Psalm 11, the verse that I wanted to focus on is verse number three where the bible reads, "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" That's the title of my sermon this morning, "If the foundations be destroyed". Now, flip over if you would to Luke 6, Luke 6. The bible says there in Psalm 11, " If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Meaning, that the righteous are powerless to do anything if the foundations are destroyed. That's how important the foundation is.
What is the foundation? According to the bible itself, it's Jesus that's the foundation, and it's the word of God that's the foundation, the words of Jesus. Look what the bible says in Luke 6:47, "Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great."
Who is the man that built his foundation upon a rock? It's the one who hears the sayings of Jesus Christ and does them, and the one who does not hear those sayings and does not do them is like one who's building his house without a foundation. The bible says, "No foundation." The bible said in Psalm 11, "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" If the foundation isn't there, then when the storm comes, when opposition comes, and beats on the house, the bible says here in Luke 6 that it fell immediately. "Immediately it fell." It just crumbles. Why? Because there's nothing holding it up. The bible is teaching us how important it is to have the right foundation.
Go to Ephesians 2, just a few pages to the right in your bible, Ephesians 2. According to Luke 6, the foundation was the sayings of Jesus Christ. The word of God was the foundation according to Luke 6. While you turn to Ephesians 2, I'll read for you from 1 Corinthians 3 where the bible reads, "According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
Look down in your bible there in Ephesians 2:18, "For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation ..." watch the foundation, "... of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone."
The foundation that we're to build upon is made up of all the apostles and prophets. It's made up of the entire bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and then Jesus and his sayings are the chief cornerstone, but all of it is the foundation, all of it is the word of God. That is upon what we are to build our lives.
Now, go to Hebrews 6, Hebrews 6. By the way, this is why it's so important that we are King James only at this church because if the word of God is the whole foundation for everything that we believe, if it's our final authority in all matters of faith and practice, then it's pretty important what it says. We can't just join the Bible of the Month Club because that would be shifting sands. That would not be a rock to found our church upon. It's something that's constantly changing.
You say, "Well, you know, you don't have to join the Bible of the Month Club, you could just pick a different version and stick with it." No, you can't. The King James is the only one that remains. For example, if you say, "I'm going to make the NIV the anchor of my soul. I'm going to make the NIV the rock upon which I build my Christian life and my faith and practice." Well, it just changed in 2011, completely overhauled to make it gender neutral. That's the biggest overhaul. Look it up.
The number one change, the number reason for a revision from the 1984 NIV to the 2011 NIV was to make it gender neutral. You can get all into the American Standard Version, but then they're going to come out with the new American Standard. Then they come out with the ESV to replace that. These versions are constantly changing even within themselves. The Jehovah's Witness New World Translation, constantly changing.
I preach stuff in our film, New World Order Bible Versions exposing the New World Translation as a fraud. Then a couple of months after I preached that, and I'm not saying they did it because of my sermon, but I'm saying a couple of months later, they changed the New World Translation, and they got rid of the slimy juice of the marshmallow. Then people accused me of lying. They're like, "You're lying. That's not what it says. I've got a New World Translation ..." Yeah, because they have the new silver one; they don't have the black one.
Here's the thing, it said the slimy juice of the marshmallow in Job 6:6 for the last 50 years. They just changed it at the end of 2013 or was it 2014? One or the other. They just changed it at the end of 2013, I believe. These versions are constantly changing. Not only that, but they twist key bible doctrines, important doctrine about the deity of Christ, about salvation, about hell, about everything we believe is changed in these new versions. They claim to just be easier to understand, but in reality, they removed 16 entire verses from the New Testament. They removed hundreds of other whole phrases, whole sentences from other scriptures.
So if we're going to have a foundation that's secure, we need to get a bible that doesn't change the traditional text known as the Textus Receptus, the English version that is based off of the true manuscripts which is the King James Version that has stood for 400 years as the standard by which all other of these phony bibles are judged and condemned, the King James Bible. If it isn't broke, don't fix it, okay? These new versions are all garbage, and I've proven that in many other sermons.
I just got to point this out though. It's funny because not only do the new versions affect key doctrines such as the fact that Jesus Christ always has existed and he's not a created being. The King James says he's from everlasting. The new versions talk about his origin being from ancient times. Not only do they affect key doctrines like the virgin birth, but they also ... they literally read like they were translated through Google Translate. It's literally like someone just took the Greek text and put it into Google Translate. That's what the NIV. It's such a bad translation just from a literary standpoint. It sounds awful.
I mean, I can't imagine the dweebs and geeks that must have worked on this thing because it's so bad. Just the way that it reads, it has no soul. It's just so mechanical and wooden. In their zeal to go gender neutral, one of my favorites is where the famous versus in Micah says, "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to walk humbly with thy God?" I misquoted it, but this is what the NIV does, "He has showed thee, O human one." "He has showed you, O human," because they just don't want to be a gender of, "You showed thee, O man." The whole NIV reads that way. It sounds terrible.
Every once in a while, I'll just open the NIV and just flip through it because it's so easy to find weird stuff in it. I opened it this morning ... Go to Job ... Keep your finger in Hebrews 6, but go to Job 36. This is just what I found when I randomly flipped open the NIV this morning and just started looking at it. Listen to the difficult to understand King James Version in Job 36:14. Here's what the bible says, "They die in youth, and their life is among the unclean." This is talking about wicked people dying young. "They die in youth, and their life is among the unclean." Everybody see that?
Listen to what the NIV says, "They die in their youth, among male prostitutes of the shrines." Now, that's the same thing, right, just a little bit updated. "They die in their youth, among the unclean." The NIV says again, look down at your real bible, "They die in their youth, among male prostitutes of the shrines." What in the world? I mean, this is the kind of weird stuff, but it's like that on every page. I'm not kidding, but people are just saying, "Oh, it's not a big deal what version you use," or they'll say, "Well, that's why our final authority has to be the Greek and Hebrew." Yeah, languages you don't speak. Yeah, that's a real smart idea. Let's build our foundation, some that we don't even understand. Great idea. That's something to base your life on, stuff that you don't understand, a language you don't speak, a foreign language.
I mean, think about it. What if we were to tell some builder in Phoenix, "Hey, we want you to build a building on this foundation that you've never worked with before, that you have no idea what it is, and it's all Metric, and you're on the English system." It's like, "Whoa! What are you talking about?" It doesn't make any sense. We need an English bible that we can read and study and trust. Thank God we have an accurate translation. We have a perfect bible in English. We have the word of God without error in the King James Bible.
Go to Hebrews 6:1. What are we talking about this morning? "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" I mean, if you take this bible away from the righteous, what can they accomplish? Nothing, because the foundation has been removed. The foundation of what? The apostles, the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone hearing the sayings and doing them. We have to have the sayings, and that's the King James, not these twisted new versions that corrupt the original.
Look if you would at Hebrews 6:1. The bible reads, "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation ..." Now, he's going to tell us what the foundation is here. "Not laying again the foundation ..." of what? "... repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment."
He lists these six foundational things, and he says, "These are the foundation of the doctrines of Christ." This is what we base our beliefs on. This is the starting point. He says, "Let's move on from that unto perfection, unto things that are more complicated." Before we can move on to that which is more complicated, we have to make sure we have a solid foundation, and if the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
First of all, repentance from dead works. Now, what is it to repent from dead works? I like how Brother Garrett defined it. He said, "Faith without works is dead. Works without faith is dead." See, the dead faith is the faith without works, and the dead works are the works without faith in Jesus Christ. That's a great definition because the dead works there are the works that people are doing that they think are going to get them to heaven.
Basically, they're doing these dead works, and they think that they're going to work there. When the bible says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." He said, "Repentance from dead works and of faith toward God." You're turning from trusting in dead works that can't save you to putting your faith in the true and living God to save you.
Look, I can't help myself. I got to show you what the NIV does to this, to just destroy the foundation of what we believe. Instead of repentance from dead works, here's what they say, "Repentance from acts that lead to death." Now, it's repenting of your sins now, repenting of acts that lead to death because we know sin when it's finished bring forth death. You see how they're corrupting the foundation.
By the way, the NIV removes the word "repent" about 46 times, and it's all strategically removed in order to twist the definition of repentance from what the bible teaches. The foundation is repentance from dead works. Repentance means to turn from, to change your mind or to change direction. Instead of dead works being their hope to get them into heaven, the things that people do every day and every week, think about the Catholics.
They go through all these dead rituals and doing this, and chanting, and going through beats, all of those dead works that they do, kneeling in front of idols and lighting candles and so forth, things that God did not command. We got to turn from that and put our faith in Jesus Christ to be saved. That's foundational. Faith, not works. Turn from works and turn to faith. That's what the bible is teaching here as a foundational doctrine.
The bible says, "Repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." Baptism is a foundational doctrine, and the doctrine of baptisms has to do with number one, the fact that baptism is by immersion. That's why it says in Matthew 3 that Jesus when he was baptized went up straightway out of the water. That's why John was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim because there was much water there. If you would have been sprinkling, he could have just brought a water bottle. He could have just brought a CamelBak. He could have just brought a small amount of water. No, he had to go somewhere where there was much water so that he could dunk people onto the water.
That's why the bible says in Colossians 2 that we're buried with him by baptism. Sprinkling isn't a burial. No. A burial is when you go down under. I'm not talking about Australia, but when you go down under the water, that is burial. That is real baptism. That's foundational. When you see a church that's baptizing by sprinkling or pouring, you know what that tells me? That church doesn't even have the foundation. How can they build anything of value when they don't even have the foundation to start with? They will fail immediately, the bible says. These things are foundational. The doctrine of baptisms is a foundation.
The doctrine of laying on of hands is foundational, and yet, there are people today who just basically just proclaim themselves a pastor without going through a local church, without basically coming up through the ranks of a local church or having the blessing of a local church, having a local church send them out to start a church. The church begets the church. In the bible, they would ordain elders in every city.
He said, "Ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee," and there are qualifications. Who judges whether a person has met those qualifications or not? The church. Who judges whether somebody is sober, just, holy, temperate? We can't really judge that of ourselves, "Yeah, I'm all those things." Somebody else has to say, "Yeah, you are the husband of one wife. You do have faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. You are not given to wine. You are not a brawler," et cetera.
The doctrine of the laying on of hands where the power of the Holy Spirit to preach is conferred through the laying on of hands so that a person can go out sanctioned and ordained by a local church to go out and pastor, and be an elder, a bishop, et cetera, but today, people will just proclaim themselves many times these titles instead of being ordained in a local church or sent out or have the blessing of that church.
The bible says, "... of resurrection of the dead." I mean, obviously, that's a key doctrine that has to do with the fact that we don't just have hope of Christ in this life only, but that there will be a resurrection both of the just and of the unjust, and then of course, eternal judgment. That's foundational, the teaching of hell, something that you don't even hear about a lot in many churches today.
Therefore, a lot of people who go to these churches, they don't have that foundation of understanding that there is eternal punishment for the unsaved, and that punishment is hell, it's eternal, it's burning in the lake of fire forever and ever, no rest day or night, et cetera. If the devil can attack these foundations and pull the rug out from under us, look, if these foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The answer is nothing. That's the answer to that question.
Not only that, but today, the foundations are being destroyed not just in the sense that the bible is being corrupted in all these new translations, new versions that are coming out for one motivation, the love of money because they make money by coming out with new translations, because all the churches now have to throw away their 1984 NIV and get the new 2011 edition and spend all that money.
Not only is the wicked one attacking the foundation of the word of God by translating it into all these goofball translations that make it sound stupid, and the atheists will take these goofball translations and say, "Look what the bible says. The bible says you have to marry the one who rapes you," and it's from the NIV, not in the King James.
Then another one that I saw these atheists showing a verse that said, "If you speak the name of the Lord, you should be put to death." I was like, "What in the world?" I mean, the bible wants us to praise him by his name, praise the Lord, and to use his name and hollowed be his name, but to speak his name and all throughout the bible, they're saying, "The Lord be gracious. The Lord bless you," but in this goofball, it was called the Revised English Bible. This goofball version said, "If you speak the name of the Lord, you're put to death."
Then these atheists are like, "Look how stupid the bible is." No, that's how stupid that translation is. The devil loves to put out all these false translations just to confuse everybody, and to give fodder unto the enemy where the enemy can use this as ammunition against the true word of God. Then most people are fact-checking it. Most people are just like, "Whoa! That is stupid." They're not actually ... Do you think an atheist is pulling their King James off the shelf? "Wait a minute. Let me check this out. Make sure that this is really what it says."
Not only is the bible being corrupted in that way, not only our doctrine is being corrupted where they bring in a false repentance, a false salvation, a false baptism, false doctrine on all these subjects, but not only that, but even just basic words that have had historically accepted definitions, just the English definition that's always been around.
These words are starting to be twisted to mean something completely different. Words like believe which seems like a pretty straightforward word, but the wicked one will even change the definition of believe where people don't even know what believe means anymore or he'll twist the definition of words like church, baptism, repentance, faith, and just make them mean something completely different.
If those foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? If the very building blocks of our language and how we communicate in English are altered to where when we speak, people are getting the wrong meaning from our words, what can the righteous do at that point? Here's a definition that's being twisted. Murder. Murder is clearly defined in the bible, but today, people don't know what murder is. Here's what murder is, killing an innocent person. Killing an animal is not murder.
Here's the thing. People today use words like abortion when they ought to be using the word "murder". Here's another foundational word that's being twisted, "child". Yeah, they don't know what child means. Then they'll just say, "Oh, it's a blob of tissue. It's a bunch of cells." I saw somebody said, "What if they found an aborted fetus on Mars?" They'd say they found life on Mars, right? I mean, if they found a protein bar on Mars, they'd say, "This is life on Mars because we found amino acids. It's life. We found amino acids."
When it's growing and breathing, and the heart's beating, and it's kicking, and it's smiling in the womb, "Oh, that's not a child." I saw a debate between a couple of politicians, the biggest liars and frauds in this world, politicians, but I saw it was a Republican and a Democrat, and they're both talking about abortion. They're asked by the debate moderator, "When does life begin?" Both the Republican and the Democrat said, "It begins at birth."
When does life begin? In the womb at birth. Both Republican and Democrat because it was for some communist state out on the East Coast. I don't remember if it was Vermont or Massachusetts or one of these God-forsaken communist liberal places. We're based ... Thank God we live in Arizona. Arizona is one of the coolest states. We have idiots too for politicians, but at least it's a cool state though.
Anyway, over there, both Republican and Democrat said, "It begins at birth." Now, you have to just be completely insane to believe that. They don't believe that. Neither one of those people believes that. No one believes that because you'd have to be an idiot to believe that it begins at birth because what in the world changes at birth that somehow makes it alive? I mean, look. Now this tree is not alive, but look outside. Look at that tree out there. That's alive. That is alive. That tree is defined as a living thing, but these people won't define a child in its mother's womb as a living thing?
Bacteria is alive, people, but a child, a fully-developed child that's going to be born in five minutes is not alive. Why? Because they want to murder it. That's why. Listen, the doctor who performs it is a murderer. The politician who signs the bill to perform it is a murderer. The politician who wants to donate money to plan parenthood is a murderer, and the people who want to support it and get behind it and vote for it, you're an accessory to murder. Tell me what it is today, but these foundations are being destroyed. We don't even know what murder is anymore.
I got one guy who agrees with my sermon. We don't even know what murder is anymore. We don't know what it means to be alive anymore. Just the definitions of words are being twisted and changed to where we don't even think that a baby in its mother's womb is a living thing? It's a living thing by every definition of a living organism. It's growing, it's multiplying, it's eating. People come up with all these new crazy definitions for what it means to be alive. No, we need to stick with the foundations that we've had for generations, and not be carried to and fro, tossed about with every wind of doctrine, with the changing winds and the shifting sands of what people believe.
They've changed the definition of murder today. They've changed the definition of life, changing the definition of a child. The bible says, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive." In the New Testament, it says, "A virgin shall be with child," because conceive equals a child. When you conceive, it's a living child. If you kill it, you're a murderer. You know what? If you're a woman in this auditorium that has had an abortion, you're a murderer. Period. End of story.
Look, I'm not saying that you can't be forgiven or that you can't be saved or that you're not living a good life now or that you're not a righteous person now, but you know what? I'm not going to sugarcoat it. You had an abortion. You're a murderer. You had one in the past, you've committed murder. Confess that sin to God, forsake that sin, but it's murder. Period. Everybody who's had anything to do with it is a murderer.
Look, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If it was an adult life, we'd all agree with that? What if somebody drowned their baby in the bathtub? You know what you'd call it? A murderer, and nobody would be offended by that, but you've been brainwashed by these bunch of whores that teach, "Oh, pro choice," and everything. They're whores is what they are. They don't want to wait until they're married to go to bed and do it right.
That gets to my next subject, the definition of fornication is being twisted today. The foundation ... Listen, here's a foundational teaching of Christian morality that basically what goes on in the bedroom is to take place between married people. Isn't that foundational? Wouldn't you say that that's a basic, and another word for foundational is basic, like base. It's at the base. It's at the bottom of things. It's a foundation.
Look, wouldn't you say that one of the basic teachings of Christian morality is that we have a physical intimacy only with our wife, not before marriage, not with other people outside of marriage. I mean, that is a basic teaching of Christianity, true or false? People that are not Christian, they don't follow that morality, and they just basically say, "Well, if you love each other or if it's consensual, it's fine." They go out and they are whores and whoremongers, and they think that's okay, but what does the bible teach? The bible says that it's for within marriage.
Now, nowadays though, what you're starting to have is even Christians today are starting to say, "Well, I don't think it's really wrong." Even just this foundational basis of Christian morality, one of the basics now even Christians are starting to question this and say, "Well, I don't see what's wrong with it. I don't think there's anything wrong with it." There's Judeo-Christian mentality because the Jews, they don't have a problem with it. Their morality doesn't condemn it.
Let's see what the bible says. Go to 1 Corinthians 7, and part of the reason why people are starting to doubt this is this new versions. Again, it comes back to that. See, the new versions completely removed the word "fornication". You know what other word they removed that's used 50 to 60 times in the King James? Fifty to 60 times the word whore, whoremonger, whoredom, that's all removed in the NIV. You'll never see the word "whore" in your NIV.
"See, I don't like that. We are offended using that word." Then go, get out of here, and go buy an NIV, and don't come back. Go read your NIV, and you go sleep with everybody, and you go be a filthy whore. You know what? At Faithful Word Baptist Church, I'm going to stand up with the King James Bible and say, "Hey, the bible calls it whoredom. The bible calls it fornication." The bible says that if you have sex before your marriage, you're a whore. That's what the bible says. If you're a man that goes out, that you're a whoremonger.
This is what the bible says, but this foundational teaching is going away. Now, our kids are growing up and even amongst Christians, it seems that in the majority of Christian churches, the kids are growing up and they're not remaining pure until they're married. They don't even have this ethic. They're not even striving toward that. They don't even know about that because they're being taught, "Well, it might not even be wrong," if you're reading an NIV because the NIV completely removed those words.
Here's what the NIV replaces them with, immorality, which can basically mean whatever you want it to mean. Take out whoredom, take out fornication, immorality. Take out the whore, and replace it with promiscuous, promiscuous. Now, look, is that easier to understand? I guarantee you that if we went out and did a survey on how many people know the word whore and how many people know the word promiscuous, I guarantee you that more people know the simpler word "whore" than the word "promiscuous".
Some of you aren't even comfortable with me saying a word that 60 times in the bible, but you're comfortable to live in a society where it's just normal, but you don't even want me to name it. What does the bible teach here in 1 Corinthian 7? The bible clearly teaches what fornication means. Look at the bible in verse one of chapter seven. It says, " Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband." That's how we avoid fornication by getting married. That's how you avoid fornication.
Look at verse eight, "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." What is the bible saying here? "Oh, if you can't contain yourself, then just go out and just be with your girlfriend, be with your boyfriend." Is that what it says? No. It says, "You either contain yourself or you get married, and it's better to marry than to burn." That's what the bible says.
Jump down to verse 34, "There is difference also between a wife and a virgin." Notice what that says here. It doesn't say a wife and a live-in girlfriend. It says a wife. It doesn't say a wife and a whore. It says a wife and a virgin. That's God's plan. If you read 1 Corinthians 7, the whole chapter, it's very clear what God's saying. God is teaching that a man and a woman are to come together and be married and have that physical relationship within marriage, and be satisfied within that marriage, and to not have that relationship outside of marriage, and to have it outside that relationship is fornication. That's what the bible is teaching.
Go back to Deuteronomy 22, Deuteronomy 22. So far, I've been in the New Testament this whole time. It's all New Testament stuff, but going back to the Old Testament will help illustrate some of these New Testament teachings because people today are starting to say, I mean, I've been hearing it all the time where they're saying, "Well, it's not wrong to do that before you're married. Just as long as you're not ..." They say, "Well, a whoremonger, that's when you're going from person to person. That's just one after another."
If you're in a committed relationship, if you love each other, Christians are starting to buy into this junk now or here's what they say, "Oh, well, you're foolish to marry somebody when you haven't even tried it with them. You might not be compatible." Hey, listen. If you're a man and they're a woman, you're compatible. It isn't rocket science, folks. I mean, it's not that complicated. I'm not going to in.
I spare you, but this whole thing of "Well, I don't know if we're compatible or not," you know what? Think about it. If you're a virgin and she's a virgin, you're going to be compatible. I bet you're going to figure it out. I bet it's going to be great. I bet you're actually going to enjoy it, but there's a thing though, "Oh, no. You got to try first," but it's been proven. The facts don't lie. Statistically, people who live together before they're married are more likely to get divorced. Yet, the world will tell you, "Oh, you got to live together first, you got to test it out, you got to ... You wouldn't buy a car without test driving it, would you?"
Personally, I would. I would buy a car without test driving it. I always test drive because my wife says, "Well, don't you want to test drive it?" I'm like, "Okay." Here's the thing. That's a stupid illustration because your wife is not a car. Here's the thing. When I go to buy a car, I bought my Hyundai Sonata back in 2008 or whatever it was, and it had seven miles on it. I didn't complain and say, "Hey, wait a minute. I thought this is a new car. Why does it have seven miles on it?" Because nobody cares whether somebody drove seven miles in your car before you got into it.
You know what? People do care if you went seven miles with their spouse before they married them. That actually matters. That actually hurts people's feelings. That actually does damage to people's lives in their relationship. You know, what I'm preaching this morning is not popular, but it's bible. I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings about mistakes that they made in the past. That's the last thing I want to do. You know what? Instead of being so self-centered right now and thinking, "Oh, the pastor is hurting my feelings, I'm so offended," why don't you think about the fact that we're in a room full of children and teenagers?
The smart parent right now is looking at their teenager making sure they're awake and listening right now, and not worried about, "Oh, I'm so offended because it's stuff that I did in the past." Look, forget those things which are behind. Reach forth onto the things that are before. I'm not trying to beat you up about the past. I'm trying to warn people who haven't made these mistakes yet how serious it is. It's very important, very important.
Now, Christians are saying, "Oh, as long as you're committed. Oh, you know, just as long you don't go from person to person." Look what the bible teaches. Look down at Deuteronomy 22, just to define everything for you. It says in Deuteronomy 22:13, "If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, and give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, 'I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid.'" Maid meaning virgin.
It goes on to talk about if it was a false accusation, and she really was a virgin, how to deal with that, but look what it says in verse 20 if it's true, "But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you."
Now, look at that verse and tell me if I'm making this up that if she's not a virgin when she gets married that that is defined as playing the whore in her father's house. Am I missing something? These Christians will tell you, "Oh, it's okay as long as you're committed, as long as you love each other." Is that what the bible is teaching?
I sat in a teenage youth group when I was a teenager in a Liberal Baptist Church, and had students confront the teacher saying, "I don't think it's wrong to go to bed with someone before you're married. Prove me wrong from the bible," and the teacher couldn't show him. He had an NIV in his hand, and he didn't know where to turn, and he turned to immorality which is what it's been changed to in scores of places, and they're just like, "Well, immorality, I mean that's just if you don't love each other. That's if it's not consensual."
What does the bible ...? I mean, is there any doubt to what the bible is saying here that this is defined as major sin when this girl is not ... She's losing her virginity as a young person. Major, major sin. By the way, go to chapter 23, and you say, "Why are you preaching this, Pastor Anderson?" Because if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
We have to make sure that we all walk out of here today with a firm foundation, and that we don't walk out of here with the ground shifting under us. We can't walk out of here this morning and say, "Well, I'm not sure what murder is. I don't know what the bible. I don't know which version of the bible to use. I don't know what to believe. I don't know what repentance means. I don't know what believe means. I don't know. I don't know, is hell eternal or not? I don't know. I mean, is it wrong?"
Look, let me tell you something. If young people are questioning, "I don't know. Is it wrong to have sex before we're married?" Guess what? They're going to do it. They need a firm foundation that says, "No. It's wrong. It's wicked. Don't do it. It's a major sin."
By the way, Christians who do it are going to be judged much more harshly than non-Christians because non-Christians don't know better. "Unto whom much is given, of him shall much be required." The bible says that if you know your Lord's will and did not, you'll be beaten with many stripes. He that knew not the Lord's will and did it not, he's beaten with few stripes. So God holds you accountable for your knowledge, and what you're hearing in this preaching.
Here's what's so just ridiculous about this doctrine that says, "Oh, it's okay to do it before you're married," which even Christians now are starting to teach this junk. You know what's so ridiculous and foolish about it is that what's the product of that relationship? Children. So what? Are we supposed to just go out and just have children with a bunch of people that we're not married to?
See, our society has just become so ingrained in this birth control mentality and say, "Well, of course, we're going to use birth control, and then we'll just stop using birth control when we get married." Yeah, but is that what the bible teaches? No. The bible is telling, "Be fruitful and ..." I mean, the only guy who used birth control in the bible, God killed him in Genesis 38. "He spilled it on the ground," the bible says, and God killed him.
We're supposed to believe that God wants us going out and spilling it on the ground with a bunch of strangers, right? As long as we love each other, that's garbage because you know what? The love of God is when we keep his commandments. It's not love to go out and commit fornication. That's not love; that's lust. That's sin. That's not love at all.
Yet today, we've been so ingrained in this mentality when in reality, the truth is that if people went out and committed fornication before they're married, they would be producing bastard children. What does the bible say about that? Look down at your bible, Deuteronomy 23:2, "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord."
Now obviously, that's an Old Testament thing. I'm not trying to bring that into the New Testament. That's an Old Testament doctrine, but here's the point though. If bastard children are so wonderful, then why did God ever say that? If being a bastard is such a wonderful thing, why would God have add that rule about the tabernacle where bastards weren't supposed to go into the tabernacle if it's just fine to be a bastard child?
You know what you're doing when you commit fornication? Producing bastard children. Don't tell me I'm cussing in the pulpit, okay? This is the bible. Let me introduce you to the word of God, the bible. What's the bible saying here? The bible is saying that children are supposed to be produced within wedlock. When they're produced out of wedlock, that's a shameful thing.
So what's going to be the product of fornication? Children born out of wedlock. Period. He didn't say, "Oh, do it safely to prevent bastards." You'll never find that in this book. It's nonsense, but today, people are teaching all kinds of nonsense because the foundations of our morality, the foundations of our theology, the foundations of everything we believe in are under attack today by the devil. Somebody needs to stand up and lay the foundation once again. We're going to lay down the rock and say, "Hey, build your life on this."
So many churches today are shifting and swaying in the storm. Let me tell you, there's a storm going on today in America. There's a storm going on. The devil is in all out assault on God's people today, and all these churches and all these pastors are just crumbling and falling like a deck of cards.
Listen to me, we need to stand up and be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord, and the only way that's ever going to happen is if we're founded on the rock, the unmoving, unchanging word of God, and it might offend people. You know what? There's plenty of church that will never preach like this, and you can just take your pick, but somebody's got to lay this foundation. Somebody's got to dig out the old foundation and lay it down so we can build our lives on it.
Also, not only are they twisting the definition of fornication, they're even attacking another foundational institution, marriage, and twisting the definition of marriage, where people don't even know what marriage is anymore. Marriage is under attack today from all sites. First of all, we have a bunch of homos getting married. That doesn't make any sense. It's garbage.
The bible says in Genesis ... You turn to Matthew 19, if you would. In Genesis 2:24, the bible says, " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." Look at Matthew 19:4, "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female," fools, male and female. "I don't even know what that means anymore." You idiot! It's a foundational truth that men and women are two different genders, but today, even that foundation has been destroyed.
"I'm gender queer." No, you're just queer, you freak. "I'm gender queer. I don't know. I'm a man trapped in a woman's body." I was once a man trapped in a woman's body, and then my mom gave birth to me. That's the only man trapped in a woman's body. Right before my mother gave birth, that was me, but this whole thing ... Yeah, you too?
The thing is we had all these people that are so confused where they don't even know which bathroom to go into, and we got to have a third bathroom for these freaks. Don't know what they are. "I'm a man in a woman's body. What about people that are born with boobs?" All these stupid, unscientific lying garbage today, when everybody knows there are two genders, man and woman. Period. He made them male and female. "Male and female created he them." It's real simple.
Even in this really hard to understand King James version, you can figure out these really difficult words, male, female, two become one flesh, not three. Not 12, Mohammed, two become one flesh. Not 36, Joseph Smith, two.
The bible says here in Matthew 19:4, "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female?" Verse five, "And said, 'For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?' Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
What has God joined together? The husband and his wife, and the two become one flesh. They're married. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Now, because these homos are getting married now, this is what's happening now. Now, it's causing normal people to forsake the institution of marriage. I think that's part of the plan all along because think about it. It makes people disdain the institution of marriage. It makes people just think marriage is dumb.
When you some woman marrying an animal or this woman married herself, she had some ceremony where she walked down the aisle, and made vows to herself. Then you have two dudes get ... I mean, look, I'd rather marry myself than another dude any day of the week, but you have these two dudes getting married, and people are getting married to animals, people getting married to ... You know what it makes people do is just saying, "Oh, man! I'm just not going to get married at all."
Some of these government institutions that are handing out the marriage licenses, when they found out the homos are getting married, they're like, "We're not going to issue marriage licenses at all then. We won't even issue it to men and ..." because they didn't want to issue it to homos, so they're like, "We don't even want to issue it to normal couples," because they felt that was the only way because they can't discriminate, so they just went home for the day or whatever.
You see how that has that effect where it devalues marriage to the point where people don't even want to get married anymore. Now, you're hearing a lot of Christians and Libertarians saying that Christians shouldn't get a marriage license. Who's been hearing this teaching? It's everywhere. It's huge, right? "Oh, Christians shouldn't get a marriage license. Christians need to just ... they just get married on their own."
You know what? I don't stand for that. I will not stand for that, and I've had a bunch of people come to me and say, "Oh, will you perform a marriage that has nothing to do with the state?" I refuse to do it every time, and you say, "Oh, you FEMA pastor." No, listen to me. I will not perform a wedding on a marriage that is not legally binding. Period.
I will not perform a marriage that's not legally binding. Why? Because God ordained marriage to be legally binding, legally binding. I'll prove it to you from the bible. The bible says the adulterous shall be put to death. The adulterer shall be put to death.
Let me ask you something. How can you put someone to death for sleeping with another man's wife if there's no definition of marriage, if there's no legally binding marriage? If two people who just go to bed together are magically married, then how do you put people to death for adultery? How does the government issue a bill of divorcement which the bible talks about the writing of divorcement, the bill of divorcement? How do you do that if there's no legal marriage, but I'm supposed to just perform ...?
Here's why I won't do it. Here's why I won't perform a wedding for people that want to do it outside the law where they want to just do just a handshake-type marriage where it's not actually legally binding because this is what inevitably would happen. You'll perform the marriage, right? Then later, they'll split up and just be like, "Oh, well, we weren't really married anyway."
When it's convenient for them, they just won't have really been married anyway. No. Marriage in the bible was always a public thing that's before God and men, and it's legal. Now, look. Did they always have a marriage license being issued? No, but they had some way where it was a legally binding, whether it was through the church or whatever it was through.
Look, if you want to go some lawyer and drop some of your own marriage contract or something, okay, maybe I'd be open to that, as long as I knew for sure that it's legally binding, but you know what? It doesn't make any sense. Just shut up and get a marriage license and get married the normal way sanctioned by law. We don't have to reinvent the wheel.
You say, "Well, why the government is giving me permission?" Except they give everybody permission. So it's not like you're going to the government and getting permission to get married. "Will you please allow me to marry someone?" No. You go down there, you show them that you're 18, and that you're not already married and boom! It's done.
You know what? People sometimes, they take their Libertarianism too far. I'm as Libertarian as they come, I'm more Libertarian than a lot of people, but let me tell you something. There are a few things that the government should be involved in, and this is one of them. Period. Because of the fact that the government is supposed to punish adultery, the government is supposed to regulate bills of divorcement, et cetera.
So to sit there and say, "Oh, let's just get the government out of marriage," is that what the bible teaches? No. The bible says to get the government out of building roads and welfare, and everything else, but does the bible said to get the government out of marriage? No. There supposed to be a human authority that enforces marriage.
Even the passage we just read about the guy who's marrying a woman that's supposedly a virgin. It turns out she's lying, and she's been playing the whore. Who puts her to death? She's brought before the elders of the city. Basically, the authority there, the civil authority puts her to death.
Everybody gets on their trendy bandwagon where they're carried about with every wind of doctrine of just, "Whoa! Why do we need a marriage license? Let's just make our own vows." I've known a bunch of people who just made their own vows, "Oh, we just made our own vows." No, no, no. It's supposed to be publicly sanctioned. It's supposed to be before God and men, and it's supposed to be legally binding.
You say, "Oh, I disagree." That's fine. Go ahead and disagree, but I'm not going to perform anybody's ceremony without a marriage license. That's always been my policy, and it's not changing.
The bible says, and here's one thing that some people will try to turn to. Go to Genesis 24:67. Genesis 24:67, this is another foolish doctrine of people trying to destroy the foundations of our society. Look, these are the foundations of a Christian society. Are they not? Marriage, these are institutions that are the bedrock of who we are. Marriage, family, the bible, the fact that we don't believe in murder, the fact that we don't commit adultery, the fact that we don't fornicate. I mean, these are the basics of a Christian society.
What does the bible say in Genesis 24:67? "And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death." Now, this is what people do. They'll take that verse and say, "See, that's how you get married. He just took her into the tent and she became his wife. That's it. Go to bed with her, and you're married. You don't need a marriage license. You don't need any ceremony. You don't need any kind of a legally binding. It's just you take her in the tent and you're married."
Well, you know, they forgot to read 66 verses leading up to that. See, that verse has a number in front of it. What's that number say? Sixty-seven, and you know what comes before that? Sixty-six verses. You know what's in those 66 verses? Abraham telling his servant, "Go to the country where I'm from. Go find a wife." They load up 10 camels full of gifts, 10 camels full of gifts. The servant brings 10 camel-loads of gifts unto Rebekah's family.
They go and sit down with the family and explained to them, "Look, Abraham wants your daughter to be his son's wife and we're going to give you all these gifts, and we need to leave right away." The dad says, "It's fine." The brother says, "It's fine." The mother says, "It's fine." Then Rebekah consents and says, "Yes, I will go with them. I will be his wife." Then she goes to him, and then they get back and then she goes into the tent with him, and she becomes his wife.
Isn't that just a little different than just, "Let's head for the tent and you're going to be my wife." This is a ... Look, if you're going to teach that doctrine, this is a really poor example because this is an example of a really elaborate marriage that involved a lot of goods being ... a lot of goods being exchanged, a lot of people's permission being granted. I mean, this is a major thing.
So to point to this as the poster child for just anybody that you hop in the sack with is automatically your wife. No, that is a fraud, but if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? What is marriage according to the bible? It's one man, one woman, okay, and they have a covenant before God and men, legally binding covenant. The laws are different in different states. The laws are different in different countries, but you're supposed to have a legally binding commitment between a man and a woman, and it's for life, it's 'til death do us part, what God had joined together, let not man put asunder, and it's one man and one woman for life, and that's where that physical relationship belongs. Period.
These are foundational things, these are the basics of Christianity. When we are seeing these things thrown out the window, we are witnessing the destruction of our nation and the destruction of our society, the destruction of the family, the destruction of morality right around us.
You dig into this word of God, and you will see that everything I'm preaching this morning is the truth, that it's all in there. Just do a word search on whore, do a word search on fornication. It's all there. Everything that I'm saying is biblical. If not, prove me wrong from the King James version. I'm telling you, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
I'll close by reading this scripture, Matthew 7:24, "Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."
Make this your foundation, and don't let the devil chip away your basic beliefs and your basic morality. Look, if it isn't broke, don't fix it. We don't have to just throw out all tradition. There are good traditions, people, and they come from the word of God, and we need to stay ... We need to throw out that which is evil, but we need to stick with the tested, time-honored and true traditions of our Christian society, and not let the devil pull the rug out from under us.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for our firm foundation. Our rock of our salvation, Lord, the solid rock on which we stand, Lord, it will never move and we thank you that it will say the same tomorrow as it said yesterday, Lord. Please help no one to be offended this morning. I know sometimes these kind of harsh words can hurt people's feelings, Lord, and that's not my intent, but sometimes the truth needs to hurt, Lord.
Help us all to get on-board with the truth this morning, and to realize the importance of this type of message for this new generation that's coming up and throwing out all of the time-honored traditions of our once Christian society. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
All right. We're going to go and sing another song, but before we do, I just want to mention that the Baptistery is ready if anyone needs to be baptized. If you're here this morning, and you've never been baptized after you've been saved, then come see me after the service. If you're saved but you're never been baptized after you were saved because if you got baptized before you were saved, you just took a bath. You got wet, but that's not baptism. You're supposed to be baptized after you're saved. If that's you this morning, come see me after service. The Baptistery is ready.
