, she's a brand new believer. She never been in church her whole life except just the Catholic church as a kid. She went to the Catholic Church and went through the motions, didn't really learned anything, of course. She did that as a kid but she'd never been in church. I won my wife to Christ, we got married, and she was brand new to the church. I didn't want to just right away confuse her or just sit there and say, "Hey, there's stuff at our church that I don't agree with." I wanted her to just come to church and enjoy the church and love the church and grow in the Lord and so forth. That's what she did. It was a great church that we went to.
She came and she was growing and she was reading her Bible. She read her whole Bible cover to cover in the first 6 months, maybe even a couple times. She was really reading a lot, and she was reading. I'd come home from work, it's like [inaudible 00:47:23] today. She read large sections of scriptures. She's a new believer as a new born babe, desiring the sincere milk of the word that she might grow thereby. About 6 months after we've been married, she'd already read the Bible a few times and she'd been reading it.
I never brought up to her anything about end times prophecy or anything like that. Newlyweds, that's just not really the big subject, the end of the world. We were just too happy and having too much fun to be talking about the end of the world. Here we are, we're 6 months in the marriage and she was volunteering down at the church and volunteering at the Christian school and going out soul winning and stuff like that. She didn't have a job or anything and she hadn't have kids yet. She's volunteering down at the Christian school. In their curriculum, it started making mention of the pre-trib rapture in the curriculum. She told the child, she said, "This is false". I had never said anything to her. She'd never heard any teacher preaches, she just read the Bible a couple of times, 2 times, whole Bible.
She said, "No, this is actually false because Jesus said that this what happen after the tribulation." Somebody looked at her really weird and everything. Then, my wife came home that day and she said to me, she said ,"This school book trying to say that Jesus could come back today and then it's before the tribulation and all this." She said, "They actually believe that? Because I got a weird look from somebody when I was correcting the student." I'm like, "Yeah, they do believe that." I was embarrassed like, "Yeah, the church is pre-trib." I explained it to her. That's when I went into it with her and explained it.
I just didn't want to hit her with that first thing. Other things were more important, because that's not the most important doctrine. There are a lot of other more important doctrines than that. That's just to show you to sit there and say that, "That's some new crazy, wild idea that the pre-trib rapture ain't going to happen." Well, guess what? That's what Matthew 24 says, that's what my wife said.
I talked to another friend of mine who is dating a girl who didn't know the Bible very well. He told her, he said, "Read the book of Revelation and tell me when you find the rapture. Tell me where the rapture is." Because he said, "I want to get it from you because you're untainted, because you've never been taught anything on this. So just read Revelation and just tell me what you find." She came out in with Revelation 7, multitude appearing in ... It's clear. It's obvious.
Anyway, I'll have to say this, you can name all the doctrines that I preach and all the things that I say where people think I'm so crazy and out there but you know what? None of it's new. None of it's unique to me. I didn't make any of it up. It's all biblical and listen, if you're preaching biblical truth, there will always be other people out there who believe the same thing because it's the same Holy Spirit and the same book.
If I'm the only one, I'm the only one who's teaching this, then it's false. Unless it's just some really minor ... You found some little nuance in the Book of the Kings or something. I'm saying if it's any kind of a key doctrine and you're the only one teaching it, well then you might be a cult leader or you might be starting a new religion or something. I'll tell you what it is, you're false because anything that is biblical, if we all have the same Bible and the same Holy Spirit, then you're not going to be the only one who teaches it or else there's something wrong with it.
That's what the Bible is saying when saying, "Don't be carried about with divers and strange doctrines." For example, there's a guy that started a church in Texas and a guy who used to go to our church. His brother got mixed up with this guy, and he's a cult leader. His name is Joey Faust and he's a pastor of an independent fundamental Baptist church, but he's a cult leader; it's what he is because he started teaching this strange doctrine that Christians who don't live right, they're still saved but if they don't live right, they're going to go to hell temporarily during the millennium. They're going to go there temporarily to be punished for that, then they get to come out and go to heaven. It's almost like a Baptist purgatory where they go to the lake of fire, temporarily. It's only like a thousand years. It's not a big deal or anything but anyway, they go to lake of fire for a thousand years.
He wrote a whole book about it. He wrote this book about it and a lot of people pointed him out as, "You're a heretic. You're a false prophet". He tried to say, "Oh, people taught this." He find some weird, obscure quote that sounded that way but anyway, it's a new, strange doctrine.
Now in reality, none of these new doctrines are truly new because what they are is they're old lies repackaged. You take the old Catholic lie of purgatory and you repackage it for a Baptist audience and your name is Joey Faust. You come out with this doctrine and he wrote this book about it called the [inaudible 00:52:33] had all this bizarre statements in it. Then he came out with a second edition of the book now that tones it down where it doesn't sound as wild. The book is still, in essence, teaching the same thing that even if you're saved, you could go to hell temporarily if you're not living right, a Baptist purgatory.
Anybody who knows the Bible could think of hundred of verses that would prove that that is false, many scriptures. For example, when Jesus said, "Whosoever live and believe in me shall never die." How can you be killed and sent to the lake of fire even temporarily if you have eternal life. He said, "Well, eternal doesn't really mean eternal if you go back to the Greek." Here's the thing about it, that's why Jesus said it so many different ways just to make sure you'll know eternal means eternal. That's why not only did he say eternal life which means live forever, eternal as in never die just to make sure you don't twist them because they'll say, "Well, eternal life just means a long time, really, really long time." No, it's a little longer than that. It's just forever. That's what eternal means. Never ends, goes on forever.
This guy teaches this strange doctrine. It's new, it's different, it's exotic, that Christians are going to go to hell if they don't live right. It's really the lake of fire, it's temporary, all this garbage. Then he literally moved the whole church now. Now he's moved the whole church from Texas to Missouri. They're out in some weird boonies place in Missouri where the closest hotel is an hour away. Now when you're in Missouri and the closest hotel is an hour away. You're in the middle of nowhere.
It's like he's following the Joseph Smith playbook for starting a cult or something where you come out with crazy new doctrines, then you move the whole church to a different state. You buy a big plot of land and everybody lives there, and you're out in the middle of nowhere and you're building your own little commune or whatever you're doing. It's a cult, my friend, but people get sucked into it because they don't know the Bible.
I've even talked to people. I've even talked to Baptist where they're like, "What do you think about this what this guy Faust is teaching. Do you think it could be true?" I'm just like, "No. Have you read the Bible at all?" Are you even saved to even entertain such an idea? It's so out there, but I'm telling you, there are so many false teachers out there and this crazy stuff.
Look, we need to stick with the old time doctrines of the Bible and look, I'm not saying if you're wrong ... Look, we had a guy who came to our church and he loved our church, and he quit coming. I went over to his house and I sat down on his living room, I was talking about why he wasn't coming anymore. He said, "I love what you're preaching. It lines up with the Bible," but he said, "I've taught my kids a different way their whole life and I don't want to confuse them." He doesn't want to confuse them with the truth, he just would rather just stay on the false because that way at least we're consistent, consistently wrong.
Look, what I'm trying to say is these are both bad. The one who wants to go crazy and wild and new and strange, but also the people who refuse to change when actually they're confronted with biblical truth. Don't go to either extreme, my friend. Stay on course with true biblical preaching. Study the Bible, follow it, learn it, and look, don't be one of these people who just wants to just disprove everything that the pastor preaches just for the sake of disproving it, just to be different, just looking for something because I don't want people to think that I'm a blind follower so I'm just going to sit in faithful word and just try to at least find something that I disagree with Pastor Anderson on, just to prove to people that I can think for myself. I'm going to disagree with Pastor Anderson on some stuff just to show people that I'm making my own decisions, that I'm my own person.
Well, that's ridiculous. Don't just change for the sake of changing, just be different for the sake of being different. At the same time, you don't want to exist blindly ... Tell me what to believe. You need to find the balance of coming to church, ready to learn. You should come to church ready to learn. Not just thinking, "Well, what can I find wrong with Pastor Anderson's sermon?" Hey you should come to church and want Pastor Anderson to teach you the Bible. If you say, "Well, I just don't think you're qualified". Then go find someone who is. Or "I just don't think you know what you're talking about," then go somewhere else.
If you think that I know what I'm talking about, if I demonstrate to you that I know the Bible, then you should come to church, ready to learn, want to hear what I have to say. Think to yourself, "Hey, Pastor Anderson usually knows what he's talking about, so I'm going to listen to what he has to say. I'm going to hear him out," but then you got your Bible in hand. When I tell you to turn somewhere, you turn there. You look at it and you say, "Is what Pastor Anderson saying lining up with what I got in my head?" Then you go home and you read further and say, "I just want to make sure that what I heard on Sunday night or Sunday morning or Wednesday night is really true".
That's a healthy attitude toward church. You go to church and you check everything out in the Bible. The bad extreme is just, "I'm just not going to go church because I'm just going to do my own thing and [inaudible 00:58:14]." Then the other false extreme is the one that just says, "I'm just going to go to church and just be a blind robot and just whatever Pastor Anderson says, that settles it. Case closed. Pastor Anderson taught it." What I'm saying is the answer to all of these is to say the Bible.
One last thing, Isaiah 58, it says in verse 1, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression in the House of Jacob their sins." That verse has nothing to do with the sermon but I like that verse. Go down to verse 12. It says, "And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of past to dwell in." Now, does the foundations of many generations sound like a divers in strange new doctrine?
The foundation of many generations is something that's always been there. It's been a foundation of the previous generation [inaudible 00:59:21], but often people go off into false doctrine and somebody has to stand up and bring us back to the old paths. That's not a new, strange doctrine coming at you; it's somebody just trying to bring you back to the old paths. You might say, "But Pastor Anderson, you preach things that I've never heard so therefore, I'm not going to listen to you." No, because what I'm doing is I'm restoring some old paths that you've forgotten about. If you don't think so, then check the Bible and see if I'm right. What I'm doing is restoring the old paths and showing you back to the old path.
I've had people come to me. What you're preaching, I've never heard that my whole life, but that doesn't mean that it's not true. Just because you've never heard it, you might have been in a wrong church. You might not have been reading your Bible. "I've never heard that before." Well, that doesn't mean it's not true because what I'm saying is that we need to be ready to change only if we're sure that the Bible is telling us to change. Not just change on a dime, toss to and fro, jump on the latest band [wagon 01:00:28].
Listen, anything that's popular and trendy is automatically false. I didn't say most of the time, all the time; 100% of the time, whatever is the popular, trendy, TV preacher ... If it's in New York Time Bestseller, it's lying to you. If it's biblical, fact, every time. Why? Because broad is the way that leads to destruction, narrow is the way that leads to life. Just because it's narrow, doesn't mean that there aren't millions of people on that narrow path because of the fact that there are billions of people in the world. When you have 8 billion people, then it's still narrow. If you had 8 million people, that's 1 in a thousand. That's narrow.
Let's [inaudible 01:01:12] with a prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for the word of God, that is an anchor for our soul, that is the rock upon which we can build our lives. How can we build our lives on shifting sands? How can we build a church or build a home and a family, when we're changing what we believe every month? Lord, thank you for the rock of our salvation. Thank you for firm, unchanging truths. Thank you that you're the same yesterday, today, and forever so that we can really drill down and dig deep and root ourselves and be established, Lord. I pray that every single person in this auditorium tonight would read their Bible every day this week, Lord, and that they would search the scripture to see whether these things are so. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.
