So let's move on to another exciting topic.
We are going to talk about something this morning that, if you could give us that first slide,
then I can explain that a little bit.
We're going to talk about some of the things that have been happening online and so forth,
because I'm not going to address this every time.
Something happens, because as the further we get into the end times, I mean, even Igor
talked about it.
He said people are going to be offended and be attacking and blah, blah, blah.
But I felt I needed to address it this time, not because of the things online, but because
we need to know how to handle this correctly.
There are scriptural attitudes and ways of handling this, and there are wrong ways
of handling it.
And if we're not aware of it, the old nature is just going to grab us and take us into
the wrong ways.
So I titled it this.
It's dealing with persecution, but I titled it this, disagreeing without persecuting.
That title is for us, for this reason.
We can disagree with people over doctrinal things, over beliefs, over whatever, without
getting into persecuting them.
Disagreement is okay.
It's how it's handled that becomes the problem.
And a number of you talked to me about what you saw online and about Word of Life and
TBO, so I'm going to show them to you.
So we're going to address that a bit.
Before we go into it, I want to say this.
I've got two, three, four things I want to say.
Number one, it is really sad, and this is the story of the church for decades.
We are the only, you know, we're called the Army of God.
That's one of the labels that Scripture talks about us.
We are the only military organization that shoots our own members.
I mean, there is no other organization where, okay, we're going into Saudi Arabia,
and the Marines don't like how the Army is doing it.
So they just open fire on their own people.
If that would happen, the American people would rise up like this is the
stupidest thing we have ever heard of.
Our guys are shooting our own guys, but the church does it all the time.
I disagree with you.
So rather than having an adult conversation and come to some form of response to each other,
that's godly, we go after each other.
We've lost a lot of children to the church because of this.
Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has to grow. Everybody needs sanctification.
Give them the room to do it without killing them.
Let them grow. We don't have to agree with what they're doing,
but we don't have to persecute them or shoot at them either.
But somehow it's like the mentality is if we will divide against ourselves,
then the truth will surface and God's kingdom will move forward.
That's a beautiful military tactic.
Let's divide against ourselves in our own army.
That way we will be victorious.
Now what did Jesus say?
You divide against yourself, you won't stand.
You can't divide against yourself.
In fact, he brought that up when he was showing the difference between how God's kingdom works
and Satan's kingdom worked, and he brought that up as an example,
because they were accusing him of casting out demons by demons.
And he said, no, no, no, God's kingdom doesn't work that way.
Any kingdom doesn't work that way.
You can't divide against yourself and prosper.
It's self-defeating.
And of course, since it is self-defeating,
I think that's why the demonic realm inspires Christians to do that kind of stuff
and deceives believers into attacking each other.
So I'm not so much interested in these people's personal beliefs.
You know, everybody can believe what they want to believe.
We're all going to answer to God.
It's not my job to be the marshal of beliefs in the world.
It's not your job either.
But I am interested in talking about handling this stuff correctly.
That's the point this morning.
So that we get on the right page and we handle it correctly.
So we're going to talk about a few things here.
And I know it's a cultural thing.
It wasn't in my culture.
When I was young, Dad would have slapped me sideways
if I would have tried to get a message to someone
and I put an article in the newspaper.
Because social media is basically today's newspaper.
You know, we had the actual paper version
and today we got the media version.
And had I tried to get a message to someone by negatively talking about them
in an article in the newspaper, Dad would have killed me.
It's like, what's wrong with you, boy?
This doesn't work.
It doesn't produce good fruit.
Let me just throw some thoughts out.
Because we're talking about something that was said against us.
Well, let's take it.
If truth is actually truth, it should apply across the board and work.
If God, if Jesus died for whosoever will,
that means his sacrifice is for every race, culture, and human being on earth.
I mean, it applies equally across the board.
So, if helping someone change is to go public and negatively undercut them,
belittle them, make fun of them, how about you try that with your spouse?
How about you go on Facebook and put a whole bunch of stuff on there
about how your spouse is just off the wall?
Because you're trying to help him or her.
And this is how you're going to get their attention so you can help them.
Tell me how that works out for you.
You already know how that's going to work out.
Depending on what you said, that marriage might be over.
Try that with your boss.
Do you know the larger companies have people specifically hired to check social media,
to know what their employees are doing, and the potential hires are doing?
Because people lay themselves bare in social media.
It's the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life.
It's like, really, you said that for the world to see?
It's like, can't believe that.
But try it with your boss.
You know, you're discontent with your company or your boss.
So, go on social media and just rip them up.
And then when they approach you, say, well, the only reason I did it
is I wanted to talk to you about these things.
Well, you'll get to talk to them.
Probably for the last time.
I mean, any place you apply that technique, it destroys relationships.
It's not of God.
God is in the building relationships, not destroying them.
You know, I got dwelling on it a little bit.
It's called negative advertising.
And even the world system knows that's not good.
You know, taking, for example, you've got Hyundai and Kia,
and they were the first ones to come out with the 100,000-mile warranty.
Okay?
Did they slam for GM, Nissan, Dodge, BMW, whatever?
All their advertisements about their 100,000-mile warranty
was making fun of or undercutting their competition.
Did they do that?
No.
They just put on there, we got a 100,000-mile warranty, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Because they know people are smart enough to figure it out.
Number one.
And number two, people hate negative advertising.
The average person does not like it.
And there's studies, marketing studies.
This is not church.
This is the business world.
There's marketing studies that says if Hyundai would
start making fun of GM, because GM only had a 36,000-mile warranty,
36,000-mile warranty, and Hyundai had a 100,000-mile,
if Hyundai would start making fun of GM poking at them,
well, if you buy a GM, there's something wrong with you
because you're only getting this or we are doing this,
negative approach, marketing studies,
you already know the answer to that.
You know what happens?
Hyundai sales go down.
Because people hate that.
People don't like that.
You want proof of that?
Why do we hate the election years so bad?
Because these politicians can't stay out of the mud.
They'll drag each other in, and they get so negative
rather than stating this is who I am,
this is what I believe, this is what I'll do.
They're just continually bashing the other person.
And I have yet to talk to one person
who once, the Tuesday and November,
finally comes and it's over.
They don't go, thank God that's over.
I have heard so much garbage over the last,
and we're headed into another one.
But that's why it's negative advertising.
People hate politics and the advertising for politics
because it goes there.
And by the way, this is just a little bit,
this is just a nugget,
because it goes along with being able to
disagree with someone without persecuting them.
If someone is willing to talk to you about them,
they're willing to talk to them about you.
Don't ever mistake that.
Well, they're good friends.
There's no, if they're willing
to cut someone else down to your face.
They're willing to cut you down to someone else.
One, I, you know, Brother Caseman hits this all the time.
You want to get in a conversation
with, if Brother Caseman's in the group
and just start talking negatively
about some other minister or something,
he will go totally quiet.
Now, if he's over you, he'll correct you.
But I mean, if he's not over you,
you're not in his organization,
you're just talking with him.
He'll go totally quiet.
And then, if it continues,
he'll just dismiss himself.
Well, that's been nice talking to you.
He'll be cordial. He'll just walk away.
He said, Brother Hagen did the same thing.
If you want to shut down a good relationship
with someone, talk about them negatively.
Because now, if they have any sense at all,
they're going to go,
if I give you any of my personal information,
you're going to talk to them about me negatively.
It's just the way it works.
I've watched successful businessmen do the same thing.
Very politely, very nicely.
Well, it's been nice talking to you.
And they just exit the group
because the group went negative
and they're not going into it.
They're not going to have anything to do with it.
They'll just back out.
And it's hard to establish a relationship with them
because now they know you have a problem.
And if I share with you,
you're going to share with who knows who.
And I'm not going there.
The scriptural way is if you have a problem with someone
is you go to that person.
You don't put it in the newspaper.
You don't put it online.
You go to that person.
And see, that's another problem
is we're not good of talking to each other anymore.
Because we do too many conversations here.
So the culture is,
well, you just put it on here.
Yeah, that's not going to work out well.
If there's a word that needs to be delivered,
if there's a prophecy,
there's a correction, whatever,
we're supposed to go to them and bring it up.
And not just fill the world in behind their back.
That's not how God does it.
You know what?
I got corrected a couple of times.
Has God ever,
outside of using you like a prophet,
where it's a statement or it's a point,
has God ever talked to anyone here
and opened up and developed on how bad someone else's life is?
He personally showed it to you.
He has never done that with me.
And I'll bet you won't find it either.
Now, there's occasions where he'll tell a prophet something
like confronting David after David sinned.
One point, he said,
you need to go deal with this one point.
But the whole thing of, well, God will,
God will share with me why Raleigh's so off.
Now, we all know Raleigh's not off,
so I can pick on him.
Nobody's saying anything there.
Having fun with you.
God's not going to share with me.
He's going to talk to Raleigh.
He's going to talk to you.
He's not a gossip.
He's not going to give me information
that I can convince Gary to do something different.
It's got to be the Holy Spirit that talks to him.
So why would he give me all this stuff?
And there's been times I've asked,
I said, what in the world,
you know, in frustration,
what in the world is this person's problem?
And the Holy Spirit has said,
that's none of your business.
He just said that fast.
None of your business.
It's between me and them.
So it's good to know a little of these things
because that's how God works.
And we're not against anybody's beliefs.
I don't agree with everybody's beliefs.
And we have to learn how to disagree
without persecuting someone.
I don't agree with everything.
But people can believe what they want to believe.
And as long as they're saved and headed for heaven,
guess what?
We'll all figure it out when we get there.
And you know what?
We're all going to have a little egg
on our face someplace.
Because I don't think there's anybody
who's 100% right in everything they believe.
Or sanctification would be over.
We would need no more sanctification
because we're perfect.
And it's just like,
I don't think there's too many of us there.
So we're going to look at these
and I'm not going to shoot at anybody's beliefs.
They can believe what they want to believe.
But I will state what my beliefs are about them.
You know, rather than being
Hyundai undermining GM,
Hyundai just puts out,
this is what we offer.
This is where we stand.
This is what we do.
You figure it out.
So we have the right to say what we believe.
It's when we start crucifying someone else.
It becomes a problem.
So let's look at a couple of these and
I don't have control.
I don't think.
If you can get that to me,
somehow it would be great.
So you don't have to switch all the slides.
So this is one that showed up online.
You'll recognize one church there
and it says on the left what your taught church is
and then what actual church looks like,
which is a human heart with a cross in it.
True church, false church.
Well, they can believe what they want to believe, I guess.
Obviously, to me, that post is an attack.
I mean, how can you not look at that and say that's not an attack?
That's an attack.
And besides that, it's not scriptural.
So here's my belief.
The church building, the church building is not the church.
It's the physical building we need in as the church.
Now, the person, the individual person, is not the church.
And I've heard people get this one confused.
As a single person, I, you, we are not the church.
We are a member of the body or a member of the church.
And it's the whole thing that comes together that makes the church.
We're members of it.
We're parts of it.
We're pieces of it.
The church is, if you know anything about what Scripture says concerning Ecclesia,
that's the name given to the church.
What is the Ecclesia?
Short version, it's a group of people brought together to focus on a purpose or issues,
whether it's getting people saved or getting people healed or taking a stand
on the ungodliness in the nation or whatever.
They bring, God brings a group of like-minded people together
for the purpose of they're supposed to step up and rule and reign whatever their purpose is.
Do it, get involved, be salt and light.
That's the church.
It's, it's a group of us brought together to accomplish something for God.
That's what the word Ecclesia means.
But, let me so that I can get control back.
Let me restart that and maybe it'll work for me.
So I don't have to tell her to switch the slides all the time.
Now I lost it totally.
Did you do something in that end?
Or is that me?
Give me a second to play with technology.
Yeah, got them on the right Wi-Fi.
There, there.
Now I've got control back.
Okay, so here's the next one.
That was up.
There was four of them.
Here's the next one.
You don't see faith healers in hospitals for the same reason you don't see psychics win the lottery.
They got a picture of Mark Anderson.
By the way, he's coming the end of February.
He'll be here the last Sunday of February and TVO the night before.
And they got a picture of Wolf and Sheep's clothes.
And then they got a wolf sheep thing down here.
And then they got Brad Breedy and myself over on the other side.
So the point is, I presume, the point is faith healing is not work or whatever.
So the thought is you don't see faith healers in hospitals.
Well, I don't know.
I go to the hospital, pray for people.
Brad Breedy goes to the hospitals and prays for people.
When Mary was in the hospital,
Mark Anderson came to the hospital, pray for her.
So I don't think that's actually accurate.
Well, why don't... if we're faith healers,
why don't we just go through there and heal everybody?
Well, here's my belief.
Because I think that's what the insinuation is.
It doesn't work because if you went to hospitals,
you would, you know, if it works,
why don't you go to hospitals, clean them out?
Well, here's my belief.
Why didn't Jesus heal everybody at the pool of Bisedia?
It was loaded with sick and diseased people and he walked right through them.
And then the one person he did heal,
he looked at them and said, do you want to be healed?
Okay, so now Jesus was revealing a principle there
that it took me a few years to figure out.
I figured it out a few years ago and it took me a few years to figure it out.
Jesus healed no one who did not approach him to be healed.
They had to, let's just use the word ask.
There's different ways they did that,
but they had to approach him and ask for him to do something for him.
Other than that, he did not.
Pool of Bisedia is a good example.
One guy out of all those people, Jesus healed.
Well, if he's a Messiah, why didn't he just heal everybody there?
Because that's not how it works.
There was all kinds of sick and diseased people in the land of Israel.
Why didn't he heal them all?
Well, from my understanding, the principle Jesus gave doesn't work that way.
You actually have to respond to the offer of the promise and ask for it.
That's how it works.
So that's my belief.
This one's a little bit more direct.
You have the Broadway in the narrow way.
The Broadway leads to TBO.
And the narrow way leads to the cross.
Genius.
Again, I would call that an attack.
That's a slandering.
That's an undermining.
So in other words, where does it say it?
Does your pastor read a couple of scriptures from the Bible
and then spend the entire service spreading their own message?
See, that's what takes you to hell.
Jesus is the only way.
Church can't get you into heaven.
Well, a building can't.
I agree with that.
Building can't do it.
For Satan himself transforms as an angel of light, blah, blah, blah.
So here's the insinuations, I think, that we're getting here.
Is if you go to TBO, you're going to hell.
And be careful of Mary because she is a satanic angel of light.
But I think that's what is trying to be said.
So be careful what she preaches because even Satan will do this kind of stuff.
I don't know how many people, these people got saved last year,
but last year over 150 people got saved and most of them at TBO.
Saved according to what Scripture gives as guidelines.
So I don't know how, you know, it's just kind of funny.
Here's the last one.
This is good too.
How do you know when your pastor is a false teacher?
That's me.
When tongues flow freely, but interpretation is missing in action.
Of course, Calvin Woods is there too, Calvin and Brian,
because they do that a lot too.
So they had to go online and find a picture of all three of us together
so they could make that statement.
I think it's kind of funny.
I was going to address that again, but I'm going to do it differently.
The thing of speaking in tongues and church,
because I've addressed it two, three times.
And last summer, the Lord said write a book specifically on that.
Just a small one, but write a book specifically on that
and then actually get it published like through Amazon.
So it's an official looking book and make that available.
So rather than us going, first I thought,
well, I'll go back and readdress that,
but I ain't going to waste my time on that.
I've been working on that book along with
another one of the vision of word of life,
which we need by next weekend.
But anyway, so apparently I'm a false teacher.
I guess, whatever.
I'm not focused on what these people believe.
I'm focused on how we respond,
because I've had people get upset with those kind,
you know, those four, and they're ready to posse up
and go get them.
And it's like, no, that's not the right response.
I appreciate the concern, but it's not the right response.
Now, in my understanding,
this stuff is a form of persecution.
And I'll explain to you persecution here in a bit
and that kind of thing,
but this is a form of persecution.
The scripture says,
if you have something against someone,
go to that person and deal with it.
So it's not that, because this isn't going to the person.
Matthew 18 says,
if you feel like someone's sinned against you,
go to that person and talk to them.
If you have to take witnesses, talk to them,
and then obviously if it doesn't get resolved,
go to the church and have the church help you.
So it's not that.
And apparently it's not being sent by a message,
by God with a message, you know.
Let me restate that to make sure we understand
what I tried to say there.
Apparently God did not inspire that to be put online
about Mary and T.B.O. or this and me.
Because when God gives someone a word
or a prophecy or a message,
everything in scripture, they go to the person.
They're sent to the person.
They're not sent to put it online
or the newspaper or whatever.
They're not instructed to bring them into question publicly
in an effort to help them because they're wrong.
So to me, this is definition of persecution.
So we'll see that here in a bit.
Let's look at some scripture.
Bless are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.
So I'm going to read Matthew 5, 9 through 12 here
and then some other verses.
But let me stop right there on this one.
Peacemakers are called the sons of God.
When you're born again, you're called what?
You're called the children of God.
Children have to mature.
So what Jesus is talking about here is to be a peacemaker,
you're actually going to have to mature some.
And once you reach that, you'll be called the sons of God,
not the children of God.
If you study that through the New Testament,
sons of God is over and over and over.
It's talking about a Christian who's grown up some,
who's matured some.
You know, any... look at your own kids.
Any immature person can create trouble.
It starts at two years old.
And they get really good at it in junior high
and early high school.
I mean, it's just part of the growing up process.
Once they mature through it, and some people never do,
you know, there's people 80 years old
still acting like kids.
They've never grown up.
But the average person, once they mature through it,
and they actually learn how to communicate with the parent
and not just cause trouble and stir up issues
and create havoc,
but they actually start talking to the parent.
I've heard it say...
I've heard people say this over and over.
I was so proud of my son.
Or I was so proud of my daughter.
They came to me, we talked it through,
we're on the same page.
They never refer to them when that happens as a child.
Because children are not capable of doing that.
They're not mature enough yet.
So right from the get-go Jesus is inferring
if you're going to be a peacemaker,
you're going to have to grow a little bit.
There's some things God hates.
One of them is to sow discord,
that word is strife,
among the brethren.
I think you know how that applies.
I probably don't have to dwell there.
So let's look at three principles here,
that again I won't take the time to take them apart,
but we have a series called
Correct and Incorrect Judging.
It's only audio.
We haven't done it with cameras,
but it's really good.
We are never to judge a person.
Declare what a person is or isn't.
Never.
But we are commanded to judge everything.
Not people, but things.
Well, beliefs and doctrines are things.
You know, I got no problem questioning a belief,
questioning a doctrine.
Again, if you want to use negative advertising,
let's just have a little fun here.
If you want to use negative advertising,
pull me and Calvin and Brian out of the picture,
and this, that, and the other,
and just make that statement.
How do you know when your pastor is a false teacher?
When tongue flow freely and interpretation is missing in action.
What did you teach anybody?
Nothing.
You didn't teach them anything right.
You just threw a bomb in the middle,
and what's going to come out of that is strife.
So and so says.
Well, what are your beliefs?
Give us some meat.
Give us something to chew on.
And I have no issue on that.
You know, a person wants to go online and
and do some teaching of why they think tongue should not be in church.
Have at it.
It's America.
For now, we still have free speech.
You know, go for it.
Judge the thing.
But be very careful, people,
that we don't judge another person.
See, and I'm pointing this whole thing out.
Not for them.
I'm pointing this out for us.
Because we can pick up an offense,
get a chip on our shoulder,
and now we're judging some,
some, some of us know the source on this stuff that was put up.
And now we're judging them.
Rather than the thing.
And that will cause problems with us.
We're commanded to judge things.
Everything.
We're not supposed to be just gullible
and suck down whatever is given to us.
We're supposed to judge it.
We're commanded to do that.
But we are never allowed to judge a person.
And peace makers have gotten to the point
where they realize,
I don't have to agree with you to live at peace with you.
Because we can talk about doctrines, beliefs,
whether you're a Ford or Chevy guy or what,
John Deere versus Massey, whatever.
And we can discuss this as adults,
even disagree and still be great friends.
Because I'm not saying you're the issue.
See, once it comes to the person,
and we're judging the person,
now we've got a problem.
So let's go on with what Jesus talked about.
Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness sake.
And I'll give you why I'm calling this persecution
in a bit here.
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they revile you,
persecute you and say all kinds of evil
against you falsely for my sake.
And we're going to take those three apart.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad
for great is your reward in heaven
for so persecuted,
for so they persecuted the prophets
who were before you.
Now I want you to notice something
right out of the gates.
This is in the Beatitudes.
This is the blessing part.
You're blessed if you take certain
attitude postures in this life.
Blessed means to be happy,
to be envied,
and to be empowered,
to prosper,
to have success down the road.
Now notice something.
Blessed are you if someone reviles
and persecutes you and says all kinds
of stuff about you falsely.
And it's about Christ.
It's about who Jesus is.
It's about that whole realm.
Notice something.
Church history bears this out.
Scripture bears this out.
I'm going to show you a scripture
here in a bit that bears it out.
When someone persecutes you,
persecutes us, church history,
every time the church gets persecuted,
it grows.
It expands.
It enlarges.
The more governments try to shut down
Christianity,
the more out of their control it gets.
It's a spiritual principle.
I don't know exactly how or why
it works that way,
but it works that way.
And this is not talking about the church.
This is talking about us.
When someone is persecuting us,
they are setting you up for prosperity.
It's a spiritual principle.
The more they talk you down,
the more the empowerment to prosper
and bless you down the road gets on you.
It may not show up the first day,
but it shows up.
So from God's perspective,
by posting this stuff,
they're actually doing us a favor
or a number of them.
Number one, we'll promise the kingdom.
When you get persecuted,
when you get reviled,
you'll promise the kingdom.
Number one, it's in verse number 10 there.
It will increase our reward in heaven,
verse number 12.
And the word blessing states,
it spiritually empowers us to prosper.
So if you and I, let's apply to us,
if you and I have an issue with someone,
we have problems with someone
and you wish, you know,
you haven't fully gotten sanctified yet
and your attitude's not right,
and you wish things would quit going well for them,
don't you dare persecute them.
Don't talk about them negatively,
evilly.
Well, you know how they are.
You are feeding the spiritual fervor,
they're going to do better and better and better.
You're actually helping them.
That's what it says right there.
And people say,
I'm just going to rip them up behind their back
and just destroy them.
And how has that been working for you?
Well, I don't know.
It seems like it always works out for them.
That's because God is now supporting them
because you opened your negative big mouth.
So, if you don't like somebody,
at least be smart enough to keep your mouth shut
because if you open it negatively about them,
God's going to say,
whoa, let's just help you along.
They got a problem with you.
So now this spiritual principle kicks in gear.
That's what it's saying.
Therefore, verse 12.
Rejoice.
This is exciting.
Why?
Because they're helping us.
There is Jesus' attitude on it.
Don't posse up and go get them
because you're going to shut down your own blessing.
And now you'll get into an attitude
that there's problems with us too.
Don't posse up.
Keep the attitude right
because what they're doing long-term
when the dust settles,
they're just empowering us
as people, as individuals,
if somebody's speaking against you, whatever.
So here is the definition of persecute.
Here's why I call it persecute.
The word persecute,
this is the Greek definitions.
The word persecute actually means pursue.
They're interchangeable.
They're the same word.
You've got that right there at the top of the slide.
There's four definitions there.
To persecute, it's a verb in this case
is to cause someone to suffer
whether physically or emotionally.
So if we take verse 12 attitude,
it's not going to cause us to suffer.
But in the case of this situation,
do you know who does suffer?
Because persecution is going on.
It's the people who are either unsaved,
newly saved, or still young in the Lord
and they get all confused
and can't figure out what's going on.
It hurts them.
It damages them.
That's why God doesn't use that approach.
The second one is to pursue.
To actively activity or actively pursue.
It's a verb that means to carry out.
So you're initiating it and doing it.
And or someone else initiated
and you're just participating
in the activity of pursuing someone.
Number three, to be persecuted.
Again, a verb to be or become subject
of systematic harassment and attack
due to one's religious beliefs.
Well, that one's kind of obvious.
That's why I call it persecution.
Well, I believe we can speak in tongues in a service.
No, you can't!
Well, they're pursuing me on that.
And they did it online.
So I call it persecution.
And the last one is to chase.
To go after with the intent to catch
involving great effort
or striving toward the object.
So in other words,
I'm going to catch you in something
and show the world how off you really are.
That's persecution.
You're pursuing them to catch them at something.
Politicians do it all the time.
I mean, they say one word wrong.
Boom!
Hired what you said.
And they try to use it against them
and everything else.
That's persecution.
So if you go back to the scripture
and talked about reviling
and in the definition of reviling
it has reproach.
It talks about evil.
It talks about falsely.
So let's look at those.
To revile means to defame
or to rail at.
To chide.
To taunt.
We never want to try to defame anybody.
Please feel free to question beliefs.
But you don't want to go after the person.
Because that's called reviling.
And it's going to end up bad for us
if we do that.
And it'll end up actually good
for the people we're going after.
It's funny.
I've seen this, but it's funny.
It's in the definition.
To taunt.
To cast in teeth.
Reproach, revile, up braid.
Have you ever seen a child who gets so angry with someone
and they can't change what's going on
that they actually go?
And they chop their teeth?
That's what it's talking about right there.
To rail is just to get on them
and get on them and get on them.
To defame, you know what that means.
Taunt them.
Try to bring them out into the argument.
Taunt them.
And if it doesn't work, you get so frustrated.
Just chop your teeth.
Well, that's in the definition.
I think it's funny.
But that's part of reviling.
Use the word reproach.
Reproach is an expression of rebuke or disapproval,
the act or action of reproaching or disapproving.
It's a cause or occasion
to blame someone, discredit someone, disgrace them.
And they say it's an obsolete definition.
It doesn't get used much anymore,
but I can see where it still applies.
Reproach is when you subject someone to censure or scorn.
You make fun of them for their beliefs
or what they're standing for.
I can think of a couple of pictures
I've seen recently that probably could fit that definition.
Hint, hint.
Evil.
Speak evil against you falsely.
Evil is hurtful.
Evil.
It's going to hurt somebody.
It may not hurt the person that you're speaking it about,
but it's going to hurt somebody.
That's all part of persecution.
And falsely means an utter truth
or attempt to deceive by falsehood.
Falsely.
A lie.
Well, I'm willing to stand before God and ask
if my wife is actually an angel of Satan.
I'm pretty sure I'm on solid ground
to say, no, she's not.
I think God will agree with me.
Which means what's being said is a lie.
It's a false accusation.
And I also am pretty solid that not everyone
who goes to TBO is going to hell.
I feel pretty good about that stance.
You know, so that again fits that top definition.
So I just throw it in persecution.
So here is what we need to pay attention to.
What is our response supposed to be to this?
You got to be bright enough to see through it.
Ask God for wisdom so you can see through this kind of stuff.
And you don't just read it and go, oh my goodness,
that's what's going on.
You've been trained by the school system too long.
You're not thinking for yourself anymore.
You got to think through some of this stuff.
So number one, what is our response supposed to be?
I'm specifically talking about our attitudes.
Well, we're not supposed to posse up.
Get angry.
Get revenge.
Well, they can put stuff online.
We can put stuff online.
You engage them online.
It just turns into fiasco.
Don't attack back.
No retaliation.
No snide marks.
No quietly discrediting.
That's not what we're supposed to do.
I'll show you here in a bit what we are supposed to do.
Because if we do it correctly,
they're actually helping us.
So apparently this is a trap for us.
Because God wants to do some things
so we lay the trap or the snare out to get us off track
so we miss what God wants to do.
So we don't want to take the wrong approach
because that's not the approach God takes.
Number one, rejoice and be glad.
They just increased your reward in heaven.
So I'm expecting a bigger reward.
That's cool.
And you know the rewards are eternal over there.
They just go on and go on and go on and go on.
So our attitude, our response,
the first thing we do is don't get angry.
Don't get mouthy.
Don't start striking back.
Sit back and have a chuckle.
This is great. Be glad.
Now we're going to find out how sanctified we are, won't we?
I don't know if I can do that.
Well, yeah, because your flesh is still too much in control.
But that's the command.
That's what Jesus said.
Rejoice.
And then a little further in the chapter, he says this.
You've heard it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
See that's good earthly wisdom there.
But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you.
I think that applies in some of those slides.
Do good to those who hate you.
I can't say that anybody hates me there.
Maybe they do, I don't know.
And pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
So again, what's our attitude supposed to be?
We're supposed to bless them
not curse them, bless them, and pray for them.
That you may be the sons of your Father in heaven.
There we are again, that you may be mature.
That's how mature people deal with this.
So let's look at some principles.
How are believers supposed to relate with other believers we disagree with?
Romans 12, 10, prefer each other in love.
Love wants the best for the other person.
To prefer them means to give precedence to them.
So if you disagree with them or you don't agree with something they believe or whatever,
prefer them in love.
Read the chapter, that's in the heart of that chapter that Paul's talking about.
Stay loving and concede.
Just let them believe what they want to believe.
We don't have to shoot our own, I mean, especially if they're saved.
We don't have to go around hunting our own soldiers.
Prefer them in love.
Handle disagreements privately, not publicly.
If there's no agreement found, then you take a witness and then the third part is the church.
Matthew 18 talks about that.
Matthew 5, 23, and 24 says,
if you find out someone has...
The King James uses the word ought.
It's literally translated something that that...
I don't know why they translated it ought.
It must have made sense in the 1600s.
It doesn't make sense today.
It's literally translated something or an issue.
Matthew 5, 23, and 24 says,
if you find out someone has something against you,
go to them and work this out.
Number five is the word ought again in the King James in Mark 11, 25.
And there it's the reverse.
If you have something against someone, forgive them.
In other words, send it away, let it go.
It's not your issue, not the problem.
Let it go.
Well, so in other words,
something could include a belief or a doctrine.
Well, I'm against you because
of your belief in doctrine.
Forgive them, let it go.
They're going to talk to God about it
and God's going to talk to them about it,
hopefully on this side, not the other.
Go better if we deal with it here, not there.
It's not our job to be everybody's Holy Spirit.
Well, I got to correct them.
Why? Who put you in charge?
Well, I got something against what they're saying.
Then forgive them.
Forgive means to release it,
let it go, no punishment, nothing.
It's between them and God.
It's out of my hands, not my issue.
Yeah.
But, you know how the church is.
We like to stick our big nose into other people's business
and become their Holy Spirit.
I'll tell you what you're doing wrong.
Don't do that.
Far as I know, God didn't die and put you in charge.
And number four, if we need to deliver a message,
go to the person and talk to him.
Everything in the scripture when angels were sent to deliver messages,
when prophets were sent to deliver messages,
when Samuel was sent to deliver the message to Saul,
he didn't go to the nation of Israel first.
And then, after he got everybody's attention, he went to Saul.
He went to Saul.
Well, we got to go tell everybody, and this is for us now.
I'm not talking about, I'm talking about us, not them.
Well, we got to go tell people,
because we got to help people make sure they don't get in trouble.
That's not our job.
That's God's job.
Well, if they believe that, they're going to get in trouble.
That's not your job to convince them of what is right or wrong.
That's God's job by his word.
That's the Holy Spirit's job.
He's the supreme teacher.
Now, if you want to share your beliefs and what you stand for and what, why,
and it's opportune, go for it.
You got the right to share your beliefs,
but you don't have the right to diminish them, discredit them,
undermine them if they don't agree with your beliefs.
That's not our job.
And folks, the further we get into the end times,
the more opportunities we're going to have to be offended
because people are going to persecute the true church.
And like Igor said, it's more than likely those who call themselves Christians
who are going to persecute the true church the most.
And then unbelievers will follow suit.
So if we don't learn some of these principles,
we're going to get ourselves in trouble as we go deeper and deeper
into the end time stuff here.
So we have to understand there are certain ways of handling this.
Now, can you draw a boundary for yourself?
Absolutely.
Agree on what you can agree on with the person.
Otherwise, agree to disagree and just move on.
If necessary, establish some boundaries for yourself.
And we'll just briefly touch this again.
You can't draw a boundary on someone else and make them conform.
It does not work.
It just turns into a big fight.
You can't do it.
But I can draw a boundary for me and that's exactly what they did in Acts 15
because they had this huge issue with the Old Testament law
trying to mingle and mix in with the New Testament and grace and that whole thing.
And the one point that was specifically brought in Acts 15 was circumcision.
Do you have to be circumcised to be saved?
And this was a huge fight in the church.
Church of Jesus Christ.
Not a local body but overall there was because there was people being converted
out of the Jewish faith believing Jesus was the Messiah
and they were dragging Old Testament covenant stuff with them
in their beliefs because they had been taught that all their lives.
That to be a child of Abraham you had to have physical circumcision.
And if you didn't have that well then apparently you're not saved
and they tried to mingle those two together.
And you'll know Paul God I rate over that whole thing.
I mean in Galatians he went so far as to say
if we're going to demand circumcision for salvation
then maybe we should just cut the whole thing off to make sure we're really saved.
That's what he said.
You go read it.
He was kind of frustrated with that whole argument.
So it came to the church and Paul was there in Acts 15 when they dealt with this
and they drew a boundary for themselves.
This is how we are going to operate in this.
And they labeled four things that they wanted the church to do.
And circumcision wasn't one of them.
So take that and apply it to someone's attacking you for something you believe
or how you live or whatever.
You'll never be able to draw a boundary on them and make them stop.
It just gets worse if you try.
But you can agree to disagree.
Can we just, you know, you believe what you want to believe.
I'll believe what I want to believe.
And let's just stay unified in what we do agree on.
And let's go on.
And if we can't do that then I'm just going to move on.
Because I don't want the strife.
I don't want the conflict.
I'm not going to do that in my life.
And here's the phrase I always throw in right here.
And now you will find out how important you actually are to that person.
Because if they really value their relationship with you,
they'll back up and say, okay, well, let's just agree on what we can agree.
And you believe what you want and I'll believe what I want.
Let's go on and be friends.
Now you're valuable to them.
If they go, well, if that's what you believe, I want nothing to do with you either.
You never were very valuable to them.
They might have acted like your best friend, but apparently they're not.
Say, how do you know that for a fact?
Do you think God agrees with everything we believe?
I mean, if you do, you're really fully yourself.
He does not agree with everything we believe.
But he is still a friend who stays closer than a brother
in the middle of it.
There's our example.
It can be done because he treasures us and the relationship with us
more than he treasures what we believe or he believes.
That's love.
That's how love works.
Agree on the basics of salvation.
And both parties work to fulfill the Great Commission.
I mean, the greatest thing we can do on this earth
is not speak in tongues or get people healed.
The greatest thing we can do is get them saved.
Everything else takes care of itself then in eternity.
Let's both just serve God to the best of our ability,
according to what we believe.
And we don't have to bash each other or undermine each other to do that.
And realize we're all going to answer to God for what we do.
2 Corinthians 5, 10, just one of the scriptures says
we will answer to God for the things done in the flesh.
So there's numerous reasons to keep the right attitude.
We may have to draw some boundaries for ourselves.
And to approach this thing where we stay in right standing with God.
Because if we get out of that, now we're in trouble spiritually.
Now our family, now our business.
Now we're losing the blessing of God.
But if we'll approach it right,
it flat out says the blessing will increase.
There's a spiritual law.
It's just going to increase if we approach this right.
So that's my whole point this morning.
It's not so much to say, oh my, look what's online.
Whatever.
This isn't new.
I mean, we were still in the modular when we were declared to be the demonic church
in the area because we spoke in tongues.
I mean, for whatever reason, that really grinds on people.
And I think I know the reason why.
I'll throw this in for free.
It's not my notes.
The end times has to do with the antichrist spirit.
And then what I think is going to be a man who's going to be
antichrist or Jesus, against Jesus.
But John said the antichrist spirit was alive and well with him already.
And it's just gaining momentum right out to the culmination.
Okay, notice it doesn't say the anti healing spirit.
It doesn't say the anti salvation spirit or call the man the anti salvation man.
The anti God man.
Do you know what it's called?
The anti Christ spirit.
Christ means what?
The messiah and his anointing, the anointed one and his anointing.
Here is the principle.
Remember this.
If the enemy can get the anointing to stop, he's got everything else.
He's got it all.
He's got people won't get saved.
People won't get healed.
People won't get delivered.
People, people won't be blessed.
People won't find peace.
People will find nothing if he can stop the anointing.
That is what the spirit of the age is after.
That's what the man's going to be after.
He's against Christ and his anointing.
So, since Jesus said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has...
Where does the anointing come from?
Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit anoints us.
We'll now put two and two together.
Think below the surface.
Put two and two together.
Why would the demonic be so insistent on bashing?
Let's just go with the thought.
Speaking in tongues.
Ultimately, the demonic's after the anointing.
And the anointing comes from the Holy Spirit
and so does speaking in tongues.
Oh, yeah.
There's guidelines for when and where and how to do it, etc.
And we may not agree on the guidelines.
That's okay.
You flow in the Holy Spirit how you do.
I'll flow how I do.
But let's not invite the anti-anointing spirit in and shut everything down
to where all we have is death and deadness in the house.
Yeah, so there's three articles.
They're online.
You can download them.
Conflict in the church is not a new thing.
It's been around since the beginning.
The Sons of Thunder were the first ones who really kicked that into gear.
James and John.
So there's wonderful articles online of people trying to help
Christians to know how to get along.
Because we're hurting our own cause when we don't.
So there's wonderful articles there and there's three of them.
Just look those up.
They make some excellent points.
And like I said, they're online with today's message.
Could you look up Acts 5, 38 in the New King James?
We'll start at verse 38.
There's four or five verses here I want to read and then we're going to conclude.
This is Gamaliel.
And they had a problem.
The Jews, the Sanhedrin, the scribes, the Pharisees were being threatened by the
Christians and they wanted to shut them down and kill the whole works in the name of God.
See, the disagreement in the church hasn't been... it's not a new thing.
So Gamaliel, who was very wise in the Sanhedrin, got up and said something.
He said,
I say unto you, refrain from these men and let them alone.
Don't go after to kill them.
For if this council or this work be of men, it will come to not.
You got the King James.
You want... can you flip to the New King James?
Since we don't talk about not anymore.
Verse 38.
And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone.
For if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing.
Verse 39.
But if it's of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God.
Verse 40.
So the religious leaders, that's who he's talking to here, Sanhedrin and so forth,
they agreed with him, but they still couldn't get it out of their system
without giving them a good beating.
They didn't kill them, but they had to get... they just had to do it.
So they agreed with them, okay, we're not going to kill them.
And they called the apostles back in and they beat them
and commanded them that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and they let them go.
Okay, next verse.
So they departed from the presence of the council, just ticked off, angry, wanting revenge
because they had been persecuted.
I mean, we're dealing with some American-style persecution.
They were beaten.
That don't happen in America, at least not yet.
And they left rejoicing.
You gotta deal with it correctly or it'll harm you.
Rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
In other words, their attitude was, boy, we must be doing something right because we're really
making them angry.
This is awesome.
That was their attitude.
And daily in the temple and in every house.
Now remember they commanded them, don't you speak in the name of Jesus?
That was in verse 30.
That was in verse 40.
So daily in the temple and every house they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the
Christ, because they had obeyed God, not man.
That's in that chapter too.
Now the next chapter, chapter six, verse one, here's the principle I wanted you to see.
Now in those days, this is the next verse, when the number of the disciples was multiplying.
What did the persecution of the Jewish leaders do to the church?
The spiritual principle kicked in and this thing started growing with such ferocity,
they couldn't keep up and they started having internal problems and they had a, you know,
that's where the seven people were chosen to oversee what's going on and try to control this.
They grew so fast they couldn't keep up.
Why?
Because they got persecuted.
That's a principle.
It's in Scripture all over.
Right there it is.
It's in church history all over.
You want to stop the church of Jesus Christ?
Do what Camilleo said, leave it alone.
If it's not of God, it'll die out on its own.
If it is of God, you can't stop it anyway because you go in there and try to shut it down,
you're just going to spread it like mad.
It's a spiritual principle.
So as we end this, I want us to do what we're commanded to do.
We're to rejoice, bless them and pray for them.
So as we close, let's do what we're commanded to do.
Lord, thank you for counting us worthy to be spoken against.
And Lord, we understand there's probably stuff we're believing and doing that's wrong.
We're not saying we're perfect.
But we have been counted worthy to be pointed out and attacked, persecuted.
And according to you, Lord, that's a good thing and we should feel good about that.
So Lord, whoever these people are, we bless them with who you are.
We bless them with who you are, Jesus.
You be Lord and master in their life.
You work what you want to do.
We pray that according to your heart and your desire, Lord, you prosper them.
You bless them.
You work in their life because this will only produce good results for them in the end.
And Lord, so we do that.
We take the attitude of we're not going to get angry.
We're not going to get mean.
We're not going to go get revenge.
We bless them.
I hope they prosper and what Jesus wants them to prosper in.
We bless them and we pray for them.
We pray that God leads them and guides them and helps them.
We pray God helps mature them and grow them.
We pray for them.
We bless them.
And we pray for us that we keep the right attitude and that we mature and we grow
so that we handle these kind of things, whether it comes against us corporately or
or it's spoken against us individually or against one of our children by relatives or
whatever.
Somebody's pursuing somebody to make them look bad, to make them guilty, to shame them,
to show how dumb they really are.
Whatever the situation is,
Lord, help us to be mature and to grow so we can have the right response.
So that spiritual principle of blessing gets on us.
And the only thing they're doing, if they're attacking our children,
the only thing they're doing is they're prospering our kids.
And we can set the example and explain it to them and say,
guys, just hang on.
Let them be what they want to be.
Let them do what they want to do.
Let them believe what they want to believe.
When this thing is over, God will have blessed you beyond your wildest dreams
and moved you forward.
So keep your attitude right.
And Lord, for us to be able to give that advice,
we need to keep our attitude right.
So help us to grow and mature in this also.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.