All right, take your Bibles tonight, if you will, and turn
over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 6.
Second Corinthians chapter 6, and you get a second to switch
over to this here. Tried to do it early this
morning, and I ended up having to redo it again anyway, so I
figured we'd just try to tell me when we're ready back there.
All right, very good. All right, I'm going to, this
is, I shared this at camp and I, I, I was going to change it and
do all the different things to try to make it different for
church. And I said, you know what this
is, this is good because this is, this is exactly why I'm
doing this. Ask for the old paths.
That was our that was our theme for camp this year.
And so our young people have heard at least a portion of this
already. I don't think it's going to hurt
for them to hear it again, but I, I was up here trying to
switch over to my other, my smaller iPads.
I realized that I'm, I'm doing a split screen here.
I've got my notes on one and then the PowerPoint on the other
and I realized I can't really see it all that well, but so
we'll see what happens. Hopefully it'll be fine, but I
just, I wanted to try to see if I could use it on both.
But let me give you a little bit of a background to how I came to
what we're going to talk about tonight.
We had a, a men's group in this area that came and asked me if
they could use their use our facility.
They didn't want to use the inside, They just wanted to use
the outside. And kind of their model is they
would do like a 30 minute workout type thing.
They'd start a fire and then everybody would get around the
fire and, and have a little bit of a devotional type thing.
And the whole purpose of the ministry is to strengthen men
and to, you know, try to, to try to help men understand their
role in the home and try to get men to take the leadership
position in their home and, and a lot of other things.
And they wanted to use our outside facility.
So I gave it a lot of thought. They, they were hoping that,
that some of our men would be able to be a part of it and that
our men would, would be able to help theirs and, and challenge
them and kind of, you know, help them as they discuss the Bible
and things like that. But after digging into a little
bit, I had, I had some of the men that I had mentioned this to
that actually shared some things with me that they found on the
on their website that I hadn't found up to that point.
And so we decided against joining them or allowing them to
join us. Maybe it's the way I should say
it, but it was a difficult decision.
I'd gotten to know some of the guys that were in that group,
just through different things. It wasn't, it wasn't because I
was taking part in this men's group or anything like that, but
I had gotten that I met them in some other, some other avenues.
They're nice guys. I had a couple meetings over
lunch with them and, and got to talking about the importance of,
you know, helping our men to leave their homes because the
men in the homes are the ones that are going to leave the
church. And as the church goes, so goes
the home. As the home goes and and, and
vice versa, as the home goes, so goes the church.
And as the churches go, so goes the nation.
And so it's very important that that we do have a ministry for
men and we do have something that helps direct men and guide
men to take that leadership role, to take their Bible study
seriously, to take their their role in leadership seriously
and, and to to guide their family and the way that the
family ought to go. And it was a difficult decision,
but I think it was the right decision.
And so it was, you know, it really was, it came down to the,
the, the night before they were supposed to meet for the first
time is when I called them and said, look, I know you're
planning to meet tomorrow. And you know, this is what you
were planning to use the facility and everything else.
I said, but I just can't do it. I can't do it.
And they were very disappointed because they were looking
forward to using our facility. They were looking forward to us
being a part of it and everything else.
And I said, let's get together for lunch.
And I want to explain to you why we can't.
And so I, I wrote down 5 things and there was more, but these
are the five main things that I shared with this, this guy, very
nice guy. And I, you know, I think they
have the best intention. And I think some of the things
that they're doing are fine. But for us, it's important that
we separate from those kind of things.
And the Bible says this in Second Corinthians chapter 6 and
verse #17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye
separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and
I will receive you. Now we always use this as a way
to say, stay away from the world, stay away from all of
those things. And I think it's a great verse
for that. But he doesn't say come out from
among them, be separate, and don't jump into the world with
both feet, and I will receive you.
If you said that, then I think we could allow some things that
may not be exactly what we are, that may not be exactly what we
should be doing, but it's OK because he said don't.
I didn't. I'm not jumping in with both
feet. I'm just touching it a little
bit. But he says touch not the
unclean thing, right? When Aza touched the Ark of the
Covenant and God smote him dead, he didn't smite him dead because
he jumped into the ark or jumped on the cart that the ark, you
know that the ark was on. He touched it to try to
stabilize it, to keep it from falling.
Great intentions, but he touched something that he was not
allowed to touch. He touched something that he
should never have touched and God smote him dead.
And so when God tells us touch not the unclean thing, I think
he takes it seriously and we ought to as well.
So what I want to talk to you tonight about for, for a little
bit here is the importance of separation.
And I'm going to actually use some of the different things.
I'm going to use some examples from this men's group.
And if you find out what it is, I, it's, it's not like I'm
trying to hide their identity. I just don't think it's worth
pointing them out in that way because I do think there's some
good men that are involved in that.
I do think they have some good intentions.
I think they're mis, misinformed, misdirected maybe
would be a good way to say it. And I think some of our
conversations have helped. At least I hope it has, because
I've noticed that several things that that that used to be up on
the website are not on the website anymore and specific
things that I actually addressed and, and, and, and this guy in
particular said, you know, those are some things that some other
people have brought up as well. And I said, well, good.
At least I'm not the only one that has a problem with it.
And so let's talk about it. Let's have a word of prayer and
then let, and then we'll jump into this tonight.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
We thank you for an opportunity we have to be here tonight.
I pray that this would be a help to us and that it would come
across in the way that it's intended and that we'd
understand the reason why we need to separate from the things
that would keep us from being as pure as we possibly can be as a
church. God, may you use it to help us
tonight. We thank you again for all you
do for us in Jesus name, Amen. First thing I told this fellow
was this doctrine matters. You can write these things down
tonight. I think it will help help you.
Of course, we had Brother Spencer Smith in earlier this
year and he's got a whole YouTube channel, a whole
ministry called Doctrine Matters.
And I think it's very, very important that we understand
that. But here's what we have to
understand. Many times people say, well,
doctrine does not matter. We can, we can bring everybody
together. It's the gospel that's
important. As long as we're preaching the
gospel, as long as the gospel is getting out, then we can, we can
join together and do these things to get the message of the
gospel out. And what you have to understand
is this. The gospel is the central thing,
but it's not the only thing, obviously, if, if it's not if,
if, if the gospel is not being preached, then then it's it's,
it's dead in the water from the very beginning.
The gospel is the most important thing.
It's essential thing, but it's not the only thing in the Bible.
And that's why you have the entire rest of the New
Testament. God wouldn't have given us the
rest of the New Testament if all he wanted us to know was the
gospel. He would have given us the
gospel and he would have ended it right there.
But there's a lot of things in the rest of the Bible, Acts, 1st
and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
Colossians all the way through them.
And we've been through a lot of these books.
It's just filled with doctrine and filled with things that
matter. And the, the gospel is central,
but it's not the only thing. And it's an important thing.
It's a very important thing, but it's not the only thing.
And the founder, the leader of this group, and now I don't know
how many men they have county wide.
I know they're, they're actually this group is expanding and
they're in different states. They're in, they're in, but you
know, other parts of the country now as well.
And you know, this, this guy has a podcast that he does and I
don't know how often that he does it, but he interviews
different people about different things and, you know, things
that he thinks will be a help to men.
His choice of interviewees, the people that he's interviewed
proves that that they have a very low view of doctrine and
the importance of doctrine. And I just pulled out a couple
that I'll highlight here. This is this is an interview
that he did with a guy called from a, from a heavy metal band,
heavy metal Christian band called Saved by Saved by Scarlet
is the name of the band. And the whole thing is how God
built a metal band. I can tell you one thing, God
didn't build that metal band. Something else did.
And they're blaming it on God, but God didn't build that metal
band. And I'll tell you, you know what
what's happening is, is as they have these interviews and
things, essentially what they're saying is all of these things
are OK. And by me allowing our church to
be a part of it. And this is kind of really what
did it for me. The the first thing that I
noticed on their website is Mount Victory Baptist Church,
new location here where everybody we're meeting here,
there's a new location. I said, I'm not going to be
associated with this kind of stuff.
God didn't build no heavy metal band that he wants us to be a
part of. He didn't, he didn't build these
things. They, they, they're, they're,
you know, blaming God for it. I'm saying they're giving God
credit. I'm blaming, you know, they, the
way I see it, they're blaming God for building this metal
band. But God didn't do that.
God didn't do that. And he's having an interview
with this guy and basically telling everybody, hey, it's OK
if you want to go listen to heavy metal music, it's not OK
to listen to heavy metal music. That music is not of God.
And we'll talk a little bit more about that.
Here's another one. He had a he had a guy on there
named Keith Nester. And this guy is a Catholic.
And the whole point of the podcast is why I left
Protestantism, why I left Protestantism.
And kind of the whole idea behind it was, well, we're just
kind of giving everybody a different view, letting them see
it from another side. But essentially what he did in
this podcast was he gave this Catholic guy an entire platform
to explain to everybody why they should become Catholic.
And he doesn't know his Bible well enough to even know how to,
to disagree with this guy. So there was no disagreement.
It was a platform for this guy to say why I left Protestantism
and why you should leave Protestantism too, you know, And
of course, we're not Protestant anyway.
So leave Protestantism, I don't care.
But don't become Catholic, right?
We're Baptist and we want you to become a Baptist, not a
Protestant. We were never protesting
anything. We were never part of the
Catholic Church to begin with. That your Methodists and your
Presbyterians and your Lutheran's and all of those,
they were all Protestants. The Baptist Church was never
part of that. We were always separate from all
of those things. And so you know why I left
Protestantism. It's a great platform to share
with everybody else why they should leave Protestantism too.
Had another guy that came on there and talked about the
Enneagram and, and if you look on that far left side, you can
kind of see a diagram of what an Enneagram is.
But only 13% of people are truly self aware.
Are you one of them? Well, I looked into, I had heard
of the Enneagram before and I knew a lot of its roots.
But let me tell you a little bit about the Enneagram.
The Enneagram is a personality typing system with 9
interconnected types based on core motivations, fears, desires
visualized on this nine pointed diagram.
But this, this Enneagram actually was brought to the West
by, and I don't know if I'm going to get this guy's name
right because it's really weird how it's spelled.
But GI Gurdjieff, I think is how you say it.
He was a Mystic. And there was another guy that
came along that was associated with these personality types.
The guy's name was Oscar Ichazo. He claimed that an angelic being
actually taught him about the Enneagram.
And so those who defend this enneagram, they're going to say
that, well, it's just a, it's just a harmless personality
assessment tool, but it's very deeply rooted in new age and a
cult. It has all of those origins and
the historical roots of the Enneagram are tied to Mystics
and occult leaders who incorporated occult and
spiritual teachings into their work.
They and they did not try to hide it at all.
It's not like they were doing something and, and pretending
that it was a good Christian thing.
And then, you know, they were, they were, they were, you know,
kind of coming in the back door with their occult and, and
rituals and magic and all of those other things.
They were full blown occult leaders and, you know, Mystics
and everything else. And a few years ago, this whole
idea kind of took the Christian world by storm.
But it has, you know, this syncretic worldview because it
blends and harmonizes religious, spiritual, and occult ideas all
into one single system. And it's pretty similar.
If you're looking for something to compare it to, it's pretty
similar to like the astrological signs, which obviously astrology
is not the study of the stars that God intended us.
He astronomy is perfectly fine. In fact, astronomy is a good
thing. There are many, many times in
the Bible when the stars are mentioned.
In fact, you read through the book of Job and there's a ton of
constellations that are named in the book of Job, and obviously
they study the heavens. That's a very big difference
between astronomy and astrology. We're not looking for our
astrological signs. And when you start getting into
that, you're delving into that, into the occult, into the
mysticism, and into all those other things that come along
with that. And this Enneagram has got the
same exact base. And guys like Richard Rohr ROHR,
they're proponents of this enneagram, but they often
promote this universalist worldview where all the
religions share the same truths. We're just saying it a little
bit different way, but we all share the same truth.
These are the kind of guys that are that are promoting this.
And of course, the Enneagram is, is a gnostic path to self
discovery. That's why only 13% of people
are self aware. Are you one of them?
Right. I mean, I don't need to be self
aware. I know who I am.
I'm a Sinner before God and I'm saved by grace.
I don't need self discovery. You know, you hear people say it
all the time. I, I just had to take some time
off to go discover myself. What are you, what are you
trying to discover? Right?
There's nothing to discover. The Bible tells us who we are,
tells us who we can be in Christ.
My identity is not in myself. My identity is in Christ, right?
And, and I don't need to go become self aware.
I don't need to self identify as, as you know, whatever it
happens to be. It's all about self discovery
and it puts all the emphasis on you and not on God.
We don't need self discovery. We need God.
And so the reason you're seeing a falling away in many, many
churches is because you have a huge faction of denominations
are saying that doctrine doesn't matter.
It's not important as long as the gospel is being preached.
And by the way, most of these churches who say that doctrine
doesn't matter, it's this, it's the gospel that's the most
important are not preaching the gospel either.
The gospel is central to the entire Bible, but it's not the
only thing in the entire Bible. And there's many things that
matter. And one of the things that that
this guy, the founder bragged about in one of his podcast was
that there were represented 9 different denominations are
represented by this, by this men's group.
We have 9 different denominations that that, that
are hosting these, these men's groups.
That's not a good thing. That's that, that's something
that pushes me away from that. I am different in my
denomination for a reason. I'm trying to separate from
those that are not preaching the truth.
I don't want to be joined together with them.
And, and here's what happens. OK, now we're going to do this
men's group and we're going to have Catholics and, and
Presbyterians and Pentecostals and Lutherans and all of these
people come together. Now we're associated with all of
those people. And essentially I'm giving my
stamp of approval to them because I'm praying on the same
stage or in the same Bible study as a Catholic guy.
And I have to pretend that he's a Christian too.
And I hear these people calling him, hey brother, you know this
and that. You're not my brother.
You're, you're a fellow human, but you're not my brother
because you don't know Christ as your savior, right?
And there's a huge difference and there's a huge necessity
for, for a separation when it comes to doctrine.
And it's necessary. It's important.
Doctrine absolutely matters. But I'll tell you what happens
when you, when doctrine doesn't matter.
That's how you end up with homosexual pastors.
That's how you end up with transgenders on, on the on the
stage, singing in your music group and and leading your
worship services and everything else.
Because doctrine doesn't matter. As long as you say Jesus, as
long as you talk about God, then that's the only thing that
matters. No doctrine matters.
It's important. There's a lot I could preach, AI
could preach a message about every single one of these
things. Tonight, I'm not going to do
that. I'm going to move along.
So the first one is that doctrine matters.
But the second thing, the second main issue that I have with this
group is that they're not local church.
Turn over to Ephesians chapter 5.
They should be a ministry of a local church.
You have to have that guidance in that direction.
You end up trying to be so broad that you'll accept anybody when
you're not a ministry of a local church.
I would much rather have this guy be a Lutheran who is trying
to promote Lutheran doctrine, that I would have him be
everything to everybody and promote nothing and have no
doctrinal standards when it comes to any of those things.
Now, if he was Lutheran, I still wouldn't do it, but it's much,
much better for him to be under somebody and have a pastor who
is directing him and guiding him and leading him in those things.
Is it wrong for a guy to have a ministry that he leads?
Absolutely not. But that ministry needs to be a
ministry of a local church the same, the same way that these
ministries that we're working together with to reach these
college campuses, they're ministries of local churches.
They are under a pastor and they have a pastor who is helping to
direct them and lead them and guide them.
Same way that a missionary ought to be, missionaries ought to be
under a local church. If all you are is under a
mission board, then you don't have that authority that you
need to have on the mission field.
You need to be under a local church.
And obviously, you know, this Catholic guy is now connected
with this organization and he's going to try to get people into
the Catholic Church. And this Pentecostal guy is
connected to this organization. He's going to try to get people
to become Pentecostal and all of these other things.
If you have no direction, if you have no guidance because you're
not under of the ministry of a local church, then you try to be
everything to everybody. And I know Paul said I made all
things to all men, but that's not what he meant.
So you're making men stronger. That's their that's your goal.
We're making men stronger. But I asked the question
stronger in what? Stronger in the Catholic faith,
Stronger Pentecostal, stronger Lutheran, stronger Methodist.
Is that what you're trying to make them stronger?
What if you have no direction from God's word and you have no
direction from your local church?
Then what are you making men stronger in?
You want them to take a leadership role?
Then, then, then go sit under John Maxwell and listen how to
be a better leader. There's no difference.
If, if, if that's all you're going to do, then you are not
leading men to be stronger in in Christ.
You're leading men to be stronger as leaders and that's
it. And that doesn't count for
anything when it comes to spirituality.
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 25.
Husbands, love your wives. Even as Christ also loved the
church and gave himself for it, it doesn't say as Christ also
loved the ministry and gave himself for it.
He loved the church and the church is central to everything
that we do. And every ministry that we have
ought to be a ministry of the local church.
Every ministry that we are part of ought to be a ministry of a
local church. Maybe you've heard this term
before, but it's a term. It's called para church
organizations. A para church organization is an
organization that is not under the authority.
Of a local church. This men's group is not under
the authority of a local church. And that's one of the reasons
why they're all over the place. And you have Catholic guys on
and doing interviews and guys teaching about the Enneagram on
to do interviews and all of these other things because you
have no direction and no guidance because you're not
under the ministry of a local church.
Let me give you another issue that I have and that is CCM,
contemporary Christian music. There's a lot that I could say
about this, obviously that I'm not going to, but I'll tell you
this. CCM is the bridge to everything
else that pulls you away from God.
CCM is the bridge to everything else that pulls you away from
God. Let me, in fact, let me give you
this quote. This is by a guy named Corey
Asbury. And, and I, I couldn't tell you
who he was until I looked him up, but apparently he is a chart
topping artist. He's part of Bethel Music.
Bethel Music is obviously a huge music producing machine, but he
said this on TikTok. Marketing yourself is
antithetical to the way of Jesus.
Every Christian artist has a camera on themselves or a camera
crew team videoing everything they do.
Scripture tells us don't let your left hand know what your
right hand is doing and yet we hire entire promo teams to tell
the world how great we are. A lot of what pushed me away
from the Christian music industry was people writing
worship songs knowing that they're going to get a big fat
CCLI. Check if it does really well and
I'll have another video on CCLII.
Personally have made tons of money, I mean millions and
millions of dollars from CCLI, which is when churches put your
lyric up on the screen and they sing your song.
But what happens is people see that success or they hear about
that success and they go, I want to do that.
I need to write a worship banger and it becomes formulaic.
It's not from the heart inauthentic garbage drivel, not
from God, but from man. This is from a contemporary
Christian artist who was, in a moment of honesty at least,
willing to admit what the whole contemporary Christian music
industry is about. It is all about writing the next
banger so you can make a lot of money.
It's not about pleasing God. It's not about Christ being
glorified. Oh, they would say that they're
going to lead the worship and they're going to say that, but
look at their lives. Look at the lives of most of
these people, man. I'm not going to think of the
guy's name, but he was really, really popular of a group called
Newsboys, I think. And I can't remember the guy's
name who was the lead singer of this group just came out that he
has had all kinds of affairs and and by the way, it looks he's
going to end up in prison from some of the things that he's
done that have finally come to light.
These are the guys that are writing your worship music if
you're listening to contemporary Christian music.
These are the guys that are leading these large mega
churches today because it's not the pastor that's leading it.
It's being driven by the music and the money for all of these
massive places is being driven by the music.
Bethel Hillsong Elevation, there's there's, there's several
of them that are kind of at the top of the of the contemporary
Christian music industry. And everybody that's there wants
to write the next song that's going to bring them millions.
And that's the only reason that most of them are doing it.
And it's proof because as soon as they get good enough that
they can crossover into pop music and everything else, they
do it. And all the sudden everything
that was about Christ is not about that at all anymore.
Now it all becomes about the music industry and making money.
By the way, when you call it the contemporary Christian music
industry, you know it's a problem.
And that's exactly what they call it.
It's the contemporary Christian music industry.
That's exactly what it is. It's a way to make money, and
that's about it. But I'll tell you this, when
contemporary Christian music is introduced in a church,
everything else begins to go in the wrong direction.
When you bring in that kind of music and you turn the lights
off in the auditorium and you turn the lights up on the stage
and you have a band up there behind you with everybody that's
dressed exactly like all the rest of the world bands are
dressed. And if you didn't have a sign on
the front that said something church, you would have no idea
that it was anything different. And if you didn't hear Jesus
every once in a while, you had no idea that you were at a
different type that that, that you were at any other concert
than something that you can go down to at Innsbruck after hours
and listen to. You have no idea about the fog
machines and the strobe lights and the, and the, the graphics
that are coming up on the screen behind the musicians.
If you, if you didn't hear Jesus every now and then, you would
have no idea that it was anything different than what you
could go down to and listen to on a Friday night with everybody
drinking beer and smoking and doing pot and all of those other
things. You'd have no idea that there
was anything different because they look and act and dress
exactly like the world. They sing like the world because
that's what they're trying to produce.
And if you're not giving the world something different, why
do you think they're going to want to come to Christ?
If I can go to a concert and pay for it on Saturday night, or go
to a concert and sit in there for free on Sunday, which one do
you think I'm going to do? Most of the people are going to
go sit there on Sunday because it's a free concert, but that's
the only thing that they're looking at it as.
It's a free concert. It's a way to sit there and
listen to music and feel spiritual.
Most time you walk out of there on this high for a little bit,
but it doesn't last very long. And contemporary Christian
music, when you when you bring that into the church, doctrine
becomes less important. When you bring that into the
church, the Bible that you use becomes less important.
You bring that into the church and all the sudden standards of
dress become less important. It doesn't matter what you wear
anymore. You can wear anything you want
as long as you're worshipping God in the way that God wants to
be worshipped, right? That's what they say.
You can't take the world's music, mix it with Christian
words, and expect God to bless it.
Rock music, by the admission of all of those who were the
founders of rock music and have written rock music for years and
years, was written to be sex music.
And I'm being blunt, but that's exactly what they say it was
written for. And they have no problem telling
you that. And you're going to take that
music and try to mix it with Christian words and expect that
God's going to be OK with that. Expect that you can bring that
into the church and expect God to say, that's something that's
pleasing to me. You expect, expect God to say,
now that's music that that that is for worship when it was
designed to be the exact opposite of that.
You cannot take the world's music and put it with Christian
words and expect that God's going to bless it.
And further, you cannot take the world's standards and put it
into a church setting and expect God to bless that either.
But that's exactly what's happening.
We're dancing around on the stage and hopping around and
doing all this kind of stuff. And you got your guys with their
long hair down their backs and their little beanies on and
their, and their chains around their necks and their pants
sagging down. And you know, they're, they're,
they're $500 tennis shoes that they want everybody to see and
that you can't tell any difference between them and
Justin Bieber. And you expect that God's going
to bless that. You're going to bring that into
the church and say God bless this.
God is looking at that and I think even worse than what he
said to the church at Laodicea. I want to throw up when I see
that because that's not music that is pleasing to the Lord.
There's no way that that music is pleasing to the Lord when you
are doing everything you can to imitate the very world that God
says. If you are a friend of them, you
are the enemy of God. And you're going to bring that
into the church and try to pretend that it's OK because
it's in a church setting or because you put a couple of
church words with it. That's not pleasing to the Lord
and God's not going to bless that.
You are becoming friends of the world.
And in becoming a friend of the world, you are becoming an enemy
of God. And they have no problem.
This men's group has no problem playing this contemporary
Christian music. They have no problem promoting
this contemporary Christian music.
They've had many of these CCM artists on to their podcast to
interview them and talk about how great God is doing things in
their life and how much God is blessing them.
And you might look at that from the outside and say, we'll look
at all the success. Yeah, but Justin Bieber had
success, too. Is God blessing that?
You know, all these other artists who are at the top, you
know, top charts, you know, top 100 or whatever it happens to
be, they're being blessed by God, too, right?
Because they're making millions of dollars and everybody knows
who they are, and their songs are popular and everything else.
God's blessing that too, right? Or just because something is
popular doesn't mean that God's blessing it.
God allows it, but it doesn't mean that he is blessing.
It doesn't mean it's there because of God's blessing.
So you don't, you don't judge it by that.
You don't judge. You don't judge the value of
something by its success. You judge the value of something
by how closely it is to the Word of God.
That's the standard, and that's why doctrine matters.
That's why it's important that we do not bring contemporary
Christian music into the church. You should fight with everything
you have to keep CCM out of this church.
As long as I'm the pastor, we're going to keep it out.
But there may be a day when I'm not, if I'm ever not the pastor
of this church, You ought to fight with everything you have
to keep contemporary Christian music out of the church.
Because the day that that music walks down the aisle and sings
on the stage or plays on the stage, everything else is going
out the window. And this will be a church that
God can no longer bless because you give it five years, maybe
10, and everything that we've ever stood for will be gone.
That's what contemporary music is.
It's dangerous, it's a poison. And we ought to fight with
everything we have to keep it away from our church.
Let me give you another one, another issue that I have when
it comes to the idea of separation, and that is a casual
attitude toward church. Now, let me give you a caution,
because there's a lot of people who associate the way that you
dress with godliness. And in other words, I can live
how I want. I can think how I want to think.
I can do things that nobody knows that I'm doing.
But as long as I dress the right way, then I'm a good Christian.
And I believe that dress is very, very, very important.
That's why we have the dress standards that we have.
Dress is important. But many times people have put a
huge emphasis on the wrong thing and they put a huge emphasis on
dress. And as long as I dress right,
then I'm a good Christian. I can live my life how I want
to. And that's wrong.
That's wrong. But the way you dress does
matter. And I'll tell you this, in fact,
let me give it to you here. The way that you dress for
church sets the tone for the way that you present yourself before
God as you sing the hymns, as you listen to the message, as
you do everything that you do at church.
The way that you dress matters. And that's why, that's why I,
especially everybody that's doing something as, as, as, as
part of singing or playing or whatever it happens to be, we
dress in a suit because I am coming before the King of Kings
and I want to act and dress like I'm coming before the King of
Kings. I don't want to dress like I'm
going on a, on a, on a sloppy beach day and just being casual
in a T-shirt and flip flops and shorts.
I'm going before the King of Kings.
If you had an opportunity to go meet the President of the United
States, I can promise you that 99.9% of the people who dressed
that way in church would wear their best suit that they had to
go meet the President of the United States.
Well, God doesn't care. He's looking at the heart.
No, God is looking at the heart, but he also cares about how you
dress. He cares about what you look
like. And it's not just what you're
wearing. It's an attitude change, right?
I'm going to meet the King of Kings.
I don't want to be sloppy and casual when I do it.
It changes the way that you do look.
I'm not going to get out there in a suit and tie and play
baseball, all right? I'm not going to go throw a
baseball or football. Then maybe I'll toss the ball
here and there, but I'm not going to play football in a suit
and tie. I act differently when I'm
dressed in a suit than I do when I'm wearing shorts and AT shirt
and tennis shoes, right? When you put on shorts and AT
shirt and tennis shoes, your attitude automatically becomes
casual because that's what you wear when you're casual, right?
Or a pair of jeans and AT shirt, that's it's a casual dress.
And so your attitude becomes that way.
And when I show up at church in a casual dress, my attitude
automatically is a casual attitude toward everything
that's happening, including the way that I'm going to worship
God. I remember this when I was when
I was in school, any time we played, we played soccer, we
wrestled, we played basketball. And on the days that we had a
game or a tournament or something like that, we had to
wear a suit to school. Now, I always, we had to wear a
shirt and tie. We could wear khakis, but we had
to wear a shirt and tie. Once you got in 9th grade, 9th
through 12th grade, had to wear a shirt and tie to school every
day. And that changed the way that
you acted. But you got used to that.
But on days when we had a game and you came in in a suit,
everybody acted differently because you're not going to do
things in a suit that you would do in shorts and AT shirt.
Your attitude changes. I'm on the soccer team and I got
a game today and I want everybody to know it.
You know, your attitude changes, and it's the same when you come
to church. You're dressed in a suit.
You're carrying your Bible instead of scrolling your phone
and answering text messages and looking at Facebook during the
message because you're distracted, right?
It changes everything about your attitude in church.
That's why we dress up. That's why we wear a suit.
And this guy in particular that I was talking with and sharing
that with him, he said, man, you know what, I've never thought
about that before, but you're exactly right.
That's exactly what happens at church.
Everybody's, everybody's just casual and the whole attitude is
casual in church. And listen, that's exactly what
contemporary Christian music does to the atmosphere.
You're just at a concert, you're not at church, You're just,
you're just hanging out with your friends and join the music.
All right, go bring your bring your coffee in there and sip on
your coffee during the service. It's just, it's just the another
event. It's not church, right?
Bring your snacks in there and if you get hungry, just dig in
there and eat them because no, I mean, the music is so loud,
nobody can hear the rappers anyway, right?
But that's what it does. The attitude changes completely
when you dress differently. And I'm telling you that all of
it starts when you bring in contemporary Christian music.
And I'm not, I'm not just keeping harping on that, but I'm
telling you, the entire attitude becomes casual.
And the dress, the way that you dress for church has a lot to do
with that. Now, let me share this last one
with you, and I'll give you this.
If you want to pull your phone out, you're welcome to do that
because you can follow along with me.
I'm going to put them on the screen here for you to see this.
But there's a reason we hold to the King James Bible.
And it's not just that this is the version that we decided was
the best. This is the version that God
preserved miraculously and gave us God's Word in English, and
He's promised that He would preserve His Word forever.
If he will preserve His Word forever, then that means all of
the words are preserved. And that means they didn't get
it wrong when they translated our Bible into English.
And for 250 years we were scrambling around trying to find
the right version. And now all of a sudden in 1990,
they wrote the right version of the Bible, and now we have it.
Now, God promised that He would preserve His Word, and we've had
God's preserved word from the time that He wrote it until
today, and we will have it for all of eternity.
I do believe that there are other versions of the Bible in
different languages that are also the preserved Word of God
in their language, but we have the preserved Word of God in
English in our King James Bible. It does not need to be changed.
There is nothing wrong with our Bible, and I'll tell you this,
Things that are different cannot be the same.
It's just another way to say the same thing.
No, it's not. Things that are different cannot
be the same. And when you start messing with
God's word and you start changing the version of the
Bible and you start adding different things and taking
different things away, you are changing things that matter.
You are changing doctrines that matter.
And I want to show you some examples, OK?
The ESV the ESV and the NIV are probably two of the most popular
versions besides the King James Version of the Bible and the NIV
and the ESV are very similar to each other.
So what I want to do as we close here is just give you some
comparisons. Let you see some of the
differences between the King James Bible and the English
standard version of the Bible. Tell me if you notice that
there's anything different. Here's what the Bible says in
Mark chapter 10 and verse 24. I would highly recommend that
you write these verses down. It's a great comparison for you
to look at these things and, and really, if you're trying to show
somebody else why you believe the King James Bible is the word
of God, these are some great verses to take them to.
All right, Mark chapter 10 and verse #24 the Bible says, and
listen, I want you to pay attention to these.
I want you to watch these because I'm going to ask you
what the difference is here, OK. And the disciples were
astonished at his words, but Jesus answereth again and said
unto them, children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches
to enter into the Kingdom of God?
That's the King James Version. Here's what the ESV says in Mark
chapter 10 and verse 24. And the disciples were amazed at
his words. But Jesus said unto them again,
children, how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom of God.
You notice the difference? Let's go back children.
How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into
the Kingdom of God? Is it hard to get into heaven?
Absolutely not. Christ has made their way to
heaven very easy, but not according to the ESV.
According to the ESV, it's very difficult to get into heaven.
Children, how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom of God.
You think a doctrine has been changed in those different
translations? No, no, it's just a different
way to say the same thing. Doctrine hasn't been changed.
No, it absolutely has. It's not difficult to enter to
heaven, but that's what the ESV says.
John chapter 6 and verse 47. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
And see what the ESV says. Truly, truly, I say unto you,
whoever believes has eternal life.
See any difference? How about on me, which is the
central port point of the entire Bible?
No, whosoever he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
This one you're allowed to believe anything you want to.
He that believes has everlasting life.
How many times you've heard somebody say I'm a believer?
What does a believer mean? If you're not believing on
Christ, then it doesn't matter what you're believing in.
You think doctrine has been changed in that verse?
Absolutely it has. Acts chapter 8 and verse #37 Now
let me give you a little bit of context here.
Acts chapter 8 is the story of the Ethiopian eunuch.
Philip meets this Ethiopian eunuch in his chariot and he
finds him there reading the reading the book of Isaiah.
Yes. In fact, here's what I want you
to do. Turn over to Acts chapter 8,
because I want you to see this. OK, Acts chapter 8, he comes up
to him and the Ethiopian eunuch is reading the book of Isaiah.
And Philip asks him, hey, do you understand what you're reading?
And he didn't say, hey, but that's, that's my version of the
Bible, Philip. So so verse 34 the eunuch
answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the
prophet this of himself, or of some other man?
Philip opened his mouth and began at the same Scripture, and
preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way,
they came unto a certain water. And the eunuch said, See, here
is water, what does hinder me to be baptized?
Here's verse 37. And Philip said, If thou
believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the
Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to
stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip
and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
So verse 37, Acts chapter 8, verse 37 is where I'm drawing
your attention. Philip said, if I believe it's
with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the
Son of God. Here's what it says in the ESV.
Nothing. That verse is gone.
The entire verse is missing. And so I asked this guy, this is
what I was doing. I sat down, I had this list of
verses, and I said, hey, I want you to read Acts 837 and tell me
what it says in the ESV. And he started reading and he
commanded the chariot to stand. So I said, no, no, that's verse
38. Read verse 37.
It's not there. I said exactly.
Now here's what the Bible says in the King James Version tell
me that that's not important doctrine to tell us that it's
not baptism that saves you. It's believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ and if you believe on him with all your heart, then you
can be baptized. No, they skipped over it
perfectly. Here's water.
What did hinder me to be baptized and he commanded the
chariot stands to stand still. They went down in the water and
he baptized no mention I believe in Jesus Christ with all of your
heart. No mention of a testimony of I
believe with all my heart that he Jesus is the Son of God.
Here's another one. Romans chapter 8 verse #1 There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Let's see what the ESV has to say.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus. Do you think that's a doctrinal
change? Look what it took out.
It took out the whole second-half of the verse, who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
It completely eliminates holy living.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit takes it completely out. First Corinthians chapter one
verse #18 This is what the Bible says in the King James.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of
God. See if you notice a difference.
It's subtle, but this is what it says in the ESV.
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of
God. You think there's any doctrinal
change in that verse? Is being saved a process or is
it something that happens the moment you accept Christ as your
Savior? And here's what the Bible says
unto us, which are saved. It is the power of God.
Here's what they say it is to us who are being saved.
It is the power of God. No, no, it's not a process.
It's a one time single moment event.
Colossians chapter 1 and verse 14.
In whom we have redemption through His blood.
Even the forgiveness of sins. Let's see what the ESV has to
say. In whom we have redemption, the
forgiveness of sins. Any doctrinal changes in that
one? Let's just take the blood of
Christ completely out of it. It's not necessary, it doesn't
matter. No, no, the Bible says it does.
In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the
forgiveness of sins. Micah chapter 5, verse #2 But
thou, Bethlehem Efrata, though thou belittle among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me
that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been
from of old from everlasting. Let's see what the ESV has to
say. But you, O Bethlehem Efrata, who
are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall
come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming
forth is from of old, from ancient days.
Hang on, what does the Bible say whose goings forth have been
from of old, from everlasting? Is there a difference between
everlasting and ancient days? Everlasting means he's God,
means he never had a beginning. From ancient days means he had a
start, means he's not God. You are changing dramatically
doctrines that really matter in God's Word when you change the
Bible version. Daniel chapter 3, verse 25.
This is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
And they got thrown into the fiery furnace.
And once they got into the fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar looked
inside and he didn't see three men.
He saw 4. He answered and said, LO, I see
four men loose walking in the midst of the fire, and they have
no hurt. And the form of the 4th is like
the son of God. Let's see what the ESV has to
say. But I see four men unbound
walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt.
And the appearance of the 4th is like a son of the gods.
Why do you change that? Well there's no way that
Nebuchadnezzar could have known what the son of God looked like.
The only thing that he would have had as a reference is what
the a son of the gods might have looked like.
So that's why we changed it and said son of the gods.
You're taking the miracle away from what God did there and
showed Nebuchadnezzar that it was not just a son of the gods.
What he was looking at was an pre Incarnate appearance of
Jesus Christ and you completely changed that because of your own
finite understanding and because you don't believe in the
miracles that God can do. Let me give you this one.
This is the last one. First John chapter 5 and verse
#7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father,
the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
It's one of the greatest verses that we have on the Trinity
because it puts all of those in the same place and very clearly
says that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
are all one. Here's what the ESV and the NIV,
by the way, I'm saying ESV, the NIV does the exact same thing on
all of these verses. Here's what the ESV says, for
there are three that testify. You think we changed some
doctrine when we change the version of the Bible?
Absolutely. Things that are different cannot
be the same. And they're very clearly not.
And there are many, many, many more examples.
There are, there are, and I'm going to get this wrong, but I
know there's, there's over 8000 changes between the King James
Version and the ESV, the NIV and many of these other versions.
And I, and I'm going low. I believe it's much, much, much
higher than that. 8000 changes and not just inconsequential
changes, not just changing thee and thou to you, by the way, you
take those things out, you take out meanings as well.
Thee and thou is singular Ye and you are plural, right?
It's it went. Oh, we got to update it because
people just don't speak like that anymore.
They didn't speak like that then either.
They didn't speak like that. Read the read the, the, the,
what do you call it? The preface to the King James
Version? They don't, they didn't speak
like that. They didn't say thee and thou
and all this stuff in the preface that the translators
wrote. They didn't write like that, but
they gave the Bible that language because it's a
beautiful language to use and it's very specific language that
they used. That's why they used it.
It wasn't just because they, they decided that, you know,
we're going to give this old Victorian English and leave it
there. No, it's because God gave that
to them. There were 55 men that God used
to give us an accurate translation of God's Word in our
English language to perfectly preserve His Word as He promised
that He would do. When you start messing with
God's word, it's not just a different way to say the same
thing. You are taking things out of
God's Word that matter very, very much.
And you know their argument. If you were to talk to somebody
who defends the, the ESV or the NIV, their argument would be,
well, it says the same thing in other places.
Then why do you need to take it out?
Why do you need to change it? You're taking away the things
that are important, the blood of Christ.
You take the blood of Christ out.
You take the Trinity completely out of the Bible.
By the way, the whole second-half of the last chapter
of Mark is missing in all of those Bibles as well.
Many of your translations take the whole second-half of Mark 16
completely out of the Bible, and if they have it in there, it
says the oldest and more most reliable manuscripts remove this
portion of the Bible. If you can't trust God's Word,
that you have God's Word in your hand in the English language,
then you can doubt any part of God's word that you don't feel
like taking a hold of. And it's exactly what we're what
we see happening. You see a lot of most of it's
happening in your Methodist and you Universalist churches and
things like that. And they're saying, well, God
was a bigot. And these men who wrote these
things and you know, they said that God gave them those words,
but these men were bigots because that's the that's the
age that they lived in. And so, you know, the things
that they say. I mean, I heard, I heard a
woman, it was just a little clip.
I'm not watching women preachers.
I can promise you that much. But I saw a little clip and this
woman said Paul was really a bully.
The things that Paul wrote. I mean, you know, we have to
take everything that Paul wrote with a grain of salt because he
was a bully. That's that's the way they view
God's word. But when you start messing with
it and you start giving translations of God's word that
don't say anything because you're trying to be everything
to everybody, that's when you end up with that women
preachers, homosexuals, people who are an abomination to God in
the pulpit, getting up and trying to lead people down a
direction. I was going to say God's people,
but I don't think they are. Most of them, if not all of
them, are not saved. They don't understand the truth.
And it's sad. It's really sad.
But all that to say that that it's that, that there is a
necessity for separation. We're not just separating
because we want to be different. We're not just separating
because we don't feel like being like them or they decided to do
it this way. We just decided to do it that
way. No separation is necessary if
we're going to keep God's church pure and the Bible matters, and
doctrine matters, and music matters and the way we dress
matters. All of those things matter
because those are the things that are helping to keep God's
church pure the way that He told us we should be keeping His
church pure. I don't want any of the world in
this church. I don't want any influence of
the, the, the rottenness of the world to come into this church.
And we get comfortable with it and we accept it.
And if you're going to accept some, then you got to accept all
of it because there's some things that certain people like
and some things that other people like.
And you like the music. And so we accept that.
And you like the dress. So we accept that.
If we start accepting some of it, we end up accepting all of
it. So how do you keep the church
pure? You keep it all out.
I don't even want a drop of mud
in my water, right? How many would would say that?
Give me give me a drink of water.
OK, Let me just put one drop of mud in it.
I don't want that cup of water. It's got a drop of mud in it.
Well, it doesn't have a whole scoop of mud in it.
It's just a drop. Why don't you do?
Why can't you drink it? Well, I don't want it because
it's got dirt in the in the water, right?
And the same thing is true with the church.
I don't want even a drop of the impurity of the world.
Well, it's not a ton of the world.
Can't we just have a little bit of it?
No, I don't want any of it. I want it pure the way that
Christ wants it pure. So separation matters and it's
and it's important. And these are just a few of the
reasons why. Let's pray.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us,
and thank you for the opportunity that we have to be
here together tonight. I pray that this is a help.
God, may we help. May we keep the church pure the
way that you want the church to be pure.
May you help us to stand strong against the onslaught of not
just the world, but of the churches who are trying to bring
the world into the church and trying to pretend that all of us
have to do the exact same thing. God, may you help us not for the
sake of pride, but for the sake of purity and for the sake of
the truth. May you help us to stand strong
against the things that would come into our church and make it
impure. God, may you help us to be what
you want us to be. Thank you again for all you do
for us in Jesus name, Amen. If you stand at your seats with
the heads bowed in your eyes closed, I want to give you an
opportunity to respond. I know this is more of a
teaching type message than a preaching message, but maybe you
need to ask the Lord to help you stand strong.
Or maybe, maybe some of these things are new to you.
You need to make some decisions to change some of these things
yourself, because they matter. They matter.
However, the Lord spoke to your heart.
Tonight, as the piano plays the invitations open, you come.