Jeremiah 23 is a chapter where God is very angry and He’s rebuking the pastors that are preaching that which is false and He’s railing on them and He’s using Jeremiah to rebuke these men and to tell them what they should be doing. Now in verse number one the Bible reads, “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture sayeth the Lord. Therefore thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people, ‘Ye have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not visited them. Behold I will visit upon you the evil of your doings,’ sayeth the Lord God.”
Now keep your finger there and flip over to Matthew chapter 12, verse 30. I think it’s interesting that He uses the word visited there, He says, “You haven’t visited my people at all so I’m going to visit you with punishment,” and a lot of churches, what we refer to as soul winning, they’ll call it visitation. Who’s ever been in a church where they called that “visitation?”
Look what the Bible says in Matthew chapter 12, verse 30 that ties in with this about scattering the people. It says in Matthew 12:30, “He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” The Bible teaches there that if we’re not gathering with Jesus, if we’re not going out and winning souls to Jesus Christ and gathering fruit unto eternal life, the Bible calls it, if we’re not bringing our sheaves in, then the Bible says we’re actually scattering.
He says to these pastors, “Woe unto you that are scattering the people because you’ve not visited them.” He’s talking about a pastor who’s not doing any soul winning. You’re not going out there and talking to people and preaching the Gospel to every creature, going door to door, winning people to Christ and a lot of people think that if they do nothing for the Lord and if they don’t do any soul winning, they think that they’re just being neutral.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: Just by not doing anything. “I’m not going soul winning, but I’m not really harming anything,” but the Bible says if you’re not gathering with Him, you’re scattering, so you’re not a zero, you’re actually in the negative at that point.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: If you don’t do any soul winning, if you’re not preaching the Gospel to every creature, if you’re not witnessing to people and giving them the Gospel you’re actually scattering and that’s why He’s sternly rebuking these pastors for not visiting the people and for scattering the sheep and for not winning them to Christ. Because the bottom line is if our Gospel be hid, it’s hid to them that are lost.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: The Bible says, “I’ve set you a watchman,” and He says, “If you don’t warn the wicked, his blood will I require at your hand,” that’s what the Bible says. It’s our responsibility to preach the Gospel to every creature and not even just as pastors but as every Christian. We’ve all been given that Great Commission to teach all nations and to preach the Gospel to every creature and if we’re not doing it, we’re not just neutral. We’re actually scattering but especially, “Woe unto the pastor that would not visit the people. That would not go out and preach to the lost and win people to Christ, woe be unto him.”
Paul even said of himself, he said, “Necessity is laid upon me. Woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel,” but look at Jeremiah 23 here. He’s talking about these pastors who refuse to visit the people and therefore, they’re actually scattering the people. It says in verse number three, “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them and will bring them again to their folds and they shall be fruitful and increase and I will set up shepherds over them,” and ‘shepherd’ is just another word for pastor.
He says, “I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking sayeth the Lord.” What’s wrong with these pastors? The first thing that’s wrong with them is that they’re not doing the soul winning. They’re not visiting. They’re not going out and preaching the Gospel but secondly, the problem is that they’re afraid to preach what needs to be preached.
He’s saying these guys are fearful. These guys are dismayed and therefore, he’s saying, “I’m going to set up different shepherds, different pastors that don’t have that fear.” Go to Jeremiah chapter one, keep your finger there in chapter 23, that’s where we’re going to be all morning, but look at chapter one, this is when Jeremiah is first commissioned to be a preacher in the first place and God speaks on him, verse four, it says, “Then the Word of the Lord came unto me saying, ‘Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.’”
“Then said I, ‘Ah, Lord God, behold I cannot speak for I am a child,’ but the Lord said unto me, ‘Say not I am child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces for I am with thee to deliver thee,’ sayeth the Lord. Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth and the Lord said unto me, ‘Behold, I’ve put My Words in thy mouth. See I have set thee this day over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.’”
He’s giving him this mission to go out and preach and he’s telling him that a big part of his message is going to be a negative message. Now there’s going to be a positive component there but look at all the negative words that are listed in verse 10. He said, “To root out, to pull down, to destroy and to throw down.” That’s four negative words there and then He has two positive words, “To build and to plant.”
See you can’t just go to a building site and just start building. No, the first you have to tear down the structure that was already there in place. You have to get rid of it. You can’t just build onto that. If you were going to build a brand new home and there’s a rickety old shack on that property, the first thing you have to do is demolish that property but then you also have to come in and you have to flatten out the land and you’re going to come in with a back hoe and you’re going to do all the grating and get it all ready to go.
Then you’re going to come in and build and plant but you have to have that demolition crew that’s going to clear out all the junk and let me tell you something, people today have been taught a lot of junk in a lot of churches and somebody has to come in there with the controlled demolition and take that thing down. Somebody has to come in and clear out all that rubble, clear out all that junk, break up that ground, and get ready with a clean slate so that something good can be built there and you’re not just mixing the truth with lies.
No, you’ve got to clean that thing out and we need some pastors to clean house and to tear down some of this false doctrine.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: A lot of people have told me throughout the years, “Hey, don’t preach negative things. Don’t preach against it. Just preach what’s right, just preach the truth, just preach good and people will figure it out,” but it’s not true. You have to come in and start smashing apart false doctrine. It’s not enough just to preach the truth. It’s not enough to say, “Here’s what the Gospel is,” you have to preach against the false gospel and expose it and point it out and that’s what the Bible teaches and all throughout these Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they’re preaching against false doctrine.
When we see Jesus Christ Himself on this earth, He’s exposing the Pharisees and the Sadducees. When you look at the ministry of Apostle Paul, he’s pointing out Phygellas, Hermogenes, Philitus, Alexander. The Apostle John is pointing out Diotrophes and others and they are pointing out the false teaching and the heresy and breaking down that false doctrine so that they can build a structure of Biblical sound doctrine where that lie once stood and so that is our job and if you’re afraid to do that, if you’re afraid to get your hands dirty, if you’re afraid to deal with the explosives necessary to take down that structure, then you can’t be a preacher, you can’t be a pastor.
You’re not going to be an effective shepherd and God flat out said, “I’m going to replace you.” That’s what He said, look at Jeremiah 23. He says, “I will set up,” verse four, “I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed.” He said, “Woe unto these pastors that are scared to preach what needs to be preached. I’m going to replace them with a pastor who is not fearful to get up and preach what needs to be preached, to tear down and to break it apart, so that he can build and plant,” that’s what the Bible says in Jeremiah 23.
Look at verse five, He gives this prophecy, “’Behold the days come,’ sayeth the Lord, ‘That I will raise unto David a righteous branch and a king shall reign and prosper and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days, Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord Our Righteousness.’ ‘Therefore behold the days come,’ sayeth the Lord, ‘That they shall no more say the Lord liveth which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but the Lord liveth which brought up and which led the seat of the House of Israel out of the North country and from all countries whither I have driven them and they shall dwell in their own land.’”
Now the main fulfillment of this prophecy is talking about, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, because that branch, that Son of David, that king that’s going to be raised up, “That in those days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and they’re going to be brought out of all lands whither they have been scattered,” that person is clearly Jesus Christ, the Son of David. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Now there was a shadow fulfillment of this also with Zerubabel, okay, because they did come back from Babylon. You have to get the context of the Book here.
In the Book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah’s preaching at a time when the children of Israel are about to be carried captives into Babylon and God’s predicting that they’re going to be brought back from Babylon and from all the other nations that they were scattered into and He’ll set up David, His servant, over them. Well, there’s that King Zerubabel, the governor of the land after they come back and he is a descendant of David but clearly the primary application here is about Jesus in the Millennium when Jesus is ruling and reigning from Jerusalem, sitting upon the throne of David His father.
You know what’s not in this passage? 1948, because what son of David started ruling in 1948? That’s what I’d like to know.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Did they all get saved in 1948? No, that’s a fraud. That whole … that’s a whole another sermon but what we see here is Jesus because look at verse number six. It says, “In His days,” talking about the days when Jesus Christ will rule and reign on this earth in the Millennium, “In His days, Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely and this is His name whereby He shall be called,” I love this, “The Lord our Righteousness.
What name is Jesus going to be known by? The Lord our Righteousness. Let me tell you something, Jesus is our righteousness today. When it comes to salvation, the Bible says in Romans chapter 10, it says, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved for I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves under the righteousness which is of God, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.”
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: What’s the Bible saying? He’s saying my desire for Israel is that they might be saved. Why are they not saved? He said, because they are going about to establish their own righteousness.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Listen, if people today are not saved, it’s because they’re going about to establish their own righteousness, whether they call themselves Christian or Jew or Muslim, whatever religious label they go by, if they are going about to establish their own righteousness, they’re not saved. Even if they claim, “Oh, I’m Christian.” No, if they’re going about to establish their own righteousness, they need to be saved, “Because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.”
Paul said, “And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God, by faith,” and so that righteousness that is imputed unto us, when we believe on Jesus Christ, that is our righteousness, that is what gets us into heaven. That’s why Jesus said, “Except your righteousness, shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Let me tell you something, my righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees. I don’t care how separated they are because my righteousness is Jesus.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: That’s the righteousness by which we get into heaven. Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags but His righteousness, being imputed unto us will save us and get us into heaven. That’s our ticket into heaven is through Christ, through His righteousness. That’s why Jesus’ name is called the Lord our Righteousness and if He’s not your righteousness, you’re not saved. The Bible says, “Salvation is not of works, lest any man should boast.”
That means if anybody thinks it’s works, they’re not saved because they would boast about that and say, “Oh, yeah, I’m going to heaven, because I’m such a wonderful person,” and what does he keep drawing back to when he talks about the righteousness that is of the law? What’s he referring to there? Keeping the commandments. A lot of people will have this twisted view where they say, “You know, you don’t have to do good works to be saved but you do have to stop doing bad things to be saved.”
It’s not doing works that saves you but you do have to turn from your sins and stop doing those bad things in order to be saved, but here’s the thing, God says keeping the law is your righteousness and it’s a filthy rag and keeping the law includes not stealing. Isn’t that keeping the law? Not fornicating, not killing, not committing adultery, those are all your righteousness, all those commandments that you keep and so if you tell someone, “Hey, you have to stop doing those, you have to turn from those sins or be willing to [inaudible 00:14:42] …” Here’s what you’re saying to those people, “Hey, your righteousness is going to help save you.”
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: “It’s believing in Jesus and a little bit of your righteousness, where you’re going to turn from some of these sins and stop doing these things. You’re going to follow the 10 Commandments,” or whatever. No, it’s Christ our righteousness that’s going to save us.
It says in verse nine, back in Jeremiah 23, and we need preachers, by the way, there are a lot of preachers who are right on salvation. They know it’s by faith alone. They know it’s by grace. They know it’s not of works. They know it’s not by the righteousness of the law but it seems like they’re afraid to fight against the false salvation.
They’re preach it right that it’s by faith but why won’t they go after this “Repent of your sins crowd?” Why won’t they go after these work salvation crowd? Why won’t they go after the lose your salvation crowd? We need some pastors and preachers that are not afraid to throw down and pluck up and break down and destroy these lies.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: That they can build and plant that which is correct. It says in verse number nine, “Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets.” It’s heart breaking. It’s heart breaking when you see preachers that won’t preach right, that’s what he’s saying. “All my bones shake. I’m like a drunken man. I’m like a man whom wineth overcome because of the Lord and because of the Words of His Holiness, for the land is full of adulterers. For because of swearing, the land mourneth. The pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up and their course is evil and their force is not right for both prophet and priest are profane.”
“‘Yea, in my house have I found there wickedness,’ sayeth the Lord, ‘Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness. They shall be driven on and fall thereon for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation,’ sayeth the Lord, ‘And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied in Baal and cause my people Israel to err. I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing. They commit adultery and walk in lies.’”
Now watch this key phrase, “They strengthen also the hands of evil doers that none doth return from his wickedness. They are all of them unto me as Sodom and the inhabitants of thereof as Gomorrah.” Now this is a key phrase here that He rebukes the pastors for strengthening the hands of the evil doers that none doth return from his wickedness. See if you jump down to verse 22, look what the Bible says, “But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my Words, then they should have turned from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.”
Here’s what God’s saying in verse 22, “If these pastors would have preached hard on sin, the people would have gotten the sin out of their lives.”
Congregation: Yup.
Pastor Anderson: Isn’t that what it’s saying? He’s saying, “Look, if they would have stood in my counsel and caused my people to hear my Words, then they should have turned from their evil way and from the evil of their doings,” but instead of that, instead of rebuking sin and preaching hard on sin, which would have caused people to turn from, instead they strengthened the hands of the evil doers, that none of them turned from his wickedness.
There’s a little more explanation given in verse 16 and 17, “Thus sayeth the Lord of Hosts, ‘Harken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you, they make you vain. They speak of vision out of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say still unto them that despise me, ‘The Lord has said, ye shall have peace.’”
This is like the prosperity preachers of today. This reminds me of Joyce Meyer with her book, God is Not Mad at You. What is she doing with that book? God is Not Mad at You. Maybe God is mad at you, though.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: I’m going to write a book called God Might be Mad at You. It’s true, I mean … but she says on the back of this book, she says on the jacket, “Look, God’s not mad … It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter what you believe. God is not mad at you but how many times does the Bible say, “I’m angry, my wrath is kindled, my anger is burning hot with …” but God’s not mad at you. What’s she saying? She’s looking at people that literally despise the Lord … Look at verse number 17, literally despise the Lord and she’s saying to them, “You shall have peace. God’s going to give you your best life now and God wants to bless you.”
Even people who are doing horrible things and that are haters of the Lord and despise the Lord, they’re telling them, “Hey, you’ll have peace.” Basically just a positive message for everybody as if God is this Santa Claus where He knows if you’ve been good or bad but He’s going to pretty much give you your presents anyway, because He’s just nice like that. He’s just going to give it to you, no matter what you do. “And they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, ‘No evil shall come upon you.’”
Unbelievable, this … That anybody could even say these things but, yet, these are the type of things that are being preached, I mean how could somebody write a book, God is Not Mad at You, and it sells. It’s every … You see it at WalMart. You see it at Barnes and Noble. Who is buying this? People who don’t know this Book at all, people who don’t even own a King James Version and people who don’t even probably pull down the NIV off their shelf and look at it, not that it would do them any good, people who just have no clue who God is to actually believe such a bizarre message that no matter who you are, God’s not made at you.
It’s bizarre but people believe this stuff because it sounds good and makes them feel good. We need to get back to the word of God and see who God really is and we need pastors and preachers who will get up and tell us who God really is and not be afraid to call a spade a spade and honestly … You say, “Why are you preaching this?” The bottom line is that we need to replace the preachers in America today. They need to be replaced.
Congregation: Yup, amen.
Pastor Anderson: “Oh, let’s straighten them out.” “Well, let’s straighten them out,” but a lot of them just need to be replaced.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: They need to be replaced by a new generation of young preachers that would rise up and not be afraid and that would rise up and know the Word of God and know who God is and that’s why I’m preaching this chapter, hoping that the hearts of man would be stirred to say, “You know what, I’m going to be this kind of preacher that I see in Jeremiah 23. I’m going to be that man.”
The Bible says in verse 18, for who has stood in the counsel of the Lord and hath perceived and heard His Word? Who hath marked His Word and heard it? Behold the whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury,” but God’s not mad at you. Who is He mad at? Who’s He so furious … What’s this whirlwind about?
Congregation: Yeah, right.
Pastor Anderson: It’s just a big whirlwind that just wants to give you a big hug, you know, swoooosh … No, He’s got a whirlwind of fury. What’s it mean to be furious? I mean furious is really angry.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: He said, “It shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord shall not return until you have executed, until you have performed the thoughts of His heart. In the latter days, ye shall consider it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.” It reminded of the … In the Mark and Design, that Rabbi Weiner, you remember him? He basically says, “You know, a lot of people say that if you don’t obey God’s commandments, you’re going to have a bad life or go to the Netherworld or …”
“You mean hell? Oh, no, we don’t believe in that. We don’t believe in hell,” but here’s what’s so funny, not only is he denying the fact that anyone will go to hell for any reason, this Jewish rabbi … and he’s a Reformed Jewish Rabbi, which by the way is the most common denomination for a religious Jew to be … Not only is he denying that anyone will go to hell for any reason, but he even says, “You’re not even going to have a bad life.” “A lot of people think that you’ll have a bad life if you don’t obey the Word God …”
It’s like, “Yeah, you are going to have a bad life if you don’t obey the Word of God.” He’s basically saying, “Forget heaven and hell.” He’s saying, “You can just completely disregard God’s Word and you won’t even have a bad life.” Then why in the world would anybody even listen to this guy or any religious … I mean in that case, let’s eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we die.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: If that’s the philosophy but there are people out there, teaching this stuff, whether it’s that rabbi, whether it’s Joyce Meyer, whether it’s Joel Osteen or whoever else, these people need to be replaced.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: The Bible says in this Scripture, in verse 21, I think this is an often misunderstood Scripture, verse 21, because it says, “I’ve not sent these prophets yet they ran. I’ve not spoken to them yet they prophesied,” and I think a lot of people will misinterpret that verse and they’ll say this, “If God hasn’t sent you to preach, if God hasn’t called you, then don’t do it. Don’t preach, don’t pastor, unless you’ve been called,” and by being called, it’s this mysticism that they believe in.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Who know what I’m talking about? It’s like this mystical, “I was called to preach on April 21st, 2009. The whole room lit up …” and everything and it’s just this mysticism and emotion of the call to preach. “Are you sure you’ve been called, brother? If you can be happy doing anything else, don’t do it,” and all this stuff about, “Are you called?” “I’ve been called. I know I’ve been called.” “I was called to preach on December 13th, 2008,” but here’s the thing, I don’t believe in it.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: Because here’s what the Bible says, “If any man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.” It’s okay to just desire the office of bishop and then he says, “If any man be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused [inaudible 00:24:39] or unruly …” and he lists all those qualifications but he says if anybody meets the qualifications, if anybody desire the office of a bishop, great. He doesn’t say, “Wait for a special calling or an emotional or charismatic type experience.”
He says that if you desire it, if you’re qualified, do it and the Bible even said in Numbers chapter 11, “Would God that all God’s people were prophets and that He would put His spirit upon them.” This is something that anybody who desires to do it and anybody who is equipped and able to do it is called. You don’t have to have this special call. It’s just something that is entered into this Baptist folklore. They’ll look at this and say, “Here it says, ‘These prophets, they ran and I didn’t send them. I didn’t speak to them.’ See you’ve got to be called …”
No, here’s what it’s saying, “These people are preaching something that He did not tell them to preach.” That’s what the Scripture’s actually saying. He’s saying, “These people are saying that they got a word from Me that they never got from Me.”
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: Now here’s the thing, he’s saying, “I’ve not spoken to them.” Guess what, if you own a Bible and you read it every day, God has spoken to you.”
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: Here’s where God spoke to you. I have never heard from God in an audible voice, from the time I’ve been saved until this day. Everything that God has ever told me has been through this Book in my hand, the King James Bible. This is where I’ve learned everything, so don’t misunderstand that verse. He’s telling you, “Preach what I’ve told you to preach.” He’s not saying, “Hey, you have to be specifically given an engraved invitation from me. An angel has to show up to you and tell you, ‘I want you to preach.’” Okay.
He says in verse number 22 there, “But if they had stood in My counsel and had caused My people to hear My words, then they should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.” Honestly, preaching works and preaching against sin works.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: He says, “If it would have been preached, if they sins would have been exposed, they would have turned from them,” and it’s so true today that so many pastors are afraid to preach when really, there’s nothing to be afraid of, because if they would just preach, people would receive it and people would change. I’ve noticed that whatever you preach about, wherever you sow that seed, that’s where you reap a harvest and if you preach on a certain sin, people will get that sin out of their lives, thank God, and if you don’t preach on a certain sin, that sin will abound.
That’s why it’s so important to preach against things like fornication and preach against things like adultery and drunkenness. Why? Because we don’t want those things to be once named among us, we don’t want those things to creep in and so in order to stop those things from creeping in you have to preach hard against them, and if you don’t, it just becomes a fornication fest. It just becomes a den of iniquity in the church and, listen, even when hard preaching happens, sin creeps in, because people are human and because, obviously, they’re sinners and everybody’s a sinner and things can go wrong and so forth, but how much more when it’s not even being preached.
I mean I can’t even imagine. I mean I’ve preached hard on sin and then I’ve noticed that sometimes maybe I’ll go a few months without covering something and then I’ll see it’ll start to creep in somewhere in the church and then I’m just thinking to myself, “Good night, what about these people who are never preaching hard? What kind of a den of iniquity is over there?” Because I mean you relax on something just a little bit and you see it creep in.
We need to be sober. We need to be vigilant and we need hard preaching. I need hard preaching. I need to hear hard preaching. You need to hear hard preaching because it reminds us of the dangers of sin and it allows all of us to turn from our sins on a continual basis in our Christian lives as we hear hard preaching that will make sin exceeding sinful and that will demonize sin unto us so that we will take that right path and that we will live a godly life that would please our Savior Jesus Christ.
The Bible says in verse number 24, “‘Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him,’ sayeth the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth,’ sayeth the Lord. I have heard what the prophets said that prophesied lies in My name saying, ‘I have dreamed, I’ve dreamed.’ How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they are the prophets of the deceit of their own heart which think to cause my people to forget My name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that hath My Word, let him speak my Word faithfully.”
We have God’s Word, so that’s all we need. I’m not even looking to dreams and things, because I have the Word of God right here. This is enough for me to preach for the rest of my life and He says, in verse number 28, “‘The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream and he that hath My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?’ sayeth the Lord, ‘Is not My Word like as a fire, sayeth the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?’” Both fire and a hammer are both destructive forces, aren’t they?
Fire is used to destroy things and a hammer is used to break things apart and destroy them because He’s specifically saying, “This isn’t a hammer that hammers a nail into a piece of wood in this particular context, it’s the hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. It’s the slamming of a sledge hammer into a rock and it’s shattering into pieces.” That’s what God’s saying that His Word does. God’s Word is likened to so many things in the Bible. It’s likened unto bread. It’s likened unto our daily food. It’s likened unto water. It’s likened unto soap. It’s likened unto gold. It’s likened unto [inaudible 00:30:32] …
I mean all the different likenesses but not only is the Bible our spiritual food, not only is the Bible our foundation, where God says, “Building your life on the Word of God is like building your house upon a rock,” but God also says that “His Word is a two edged sword that will divide,” and He also said, that His Word is like a hammer that will break rock in pieces and He also said His Word is like a fire that would burn up and consume that which is false and that which is a lie and so God said, “‘My Word is like a fire,’ sayeth the Lord, ‘And like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.’”
Verse 30, “‘Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,’ sayeth the Lord, ‘That steal My Words, every one, from his neighbor.” Now what’s He talking about here when He says, “The prophets that steal My Words, every one from his neighbor?” He’s talking about a preacher who just repeats things that he heard other preachers say.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Instead of preaching that which actually came from the Lord. He’s saying, “These prophets steal My Words, every one from his neighbor.” “They’re not preaching My Word. They’re preaching what they took from the other prophet,” and how many preachers are just repeating things over and over again where one preacher says it and then another guy repeats it and then pretty soon, people are just repeating it and repeating it and repeating it and repeating it and repeating it and nobody stops and thinks, “Wait a minute, is that Biblical?”
There are so many sayings and things that you just hear repeated over and over again that have no Biblical basis at all and they’re just stealing the Word every one from his neighbor, just repeated, repeated, repeated. Let’s think of something together, shall we?
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Some of those things are just repeated over and over again that just aren’t … Here’s one: Repent of your sins to be saved.
Congregation: Yeah. Right.
Pastor Anderson: That’s not in the Bible, okay. It’s all through the book of Mormon, repent of your sins, all through the Koran, yeah. Shekinah, there you go. These pastors talk about, “Oh, the Shekinah glory of God.” I guarantee you, if you went up to every pastor that said, “The Shekinah glory of God,” and asked them, “What does that word Shekinah mean?” “Oh, oh,” Or they’ll just tell you, “Oh, it just means glory,” but that’s not what it means. I always thought they’re going back to the Hebrew my whole life when they say that.
It turns out, it’s the female side of the Jewish false god. God doesn’t have a feminine side. God is masculine, okay, but, yeah, they’ll say, “Oh, yeah, bok, Shekinah glory, bok, bok, Shekinah glory, Shekinah glory.” Just keep repeating it. Here’s another one that’s just repeated all over, “To be saved, you have to turn from sin to the Savior. Turn from …” “Bok, turn from sin to the Savior. Bok.” No, you don’t turn from … That doesn’t even make sense, because after you get saved, you’re still going to commit sin.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: “There’s none righteous, no, not one.” We still are going to sin after we’re saved but does it … “Oh, turn from the sins …” That doesn’t even make sense because that’s an incongruous idea there. You’re not contra … See, let me just explain it to you this way. If I were to switch from Shell to Chevron, that makes sense. Right, I was getting my gas at Shell, now I’m getting my gas at Chevron. I turned from Shell to Chevron. Does that make sense?
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Okay, or let’s say I turned from Qdoba to Chipotle, that makes sense. They’re both almost exactly the same anyway but you’re going from one restaurant to another, does everybody understand?
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: Okay, so that makes sense. It would not make sense to say, “I switched from Shell to Chipotle.” That makes no sense, does it? “I switched from Food City to Men’s Wearhouse.” What are you talking about? It doesn’t even make sense, because they’re two totally different things that have nothing to do with one another. One is a place where you’re buying clothes, one of them is a place where you’re buying food, it just doesn’t make any sense. How do you turn from sin to the Savior?
Jesus is a new sin or something or that sin was your old way to get you to heaven and now Jesu— That doesn’t make any sense. See here’s what the Bible says, “That you turn from idols to Jesus.” Well, that makes sense. Why? Because an idol is something that you pray to, an idol is something that you’re trusting for salvation, right. An idol is something that you’re worshiping. Now instead of trusting and praying to and worshiping an idol, you’re trusting, praying to, and worshiping Jesus. Does that make sense?
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Yeah, turn to God from idols. Turn to Jesus from maybe a religion that you were following that you thought was going to get you to heaven, now you’re trusting Jesus to get you to heaven or you turn from Buddha to Jesus, does that make sense?
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Buddha to Jesus, makes sense. Mohammed to Jesus makes sense. Hinduism to Jesus makes sense, sin to Jesus, doesn’t make sense because no one’s trusting their sin to get them to heaven.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: I’ve never yet run into somebody out soul winning, who I said, “Why are you going to heaven,” and they said, “Because of all the sins I’ve committed. That’s going to get me to heaven.” Never one time has anybody been trusting their sin to get them into heave. Never one time has anyone prayed to their sins. No one has ever worshiped their sins, have they? It doesn’t make sense, okay. Now you could say, “I turned from sin to living a godly life.” That would makes sense.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Wouldn’t that make sense? I turned from sin to good works. That makes sense, but guess what, that’s not salvation. That’s a 12 step program. That’s turning over a new leaf. Salvation’s by grace through faith. You could say, “I turned from dead works to faith in Christ and salvation.” That makes sense. It’s just one of those things that they steal words, everyone from his neighbor, “Hey, turn from sin to the Savior,” “Amen, sounds great.” “Yeah, seven years tribulation.” “Bok, seven years tribulation, bok, bok.”
Nowhere in the Bible does it say seven years tribulation. “Oh, the Anti-Christ is going to make a peace treaty with Israel at the beginning of seven years.” Not in the Bible. Here’s what the Bible actually says, “He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week.” Goes into their computer and comes out, “He’s going to make a peace treaty with Israel for seven years.” It doesn’t say that anywhere. Come on, help me out, people.
Congregation: [Inaudible 00:36:56]
Pastor Anderson: What’s that?
Congregation: [Inaudible 00:36:58]
Pastor Anderson: I can’t understand your … I don’t speak Australian.
Congregation: [Inaudible 00:37:03] Most of you say bends.
Pastor Anderson: Burdens?
Congregation: I have a …
Pastor Anderson: Oh, well, that … I’m not … See, here’s what Louis is reading ahead to versus 33 through 40 which are not part of my sermon all right. Did you get ahead in the chapter? The Burden? Oh, yeah, I guess Gary read the whole thing so, so he’s a really good head.
Congregation: They say … and it’s not in the New Testament, like most … Like new Christians would say, “What should I follow in the Old Testament?” and they say, “Just do what you feel like. Hate the sin, not the sinner.”
Pastor Anderson: Yeah, there we go. Yeah, Gandhi’s famous quote, Mahatma Gandhi said, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” and how many times have we heard pastors repeat that?
Congregation: Yeah, oh, yeah.
Pastor Anderson: A hundred times and they’re quoting Gandhi and then you show them, David’s quote from Psalm 139, and they look at you like you have two heads, when you show them what the Bible said in Psalm a 139 by David and then … the Gandhi quote rolls of their tongue. “Bok, love the sinner, hate the sin. Bok, love the sinner, hate the …” and you know what, Gandhi’s not saved. Gandhi’s not a Christian, remember. He would’ve have been a Christian if it weren’t for Christians.
You know what, I would have been a Hindu if it weren’t for Hindus, buddy. Yeah, put that in your pipe and smoke it. I would have been a Hindu if they didn’t worship Satan. There’s my quote for you, Gandhi. “I’d be a Christian if it weren’t for Christians.” You know what, go to hell then, Gandhi, because you know what, there’s no salvation in any other for there’s none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, Gandhi, and yet Christians will quote that quote from Gandhi, “I would be a Christian if it weren’t for Christians. Love the sinner, hate the sin.”
They’ll quote Gandhi today, who was a Satan worshiper because that’s what Hinduism is. They worship all kind of demons. What else is repeated constant … Yeah, okay, we’ve got to get off the Marching to Zion theme.
Congregation: Not judging …
Pastor Anderson: Yeah, judge not … Just judge not, period. Instead of the whole, where Jesus explains, “Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judge thee, judged you shall be judged.” Just a shortened, just, “Bok, judge not, judge not. Bok, bok.” Just repeated over and over again. Look, we need to stop just repeating stuff that we’ve heard, and, look, don’t even just repeat stuff that I’ve said.
We need to get into the Word and figure out what the truth is and get the Word directly from God, as preachers and as prophets. We need to get it directly from God, through our own reading and our own study and through the Holy Spirit speaking to us and not just steal every man or words right here.
Now let me say this. If I hear a good sermon from somebody, I’ll re-preach it. It’s not like, “Oh, well, I don’t want to preach that because I heard him say that, “ but the difference is that you actually fact check it, study it, internalize it, understand it, and then preach it in your own words, preach it in your own way. I’ve done that. I mean I could list for you sermons that I got from other people, that I learned from other people and re-preached. You have to absorb it and make it your own and then fact check it and search the Scriptures whether these thing be so, not just getting up and just repeating and repeating and repeating things that didn’t come from the Lord, they just came from your neighbor.
Your fellow preacher is what he means by neighbor there. He says in verse number 31, “Behold, I am against the prophets sayeth the Lord, that use their tongues and say, ‘He said.’” They say, “He sayeth,” okay. Now what does that mean? They’re basically claiming that God said stuff that He didn’t say. Now this is my pet peeve when people quote God and God didn’t really say it. I mean if you’re going to say, “Well, here’s what Jesus said,” you’d better be able to show me chapter and verse on that.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: Or if you’re going to say, “Here’s what God said,” that I want to see it in the Bible but a lot of people will just say, “You know, God told me to buy this building or God told me to go do this and that,” but it’s all just from their own heart is what it is. It’s a figment of their imagination.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Now the Holy Spirit will bring to our remembrance the things that Christ has spoken unto us but He doesn’t just say to us random things that are not in the Bible and I always tell people when they try to tell me, “Well, God told me,” and they start saying a bunch of stuff that supposedly God told them, I always tell them, “Here, let me write that down in the back of my Bible as Scripture, then, because if that’s the Word of God, I want to make sure I have it in my Bible since that’s what God said to you. Let me write that down, and in fact, we need to get this written in everybody’s Bible.”
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: “Because man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, so if God said that, then it needs to be recorded in Scripture, and, oh, you know, what was your name again? Frank? Okay, well, this is going to be the book of Frank, and we’re going to add that in there.” That’s what I tell people because, honestly, people are too … People are just too loose about just adding to God’s Word and the Bible says, “The Words of the Lord,” He said, “Every Word of God is pure. He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His Words lest He reprove thee and thou be found a liar.”
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: “Add thou not unto His Words,” and the IC billboards where they just have these corny, cheesy quotes, and then they say, “God” at the end. “If you must swear, use your own name. God,” or stuff like that on a billboard. Now that’s blasphemous because first of all, God’s not that corny and cheesy as all these dumb jokes that you put on the billboard and number two that’s not God’s Word and it’s blasphemous to put that quote and say that God said it when God didn’t say and I … If I had a nickel for every time somebody said, “Well, Jesus said …” and then they just start giving all their own opinion, just all, just a big long opinion comes out … “This what Jesus said …”
Where did He say that but He didn’t say it and that makes them a liar. God is saying here that these prophets, “They say, ‘He sayeth,’” but He’s, “I didn’t say that. I never said that.” I mean how would you like it if someone went around quoting you and claiming that you said a bunch of stuff that you didn’t say? You’d be angry, wouldn’t you?
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: You’d be … There are even people who file lawsuits because they’ve been supposedly quoted as saying something that never was said, and yet people sometimes are just so quick to take what comes out of their own heart, what they dreamed up, what’s in their own imagination, their own feelings and emotions and just say, “This is what God told me.” “This is what the Holy Spirit said,” and on and on and they just add things to the Word and what does the Bible say? “I’m against them.”
Now I would hate for God to be up in heaven saying, “I’m against Steven Anderson.” I mean you could think about how that would feel. Put your name in there. God said, “I’m against … Your name.” You go, “Whoa, what did I do? I need to fix it,” and why is He against them? Because they’re saying that He said things that He didn’t say and “He says, ‘Behold, I’m against them. They have prophesized false dreams,’ sayeth the Lord, ‘And do tell them and cause my people to err by their lies and by their lightness.’”
What does lightness mean? Lightness is when it’s the opposite of gravity. It’s the opposite of taking something seriously. Using lightness is when are flippant or casual and not taking things seriously. Somebody who would just say, “Well, here’s what God said,” or “Here’s what Jesus said,” without stopping to be serious and make sure that they accurately give us what God said from the Bible. They just lightly, casually just throw things out there as the Word of God that are not really God’s Word.
He’s saying, “They cause people to err by their lies and by their lightness.” Some of it’s just lying. Now what’s the difference between lying and lightness? Lying is intentional. See if I had some false information and I accidentally passed it on to you, you wouldn’t call that lying would you? If I thought that something were true and I said it to you and it turned out later it wasn’t true, you wouldn’t say I was lying, you’d say I was mistaken, wouldn’t you?
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: You were mistaken. You would not call that lying because lying is intentional. Lying is when you know the truth and you say something other than the truth purposely. That is what lying is, okay. What’s lightness? Lightness is just basically, when you’re mistaken because you didn’t take the time or take it seriously to get the information right. Now, certain things you don’t take that seriously because they’re not that serious, because they’re not a big deal and you might accidentally say, “Oh, yeah, he’s in that room … Oh, sorry, I thought he was in there. He’s actually over here.”
Who cares but you know what? Are we to use the Word of God with lightness? I mean should we get up behind the pulpit with lightness? Should we get up behind the pulpit and say, “Well, this might be true. Just preach it, just say it. Yeah, it could be,” or “I don’t know, I heard somebody say it. It sounded good. Don’t have time to fact check it, just preach it.” There have been times when I have come across some ground breaking doctrine in the Bible, not that it was ground breaking because there’s nothing new under the sun, but it was ground breaking to me.
It’s something that was new to me, something that I had newly learned. Obviously, there are all kinds of people out there who believed it before me no matter what it is but I found something new but I didn’t want to just get up and just with lightness, just the next Sunday morning, just get up and preach it so many times, I’ve taken three months, six months, nine months to digest a doctrine that is new to me, something that I’ve learned from the Word of God, just to make sure that I don’t just with lightness get up and preach something false, especially if it’s real different than what most people were saying.
I always want to go back and study the Bible and make sure that I’m right about this and make sure there’s nothing that contradicts it before rolling out that sermon because you don’t want to use lightness with the Word of God. There are two problems, He says, with preachers when they lie and preach things that are false and when they use lightness, basically, not taking the responsibility seriously of learning the Word of God and preaching an accurate sermon, that’s what He’s saying.
Now those of you who want to preach someday and I know we have a lot of guys in our church that would love to preach someday and be a pastor and I think that’s great and the more that we have the better, because that’s what we need today. We need pastors and preachers that will rise up and be a new generation that will preach the Word of God faithfully and be shepherds that will feed God’s people, according to His will and according to His heart but I think one of the big things that is needed amongst this new generation of preachers is that they must not use lightness when it comes to knowing doctrine and knowing the Word of God.
It needs to be taken very seriously that they study to show themselves approved unto God, a workman that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth and people are constantly asking me, “What can I do to prepare to be a pastor and what can I do to learn and grow in that area?” and one of the biggest things that you could do is just read the Bible a lot.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: People say, “What’s the secret to understanding the Bible?” Number one, be saved. I’m sure you’ve got that down. You’ve got to be saved, the Holy Spirit has to be inside … but number two, I’ll tell you the big thing, just do a lot of reading. “Really, that’s it?” Yeah, it’s not complicated. “What about all these pastors who just don’t understand the Bible and they preach so much false doctrine?” It’s because they’re not doing the reading.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: I’ll guarantee you that that’s why and I’ve even heard, I’ve heard some of these pastors get up and say, “I’ve read the Bible 89 times and I’ve read the Bible a 100 times,” and you know what, I say, “You’re a liar because I’ve heard some of your preaching and I’ve heard the junk that you preach and I’ve heard the way you always misquote the Word of God every time you speak and if you’d read it that many times, you would know what it says and you wouldn’t be making the constant mistakes that you’re making from the pulpit.”
Now look, everybody makes mistakes. Everybody gets things wrong. I’m sure I’ve gotten things wrong. I’m sure I’ve made mistakes, no one is perfect but when somebody is just continually, continually butchering the what the Word actually says and continually preaching that which is false and then they’re going to sit there and tell you, “Oh, I’ve read the Bible X amount of times.” First of all, why are you up there bragging about how many times you’ve read the Bible anyway, because you know what, if you really knew the Bible, you wouldn’t have to keep telling us how many times you’d read it. We’d just know by listening to your preaching.
Congregation: Yeah, right.
Pastor Anderson: This guy read the Bible a lot, just by listening to you. When you have to get up and give that number of, “Oh, I’ve read it this many times,” it’s because you didn’t really do it and you’re a liar. Now I’m not saying these people are all liars but I’m saying that I’ve heard some that are for sure a liar because they don’t know what the Bible says and then they say that and you’re like … “No, did you have your eyes open? Did you have the light on when you were reading it? Were you reading it in English?”
Because they’re not and so I’m telling you, young men, if you want to be a great preacher, if you want to be a great pastor, one of the best things and even if you’re just toying with the idea of possibly pasturing somebody, the best thing you could do is learn the Bible, that’s the main thing. That is the problem today. It’s not just the lies, it’s the lightness and so we need men who will read and study and look, you say, “Well, I’m busy.” Well, then, you’re not going to be able to do the job then, okay. Because you have to make time to learn it but one way to do it is to get it on audio.
You get the Alexander Scourby reading the King James and it’s great to listen to it in the car and you’ll get so much of it that way if you’re an auditory learner. I’m an auditory learner. I learn more from listening than from reading, some people are the other way around but you can get it in your car, in the cd player. You read it. Take it with you to work. Put it in your lunch bag. Put a New Testament in your pocket. Bible memorization and Bible reading are the key to understanding Scripture.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: That’s the key and when you have people that are making a lot of mistakes, it’s just because they’re ignorant of the Word. They haven’t done the reading. They haven’t done the memorization. That’s what we need and I don’t need to see your degree from some university. I don’t need to see how many times you claim that you’ve read it or whatever.
I want to talk to somebody who actually knows the Bible and knows doctrine and understands what I’m talking about to where I could actually talk to you about Bible stories of the Old Testament and you actually know what story I’m talking about. Or I can actually talk to you about doctrines taught in the Epistles, in the New Testament and you actually are familiar with the Scripture that I’m talking to because you’ve read it repeatedly. Maybe you’ve even done some Bible memory.
That’s what we need today is people … I mean think about it, if you wanted to chose a restaurant to go to or someone to cook, your food, do you really care how many degrees they have on the wall or do you want to just taste the food?
Congregation: Taste the food.
Pastor Anderson: I mean think about it. If the food tastes good, do you really care where they went to school? Do you really care how many hours they spent in training and learning and reading and studying and which countries they visited in their quest for the ultimate culinary art? No, what you care about is does the food taste good.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Because the proof is in the pudding.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor Anderson: I’m telling you, we need a new generation of young chefs … I mean preachers. I’m hungry, okay. This is what happens when I preach, I’m hungry. No, I’m just kidding. We need a generation of wives who cook for their husbands and cook breakfast and cook lunch and cook dinner and it’s tastes good. I’m sorry, it’s the wrong sermon. Wrong sermon. We need pastors and preachers … but look, the pastor is a spiritual chef.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor Anderson: Spiritual cook, this is the cookbook. This is … Well, This is where the food comes from, right. See this is like … Here’s how preaching is and I’ll close with this thought because this is a sermon for preachers and for people who want to preach someday. You say, “I’m never going to be a preacher. I’m not a preacher, what do I get out of the sermon?” This is the kind of preaching you should be listening to, okay, and this is the kind of preaching that you should gravitate toward but I always tell people who are learning how to preach, I always tell them that preaching is like cooking, because you’re feeding the people. That’s what God said in this chapter that we just looked at.
He said, “The pastors feed the flock of God.” There are three great elements to being a great cook. To being a great cook, you have to have three great elements. Number one, you have to have the right ingredients, because you can have a great cook but if they’re buying cheap, junky ingredients, it’s going to come out in the food, isn’t it. If it’s a bunch of GMO, hydrogenated, filled with preservatives, I don’t care how skillful they are at polishing the apple if they’re using junky, cheapo, expired ingredients, the food’s not going to taste good.
Number one, you’ve got to start with the right ingredients. Number two, you have to have a good recipe to be a good cook. You have a good recipe. You follow a good recipe in order to get your proportions right and everything and then number three to be a great cook, you have to be able to deviate from the recipe. That’s how you achieve perfection, because if you’re just a robot that just takes the right ingredients and then you have a great recipe and then you just bok, bok, bok, and everything’s just down to the milligram, it’s not going to come out … It’s going to come out good but it’s not going to come out perfect.
Perfection is achieved when you can then taste it and add just a little pinch of this and a little pinch of that in order to deviate from the recipe to bring it to the next level and that’s how it is with preaching a sermon. Here’s what you have to do.
Number one, you have to have the right ingredients, the King James version. I don’t care how good of a preacher you are, if you’re preaching out of the NIV, I don’t want that GMO, partially hydrogenated, preservative laden garbage that you have to say.
Congregation: Yeah, amen.
Pastor Anderson: I don’t want to put that stuff into my body. I don’t want to put that stuff into my soul either, so you have the right ingredients and by the way, that means actually using the King James Bible, not just one verse at the beginning of your sermon and then blah, blah, blah.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: That there’s a lot of nutritious ingredient put into that sermon, a copious amount of verses from the King James Bible, the right ingredients. Number two, you have to have a good recipe, which would be your outline, your sermon outline, that’s like your recipe, right, and so sometimes you may borrow recipes from other people a little bit but you have to number three, be able to make that recipe your own and you have to be able to deviate from the recipe.
Now if you as a preacher just write out a sermon and you have that recipe and it’s a great recipe but you just get up and read the recipe to us and it’s just recited to us with no deviation, it’s not going to be as good of a sermon is if you can deviate from the recipe which in preaching that would be the Spirit’s leading. Because when you preach, the Holy Spirit should lead you and guide you and sometimes when you’re preaching, the Holy Spirit will bring things to your mind in the sense that Bible verses will pop into your head, not that He’s going to just tell you things that aren’t in the Bible but that the Holy Spirit will bring all things to your remembrance.
[Inaudible 00:57:12] preaching, Bible verses will pop into your mind that weren’t even in the recipe, that weren’t even in the outline, that you didn’t even think of and then, “Oh, yeah, that’s perfect,” and then you can preach that extra verse, that extra point. Because sometimes, people will come to church and God knows that they need to hear a certain thing and that they need to hear … I mean how many times have you brought a visitor to church and the sermon was exactly what they needed to hear? Or you came to church and you’re like, “Wow, we were just talking about this” or this is just what I needed to hear.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: Basically, the Spirit can lead you like that when you’re preaching but here’s the thing, if you don’t have any Bible verses in your heart, then how’s God going to bring that to your remembrance what you don’t have in your mind and in your heart, so being a great cook is like being a godly preacher is that you have to have the right ingredients, you know the right recipe, the sermon outline, and then you have to be able to deviate from that outline and the only way you’re going to be able to deviate from the outline is if you’re preaching from your heart.
Because if you’re just a machine that’s preaching from a piece of paper, you’re not going to be able to preach from the heart and you’re not going to be able to deviate from the outline, which the deviation is when the Holy Spirit’s bringing the Word to your mind. How’s He going to bring it to your mind, because you’ve read it so many times and because you’ve memorized it so many times that it just comes to you while you’re preaching from your memory bank.
The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. It’s what the Spirit uses in our hearts and in our lives but here’s the thing, we’ve got to give them the tools, folks. How can the Holy Spirit use that which isn’t there?
Congregation: Right.
Pastor Anderson: You’ve got to have the Word in your heart, in order for God to be able to have that full arsenal of Scripture to pull out and use in any given sermon as the Spirit leads.
I pray that this sermon would inspire a generation of preachers that would understand that the preachers out there, many of them are scattering the flock. They’re not doing the soul winning. They’re scared to preach what’s right. They’re just borrowing phrases and buzz phrases from their neighbor. They’re just preaching the same things over and over again. They’re leaving out a big part of the message and they’re adding to God’s Word and they’re not doing …
Look, we need a generation that would rise up and feed the people as God would have them fed. Let’s bow our heads and have a Word of prayer.
Father, we thank you for this chapter, Jeremiah 23, Lord, that was penned down thousands of years ago but yet it is applicable today. We look at it today and we say, “Wow, this is really accurate to what we see, Lord.” Please help us to not fall into this category where You would say that You’re against us and help us, Lord, to study, to show ourselves approved unto You, and in Jesus name …
