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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Building A Strong Local Church, Part 4 | Edwin Anderson | Holy Ghost Meetings 2021 | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
01:12:23
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message.
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Father, we thank you for the entrance of your word. The entrance of your word gives light understanding to the simple so that all can lay hold of it. Glory to God. It's not far away in a distant place. The Word is near us in our heart and in our mouth. And we thank you, Father, that we turn to your holy written word today. We have great expectation that we will receive insight and revelation knowledge today that will help us as ministers and as church members. Glory to God. Hallelujah. We thank you for that. In Jesus wonderful name. Amen. Matthew 16:18, Jesus said, I say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. Hallelujah. Jesus is building his church today. If you want to be Christ like, then help him build his church. Because that's what he's all about, is building his church. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise God. I don't really know what chapter of my book I'm in right now, but I'll just pick up because I put all the other things under a paper clip and I don't want to take it apart. But anyway, I'll just pick up where, where my heading is on my page. And I want to talk to you about a subject that, that can be controversial. And it's about as pastors, when we have traveling ministers in our church, this idea of partnership. And like I've said before, the Bible teaches partnership. Jesus had partners, and these were people that God had touched their hearts and joined them to him. Paul had partners. But there's a practice today in the church where ministers, traveling ministers coming to your church and they want to sort of willy nilly sign up everybody in your church to be, you know, social media with them used to be mailing lists. That's kind of archaic now, but you know, social con, social media in their database and all that, and the primary purpose is to get money from your church members. And if you go back and look at the Bible, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't adapt to the times to take use of technology and so forth. But think about this for a minute. In the first century and for much of the ensuing church age, but particularly in the first few centuries, there was. Mail service was sketchy at best. If you wanted to send a letter to somebody, you sent it by private courier. There wasn't a nationwide mail service as we know it today. There was certainly no broadcast media. There was no social media. The only way for an itinerant to be supported was by going to the local churches and being supported by the people in those churches. And so you wonder today what traveling ministers would. How would they fare if they had to depend on the local churches and didn't have technology to be able to reach into everybody's homes? How would they fare? Some of them wouldn't fare very well because a lot of pastors are stingy. A lot of pastors are stingy. I. I know pastors personally who complain to me about how large an offering is taken up in their church for, for the traveling minister. And I've heard them say, well, you know, I don't believe in giving big offerings and gave some. Some reasons that. That are not legitimate. I teach my church to be generous. And evidently. And we always read from, from that passage over to Third John where John was exhorting his friend Gaius. He said, you know, if these strangers who come through, those strangers, if you look at it in the King James, just looks like people from out of town, you know, they're just passing through. If you look at the context, those strangers were actually traveling ministers. Look at the context, they were traveling ministers because John went on to say they, they went on their way taking nothing from the Gentiles and we ought to support them. It says they went out for the word sake. So these were actually itinerant ministers. And John said we ought to support them and send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. That's not flipping somebody a quarter and saying, here, you know, go buy, you know, some candy or something. You get somebody on their journey in a manner worthy of God. That means treat them like you treat the Lord Jesus Christ if he came to your church. And so I've exhorted my congregation all these years, and we do that. But nonetheless, like I said, traveling ministers have a habit. Had this man call me, been a few years ago now, and I was actually out in my swimming pool, and he called me and I recognized the number. So I, you know, took the call and was talking to him, traveling minister, a friend of mine. And he argued with me for over an hour about why he ought to be able to put, you know, his. Because he mentioned partnership. And I said, well, you know, I don't. I don't allow people, just anybody, to solicit my congregation like that. He argued with me for over an hour. I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I was nice to him. I wasn't rude or anything like that. Smart alecky, you know, but it didn't bother me at all. No, I wasn't. She said I was probably smart alecky. I purposely was not because I knew that I had the upper hand. His arguments were not valid. But the thing that impressed me, little did he know it. The whole time I'm thinking, and you want to come to my church, and you're arguing with me for an hour. And I would have gone two hours if he'd have wanted to. I don't. Now it's an individual choice with pastors, but I think pastors ought to hear what I'm saying. I don't allow every traveling minister that comes into my church to put. To solicit. My congregation put things on their product table to solicit. I had Tony Cook. How many of you know who Tony Cook is? Tony Cook was in my church last February. Actually. He came about three weeks. Three weeks later, we were on lockdown and having services outdoor, and we didn't know anything about the coronavirus. When he came, it happened like, we heard about it, like the next week. But Tony Cook ministered my church. He's come out with a. With a powerful book entitled Miracles and the Supernatural in Church History. It is phenomenal. He traces all of the. Of the evidence. He just got a master's degree in church history, and he went through and threaded all the history of the miraculous and the supernatural from Pentecost right on through the Middle Ages and everything. I mean, it's really a great book. And. But I gave him my book to read, and I talk about this in my book. And he said, pastor, he said, I totally agree with you. He said, I never do that. I never put contact information up, anything like that on my table. Now, if a pastor asks him to, that's the appropriate route to go. But he said, I don't just presume to do that, but most traveling ministers do it. And here's. Here's why I don't allow every traveling minister to do this. That, you know, they'll ask. They might ask the question, well, how is it your business? You know, what. How I. How I contact your church members? Well, it is absolutely my business because when a pastor has somebody in to minister, that is a de facto endorsement of that ministry. And church people trust their pastor to bring people in whom they can trust, people that are reputable, that have good ethics and doctrine, all of those things. But no pastor intends for that endorsement to be unbounded, to not have, you know, just to last forever without any ongoing accountability. And so church people, they pastors and Traveling ministers, all, everybody in the ministry. We are all part of networks of ministers, and we all have inside information on one another just because we know other ministers. And so if somebody gets into trouble, if somebody falls into error, ministers find out about it. Church people are usually not privy to that kind of information. And they won't know five years from after the time you had someone in their church. They won't know if that person has begun to, you know, built people and, you know, create some kind of phony orphanage, you know, in Uganda somewhere that doesn't exist. So they get pictures and milk people for money. They. That happens. There are hucksters out there. And I'm not picking on traveling ministers because like I said yesterday, there are some people who call themselves pastors who are just as dangerous as those who call themselves evangelists or prophet. So, and so. And so I'm not picking on any one person, but I'm saying these things exist, so I don't allow that. And, you know, if a traveling minister says, well, well, you know, how can you do that? Traveling ministers might think that I'm. I'm unfairly interfering with their ability to connect with people for, for support. And I, and I say this, there's two things. Number one, they would have had no access people of my church, they would have never known them, and my people would have never known them had I not invited them in as a usual thing. And the second thing is, with today's technology, anybody can connect with anybody they want to. Anybody in my church, they can follow anybody, support anybody they want to. So I don't get up in my church and discourage that. I don't get up and say, now, I've never told this. I've never said this to my congregation all these years. I've never said, now, don't support traveling ministers unless I tell you to. I don't talk like that. I have taught my congregation to consult the Holy Spirit and be led of the Lord. And so I don't teach them. I don't discourage it. But it's not my job to facilitate the wholesale. My congregation is not mine. They don't belong to me. It's God's flock or. But the flock is under my stewardship, and they're not a commodity. A commodity to be traded, you know, for financial favors and so forth. Now, having said that, I absolutely believe in partnership. But partnership should result from the spirit of God doing something in somebody's lives. And I particularly support the idea of churches partnering because that's what Paul had the Church at Philippi partnered with him and sent aid to him once and again. Why? Because they loved him and trusted him, because he had poured his life into them. I don't know that there are other churches. At one point he said, no other church did this, but maybe later. Some others took the example of the Philippians. But I believe in churches partnering with ministers that have shown their love for the church, ministered to their church. And for instance, my church partners with defrain ministry, and we send them a check every month because we believe in this ministry. This ministry has touched our lives. And we're partners with other. Not just missionaries. We support a number of missionaries with good offerings, but we also support other travel. They're not even missionaries. They're like Pastor Nancy. I mean, she does go overseas, but she. Excuse me, she's not a classical missionary. And we support other traveling ministers. And I would tell young, you know, young traveling ministers, instead of trying to do an end run around the pastor, you know, for financial support, just demonstrate love and good ethics and minister to that congregation. And if a pastor believes in you, I guarantee you I've raised far more money because I bring these traveling ministers up before my church every month and call their names. And I say, now, these are ministries we trust and we can support. And so a pastor that does that will raise far more money over time than an evangelist can ever get by signing people up, because that support's gonna wane after a little while. Amen. And here's what happens, pastors, if your congregation all, you know, scattered out in your congregation, you've got all these people sending $25, $50 here and there to different people, the ones that. That the church should be supporting, the ones who have been there over time into that church, the traveling ministers who really have an impact on that church, that the money really should be going to them. It shouldn't be watered out over all of these other people who really. That's just my opinion. And. And I know it's kind of a touchy subject, but I just recommend pastors not just wholesale or, you know, let every traveling minister do that, and you'll have some pushback for it. But pastors are sort of used to that pushback, you know, different things.
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Pastor, will you tell them how you. Your monthly offering toward the missions? I don't know if you've. If you planned on saying that, but that you receive a separate.
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Yes, we receive our missionaries and our traveling ministers. We actually receive a monthly offering for them. We put their names up on the screen and we encourage everybody every month. And everybody knows this. Every first of the month, first Sunday of every month, you know, this. You've been there for years. You bring your special offering. Doesn't go. It goes to the church, but we just run it through and you. Everybody brings a special offering, and it's quite a bit of money. And in fact, about 25% of our income of our general fund goes out of our church every. Every year just to other ministers, you know, just to. Just. Just to bless other preachers to get the gospel out. And so we do that, and we let the people give what they want to, and then we take that offering. Oftentimes we add money to it out of the general fund, and then we send it out every month. And then we give to certain ministers, like, Like Pastor Nancy's ministry. We give a certain percentage of our general fund, you know, and to. To. To that ministry every month, this ministry every month. So pastors just, you know, don't. Don't encourage your folks to be supporting, you know, just everybody that comes through. That's all I'm saying. Amen. Praise the Lord. Go with me to Matthew, chapter 10. Matthew, chapter 10. Hallelujah. Verse number 40 says, he who receives he who receives me. He who receives you receives me. I'm sorry, I got. Looking at the clock. Have I really been up here 15 minutes? Good night. He who receives you receives me. And he receives me receives him. Him who sent me. He who receives a prophet in the name of the prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. Now we understand that the prophet's reward is not the reward that God gives the prophet, because really, the prophet doesn't get a reward for being a prophet. God doesn't reward the prophet for being a prophet because the gifts and callings of God are not something that the prophet merited. He didn't do anything to make himself a prophet. That was just something that God gave him. The prophet's reward is the reward. He, the ministry he brings, what flows out of him, that's the prophet's reward. Well, every ministry gift has a reward like that. So the pastor's reward in like measure is. We should put it this way, we should respect and honor the role the pastor is to have in our lives so that his ministry, so that the things that God has put in him will flow out from him. Jesus told the disciples, he said, freely, you have received, freely give. Well, the pastor is in a position, you know, he's always wanting to give to his church. He's always wanting to minister to his church to help his church. And that's the pastor's reward. But when people don't honor their pastor and respect the role he's supposed to have in their life, in their lives, then that ministry is not going to flow out like it should. And to honor and to respect pastor is to simply be open to him and his ministry. Unfortunately, this is what I've noticed too often, and I see it in my congregation too often. Church members recognize the supernatural element in their pastor's life while he's in the pulpit, while he is quote, unquote, under the anointing when he's teaching, preaching, or, you know, ministering by the gifts of the Spirit. Most word of faith people will have great reverence. Most Christians have great reverence for the Word. And if you tell them, if you show them something in the Word, they're going to believe it because it's the word of God. The problem is they don't. Church people don't often recognize the supernatural element of the pastoral anointing when he's out of the. Out of the pulpit, because they recognize, they see us in the pulpits, you know, with that glorious anointing, and they think, oh, boy, my pastor was anointed this morning. Your pastor's anointed all the time. All the time. They misunderstand the preaching teaching anointing is not the pastoral anointing. The preaching and teaching anointing is the preaching and teaching anointing. That's all it is. And it comes on you when you begin to preach and teach and it lifts off of you. It's not there all the time. Whereas you preach all the time. Like Brother Hagin said, a man just preach himself to death. So they think, well, my pastor's anointed today. The preaching anointing is the preaching anointing. The pastoral anointing is a different anointing. The pastoral anointing is the anointing to love, feed, care for, guide and protect the flock. That's the pastoral anointing. And it's on the pastor all the time. In the middle of the night, you wake up, you are a pastor. If you're a pastor, you're a pastor on Saturday afternoon just as much as you are on Sunday night. And when people, because of their natural and carnal thinking and church members have to be taught this, I need to do a better job of it myself. Sometimes when they only see the pastor as anointed when he's preaching, then at other times when he just has something to say to the congregation, if they don't particularly like it, they just turn it off. He's just preaching as a man right now. You know, if you were scattered out all over this auditorium, and I said, you know, I'd like for you to move up closer to the front. Oftentimes there will be people, I don't want to move. I like sitting where I sit. And so they'll say, well, I don't have to obey that, because, you know, that's just the pastor wanting us to do what he wants. That's just natural. It's not natural. It's not natural. The pastor is called to shepherd the flock, to guide the flock, to help the flock, and even simple things like requests to do things one way or another. Now, I talked about not being a dictator. Everything doesn't have to be done my way, but whenever something is needed, if there's a new program that we want to initiate at the church or something that the pastor just wants everybody to do, you know, he does that because it's important for the overall care of the flock. It's important. And so when people don't recognize their pastor like they should, when they don't honor him like they should, then they pick and choose what they want to listen to, what they don't. What they fail to realize is that dishonor. That dishonor on Wednesday night when the pastor asked you to move forward and you just obstinately sit in the back anyway and give all kinds of excuses. Well, you know, I have to go to the bathroom, and I don't want to distract. Sister, you're not distracting anybody. When you get up, nobody's looking at you anyway or thinking about what you're doing. Hey, come on. This is good.
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Come on.
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So people, what they don't realize is when they dishonor you at that time, it hinders their ability to receive from the Spirit when you are under that preaching, anointing and the gifts of the Spirit, because they have cut themselves off by their rebelliousness. Now, I know it chafes people. It rubs people the wrong way when you use the R word, rebellion. But it is common. It is. And I would dare say most of us, if we're honest, struggle sometimes with rebellion. Yeah, just like you always instantly obey the leading of the Lord. I know you all do, but I don't all the time. Sometimes the Lord has to deal with me more than once about something. So it goes both ways. But what I'm talking about, it's an easy thing to just be agreeable. But you know. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Go with me to First Thessalonians. I'm going to stay in this vein. I just wanted to look at a couple of scriptures and I only had one of them written down. And so I want to do both of these first Thessalonians. And let's look at chapter 5, chapter 5, verse number 12, first Thessalonians 5:12. We urge you brethren. Notice this is not a casual request. We urge you brethren. He's writing to the believer. It's interesting that no place in the instructions to ministers when he's just strictly instructing ministers. No time does God ever tell ministers to demand anything from people. All of the instruction about submission is written to the Christians because submission has to come from the heart. It can't be. It can't be forced or operated out of fear or anything like that. He said, I urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you and the Lord and admonish you. Well, that would have to be talking about their pastors, you understand? Even in Thessalonica, it was likely there was more than one little congregation. And so there were more than just. There was probably more than just one pastor in Thessalonica, there were probably several. People didn't meet in the first century. They didn't have church buildings like we have. Houses of worship were associated either with the Jewish temple or pagan temples. Yeah, Christians primarily met in homes or sometimes if there was persecution, they met in other places. But. So it's likely that there were more than one. There was more than one pastor. He said, we urge you brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. These are the pastors. That's who he's talking about. This word recognize, some other translations say respect, acknowledge, appreciate, honor and give attention to and esteem them very highly in love for their work sake. It's right to esteem your pastor highly in love. For what? For whose sake? Notice he said, esteem them highly in love for their. Who is there? Who would there be referring to those who labor among you and over you in the Lord. He's talking about the pastors. He said, esteem them highly in love for their. For the pastor's work's sake. What is the pastor's work? The pastor's work is caring for the flock, ministering to the flock, loving, protecting, guiding, defending, so forth, feeding the flock. He said, when you properly esteem your pastor and love him and recognize, acknowledge, respect, appreciate, honor and give attention to you, do that for for the sake of his ministry to you. Not for his sake personally. It's for his. For the works of sake, for their work sake, their ministry sake. When someone is constantly. If someone is not respecting, acknowledging and appreciating, honoring and giving attention to their pastor, then. Then they're disrespecting, dishonoring, not giving attention to. When, when people hold their pastor back sort of arm's length, don't open their heart to them. In all of my 40, I'm in my 41st year of ministry. In all of my years of ministry, there have all. There has always been someone or more than someone in my church who never fully opened their heart to me. I can tell when I talk to them, I can tell when I'm preaching, they've got me. They're holding me off at a distance. They're always suspicious, not trusting. And there are a lot of reasons for that. A lot of it has to do with where they were before, the church they went to before. Maybe they were abused by an unscrupulous pastor or something happened to. But whenever, Whenever you teach and demonstrate, you teach people right and demonstrate your love for them, over time you expect people to respond. But people who are constantly carping and criticizing and, and just finding fault and suspicious, those people never really receive from their pastor. People all around them, sitting on both sides of them, receiving great blessing from their pastor, and they're enjoying the ministry and happy with the church, and they sit there and sometimes people don't know it. Most of the time the pastor knows it. You can tell it, you can discern it. Other people might. And they might be going through the mechanics and going through the steps of church involvement. They might be serving somewhere and their family have their family in church. But there's that. There's that reserve that they hold back when they do that. And it's evidenced when they won't cooperate with anything, anything the pastor says that hits a little too close to home. Well, now, that's just the preacher. He's just talking. That's just Edwin, that's just Joe, that's Frank. That's, you know. No, if it's. If it has to do with the ministry, that's what he's anointed to do. Amen. In Hebrews 13. We've looked at this scripture several times, but there's so much in it. Hebrews 13, Verse number 17 says obey. We talked about submission and authority yesterday. It doesn't, it doesn't mean the pastor rules like a dictator. It simply means to respect and Honor and treat him with kindness and be teachable. Obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they watch out for your souls. As those who must give an account. I have to give account for how I watch their souls. I don't give account with over. I'm not held accountable for how they respond. I'm accountable for my watching. So they watch out for your souls. Pastors watch out for their. For their church members souls as those who must give an account give account lest let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. That word grief there in the original Greek it literally means groanings because of an unappreciated and thankless task. Groanings because of an unappreciated and thankless task. Now I love pastoring. I didn't want to be a pastor at first, but once God showed me what my calling was and I gave my heart to it, there is nothing I would rather do than pastor. And I stick to it strictly stick to a no whining policy where my ministerial duties are concerned. In no way are any of my ministerial duties a burden to me. I don't allow that thinking into my brain. I'd stop it at the door. I consider myself especially blessed and fortunate to. To be able to do what I do. And besides that, I have a good congregation overall. And so I'm not complaining about my church at all because I've got a good congregation. But every pastor relates to the poignancy in that, in that fault right there. Let them do so. Not with grief groanings because of an unappreciated and thankfulness task. For that would be unprofitable for you when you know there are people in the church who won't respond. It grieves the pastor's heart not. It's not a groaning, a selfish groaning of poor old me. It's a groaning of sadness because of that. Because people don't appreciate and they're not thankful. It doesn't hurt my feelings now my. It does tick my flesh off every now and then. I mean, it does, but I don't, I don't allow that that to dominate me. This is not talking about pastors being mad at their church. This is, this is a spiritual groaning because people are unthankful and unsubmissive. The pastor knows that the ministry he has for them is not reaching them. They're not profiting like they should. And they suffer. Their family suffers. Their spouse, their children, their grandchildren suffer. And there are people like that, that they're somewhat proud of themselves, that, you know, I'm just not taken in by everything the pastor says. You have people like that in your churches. You know, I'm sitting back here because, you know, I've got discernment. And the rest of the people around me in that church, they're just lapping it all up. You know, everything the pastor says, they just think it's great. Well, somebody has to be responsible and be discerning. No, I'm talking about good pastor. Those people that are lapping it all up and enjoying ministry and just taking in everything the pastor says and taking it hard. Those people, you watch their families. You watch their families over time, their kids grow up right. They turn out right. They do. I've seen it. This is not theory. I've seen it for generations now. People who just trust their pastor now, they all have Bibles. They'd know if I got off in teaching something that's not right. But I'm teaching the proof, the truth, and applying it. They take those applications and act on them. Amen. Praise the Lord. I like, before I get off of this, go to. No, I'm going to go on. Praise Lord. I want to go to. The next thing, I'm going to skip. Skip a chapter, because most of it, people know, go back to Matthew, chapter nine. Matthew, chapter nine. Praise the Lord. I'm really trying to not to be as long. My wife said, you know, you're starting early. You've got plenty of time. I said, yeah, but, you know, an hour's a long time for a teacher. Now, if I was up here, you know, snotting and snorting around and running all over the place. I mean, that time goes by fast. Everybody's jumping and praising God, you know, but when you're just teaching for an hour, that's amen, huh? You cover a lot of ground, but people get tired of it. The heart can only receive what the rear end can take. Praise the Lord. Matthew 9:35. Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease among the people. When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep, having no shepherd. And he said to his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. We've talked about many times that Jesus didn't say the sheep were scattered because they didn't have an Apostle or a prophet or teacher. They were. They were scattered because they didn't have a shepherd. And he said here that. That the people were weary without a shepherd. Other trans. Well, actually the. I'll just read from the Amplified classic. It says that people that the sheep are bewildered, harassed, distressed, dejected and helpless. They're weary that way and scattered. The word scattered, when something is scattered, it's broken up and kicked around. If you have something all in one place and you scatter it, you. You have to break it and kick it around. And God put. God put the sheep in the sheepfold so that they would not be bewildered, harassed, distressed, dejected or helpless and they wouldn't have their lives kicked around and broken up. Sickness is a scattering of health. Poverty is a scattering of wealth. Divorce is a scattering of the family. And in God's way for caring for his sheep is to put them in a sheepfold to protect them from these things. And of all the fivefold ministries out there, only the pastor can truly watch for the saints souls because the other traveling ministers don't know the saints. Only the pastor of all of these fivefold ministries, only the pastor can really truly watch. Amen. Now go with me over to John 10. John 10. Oh, praise the Lord. I see my resolve slipping away from me. John 10, verse 10. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. I would say that 99% of the time people look at this verse, most of us probably included. 99 times out of 100 we look at this verse, we, we talk, we apply it to ourselves personally, right? And, and how the thief comes to try to steal from us. Me, my life, kill, destroy. But Jesus came to give me life and have it more abundantly. We apply that to our own lives. But in the context he's talking about the sheepfold. Verse number seven, Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers. The thief comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. He said, I am the door. Well, let me finish. Verse 8. All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not hear them. For why? Because they had a good pastor. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go out, go in and out and find pasture. Verse 11. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. This passage has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ, but in a. But Jesus is the good shepherd. Pastors are the under shepherd. Jesus is the chief shepherd. That's what Peter called it. Pastors are under shepherds. They operate directly under the Lord Jesus Christ and help Jesus care for the flock. So everything in this passage, all of the attributes and the so for attributes and so forth that apply to the Lord Jesus, apply to the pastor in a lesser manner, in a limited manner, because we're our pastors, we're not Jesus, we're not the head of the church, but in an associated way, in a like way, all of the attributes that are ascribed to Jesus apply to the pastor. And the pastor is the door of that local flock. Jesus said, over the flock. Overall, we talk about the universal church. No one comes in. I'm the door. Nobody comes in by me. Well, the pastor is the door of the flock. And he's there to keep the. The. The thief from coming in, not just in our individual lives, but the thieves from coming into the church to steal, kill and destroy. Coming into the. Into the sheep hole. That's why believers need to be involved in a, In. In a. In a good church. Amen. Jesus talked about. Well, before we turn to Matthew 7, let's turn to Matthew 7 real fast and then we'll go on Matthew 7. Glory to God. Matthew 7. And look at verse number 15. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. Notice these false prophets come to you in sheep's clothing. They don't come looking at like their prophets. They come looking like they're sheep. They're false. They're not prophets. They're false prophets. But they don't come looking like ministers necessarily. Now some do, but. But Jesus was talking about these. They come in sheep's clothing. Go over with me to Acts chapter 20. I'll share with you something that I learned. Don't you love it when you're doing something right and you didn't know it? Don't you love that when you discover, oh man, I was doing this right all along, didn't even know what I was doing? That's wonderful. When Paul was talking to the elders of Ephesus in this pastor's conference that he convened there in Miletus, He said, verse 28, Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock. So he's talking about a sheepfold among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. That's bishops to pastor to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. So this was a pastors conference. Then he said in verse 29, he said, for I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Now Jesus talked about ravenous wolves here he talked about savage wolves who will come in among you, not sparing the flock. They don't care about the flock. They care about themselves also. From among yourselves men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone, night and day with tears. So now brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified. So but let's go back to after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among yourselves men will rise, speaking perverse things. That word perverse. I have in my Bible a little note I wrote to myself a few years ago. A few years ago. It says distorted or twisted people will come in, try to come into the sheepfold speaking twisted and distorted things. Keith Trump, a friend of mine who's an esteemed Greek and Hebrew scholar, he told me in a telephone interview that this word was used in New Testament times. This word twist was used to describe someone being put on the rack of torture, whereupon one is pulled unnaturally in every direction it could be translated. They pull the scripture out of its context to the point of disfiguring it. Amen. Well, Every, I think it's been my experience every community will have in it, in the, in the broader Christian community will have certain, what I call, call high profile Christian drifter. Drifters. Everybody in the community knows them. Very often they don't. They don't call themselves ministers, but they think they are. Very often they're very successful business people in the community or they're highly esteemed professionals like doctors or attorneys. And because of their natural success, they enjoy a sort of success of celebrity status in the Christian community because oh brother doctor, so and so goes to our church. And people seem to be taken with these, with these celebrated people. And I've noticed that they tend to float from church to church. They want to find a church where they can get in and be looked up to because they're used to that. They've got a lot of money or they've got a lot of prestige. Maybe it's just somebody of notoriety in the community. Church people want to feel like their church is a great church and Our church is so great. Dr. So and so, you know, the pediatrician that everybody, he goes to our church. Pastors like that. Well, I should say this, inexperienced pastors like this sort of thing. When one of these celebrated people start coming to their church, it somehow gives them credibility in comparison with all the other churches because, you know, brother so and so who owns this, you know, gigantic business or. Oh yeah, he's, he's, he's coming to my church. Well, when I was young, I moved into a community I knew nothing about. And I quickly learned that there were these high profile people in the community and they would move from church to church and they would always end up causing trouble. Always end up causing trouble. And then they'd move on to another church. And I noticed that they would, that these people. Now I recognized some of them, some of them I didn't even know until after they left. But I recognized some of them when they'd show up in my church. One man showed up and brought me up and all I had was a little cheap homemade lectern that somebody had made for me. It was a little stand and the top, the top of the lectern was a cabinet door. It was nice. It had the little etched out, you know, scalloped corners on it. And they put a little piece of quarter round trim on the bottom to keep my Bible sliding off. And that was my, that was my podium. Well, this man came in and brought me a. He had someone hand build a beautiful pulpit. Big, beautiful wide pull. You remember that old wooden pulpit showed up. You know, I don't tell, I don't want you to tell anybody where this came from. He was, he was reeking of. Please tell somebody. But he, but this man, and he was, he was a well known businessman and he had been in a lot of churches and he showed up at my church. Others I saw the same thing happen. I noticed this. I never said anything about them. I never acknowledged, I never said a word. I said, look at this pulpit. Somebody gave us a man come by here and gave us a new pulpit. Went right on. He came one more time, never came back. Hello. But I noticed that these people that had caused trouble in all these churches, they'd visit my church, but they never attempted to join themselves to my flock. And I saw this over and over again and, and I wondered now, why did they attach themselves to brother so and so's church pastor so and so and do such harm over there? But they just seemed to leave me alone. It was almost like just in my imagination it was almost like we had this big invisible no trespassing sign for flakes and wolves taxed over our front door. The key is right here in what Paul said. He said, I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you. Well, what were they waiting for? Why were. Why weren't these savage wolves already there? They were waiting for Paul to leave because they perceived upon Paul's departure that there would be opportunity for them to get in. And here's what the Lord showed me. He said Paul exercised spiritual authority over those in his charge. And as long as he was there, the devil couldn't get in because they would recognize in the spirit his authority. And. And. And they would just leave. I had the same thing going on in my church because I. Even as a young pastor, I was young, inexperienced, but I. I fiercely defended my flock. When something tried to get ahold of my flock, to destroy my flock, I mean, I stood up. I had. I had. I had basically created an experience and put a shield around my church that these guys would come up and they. And they. I mean, they could come in the door, but they couldn't attach themselves to my church. There was. There were some incidents that happened along the way where I said. Established that and I didn't realize what I was doing. I remember there was a. A woman in my church. She'd come and she and her husband were from a denominational background and. And they were. Got filled with the Holy Spirit and the. And the wife in particular, she was just so taken with the new life in the spirit. And they were older, much older than. Than Angela and me, near retirement age. And she was a sweet lady, but she was so gullible. She would just fall for the craziest. She was. She did everything she could to. She used to have a dance studio. She did everything. She could twist my arm to let her teach the ladies how to do dancing in the church because she saw that on tv, you know. But anyway, she. She was a sweet lady, but she was immature. And so she comes. She came up to me one day, she said, pastor, I've met this man. He's a prophet. I've met this prophet. I mean, he didn't say it loud, said it quiet. A prophet. And he is a wonderful man. And I don't know how. I don't remember how she met him or what the setup was, but she said, he just. The stories he tells are just so magnificent. All the things. Miraculous things God's done. I wish you would. She started having meetings in her House. She opened her home up. My wife warned me, and this wasn't the only time she warned me. She warned me several times, you better put your finger on that and put a stop to that. But I'm not confrontational by nature. I think most things are just going to run their course. And sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't. And this lady kept after me, you need to come. And I said, you know, why don't you invite him to come to church? So she came back the next Sunday. She said, no. He said he wasn't really interested in coming to church, but he'd love for you to come out to the house. So finally I went out there. It was in a little house, you know, small house. And I walked in and to my absolute surprise, there were like three or four couples from my church there. I didn't know anybody in my church knew about him except this woman. There's three or four members of my church couples. You remember the lady that got healed and got revelation in Larry Hutton's meeting? I talked about that yesterday. You got revelation, you know, on healing. She's still in my church today. She and her husband are in the 80s. They never miss a service and they're not afraid of COVID and they're there all the time. They've been here all these years. Well, she and her husband were there that night and some other people. And the, the. I don't know if the man was there, the husband, but I remember the wife, the youth ministers that tried to split my church. The wife was there in this small living room. And I walked in and I thought to myself, well, isn't this interesting? So I sat down, took my place, got my iced tea, you know, and, and so this man began to tell all about his anecdotes and all the things he had done is, you know, how he had been to this church and how the pastor didn't receive him. And so he shook his feet off, you know, the dust of his feet off. And after he left, that pastor was killed in a, you know, head on collision. And how he went to this other church and tried to minister and the people wouldn't receive him. And shortly after he left, that church burned to the ground. He told story after story like this. Of course, none of this could be, could be documented or proven. You know, it was clear that he was trying to intimidate me into, you know, following his ministry. And so, and I looked around the room and my congregation members were sitting there spellbound. I mean, they were just sitting there you could tell they were, they were taking this stuff in. And so I'm plotting, drinking my iced tea. So I intentionally, I intentionally, almost on the edge of my seat, I intentionally actually acted like I was really, you know, taking this in myself. I've really fallen. Is that right? And I would, I would ask him a few questions along the way just to give him more rope for his hanging. Just, I mean, purposely just, just asking, just egging him on, you know. And so after about a half an hour, he finally just stopped, you know, and he said, well, Pastor Anderson, I think he called me pastor. He said, you haven't said anything. Do you have anything to say now? In my book, in my book I just say that I took a moment and answered, really, I'd been drinking all this iced tea. I had to go to the bathroom. And so I went to the bathroom because I knew what I was going to say. The Lord had already shown me what to do and I didn't want to be have my attention somewhere else. So I went to the restroom, came back in, I sat down and when I sat down, the whole room grew quiet and everybody's looking at me. So I just, I just let you know, for dramatic effect. I just let, let the room grow quiet for a moment. And I said, well, first of all, I said, because this man claimed to be like Jeremiah, a prophet to the nations. That was one of the things he said early on. I said, well, first of all, you're not a prophet to the nations. I said, in fact, you're not a prophet at all. You're a false prophet. I said, really? You're just a pitiful drifter who goes from town to town trying to beguile foolish people with your made up stories of intimidation and fear. And when I stopped, my church members were gasping for air because this man, you know, all of these threats and things, and they were like, uh. And I said, furthermore, I mean, you can imagine the tension in the room. And so he piped up and interrupted me and said, I knew you weren't going to receive my. And I cut him off. I said, you're right, I don't receive you nor your non ministry. And I said, and I'm going to tell you this, I'm not going to have a heart attack and die. My wife is not going to be hit, you know, and killed in an automobile accident. My children aren't going to be kidnapped. Come on, my refrigerator is not going to break down. And I said, the gophers aren't going to dig up my Flower garden. I said that to him. I said, none of those things are going to happen to me. And I looked around my church member, they were like shell shocked. Their eyes were bugged out, you know. So I stood up and I said, I'm going to say this to everybody that's a part of my church. Your pastor does not receive this man. He's a false prophet. And I'm leaving. You're all adults. You can do what you want to, but I'm leaving. I advise you, leave with me. Every one of them left. Now, the people that tried to split my church, they stayed. But all of my current church members, those four, three or four couples left with me. I never lost one person to that false prophet. The only people that didn't leave was the lady that owned the homes. It was her house. She couldn't leave. She was so important. Embarrassed later, she told me it took weeks for her to get him out of his house. Out of her house. He wouldn't leave. She eventually had to lock the refrigerator up so he couldn't get any food. She had to starve him out to get him to leave from her house. Well, it was a few things like this and some others like it that I look back, I didn't know. I didn't know this was working. And then when the Lord showed me this, he said that they were waiting for the Apostle Paul to leave because they would perceive an inroad. And so he said, because you've exercised authority over your flock, these false ministers, wolves and so forth, when they come into your church, they don't find an open door. And that doesn't mean nobody's ever come back and tried it again, because they do from time to time. Because the devil will always come back and see what he can find. You know, anything's. Anything's changed. Now, that's. That has to do with false. False ministers. Let me. Let me cover this before I go on. Before we close today, Pastors have to take a stand. Go with me to Titus. This is a passage we have to look at, sort of make sure we stay balanced. Titus is exhorting about, you know, the pastoral ministry, elders, qualifications for elders, just like. Like Timothy. Excuse me. Paul is exhorting Timothy just like he. Or he's exhorting Titus like he did Timothy about the qualifications of elders. Then in verse 10, he says, there are many unsubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. I like the Williams translation that said, mere talkers with nothing to say insubordinate. Williams translation says, disorderly people. Knox translation says, rebellious spirits. New English Bible says, out of control people, idle talkers with nothing to say. Deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households teaching things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain. Verse 13 says, this testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. Now pastors, this isn't talking about rebuking sharply, your regular church members, this isn't the ordinary church members here. These are people who try to come in and bring disharmony and destruction to your church, try to work their way into your church. And he said, those people, you have to rebuild to rebuke them sharply. You can't let them do this. I tell the story of not too many years ago. It's been since we've been in the new building, so it's been within the last 12 years. There was a man showed up in my congregation. I didn't know him, never seen him before. He came on a Sunday night and he had, he was a middle aged man and had a somewhat younger wife and she was middle aged, but he was older, middle aged. And they sat back to my left in the section over here. And the only thing that distracted me during church is I, I just, you know, you don't just sit and watch people when you're preaching, you know, but you just notice them. I thought maybe they were newlyweds because of the way they were acting in church. She had her arm around him, she was all snuggled up to him, she was running her fingers through his hair, laying her head over on his chest. And I'm thinking, I thought to myself, you need to go get a room. You know, so I'm just, I just assume they're newlyweds. And I tried to ignore them, but that was a little distracting. But anyway, we got into the service and during the worship service, it was a quiet time. In the service, he gave an utterance in tongues, what sounded like tongues. And I immediately knew in my spirit, not because he was a stranger, but I knew, you know, strangers ought not to go into a church and minister that way. Anyway, people don't know you, they don't trust you. But in my heart I had a really bad wit and I knew that wasn't the Holy Ghost. And so, you know, I just changed the order of the service. And you know, because if you don't do something real quick, there's that awkward silence when Everybody's waiting for an interpretation. It's not going to come. So I just, you know, I just changed the order of service. I think I called for the ushers, and even though we were in a good spirit of worship right there, that kind of ruined it. I'm just changing it. Called for the ushers, took up the offering, preached. I didn't think anything else about it. The next week, it was Monday or Tuesday of the next week, I got a phone call. And this man introduced himself. I didn't know him. And he went. He wasn't the pastor, but he went to another church. He asked me, he said, do you have someone? He described this couple coming to your church. I said, yeah, they've been here a time. And this man, I think they had come a couple of times before he spoke out like this. I said, yeah, they've been here a time or two. He said, well, the woman that's with him is my wife. He said, this man came to our church and announced that he was a prophet. And it's a neighboring church, a little Pentecostal church. And the pastor allowed him to minister to our congregation. And my wife attached her. He attached himself to my wife. Anyway, she ran off with it and left their teenage daughter. And, I mean, no, she took. She left the teenage daughter with the husband and went off with this man. And I said, you know, I'm so sorry to hear that. You know, I'm regret that happened, you know, And I hung up. So I thought, well, that's interesting. So I go back to church. It was the next Sunday night. He's back again. He doesn't know what I know. And so the same thing happened. Got in service, you know, and he gave out another utterance in tongues. I immediately. I didn't call him out. I just turned this service and went a different direction. And really, for that, the rest of that service, didn't even think about him again. I went ahead and preached. Didn't even think about him. Well, I closed the service out. Everybody had almost left. He was gone. Almost everybody in the auditorium was gone. Maybe just a little pocket here and there. I was talking to somebody over on this side of the church, and he came back in and he walked up and interrupted my conversation and said, pastor, can I have a word with you? So I excused myself from the person I was talking to. I said, what can I do for you? He said, I started to get into my car and the Holy Spirit told me to come back in here, that he had a word for you. I said, zyrah, I mean, I was real nice. He said, yeah. He said, the Lord is not happy with this church. What he really meant was the Lord wasn't happy with me because I'm the one that cut him off. But he knew. I guess he knew better than just to be that direct. But he said, the Lord's not happy with this church because it didn't receive. This church didn't receive my message in tongues as from the Lord. Now, you know, you might think that I'm. My personality is just someone I want to hammer. That sort of thing. I like. I like to diffuse things if I can, because I learned a long time ago that most people won't take correction anyway, so I just. I just hope they'll go away. So when he said, the Lord sent me in here with a message. He's not happy with his church because they didn't receive my ministry. And, and I, I said something like, well, brother, we all miss it sometimes, don't we? You know, just sort of pass it off. Well, you know, not happy with that. He had, he had given me the word of the Lord, but that wasn't enough. He came back. Well, he said, I just. The Lord's not happy with. With this church. And so I did. He. I noticed when I was talking to him, he smelled like a cigarette factory. I mean, he reeked of tobacco. So I just. Real intention. I did as. I did as much facial expression as I could. I wrinkled my nose real good. You know, I went. I said, you do. You smoke? And it kind of took him by. I don't know why it would take him by surprise. I guess smokers don't realize they stink, you know. And he acted like it kind of. He said, well, he said, some people I'm with, that I'm staying with, they smoke and it's gotten into my clothes. I said, no, you smoke too, don't you? He said, well, he said, I have had problem with tobacco, but I'm trying to. I'm trying to deal with that. I'm trying to get over that. Now, wouldn't you think. Wouldn't you think a reasonably. A reasonably intelligent person would perceive, since I pushed back, that this conversation is not going to go in his. In his favor and just say, well, you know, this pastor's. He's not going to receive. Just go. But no, no. He came back the third time. I just want you to know that the Lord's not happy with this church. Church. I stepped in. He was about my height. I stepped up to him and I put my nose almost touching his nose and my finger, and I put my finger on his chest and I said, let me ask you a question. That woman you're bringing with you, she's another man's wife, isn't she? Now see, he thought Jesus had told on you. I let him think so. I let him think so for a moment or two. I mean, he. I literally. I'm not making this up. I literally looked around the room. There was nothing but one or two people and they couldn't hear what we were saying. I literally glanced around and I thought to myself, I wish there was somebody here filming this. Oh, man, I wish somebody was. Because the look on his face, he looked like I'd slapped him with a wet dish rag. I said, that woman you're coming, you're bringing to church, she's another man's wife, isn't she? He kind of sputtered and he said, well, she's prayed about that and the Lord's released her from that. I said, the Lord hasn't released her from anything. I said, the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans said that a man is bound to his wife and a wife is bound to her husband as long as they live. That's New Testament, that's not Old Testament. I said, the two of you are living in adultery. And I said, let me tell you something else. If God has a message he wants to give to me, he knows better than to send a cigarette smoking, adulterous, homebreaking prophet to correct me. I did. Just like that. I mean, I was right in his face and he muttered something, turned around, walked out and never saw him again. I shouldn't have had to deal with that. You know who should have dealt with it? The previous pastors. And not let it tear their church up and steal people out of their church. Pastors are going to have to give an account for these kind of things. Weak and spineless pastors. It's not right. You've got to stand up and protect your flaw. Well, amen. Praise the Lord. Well, I said I wasn't going to go over this long, but I did praise God. We'll pick up tomorrow. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. The thing that I like to counsel, pastor, particularly young pastors. You older guy, I'm not old. But you know, you seasoned pastors, you know this. The younger pastors, be confident when God doesn't mean be unteachable. But your teaching ought to come, your fellowship ought to come from seasoned pastors. People who've been in pastoral ministry for a long and have been successful. But on the other side of that coin, if God called you, he will show you what to do. Follow your inward witness. You're up for it. God anointed you, and he'll help you if you'll just be bold enough to follow his lead. Well, Amen. Praise the Lord.
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