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worship you, mighty God. We worship you, Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Holy One of Israel, the only Messiah, the one who died and rose from the dead, the one who is alive forevermore. You have the keys of hell and death. It is only through you there is eternal life. There is only forgiveness of sins through you. You are the only one by which we can be saved from eternal damnation. We come to you, Lord, today and give thanks for your love that you willingly laid down your life on that cross to become the sacrifice, the atonement, the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And you said, if any man will hear your voice and will come to you, Lord, you'll give him the water of life. But you call sinners to repentance, Lord. You call us to turn from sin and wickedness and to follow you with all of our heart. And so, Lord, we pray that you will make that clear today and, Lord, the rest of this time, whether it's until you come, Lord, whatever it takes, Lord, that you move upon the true message of the gospel. We pray that today in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated this morning. Welcome, everyone to Fire and Grace Church, those who are watching and listening and half our congregation that's at home, I guess. I want everybody to turn to Second Chronicles this morning. We got a little I don't think I've ever preached anything from this passage. I want to point out something here. And yes, Second Chronicles, Chapter 12. Just go ahead and turn there. We'll get get ready. And I don't know. I guess we this is kind of like part two of come out of her, my people. I know we didn't call the last one that one, but that's what the Lord spoke to me. Come out of her, my people. I went ahead and had them name it the Roman Catholic or Babylon, just so people would understand what we're talking about. But it's not just the Roman Catholic Church. It's the problem. Okay, it's not just the extreme Charismani acts that have taken things way too far and have connected with Rome and have all kinds of false signs and wonders and Kundalini spirits. We addressed that last week. And of course, for those of you that want to know more, I addressed it in great detail in
my book, The Polluted Church from Rome to Kansas City. I addressed it and exposed it and defined it and named the main players 12 years ago. Okay. And of course, a few weeks ago, I've mentioned this, but it really is a problem. Um, but when we talk about the church world, you've got these extremes. You've got the extreme Charismani act. Anything goes supernatural. We don't discern anything and we don't keep anything out. Anything goes. That's your Bethel Church. That's Benny Hen. That's on down the line. In fact, yesterday, I found out something about Benny Hen. I did not know. I found out that Benny Hen had a spiritual experience in which the passed away dead Catherine Coleman appeared to him. And then after that, he said, and he spoke to her. And then after that, he said, that's when the anointing came on me. Now, let me tell you, if you're communicating with the dead, the anointing that comes on you is not the Holy Spirit. And that explains to me why in 1991, when I went to a Benny Hen crusade in Mobile, one of the things that was absent from the entire show, and I'm going to call it a show, the carnival, uh, one of the things that was absent is the anointing, the presence of God, the power, the true power and glory of the spirit. And you know, it was amazing because it was an arena full of people worshiping God. Um, they had a beautiful choir singing and I'm sitting there on the main floor just wondering, where is the Holy Spirit? Where is the anointing? Where is the glory of God? And what I saw was some counterfeit crap. He comes up and waves his hand and blows on the crowd and all these people start falling backwards. And I'm going to tell you, here's what happens. If the rows in front of you fall backwards, you're going down. And if I hadn't, I mean, the people in front of me, the chairs collapsed, fell on me. I had, I mean, and then back then I was in my 20s. So I was a lot better shape and balance and all this stuff. I had to spin around and I was falling down and there was a little four year old girl right under me that if I hadn't caught myself with both hands, I would have just crushed that portal. And one of the things I said back then was, you know, and I went with some true brothers and we went there truly open to see is this God or is it not? And we did not find God there. We did not sense his spirit, his anointing, his power. Did we see some supernatural manifestations of some nonsense? Yeah, we did. Here's what's interesting though. It was wild because back in those days I was troubled by it, but the Lord spoke to me and said, do not talk about it.
Now, do not put your mouth on Benny hinges yet. And I didn't know why. And I think maybe the Lord was trying to deal with him as he did kind of try to repent of some things after that. Um, but as we see that nothing really has changed. And to me though, it's troubling because like I found out yesterday, I didn't know this, but, uh, Bill Johnson's deceased late wife, Benny Johnson, that's not her real name that she changed her name to Benny because to, uh, Benny hint. And there's just so many weird things. She was the one, uh, the wife of Bill Johnson that would go to the lay on the graves and try to soak the anointing up from dead, uh, you know, ministers of the past. And of course they caught a lot of hell and flack for that as they should. Um, let me just tell you right now, we don't have to seek the dead to have the anointing. We seek the living and we seek Jesus. That's where the anointing comes from. Uh, and here's the thing. If you love righteousness, as Hebrews one says, if you love righteousness and hate iniquity, hate sin, and that means these occult practices, that means the compromise. If you hate it, the Bible says the Lord will anoint you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. You want the anointing, you've got to hate all of this stuff that's evil. All this counterfeit, all the compromise, all the sin, the Eastern religious practices and occult practices that they've adopted. You got to hate all that. And then if you do, if you hate it and speak against it and stand on the Lord's side, you will be anointed. That's a fact. And the anointing, and when I say the anointing, that means the presence of God, the touch of God, the power of God, the unction, as they call it, the unction and moving of the Holy Spirit will be upon you to pray, to fast, to witness, to lay hands on the sick, to cast out demons. You will have the real anointing, to discern what is of God and what's not. But if you are just open to anything, if you think God's not serious about sin, if you don't think God's not serious about repentance from sin, if you don't think God's serious about keeping his house, his sanctuary clean of all of this counterfeit, demonic occult practices, if you don't think all that's important, then what's going to happen to you is you're going to be swallowed up by this nonsense. I was blown away to find out. I mean, there's so many weird stuff there. The worship leader at Bethel, just to give you an example of what I'm talking about, the worship leader at Bethel says that the Holy Spirit hers like the genie from Aladdin.
Okay, now the genies are gins in Islam and they are demons. How would you would ever compare the Holy Spirit to a demon? That's actually blasphemy and she's up there giggling about it. I heard Bill Johnson say yesterday, I'm listening to this whole series on it, I heard Bill Johnson admit that he was never called to the ministry. It's amazing how the Lord hits these people, I think, with the truth serum and they just tell you the truth sometimes, right? But here's what blew my mind. That church has about 11,000 people that attend and 2,500 students in their school of ministry that might as well be Hogwarts. I mean, they're literally teaching people how to prophesy by just letting them try over and over again, no matter how many times they get it wrong. They're basically training soothsayers. There's none of this wait till the Holy Spirit comes upon you and as he wills, let the gift of prophecy or word of knowledge or whatever flow through you. There's no balanced teaching whatsoever because the gifts of the Holy Spirit are as he wills, not as we will. You can't just decide I'm going to prophesy. I don't get this and you can't teach people how to prophesy. This is what's so insane, but here's the thing, that is just one of our problems out there and what I've tried to teach everybody is this and I've spent the last 15 years, but even before that I was preaching and teaching on this is that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are still for the church, the true church, the true gifts. We don't have to settle for the counterfeit. We don't have to settle for an imitation, but what blows me away is how I think about this. Thousands upon thousands go to that church every Sunday and it is a complete fiasco. I call it a crack fair. Y'all don't know what a crack fair is. I'm gonna show you in a minute. Well let's put the picture up. This is a crack fair. Why do we call it a crack fair? Because most of the workers there, they pull off the streets in Atlanta or somewhere and most of them are crackheads or meth heads or whatever, but let me explain something to you. You see this carnival up here. Let me tell you, you take a child, you drive a child by this place and they
think, oh look at the pretty lights and there's cotton candy and there's fun things to ride and the children want to run over there and go to this, but the adults know that this is a charade, right? And that the crackheads and the games there are meant to take your money, right? But children are attracted to this. Adults know better. The kingdom of God is the same, but here we go. The children, the immature in the church world are attracted to these carnival churches. That's why this men's thing put up put up the thing, you know, the thing that happened at this James River church with this male stripper who stripped in gay bars and straight bars and he's up there ripping his shirt off and swinging on a pole in a church in a men's conference. And let's just say, okay, let's just say he wasn't a male stripper, but he was. It's a fact, but let's just say that he wasn't, but it was just a circus act. Let me just go on and tell you, this is what the church world has come to to attract a crowd to get people's attention. They have created a crack fair. They have created a circus environment and this is what they use to draw people. Let me just go on and tell you right now, whatever you use to draw people to church or to Jesus, that's not biblical. Whatever you use to draw them is what you got to use to keep them. So this is why the show must go on. Let me put up the other one. Here's a picture. I just saw this. Somebody posted this little meme. The modern church versus a nightclub. Do you see any difference between the two? And instead of alcoholic drinks, you've got spirits all right that are flowing. But let me tell you something. If the Holy Spirit is upon something, if the Holy Spirit is moving, he will draw people. He will convict people. He will convince people and you can't keep people away from it. See, I'm talking about the true ones. Now, let me just say this. The true ones that are hungry for the real thing are always going to be in the minority. It's always going to be that way. Wide is the gate that leads to destruction and many go that way. Narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it. But these carnivals, and let me just go ahead and tell you what a crack fair church is like.
Oh, they're going to have program after program after program. They're going to make sure that they keep you entertained as much as possible. Lots of jokes and funny stuff going on. Lots of videos. Lots of media. Usually coffee shops, donut shops. Get you high on sugar before you go in church. A lot of talk. I looked up one of our local mega churches. And you know what's so funny? As I've made this kind of funny statement of that pretty much what they preach on is how to deal with stress in church and sure enough some of their last sermons are how to deal with stress, how to deal with anxiety. Let me just tell you, you want to deal with stress and anxiety? Get close to Jesus. He is the Prince of peace. Draw near to him. The reason there's so much stress and anxiety is people don't know who their rest is. They don't know him. They're not close to him. They haven't drawn near to Jesus by repenting from sin and lukewarmness and deadness. And you know, I was talking to somebody last night and I was explaining that why why some of these getting people to come out from this nonsense. These these crack go back to my crack fair these crack fair churches because what they do is these crack fair churches they put enough of a facade forward that looks good and most people can't handle strong powerful confronting dealing with sin christianity. So it appeals to the flesh nature of give me give me christian light. Give me christian light right less filling less calories. Give me christian light because I can't really take that hellfire damnation stuff. I can't take that stuff. I gotta learn to love my wife as christ love the church or oh or the wives. I need to learn how to submit to my husband. You know this biblical stuff. Oh I can't divorce my my wife and marry my secretary. Oh no that's that's too biblical and all this crap's going on and these scandals are going on and I told somebody last night it said you know it's not so much they they put forth enough truth enough of facade to keep people around and then here's what they do the leadership may be completely off
but then they'll have people that are true come into the church and start serving small groups and Sunday school classes and this and that and so you got true people right that that are genuine christians and then a person goes there and they go to one of these small groups and they get some help or they get some truth or they they grow a little bit and then there's no convincing them after that that they're actually the institution itself is off base and that they should come out of it and flee from it it's amazing it's almost i call it getting inoculated from christianity what what is the i can't see i can't even say the word even though i'm not talking about anything i cannot say the gibbity gibbity judo right you know what i'm saying but what is the idea behind that the idea behind that is to give you a little bit of the virus so that your body creates your immune system creates antibodies where it creates an immunity to it well this is the problem this is what most people don't understand that we have so many churches now and they're like like somebody said our friend jeffrey said they're like they pop up like dollar generals or we call them mick churches and how do i put it where was where was i going with that completely lost my train of thought there what's that oh the immunism yeah but we've got all these that give just a little bit and here by here what it is what they do they get this they get this weak water down christianity inoculation and when somebody comes along and says hey you're not getting the whole story you're not getting the whole picture you're not going deeper and really coming to the knowledge of the truth they're like you're crazy you're a cult you're this you're that i mean i've heard it all and this is what the problem is now i want to show you something we said second chronicles i'm going to show you let's just read this story here verse one and it came to pass when rea bowam had established the kingdom and had strengthened himself he forsook the law of the lord and all israel with him now let's stop right there i'm going to keep reading in a second but this is when solomon had died and when solomon died the lord said because of solomon sin and all the idolatry and paganism and everything that solomon opened the door to him brought into israel the lord said i'm dividing the kingdom and ten tribes are going to be in the north and two tribes i will reserve in the south and jerusalem and of course
jeroboam became king of the northern kingdoms and they created their own religion up there and then rea bowam became the king of the south but what does it say here it says he forsook the law of the lord meaning he forsook the word of god and because of that trouble began all right and it came to pass in the fifth year king rea bowam shishak king of egypt came up against jerusalem because why why did the enemies come against them why was their war because they had transgressed against the lord and so this king of egypt came with 1200 chariots and three score thousand horsemen and the people were without number that came with him out of egypt the lubines and the sukins and the ethiopians and he took the fence cities which pertained to juda and came to jerusalem then shimaya shimaya however you say that the prophet to rea bowam and to the princes of juda that were gathered together to jerusalem because of shishak and he said in to them thus saith the lord you have forsaken me and therefore have i also left you in the hand of shishak now let's let's pause right there for a second here's a true prophet a true prophet comes in and says here is the problem this is your sin and this is the reason why this is going on in your midst this is this is what a prophet does they don't have visions of dead people and talk to them and go lay on graves to suck up anointings okay they spend time with god and they hear from god and they're and and prophets come and point out the problem the sin the wrong direction and this is why prophets are hated and killed not loved and flourished with money true prophets are hated even by the church but a true prophets like nathan comes to david you are the man you're the adulterer and the murderer knowing that king david in a split second could order them to take his head off that's a true prophet that's going to go tell the king his sin even knowing that he may that may be his last thing he ever does he ain't there to tell you how blessed you're going to be no matter how no matter how much wickedness sin or evil you're living in you're all just gonna be so blessed the best is yet to come you hear that from somebody run away the best is yet to come these prophets are the one that's promised peace peace with the bible says
jeremiah said that when there is no peace coming he says these false prophets strengthen the hands of evildoers and nobody they their words don't make anybody turn from their evil way they just go read jeremiah 23 ezekiel 13 in fact he says in there they make you vain well what does that mean they make you empty worthless this is why you better be careful what church you attend because what you sit under what you absorb what you take in is what you will become you ever heard what you eat is what you are same is the spiritual thing same thing say pastor dean let me tell you cotton candy's good for a minute and then there's diabetes rotten teeth and you can't live on you could do you think you could live long term off of cotton candy no you can't but we have a cotton candy gospel being preached and they fill up those churches by the tens of thousands because they're children they see the lights and the shiny things and the in the pretty colors and they don't understand that it's really a crack fair they don't understand it's really just there to take you money you hear me now let's what happened so the king of egypt comes against them now here's what's interesting the prophet speaks to him verse six and it says where upon the princes of israel and the king humbled themselves and they said the lord is righteous now this is what happens in the midst of some of these churches they do get a few things right you hear me oh they'll say we're about jesus we love jesus come to jesus oh that's right that sounds right and sometimes they actually do humble themselves and say you know what the lord is righteous they and they they give a little bit of truth and and here's what's so amazing is that the lord has mercy on him the fact that they're allowed to continue the carnival it's because here's what's amazing is that there are people that'll come in there in these churches and sometimes find some help they'll find jesus in spite of the crack fair right this is this is like we you might go to a crack fair and ride a ride in the bolts happen to be put in right that day and you don't fly off right now think about they put together these things and you know crack heads and
methods are putting these things together that's why i'm like yeah right at your own risk but it's the same thing a lot of these this this whole mega church seeker sensitive mentality this whole dollar general mcchurch thing it is truly right at your own risk you know charles finney was one of the greatest evangelists that that ever there ever was really the man understood god he had such a relationship with god he had such a he had such an understanding of how to preach the word of god and how to bring sinners to repentance if you've never read anything by charles finney you need to read number one his book uh lectures on revival amazing uh i read it very early in my christian walk and it laid the foundation in so many areas about how to preach the gospel how to lead sinners to repentance how to not give false comfort to sinners how to deal with the backslidden christians it's a great book and also i mean anything he wrote but but that in particular lectures on revival and his memoirs are amazing the man did not depend on any kind of carnival atmosphere he didn't try to say we're going to have a monster truck show and get a crowd and then preach jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life that was not what he did what he did he knew and he said this in revival lectures he said preaching must be direct he said you must not just talk about sin as if you're talking about somebody else he said you must make sinners figure out where they are matter of fact you can just put this up real quick these are just you you actually revival lectures you can find online there it is lecture uh lecture seven there how to preach the gospel and i love this he always talked about this he that winneth souls is wise and he talked about how it takes great wisdom but notice what he said let's go to the next one and he said right here in this point preaching should be direct the gospel should be preached to men and not about them the minister must address his hearers he must preach to them about themselves and not leave the impression that he is preaching to them about others he will never do them any good father than he succeeds in convincing each individual that he means him many preachers seem very much afraid of making the impression that they mean anybody in particular they are preaching against certain sins not that have anything to do with the center he says it is the sin and not the center that they are rebuking and they would by no means speak as if they supposed any of their hearers were guilty of these abominable practices now this is anything but preaching the gospel thus did not
the prophets nor christ nor the apostles nor do the ministers do this who are successful in winning souls and then he says another very important thing to be regarded in preaching is that the minister should hunt after sinners and christians wherever they have entrenched themselves and he says um a minister ought to know the religious opinions of every center in his congregation indeed a minister in the country is generally inexcusable if he does not he has no excuse for not knowing the religious views of all his congregation and of all that may come under his influence if he has had the opportunity to know them how otherwise can he preach to them how can he know and to bring forth things new and old and adapt truth to their case how can he hunt them out unless he knows where they hide themselves he may ring changes on a few fundamental doctrines repentance faith faith and repentance till the day of judgment and never make any impression on many minds every sinner has some hiding place some entrenchment where he lingers he is in possession of some darling lie in which he is quieting himself let the minister find it out and get it out of the way either in the pulpit or in private or the man will go to hell in his sins and his blood will be found on the minister's skirts this is just an idea he's like preaching must be clear we must address sin we must not act like that it doesn't exist in our midst you know one of the most powerful things i've heard like sal and daniela told me years when when they started listening god used a certain truth to get their attention and they started listening to me but they still were not truly surrendered and and repented they were still drinking some some beers and partying a little bit right but they're listening to pastor dean but let me tell you what got them what got them is when i read galatians chapter five and it says no drunkard will inherit the kingdom of god and when i preached that directly and said i don't care how you slice it the bible is clear if you're a habitual drunkard you get drunk on a regular basis you will not inherit the kingdom of god you are headed to eternal damnation now that is pretty direct isn't it because the church world don't even talk about that they don't even say anything about that in fact they got a lot of sipping saints in their midst we know sal knows certain big church in town some of the leaders he happened to be doing some work in their house and they love kicking back the alcohol on the weekends and like i said oh i'm not yeah people say oh i'm not getting drunk i'm getting tipsy let me tell you tipsy is stage one of drunk you understand and let me tell you sometimes all it takes is a little bit more after tipsy and then your mind you know the bible talks
about this how perverseness begins to come into mind immediately as you get to that place where it's switching gears it's amazing how all of a sudden when alcohol takes its root and the drunkenness starts to set in the mind starts going toward perversion it's like it's like it almost breaks down your resistance this is why it's so evil but it was that i remember sal telling me he was holding the beer one time and it just the conviction of the holy spirit it's like you've got to stop this and really get right with me you're not going to hear that in these mega churches i'm sorry you're not going to hear that in these dollar general make churches you're not going to hear it and this is what's so diabolical about them it's not always that you can find some serious false doctrine in some of these churches but it's what they leave out and this is why it's so hard to get people to come out of these places because they're like but but i don't see anything really seriously wrong or false or false doctrine yeah but do they address have you ever heard them address fornication adultery drunkenness have you ever heard them address lying and say if you live habitually in these things you will not go to heaven when you die you will stand before the judgment seat of christ and say and hear him say cast this wicked slothful surfeit serpent into outer servant rather serpent too into outer darkness like i've said anyway you end up in the place of the one you follow if you're a habitual liar the bible says you're going to the lake of fire and brimstone if you're a liar think about that how many people lie how many preachers get up and lie every sunday you're all saved no matter how you live you're once saved always saved oh the grace of god god understand all of these false doctrines they preach and all of this this false comfort they give oh these liars are going to find out that liars don't go to heaven deceivers don't go to heaven and what he says here charles finney says how the blood's going to be on their hands let me tell you something you do not want to stand before god with blood of others on your hands because you caused them to stumble and cause them to sin and cause them to die in their sins and go to hell you don't want to be standing there as a stumbling block oh because you left out the truth of the gospel now i didn't finish let's go back to second chronicles we got a lot to cover let's go down to verse nine says so shishak king of egypt came up against jerusalem and took away the treasures out of the house of the lord and the treasures of the king's house and he took all
and he carried away also the shields of gold which solomon had made so instead of which or in the place of which king rehoboam made shields of brass and committed them to the hands of the chief of the guard that kept the entrance of the king's house now this is what's interesting and this is what i want to point out here the enemy came in because they would not do things according to the word of the lord the enemy was allowed to come into the house of the lord and the king's house the leaders and take all the treasures of the lord and it's interesting it points out one of them and that Solomon had made these shields of gold and gold in in the construction of the tabernac and all this represents the the deity the power of god it represents purity because gold has to go through a purification process it represents being tried by fire and being found faithful but it says he took away this enemy was allowed by god allowed it because of their sins and transgressions and even though they humbled themselves and said the lord is righteous and god had mercy on them a little bit it still says he allowed the enemy to come in and take the treasures out of the house of the lord and so what did rehoboam do so things would look the same he made shields of brass and what's interesting is brass kind of looks like gold if you shine it up enough see and this is what's happened to most of the modern church world because they refused to preach the gospel with repentance because they refused to point out and deal specifically and directly and bluntly and frankly and plainly with sin in the camp and sin in the sinner's life because they refused to do it god's way he's allowed the enemy to come in and take everything so what do they do when the anointing's not there you got to have a carnival the shields of gold are gone but the shields of brass are there and so many people are fooled by the shields of brass oh they think the blessing of god is still here the presence of god is still here the power god's still here look at all the people coming in look at the thousands of people coming in the door it must mean that god's blessing it it must mean the anointing is here the glory of god is here no the shields of gold are gone shields of brass now and what does brass represent the lord talks about when the people of god would not do things according to his word and would sin he said the heavens will be like brass
meaning your prayers are not heard and really under judgment let me show you something if you go to go go to proverbs proverbs 21 proverbs 21 16 let me show you something let me show you why these places are full and i call them the congregation of the dead because i'm going to tell you this right now if true repentance is not preached if the true repentance where you deal specifically with sin and the consequences of sin where you preach on as paul did and this is in acts 24 where paul said when he stood before felix and he was preaching to these wicked roman rulers and he says it says there that paul reasoned with felix he reasoned of what righteousness temperance and judgment to come that means he dealt with righteousness he i can tell you right now he said you are sinners all his sin comes short of the glory of god the wages of sin is death how do i know that because that's the book of romans right he is saying there is only one righteous and that is jesus christ and you must come to him and you must believe in him that he died for your sins and rose from the dead and you must repent of your wickedness that is where righteousness comes into our life and then it says he preached to him of temperance how after that you must live a life of self-control that the flesh cannot be allowed to have dominion you must by faith and through jesus bring the flesh under control you can't just indulge it in drunkenness or adultery or fornication or whatever else that god has listed his sins so he reasoned of righteousness and temperance and then it says judgment to come meaning if you don't do these things the end result is eternal damnation eternal punishment in the lake of fire the smoke of your torment will go up day and night forever when paul preached these three principles to felix this wicked roman ruler it
says felix trembled in fact you can put that put that verse up felix tremble think about this that's the preaching that we're supposed to do let me tell you something if if i don't make you nervous sometimes by how i preach and what i preach if you don't tremble at god's word if if it doesn't strike fear in your heart sometimes it is not the true preaching of the gospel see this is what says as he reasoned of righteousness temperance and judgment to come felix trembled and answered go thy way for this time when i have a convenient season i will call for thee now now does this modern churches these mac churches these dollar general churches these seeker sensitive churches would have told felix oh it's okay we're sorry we upset you or offended you you want a brownie you want a cup of coffee god loves you just the way you are your sins are forgiven past prison future it's okay don't cry don't don't tremble oh the fear of god you're afraid that's not of god fears not of god oh they would have given them a little blankie a little baba a little binky a little teddy bear to hold and petted him on the head and said sorry we we disturbed you who is that mean man that disturbed you made you upset come over here to our group and you'll be loved see i would rather have sinners that tremble and don't accept jesus yet because at least it's honest than to tell them say this little prayer raise your hand back there in the back nobody will see say this little prayer and you're good for all eternity this is the christianity that we've had charles finney had a thing called in his meetings he called it the anxious seat i love this the anxious seat right so what he would say is he had been preaching and he would come and preach for days you know sometimes he would have a week revival plan and he ended up being there for six months preaching but he would say this he says if you feel anxious or anxiety over your salvation or where you are like you're trembling and you feel insecure you don't know whether you're saved or not or you're you're troubled or unconviction about your sin he said come up here and sit in the front row he made him come sit up in the front and he was the one that said your preaching should be like a machine gun that just lays them out just just destroys every place that they hide
this is the man though that when he went out to rochester new york in 1831 and started preaching he ended up there for six months and a hundred thousand people got saved and that was without radio tv or social media this is the man who walked into a factory and two girls there was thousands of people about three thousand people working in this factory and he walks into the factory they're giving him a tour before you know just showing him around before he preaches that evening and two two young ladies kind of looked said oh that's the preacher and kind of mocked him and laughed at him and as he said he said i just looked at him with a like finny was they said he was about six four he was a athletic man very strong and they said that he just like take his hat off and just looked at him the conviction and fear of god came into that place and they they began to tremble and they began to get like that anxious and started feeling and finally the the fear of god and the conviction of the holy spirit was so strong in the factory that the supervisor said came out and said we must shut down the factory it is more important that we deal with our souls than this factory keep running and about two thousand people out of the three thousand that worked in this factory got saved that day but it was the fear of god the conviction of the holy spirit that makes you uncomfortable if you're in sin if you're a sinner you're lost you're deceived you're you're insane or you're a backslidden christian and there is some the true power of god comes in a place the true fear of the lord the true conviction of sin the true reality of where you really are where the deception is stripped off of you and broken off of you you see yourself as you really are and you see your condition and you see your fate that is when true conversion takes place that is when true repentance can take place see i you will never be comfortable under my preaching if you choose to live in sin you will either repent get it right with god or you will find a crack church because you won't want the shields of gold you'll go find the shields of brass because that's easier to handle because they don't do things according to the word of god the law of god is not there to make me tremble i can have a good time i can relax i have had people tell me they go to these big mega churches so they can hide so they can hide what you hiding from
and let me tell you there's a lot of people on this kick about churches being 501c3 all this nonsense that is not the biggest problem a church can be 501c3 and still have a pastor that preaches the truth and people that are living for god and they that that doesn't it it's it's if the pastor allows the 501c3 thing to influence how they preach that's the problem now we're not 501c3 never happened because i understand the law the church and it's on it's on the irs website by the way churches cannot be taxed you don't have to file a 501c3 you don't have to do anything the government cannot tax the church because the moment the government can tax a church then has power over a church and that would violate the first amendment of our constitution because they cannot restrict the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof in the moment you tax something and we don't pay the tax or whatever then they can start restricting the church that's why churches are something an entity totally different they created the 501c3 thing for non-profits that were not churches and they just convinced churches sign up for this and then told them a lie that if you say certain things you'll lose your tax exempt status a church can't lose its tax exempt status so that's all a lie it's all built upon a lie so but the pastors has chosen to believe the lie and compromise that's the problem i mean i've seen god move the power of god revival happened in 501c3 churches because the pastors just they don't even regard that as anything that's just the way the church was set up probably a lot of them along before they ever became the pastor there so that's not the issue the issue is what do you let control what you preach if the if the pastor wants to keep a big congregation and big money and he's willing to compromise and water it down and make sure he doesn't preach or say anything that's offensive or would make anybody tremble or feel uncomfortable that's the problem because he's become he's become a circus you know the ring the ringmaster the ringleader instead of a preacher of the gospel a preacher of the word of god now let me show you something the people that stay in these places listen to what this says this is a this is a scary verse this is a it's a telling verse though but proverbs 21 verse 16 the man that wondereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead you stay in the roman catholic church you stay
in these mega churches that that don't that do not preach the gospel don't make anybody uncomfortable there's no conviction of sin there's no talk of sin there's no talk of hell and eternal punishment the judgment of god the judgment day there's no talk of the wrath of god it's only the love of god the mercy of god if that's all you ever hear in that place and you stay there you stay in that you stay in these dead lutheran churches these dead baptist churches these dead presbyterian church these dead pentecostal churches oh yes there's dead pentecostal charismatic churches i mean dead i mean the whole thing is a show from beginning to end but it says the man that wonders out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead what's the flip side of that coin if you get some understanding of what the word of god says and get some understanding of what the holy spirit wants you to do you will not stay in the congregation of the dead you will come out of her my people you will find a group i don't care if it's a small group that meets in a house you'll find some people that want to tell the truth and preach the whole truth and want the fear of god and the power of god in the conviction of the holy spirit even if it makes us uncomfortable you will want that and you'll want to be around people like that and let me just go ahead and tell you this as christians this is the gospel when god tells you to be a light and a witness for him this is the gospel you were to preach to people if you got a friend and you know that friends in adultery you need to be able to go to them and say look here's what the bible says no adulterer will inherit the kingdom of god you've got to come out of that you've got to quit doing that you've got to repent you've got to ask god for forgiveness and stop this mess this sin you're in and come out of it if you want to be forgiven if you want to inherit eternal life you're going to have to get right with god and get out of this stuff and quit doing it that's showing you love somebody not petting them on the head saying god loves you and just he understands your struggles no he understands you're an adulterer and adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of god he said in fact let's read this i love how kamari said this the other day he said i love these lists because it's easy it's easy to understand let's read galatians 5 19 through 20 just so y'all know what i'm talking about because there's new people listening to every day he says this real plain now the works of the flesh are manifest or revealed it's not hard to understand it's clear the works of the flesh are manifest which are these adultery fornication which fornication
poor near the word is an all-encompassing word that covers every type of sexual immorality there is so he says adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft hatred variants emulations wrath strife seditions heresies back up heresies false doctrines if you're teaching false doctrines you're in trouble let's keep going envies murders drunkenness revelings which means drunken partying let's read it again envies murder drunkenness revelings and such like he says of which i tell you before paul saying i've already told you this as i also told you in times past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of god pretty simple the word do i've said it so many times i don't even have to look it up anymore greek word prasso means look it up strong greek dictionary to practice habitually so he lets you know if you practice any of these things in a habitual manner now a christian may do one of these things but a christian is not going to live in them a christian is not going to keep on committing them and wallow in them like a pig that keeps rolling around in the same mud puddle no the christian that repents gets up out of the mud puddle and as jesus please cleanse me and wash me i'm not going back to that mud puddle see a long time ago i was a fornicator i quit fornicating somebody say hallelujah you can quit you can repent i was a drunkard guess what not a drunkard anymore you understand that's repentance and why why we put these things look all of us know that the flesh side of us no matter how strong a christian we are the flesh side of us the carnal side the side we inherited from adam and eve that side of us wants to do all these things the flesh wants to have pleasure in unrighteousness we are always in a war with that but the false church the churches of the shields of brass the carnival churches they don't talk about these things because they want everybody to feel good about themselves and secure and happy and joyful
and we just don't want to approach such negativity oh these preachers like me they think oh man if i went in there if i became the pastor of the highlands i can assure you attendance would drop dramatically why because i would preach very differently every week until i call some people to tremble i walked into a mega church in mcgrummer years ago and you know god when he called me to the ministry he called me to be a prophet and sometimes that that office will rise up and i remember i wasn't expecting anything i walk in this mega church in Montgomery alabama i walk in and then you walk in the back doors and you walk in another door and you were in the sanctuary and it's seated about i think there were about 2 000 people maybe more i don't know and i remember immediately i had my eyes open and i see a vision and it was the word fornication written and it was it was like in an in an arch going over from one inside of the congregation all the way to the other side and i knew the lord was saying that this problem of fornication sexual sin and immorality was a serious problem there so you know what i did is i started attending because one of my friends were on staff there and i started attending for a little while because the lord wanted me there and i started attending for a little while and let me tell you sure enough you know what i found out the worship team full of adultery and fornication the pastors knew it was going on and did nothing about it and and i waited and i sat there in the congregation i was there for about one year and i waited on the lord the lord was like you wait and listen for one year the pastor i was there every sunday the pastor had an opportunity to specifically address the problems in his church sin adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness not one time in 52 weeks 52 sundays did he ever specifically talk about sin and the need to repent and turn away from it not one time so the lord had me write him so it'd be in writing and that prophetic word that vision the lord showed me and what the lord had revealed to me what he gave me to tell him you are going to have blood on your hands
you have not warned them you have not preached the truth to them you have not told them your congregation is filled with the sin it is rampant here and you never address it because he wanted to build a big even a bigger church wasn't satisfied with 2000 members wasn't satisfied with having a big nice building and land and all no not satisfied we got to be bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger see that that that whole thing about we just got to be bigger bigger bigger bigger we got to have more money more money more money you know as pastor i got to look like a big shot to have my own airplane i got to have somebody carry my briefcase for me son if you two week carry your briefcase time to get in the weight room have a little entourage i'm so sick of this but that church let me tell you it never fixed the problem you know what was funny is the day the lord told me to leave he told me when i was leaving this was the end of 2007 he said you're you're leaving now and i was i was going over to georgia to help my brother start a church and of course that god was leading me so i go find my wife that was the whole reason really i went to georgia but i remember i went to their like new year's eve service and they had this prosperity prophet come in there who called himself a seer well they love that i'm a seer really okay it's funny how much you don't see seer all right and i remember it was this little prosperity preacher prophet guy he he he had him there because again they love these prosperity guys so they come in and help you know take up big offerings for them don't shout me down when i'm preaching good now y'all got quiet like lutherans there for a second all right but i remember i was standing in the back and this guy you know he preached his little prosperity message and and i'm getting ready to leave and the lord tells me you know he gives an altar call for people and he starts giving prophetic words out and i'm like in laying hands with people like lord i i'm not going up there i don't want that guy laying hands on me and lord said go up there oh lord no i do not want this kind of leaning prophet laying hands on me i don't want this the lord said i told you go up there okay here's what's funny there were people in front of me and i went up i walked up to the altar and that basically they just had steps up to the platform and i was standing there and the pastor that i had just given the letter to
about what i saw and dealing with sin a true prophetic word he was standing right like he was standing right next to me so i'm standing there the pastor standing there this little prophet this little prosperity prophet amazing how god god god will move sometimes he'll speak through a donkey if he wants to right he that little prophet guy prosperity probably walked down a few steps he didn't walk over to me and didn't lay hands on me god kept that from happening so i was hate to have to resist him right but that prophet was going around he was praying for people and he said lord let him see make him a seer let him see make him a seer and he was praying this over everybody and guess what everybody's not called to be a prophet let's go ahead and admit that all right this idea oh everybody's a seer no they're not all right and he's he's that's what he's praying everybody oh god make him a seer let him be a seer he steps down from the the steps to the platform and he starts walking towards me and he points at me and he says you already see right in front of the pastor the pastor could hear you already see everything he said and i'm like the lord had this little prophet that this pastor thinks is a prophet confirm he just got a prophetic word about his whole church you know how many years ago that was 2007 do you know they have yet to deal with those problems how many people have died and gone to hell because of that not because of what they preach because of what they don't preach it's sad and there's people that i know friends old friends of mine that aren't necessarily friends anymore that know that that were true Christians that knew about all this sin going on in the camp and would not leave that are still there and i think about this scripture the the man that wanders away from understanding will remain in the congregation of the dead here's what's gonna happen if you if you start reading the bible for yourself and say god show me the truth i want you i want to know the truth he's going to show you and it's probably not going to be as comfortable as you had hoped it would be and then he's going to lead you out of these dead places i'm just going to tell you right now because see here hear me out if these places if they put up my my crack fair again
if you go to these crack fairs right here and what they're made to do from buying the tickets to ride the rides to the games that are fixed and everything else is to just get money out of you but hear me out if you give money to these things these crack churches you are helping them push their message of their agenda this is why as a Christian you cannot remain in these places and give them your money and your time and your energy and your service even your attendance is helping them look successful come out of her my people see it's not just the whore of babylon the roman catholic church it's all her daughters that are the problem and she not only has daughters but she has adopted children because they pretty much do the same things and teach the same doctors they're just westernized christianized in a way little popes oh yeah you come here to church you serve in the children you're you're a good church person you're a server serving person here you just check the box to heaven no you better make sure you are where the lord wants you to be i would rather be with two or three people down by the river in a tent and have the anointing of the holy spirit and the glory of god and the fear of god there than be in these palaces that are just carnivals you hear me you know the fear of the lord you think it's not a new testament thing go to luke chapter 12 luke 12 verse 1 says in the in the meantime when they were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people insomuch that they trode one upon another he began to say in his disciples first of all beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy now what is hypocrisy what is hypocrisy hypocrisy means that you pretend to be something on the outside that you're really not on the inside you're not for real it's it's a
it's a faking and this is the leaven jesus is warning about the outward appearance of righteousness the outward appearance of piety and devotion religiosity he says it's this outward thing is the leaven of the Pharisees he says for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed neither neither hid that shall not be known therefore whatsoever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light and that which you have spoken in the ear in the closet shall be proclaimed upon the housetops and i want to tell you more and more you mark my words more and more of these pastors and these mega churches and are going to be exposed because there's stuff going on in secret because if it wasn't going on in secret they would preach against the sin they usually don't preach against the sin because they're in the sin but he says this is jesus speaking he said i say unto you my friends be not afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but i will forewarn you whom you shall fear fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell yea i say unto you fear him jesus teaching fear him who can cast you into hell that's jesus preaching you do not hear this in these crack carnival churches this is the stuff that makes people tremble jesus said stuff that can you imagine and the word here is phobia in greek guess what it means you ever heard where we get the word phobia from but it means fear terror paul said this go to second corinthians 5 speaking to christians second corinthians 5 talking about the judgment seat of christ the judgment seat of christ is where christians will stand to be judged not the unsaved and he says this go down to verse 10 he says for we now if the if the apostle says we who's he talking about he's including himself so he's talking about we christians he said for we must all appear before the judgment seat of christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he had done whether it be good or bad knowing therefore the terror of the lord we persuade men wait a minute i thought christians were eternally secure no matter how they live so what's what's the worry
what's the terror why do we have to persuade christians to live holy lives to hate sin to repent of sin why if we're covered by grace and that's all that matters is grace grace grace why is there terror for christians because some christians stand before the judgment seat of christ are going to hear well done good and faithful servant enter into the joy of thy lord and others are going to say hear hear him say jesus say take him bind him hand and foot cast him in their outer darkness that should be weeping and gnashing of teeth take that wicked slothful servant take him out of here he says at the judgment seat they're going to be people come in to the judgment seat come into the wedding it's right at the before the wedding the marriage supper of the lamb and it's when all christians are going to be taken listen all christians are going to be taken up dead we are dead in christ so rise first then we which are alive it's at the last day right at the same time god starts raining down the great day of his wrath yes there's a rapture but it's at the end the last day the same day that the world god destroys all the cities of the world and all of the mountains come down and the islands are moved and we're in heaven and he says this is matthew 22 he gives this story this is parable he says we're at the wedding feast and one comes in here not having all the wedding garment and jesus turns to him and says friend how is it that you've come in here not having on a wedding garment and it says that the man was speechless and the lord said take him bind him hand and foot cast him in outer darkness this is at the judgment seat of christ this is not a thousand years later where the wicked dead are judged at the great white throne this is at the second coming of jesus there's only two judgments folks the second coming of jesus the judgment seat of christ where christians will be judged and then a thousand years later after the millennial reign the wicked dead everyone will be brought up to stand before god and that's where the severity of your eternity will be determined because you know there's going to be degrees of eternal punishment but folks you the the baptists have taught for years oh the judgment seat of christ is just where you're going to lose some rewards but you're still going to be safe you better get that out of your head oh yes rewards will be dished out there to those who make it in or the lack thereof i ain't worried about rewards i don't care what rewards i get or don't get i just want to make it in
people talk about oh i'm gonna have a crown of jews i don't care about a crown i don't i don't care somebody say oh i'm gonna have a mansion i don't care give me a shack i'll take a shack in heaven no crowns just let me be there i want to make it there and that's why paul said oh i hope that i make this gospel that i preach which is why i bring my body under subjection and make it obey me because i could become a castaway paul even said if he let his flesh take over and rule him that he himself could become a castaway a reprobate don't tell me you a christian can't fall away but here here's the shocker all people talk about oh oh oh with the rapture uh if you're a lukewarm backslidden christian you get left behind no you don't see this is the scary thing you're going up there to stand before his throne whether you write with him or not think about the christians who have backslidden are now living as homosexuals or adulterers and going to be snatched out of their homosexual bed one night to stand at the judgment seat and the lord's gonna say yeah how are you what are you doing here with no wedding garment the robe of righteousness that white linen that's clean what are you doing here and see the thing that he tells you know in the the parable of the towns when he tells he said you knew you knew what you were supposed to do and you didn't do it you see it's the preacher's job it's the pastor's job to scare the hell out of you say pastor dean i just can't accept that it just disturbs me i'm just a delicate flower jesus is the one said you better fear him that after he's killed the body can put you in hell fear him look i know god loves me but i also know he means what he says and he will do what he has said he will do and if he says the drunkard will not inherit the kingdom of god if he said all liars will have their part in the lake burns with fire and brimstone i believe that so therefore it's a good deterrent in my life but if you get the idea that grace is somehow this license to sin and that god's going to overlook and you can live however you want still go to heaven you have been deceived by the devil and this is most of the church world you know years ago and i'm just gonna say it the highlands is the big mega church here in alabama i'm just going to tell you right now i had one of my staff members back in the day he's not here anymore but back
in the day he decided i want to call their offices and i want to find out where they stand on the doctrine of once saved always saved no matter how you live or do they believe a believer can fall away and be lost what do they believe guess what he could not get a straight answer out of any of their staff or any of their pastors that he managed to get on the phone couldn't get an answer to the question which tells me they didn't want to answer the question because that had been too offensive to be too straightforward and we certainly don't want this out if we believe what we believe so it's better to be vague and this is and this is another problem they're just vague i've had people say pastor dean you're just too it's you're pretty just too strong for me you know why it's too strong because you've been on the milk too long you've heard weak little skinny jeans effeminate preachers too long they talk real sweet i'm gonna tell you 99 times out of 100 if they have an effeminate spirit on them they're usually in that effeminate sin if you get my drift girly men are usually problematic that's why i'm like does it take a rocket scientist to figure out that a men's conference shouldn't have a male stripper i don't know it's just me like i said who booked that guy but let me just go and tell you if you had the holy spirit if you had the anointing if you had the glory of god you don't need a male stripper you don't need a circus act you don't need a smoke machine you don't need pyrotechnics you don't need music that's so loud that it's it's damaging people's hearing literally i mean we had to have earplugs when we went to greg lachs church for the debate that's how loud it is in there they had a lady come in with a decimal reader and tell them that this is so loud this is hurting baby's ears this is damaging their ears it's dangerous and they wouldn't turn it down but guess what you don't need that if the anointing's there you know what i loved about this past skyfall 2023 as we had mark and hana pong leading worship we didn't even have drums i couldn't find our drummer but we he played electric guitar and she played the acoustic guitar and they sang together and you know what it was kind of quiet it was kind of subdued
but you know what the anointing was there it wasn't a show it was to worship the lord and to give him glory and every time they started worship i could feel the glory of god the presence of god coming because i know them i know their hearts right i know they're living right for god and i know where their their heart is to worship god in impurity and in truth that's why i don't call in you know striper to lead worship i'm sorry i don't want a rock band i want to worship i don't want somebody that's trying to climb their way up to christian charts and you know what talent doesn't mean you have the anointing either you can be the best musician the best singer i want the glory in the presence of god and see he promised that if we would fear him if we would reverence and respect him if we would tremble at his word if we take it that seriously i don't know if any of you but i still tremble when i think about the night i drove from auburn alabama to valley where i was living at the time 30 miles so drunk driving that i don't remember the trip the whole 30 miles and the next thing i know i had passed out at the wheel and the next thing i know something wakes me up now i had been taking we've been playing quarters with straight shots of 190 proof clear spring i was let's put it this way on the on the side of drunk i was probably close to death the level of alcohol i had in me you usually don't wake up once you pass out something woke me up and i know to this day that it was because of my the prayers of my great grandmother my great aunts praying for me that god supernaturally woke me up because the moment i woke up in my paniac firebird headed off the road i had to i was headed 70 miles an hour headed straight for a tree and i snatched the wheel back to the left and the car spun i don't know how many times it spun and i ended up in the right lane in the right direction missed the tree by maybe this much another second or two and i'm into that tree at 70 miles an hour without a seat belt and i'm a dead man and i'm waking up in hell going what happened and if that doesn't make you shudder see i shudder at that and that's what the lord says will you not tremble at my word
see it's not a doubt i don't doubt that god loves me i don't doubt that jesus died for me i don't doubt that the the way has been made for me but i chose at 16 in a church i said no to him he called me i said no and it was right after that that i nearly die and i'm thinking about i said no to him i said no i'm not following you now i want to do what i want to do it was a conscious decision i wanted to still drink party and and and live in sexual sin and i could have died that night and been in hell and just the thought of that i mean to this day that's been almost 40 years ago i think about god thank you thank you that you had mercy on me when i was rebelling living in sin disregarding you choosing to not fear go to psalm 36 i'll try to bring this in for a landing this is this has been on my mind psalm 36 the fear of the lord over and over over and over throughout proverbs even in the psalms the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom what does he say here psalm 36 verse one the transgression of the wicked sayeth within my heart that there is no fear of god before his eyes can i just tell you the transgression of the wicked can be among the unsaved and the saved the sage can choose to live in transgression and wickedness but if they do it says there is no fear of god before their eyes there is no true reverence there is no true trembling at his word and let me tell you right now if these preachers in these mega churches these make churches these seeker sensitive watered-down churches if they truly had the fear of god in them they would preach about sin and true repentance and living for god the way you're supposed to following jesus the way you're supposed to because they would be they would be terrified not to and so because they won't even address it because their goal is not to convict sinners but to build big congregations it shows me that they have no fear of god before their eyes none and it's a scary thing because i see the multitudes thousands and thousands of people go to these
places thousands i don't know how many thousands were at this men's conference where they had the stripper but the problem was there were several thousand people there and what was troubling is when mark driscoll spoke against it and rebuked it he people were cursing him and i mean so-called people in the crowd were cursing him and threatening him and everything else but only a hundred they said only a hundred two hundred got up and walked out you see again and then they talk about oh but a lot of men came to christ let me tell you something right now adding somebody to your church membership or somebody that signs a card or says your little prayer does not mean they're converted it does not mean they have truly repented it doesn't mean they truly fear god enough to depart from evil somebody told me who was somebody told me somebody was talking to me the other day about a church that does evangelism and and they go out and they actually read to people they got this little thing they read to people and if people will stand and listen to them they count that person as a as a soul save for christ and then they go report that as oh we led these people to jesus you know they used to call that not evangelistic but he what is it elastic i can't remember the term exactly but stretching the truth a little bit there right so a lot of this so-called oh we had 500 men get saved really let me sit down and talk to them we'll find out how many of them really got saved this is what we're not making converts true disciples of jesus true born again believers we're making converts to our crack fair come get high on this emotional preaching we got so you can feel the bubbly joy of being at peace with your sin not being made to feel any kind of discomfort see i want to tell you right now when god truly moves the glory of god comes in the fear of god comes in the respect and reverence of god and the reverence of his word you will not take it lightly this is what he said about the false prophets that they make you vain they're light and frivolous you know i think about samuel he was a true prophet matter of fact it says he was a prophet it says he was a
seer seer and the prophets the same thing not everybody's called to be a prophet slash seer but but samuel's reputation of being on the lord's side of standing for righteousness and for truth of speaking the truth like he did to eli the high priest he was a little scared as a young man to speak the truth to this backslidden high priest but he obeyed and gave him the truth and the man fell over and died and his son god killed his wicked sons that he wouldn't restrain but samuel had a reputation for walking with the lord and walking in righteousness and holiness and being a true prophet a true seer and i love this when the lord sent him to battle him this is so good to anoint david saying to battle it said the elders of the town trembled and said why are you here why did they tremble because they knew they knew god is with this man he may see through my soul he may discern i'm in adultery he may discern my wickedness in my sin what is he here to do you know i've literally had that said to me at times i went to visit this particular family that i had known for years and they knew me that i was serious about this time and i remember one of the teenagers answered the door when i what and it was like what are you doing here why are you here i was like yeah you're probably in sin i'm making you nervous just standing here but it's not because i hate people i love people enough to tell them the truth even if i know it's going to upset them so that they can truly come to know jesus as their lord and savior and understand how he feels about sin wickedness compromise lukewarmness you know jesus spoke to the church of sardus and he said this is revelation three he said you have a name that you are alive but you're dead boy how many churches give this outward appearance that they are alive oh there's a big carnival going on there's a lot of activity there's a lot of colors and lights and pizzazz but they're really dead i don't want to live in the congregation of the dead because you know what happens if you hang around dead bodies too long the stench and the rot begins to get on you
and what's so bad is if you stay in it long enough you know if you stay in a place that stinks long enough that you stop it stops stinking so bad you become what they call it nose blind and this is where a lot of people are they're in the congregation of the dead and the lord's saying you know what come out of her my people time to get serious time to be part of the five wise virgins and not part of the five foolish time to make sure your lamps are full of oil and you're on fire and you're ready instead of playing the game and still asleep all ten were virgins all ten were looking for the bridegroom all ten were but only five were ready come out of her my people yeah i heard the lord say that so clear last week and when i was praying yesterday it just kept it kept reverberating in my mind and my heart from him he's just come out of her come out of this dead church system come out of it come out of the errors and the lies if you have to sit at home for a while just read your bible until you figure out the truth do that do whatever you got to do to make sure that you are dealing with yourself that you are dealing with your sin that you are repenting that you have the fear of the lord in your life because guess what most of the time there's not going to be anybody to help you you're gonna have to you're gonna have to do it and if you do then the lord can lead you to people who are like-minded who can help you grow in your faith in your walk and help hold you accountable you know we all need that that's why i tell people about a church family how important it is because you know it's one thing i know we got a lot of people that watch it we have thousands of people that watch every sunday and some of them like oh i'd love to be there i'd love to move to alabama i'd love to attend your church well yeah maybe so because it's different when you're here because we have to deal with family problems here and sometimes it's you are the family problem and that's not always comfortable that's why i tell people i love for you to come if god's leading you to come hey come to fire yes absolutely but make sure it's the lord make sure you know it's his will because it's not always going to be you know there'll be some bumpy spots in the road and you might have to get corrected and if you're too delicate of a flower you're not going to be able to handle that because we've had some come here thank god sent him here and when the rubber met the road and i had to deal with problems they ran out the door and some of
them went to the highlands they'll be fine there they're just a little too delicate flowers can't handle the truth let's stand somebody say hallelujah somebody say amen or old me see jeez said the lukewarm christian gets spit out of his body say i read that now it makes me tremble lord don't let me be lukewarm what do you say about the lukewarm christian he said you don't even know that you're blind wretched miserable poor neck you don't know it you're blind to it i don't know about y'all but i pray lord if i'm lukewarm please show me i don't want to stay blind to it say well pastor dean how would you but you you you're living for the lord let me tell you we're all flesh we're all human you better all check yourself paul told the corinthian second corinthians 13 he said examine yourself see whether you be in the faith he was talking christians examine yourself where are you are you on fire are you living a holy life are you seeking the will of god are you hearing his voice and following him are you sharing his word with people are you truly living for him or yourself are you fighting the flesh are you indulging the flesh it's not complicated i want to live for jesus i want to be those one of those that endures to the end so that i may be saved i want to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling philippians 2 12 think about that verse work out your own salvation with fear and trembling then paul says in chapter 3 i don't count myself to attain anything but i press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling well what is the prize of the high calling in christian it's that you make it there to be with him for all eternity that's all i want i don't want to crown i don't want to mention i don't care about any of that stuff i want to be with him forever and i don't want anything here i don't want to allow anything here no sin no wickedness no pleasure no compromise the love of money whatever it may be lust sexual immorality i don't want any of that to stop me that temporary pleasures of the flesh to stop me from being with jesus forever and ever i don't want anything to get in the way that's why the true christian who loves jesus says i will cut off anything that is trying to trip me up hinder me or take me down and the true pastors and preachers of
the gospel will try to remind you and show you stuff that will try to be a stumbling block to you and try to take you down because a true pastor a true minister of the gospel wants to stop you from going to hell and make sure you make it to heaven that's what we want to do i don't care about a big church i don't care about big money i don't want when i came here 15 years ago i said i'm not here to build a mega church and we have not obviously you know what's funny though even my enemies even people that hate me and i'm talking about christians watch our services every sunday they can't seem to pull themselves away because i live rent free in their heads because deep down they know they may not like me they may not like some of the things i do they may not agree with me on some things but deep down they know he is a preacher of righteousness and they go listen to others and they don't hear the same sound they don't feel the same anointing and they go and they go what's he saying today i gotta go here and i'm like praise god keep on listening but at some point they're going to have to decide not that they have to come to church here but they're going to have to decide what are they going to support with their time their energy their life their money what are they going to support are they going to support what will bring people to jesus what will bring people to repentance are they going to keep supporting the crack cotton candy church like joel osteen that's a crack fair for sure your best life now all this nonsense and what does crack do to you i know i had a friend that got addicted to it makes you feel good for a while doesn't it until you lose your car and your house your health and finally your life it's my friend that took all of that from him and he was a christian he lost everything he lost his wife he lost his daughter he lost his successful business he lost everything ended up in prison got out of prison ended up back on it the crack though he had lived for jesus for three years and stayed clean stayed free and he went back to crack and it finally gave him a heart attack and he died one of my best friends i loved ray i prayed for ray he would call me through the years
it's a sad thing to think he might not have made it probably didn't the way it looks see this this thing that we do this uh preaching the gospel is life and death wages of sin is death that means eternal separation from god jesus commanded his disciples go preach repentance for the remission of sins you have to and that means you have to turn from your sin and wickedness and follow him and that didn't matter if you're totally unsaved or you're been a believer in jesus for decades if you've fallen away see this is one of those sermons that if i died tomorrow i i know i'm good i know there's not gonna be any blood on my hands or in my skirts i know i'm not going to be standing there without the robe of righteousness the wedding garment on and that's what i've said if all of you leave because you can't handle it anymore i will still be preaching it if i have to go down to the corner you understand because i will not abandon the true gospel of jesus christ it is the power of god into salvation you know we talk about healings and miracles and i believe in all those things i've seen jesus do all those things but the greatest miracle the reason the angels rejoice in heaven is when one sinner truly repents when one sinner turns from wickedness and comes to righteousness all of heaven all the angels in heaven rejoice over that the greatest thing you could do as a christian is preach the true gospel to someone and that brings them to true repentance and true faith and a true walk with jesus christ because you shared the truth with them that set them free that's the greatest miracle there is to see someone transformed given the ability by god to repent and yielding to that and truly repenting and seeing their life change them either being born again for the first time or them being renewed revived in their faith in their walk with god and we're all called to be that light to the world not just the pastors in the fivefold ministers there's nothing greater than that yes i believe in the gifts of the holy spirit tongues interpretation of
tongues prophecy healing miracles all of that i've seen it all i believe it all want it all want more of it to happen but that's not the ultimate goal the ultimate goal is not miracles the ultimate goal is not supernatural manifestations the ultimate goal is to see sinners come to repentance whether they have never known jesus or they've known him and fallen away from him to bring sinners to repentance is the number one goal should be the goal of every pastor every church in across the world i don't care where they are that should be the number one goal not money not numbers not buildings not lands not fame not tv programs not trying to be have a million followers or two million followers and social media i mean this is people are obsessed with these things that's not what he called us to do he called us first and foremost to live and then preach the gospel of jesus christ period and if your church is not preaching that it's time to come out of her it's time to find a group of people you can do that with because let me tell you some of you if your children don't sit under true godly preaching you're going to for sure almost assuredly damn them to hell because they're going to hear the counterfeit they're going to hear the watered down version it's going to be sown in them as children and they're going to grow up with it and you wonder why they won't listen to you when they get older see one thing we've seen we've seen some children grow up here that rebelled john they didn't they didn't they heard it the truth got sown in them he y'all came when he was eight years old he kind of went his own way for a while but that seed that was sown in him brought him to true repentance and he's on fire for the lord now and how old is he now 24 he came he came here when he's eight years old and see you know what happened even in his time when he was kind of doing his own thing and living in the sin and living in the world and he's probably watching love john he knew deep down he stayed convicted he knew the truth he'd even tell the truth to his friends because he couldn't keep it in because his heart had been filled with the truth of god's word and it brought forth the fruit it's going to bring forth and this is why i wouldn't dare allow my children to sit in these crack churches these cotton candy carnivals oh but they got a great youth program yeah they do they play video games they play video games and sneak off and have sex sometimes even in the church building
oh yeah first methodist church down here when i was in high school used to have big dance parties in the church basement on the weekends playing secular music dancing we come in there drunk boys and girls that slip off in different parts of the church and be having fornication she Cindy knows it was well known that that was the first methodist church in opal icon we used to be the club for teenagers i remember they had a little swing outside remember it outside of there i used to sit that little swing high and drunk a lot of us did you hear that i mean isn't that something that the party place in town was the first methodist church put on by the youth pastor i know you weren't a member i wasn't either but she went there that's what she's saying over there she said i wasn't a member but i went there yeah we all did and i'm like yeah great youth program how about how about these oh well let's have lock-ins remember those boys and girls sleeping all night in the church what what are you thinking who came up with that great idea i'm telling you it's all insane man anyway show me anywhere in the bible it says have a youth group and a youth pastor it's usually a big problem because i tell you what i believe the young people whether teenagers what supposed should be in the church listening to the pastor who is a mature man of god instead of a young person like them who's been putting authority too early but that's another sermon i need to quit don't i pretty crazy though so i can we could there's far more stories we could tell about that we don't need these places these congregations of the dead i'm praying more and more people come out of them and come awake and come to jesus amen let's pray heavenly father thank you for this day thank you lord god for your word we don't want the shields of brass lord we want the shields of gold we don't want the counterfeit we want you we want your presence your glory your anointing and that true anointing and that true glory comes with the true fear of the lord and the trembling at your word and the respect that you are due as god almighty is the creator of heaven and earth as the judge of the living and the dead
as the one who is holy i love when isaiah saw you even though he was a prophet when he saw you high and lifted up seated upon your throne he said what was me for i am undone i am unclean when your glory is truly revealed we realize how unclean we realize the sin we realize the compromise we realize that we need to change we need to repent we need to confess we need to get right with you that's real revival and lord we want real revival we don't want counterfeit we don't want emotional hype we don't want counterfeit spirits demon spirits familiar spirits condellini spirits we don't want any of that evil compromise we want the real anointing the real gifts of the holy spirit the real power from heaven lord i pray today that if anybody here today are listening if they've been backslidden luke warm christian or if they've never truly surrendered to you and been born again and truly repented i pray that that take place in their lives that they would yield to you they would not be like i was when i was 16 when i said no and ran away but that they would surrender their lives that they would give up their sin and their wickedness turn from it receive forgiveness and the cleansing of your precious blood and then walk with you lord i pray this for them out there lord and in here i pray this in the mighty name of jesus amen amen well it is after one oh it's almost one o'clock y'all know the drill hug some next before you leave god bless y'all