No Other Place On the Earth Like It
Where the Great Plains Prairie & Grassland Meets the Rugged Badlands Wall
M Paulson
Kadoka, South Dakota
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Word-for-word transcription of the audio sermon - transcribed by Bob Harris |
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p.m. sermon Despise and Destroy the Magnificence of Today's Pastors Part III |
We are in the process of considering the “no shepherd” thing here — when Jesus looked at the people out there, which would have been his people obviously, they certainly weren’t concerned about the Gentile heathen at that time, and he had compassion on those people, because they had no shepherd. So we’ve been looking at this “no shepherd” thing, and we know that America is full of pastors, and yet those that are honestly truthful about their King James Bible, rightly dividing, and understand this thing, we’ve been scattered. We haven’t been run out of the church by their attitudes or pushing, they’ve just run us out of the churches by their teachings, because, again, we did exactly what these preachers preach, was that King James Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice — there we go.
All these guys taught me that this is the word of God. And this is where we turn for our final conclusion in all things.
And yet, when we look at this thing, and as you do any history book that’s got past, present, and future stuff in it, the whole history book isn’t written to me in school. Take a history book. Take any of those books, that, you know, it’s not all written to me, there’s history in the past, there’s very little future stuff in those history books. Some of those history books are updated enough that they know that that’s today. They know that Harry Truman isn’t going to have anything to say about the election coming up.
So I don’t think it takes much to realize that that whole Bible it needs to be rightly divided. It’s almost like we have to make — it’s like I said before, people are so far gone from the Bible being read correctly, they are so caught up in this “Gospels only, Great Commission" stuff, even though it says what it says about it, that they have to be slapped awake with this emphasis on rightly dividing. And just hit with it, because they don’t see it otherwise. I don’t think it’s ever had to be a big issue, you know, 50 years ago or 100 years ago, because those of us that are up in years, we look back and we see Christians walking like Paul taught. It was no big deal. Nobody said anything about rightly dividing; it’s just that’s the part of the Bible that tells you how to please the Lord, now that you’re saved. I mean, it was that commonplace.
So we look at this stuff, and people are going to think that I
just really hate pastors. Well, no, I don’t. But as I look to my Bible
— I mean, these are nice people. I mean, I’ve had pastors give us food.
I’ve had pastors give us money. I’ve had pastors come in there and be there
for us. I’ve seen pastors take care of other people. And I just couldn’t
stay in the one church; this guy brought us a ton of food when I had my
back surgery, and I already knew things were going sour. The guy was possibly
extorting some money, or whatever that word is. He taught about what God’s
done to the Jews. I mean, there are some things that I was even partially
aware of. We can’t stay here. So the guy brings us about three or four
bags of groceries. OK, nice guy, appreciate the food, da da ta da, we need
it, we had no money coming in because I was in surgery and went back to
school. And yet, you got to do what you got to do. Why? Because the Bible
tells us to, because Paul tells us to.
And so these are nice people. But this Bible tells me that these guys are lying. As nice as they are. And this Bible tells me — and my observations in all these years in the ministry — that the ladies are running the ministries. I see a disaster here. I see hundreds of thousands of people without a shepherd, without a pastor.
Now, you’ve heard me say — I have no doubt about it all — that Paul does not call any of these pastors “shepherds”. These guys are not shepherds, whether they’re teaching good or bad. We’re not shepherds. It’s “pastors.” Evangelists, if you’re traveling around.
Now, I know of no evangelist to this day that goes out there and preaches, if he believes what he believes, is he preaching what he needs to preach, as an evangelist? Johnny the Baptist goes out there and lets people have it, but he just likes to insult people and hit people hard and do that macho Baptist thing, preaching Baptist doctrine. And all these guys think he’s marvelous. Well, he’s not teaching the truth at all.
So, we have pastorless pastors in churches. They’re not doing their job. Well, what is their job? Their job is what Paul says they should be teaching. Which we will deal with that later. Tonight we’re going to look at how Paul warns us about these guys. What is it that’s going on? What are these guys doing? What do we need to watch out for here?
Because his concern was, in II Corinthians 11, his concern was that we would follow another Jesus, we would be duped, we would be beguiled, we would be tricked into following somebody who’s preaching another gospel with another spirit about another Jesus.
And Mohammed is not another Jesus. He has to be talking about Jesus that’s not the right Jesus. Are there any other Jesuses out there? Well, there are false christs. But they’re not saying they’re Jesus.
So I don’t have a problem — everybody else probably does —but I don’t a problem saying that if you teach Jesus’ teachings from the Gospels to us today, then, really, you’re teaching a different Jesus, because he’s not the one that was risen with what he taught us through Paul.
I hope that’s understandable to people. But if you tell somebody, they think that, “So you’re saying all the stuff in the Gospels is a lie?” No, I didn’t say that. That stuff in the Gospels — here we go — was to be taught to the Jews, and the risen Saviour — you do believe he arose? — yes, we do — OK, then why would’t he, when he arose, teach us, the heathen, as he says he went to Paul, not Peter, da da ta da, to teach us. I mean, the concept to me is so simple. It boggles my mind that we don’t have people just knocking our doors down here to hear this stuff, sending money, sending things. I mean, just being grateful as all getout that we’re showing them this stuff.
But they don’t get it. It’s amazing. Just amazing.
So here’s what we’re going to do tonight. Let’s see what Paul tells us about pastors. And I’ll say today, because we’re not into the Tribulation. And Paul’s message is to the Gentile world, and his messages are to the church of God of the Gentile world, which are the saved people.
We really are no longer Gentiles. We’re the church of God. And we’re not talking about the Congregational Church of God in the religious world, denominationals. That’s what he calls us; we’re either Jew, Gentile, or the church of God. So we’re even out of the heathen Gentile thing, not because our walk is so much better, because he just made us free. He made us church of God members.
So, let’s just look and see. Remember, we’re concerned about what’s going on in the pulpits. And here’s what Paul warns, and he also tells us what to do. And here’s — I’ll just go to the conclusion now, in case anybody falls asleep or goes home early. I don’t understand why we can’t do what we need to do. And I know there’s going to be people listening to this who are still going to church, they still have their pastor — I’m not against church, there’s a Biblical purpose for it, and I’m not against pastors — there’s a Biblical purpose for pastors. I’m against the pastors that are not following through what Paul teaches they should be doing. Again, we’ll talk about that later.
And here’s what he tells us to do. With these kind of pastors in our churches, we’re not to have company with them. We’re to avoid them. “From such withdraw.” Not to strive with them; you just waste your time. “Neither give heed.” Don’t listen to them. We’re to “reject” them. We’re to “mark” them, and the people that follow them. We’re not to partake with them. We’re to have no fellowship with them. And, if we get a chance, we need to rebuke them — with your Bible, of course — without striving.
That’s bottom line.
Now, Bob, you know I’ve been saying this since back in Touchet.
That anybody who’s associated with these churches or with these pastors,
this is what we’re supposed to do — have no company, avoid, from such withdraw,
not strive, don’t listen to them, neither give heed, reject, mark them,
be not partakers, have no fellowship with them, and rebuke them if we get
the chance without striving. And people can’t do it.
Let’s look at I Corinthians chapter 4, verse 15. Let’s just, you know, no fancy wisdom of words here; we’re just going to look at some Scriptures, they’re not in any special order other than how I’ve found them. I haven’t had the time to put it together in a sermon-screaming fashion, which I’ve never done anyway. But I Corinthians 4:15; now I could easily make this one last too long as well, and break this into two parts. And what good is it going to do you guys? Or ever Francine? Unless they see what’s going on, have a chance to talk to somebody in the church or talk to a pastor or talk to somebody who loves their pastor no matter what he’s teaching, well, I’m just hoping that — this will be a new Web site, it’s part 3 of this whole series. And we’re just going to let the Bible tell us what’s going on with modern pastors. Here’s what they’re doing.
First of all, I Corinthians 4:15: ”For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.” And this is where he says, “Wherefore” — because he’s like a father to his people: ”Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.” Then he says, “For this cause.” What cause is this? “For this cause,” that there’s too many instructors out there, and there are no pastors that care for their people. Well now, you will never get any pastor that agrees with that: “Of course I care for my people.” Oh, I know. You give them stuff, you help them, you go over there and you go shopping for the older ladies, that’s a nice guy, and you don’t want to hurt their feelings in a sermon, and you don’t want to do this, but, you know, you’re not being like their father.
And, boy, there is one other place. I think we’ll come to it eventually here. I’m pretty sure we do here. Anyway, we’ll just stick to the routine; I just thought of another verse here. “Be followers of me.” So, what do we have in all the churches? We have institutes; we have Bible colleges. We have all this stuff where people are teaching, you know, their instructors.
And I challenged people back again, Bob, back at Touchet, I wrote to some of these guys, and said, “Listen, I could teach you in three months to the point where you could go out and you could preach.” Not three years or four years, it’s not going to cost you thousands of dollars. You come stay at the church, you can have your free room and board, and you can have your free room, buy food or something, and I’ll teach you to to read your Bible, and then you read your Bible and you can get out there and you can preach. You don’t have to take any grammar classes or the Greek or the hysterectomy classes, or whatever those things are called. You just need to learn to read your Bible, and then you read it and God will show you what he wants you to preach; that’s just how he works.
But, no, these guys, they have to have system. I’m just going to ramble on too much here tonight. These guys have institutes because this is where they can have the guts. Oh, I know that. Remember, the preachers don’t have the guts to preach it in church, so they get the men together, and they pretend they’re big, tough men, you know. Again, Bob, you know we sat in our office, and we had men’s Bible studies. And I always said, I’ll save the hard stuff for us men in the Bible study, and we’d always get the “amens” from a couple of the men, you know, about modesty standards and home life and all this kind of stuff. And we both knew that these men went home and didn’t change a thing. They went home and they talked to their wives and then they came back the next day angry, because they knew what was right in the Bible study. But once they talked about it at home, they realized that, well, the wife is not happy with this, so I better go back and talk to the pastor.
I’ve had a number of times. Do you remember one time when one of the men said, “Would you preach this in church? Because I haven’t got the guts to tell my wife this.” Do you remember that one at all? I’m not sure you were there for that one.
I just laughed and said, “Yes, I will do it for you.” It’s an amazing thing.
But this “father” thing — these pastors. I mean, there are some pastors out there that really do care for their people, no doubt. They really do. But they don’t know how to care for them properly. And, you know, Paul teaches how to care for your people properly. Be like a father to them.
You know, I’ve got to find that verse right now, I wonder if I can. Because it just so ties in together with it here. It won’t take me long to find this thing. Hang on. I thought I had that thing, but I didn’t. Here we go. I just quit typing so fast and mess it up. What? It’s not there? It has to be there. Yeah, we’re going to split this up into some more sermons, I know that. Let’s just get all the books out there, OK, all of them. No, that’s not the one I want, I don’t think. Let’s check it out here. I don’t think that’s the one I want. Oh, hum. First Thessalonians 2:1, I’ll bet, because I have a note on that one right there. I’m coming, I’m coming, keep hanging in there, folks.
Yes, here we go. This will probably be the sermon tonight, and we’ll leave it at that. Let’s go to Ephesians, because we’re talking here about there’s ten thousand instructors but they don’t have any fathers. And Paul is like a father to us. He says, “For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you to the gospel.” We are sons of Paul. Tell that to somebody. We know that we’re sons of God. We know that. And we are sons. John 1 talks about that. But, really, on a spiritual basis, we are sons of Paul. He said, “I have begotten you through the gospel.” He’s like a father. That’s why he says follow him. Why do we follow Paul? Because he’s like our father, and he teaches us the things he wants us to do.
Now, we go to Ephesians. Go to Ephesians 6:1, and it says here, “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” OK, so Paul, because he’s like a father to us, he doesn’t provoke us to wrath. I may do so in my preaching or in my teaching, whatever. I may make people mad, and I’m sorry that I do. Paul even says that he’s not there to cause shame. He’s not there to shame us, he’s there to help us. But he does say, for a father, he says, “Provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of” religion? No, he says, “of the Lord.”
And then, a marvelous verse. Bob, you’ve heard me say this is a marvelous verse, in I Thessalonians chapter 2, and verse 10. This is such a good reference here for a father; this is spectacular. He says in verse 10, “Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe.” This is Paul and his gang, they’re his group, you know. And he says, ”As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children.” OK, now here’s what a father is supposed to do to his children. And this is what Paul does to us: exhort, comfort, and charge. I mean, if there ever is a Bible study in one verse, this is the one for a father. You don’t need to buy any of these books on fathering, da da ta da — and Bob, I think you’ll remember, I really preached this thing hard in a Bible study meeting because “exhort” — dads have no problem preaching to their kids, if the dad’s a tough — you, if he’s tough, macho Bible guys. They don’t want their son to queer up, so they’re always punching them, always hurting them to make them tough. And I tell you, I’ve seen it so many times, that these pastors who don’t want their sons to grow up and be a queer, they punch them, they beat on them all this time and make them tough — and every one of those guys that I can think of right now, their sons went queer. Because they treated them so rough, that they went whining to their mom and hiding to their mom, so the mom was the one that was the authority in the house — even though Dad’s the tough guy. Who rules the ship?
Oh, I could talk on this forever tonight. I’ve ridden in cars with a man — here we go — who was tough. He was the king of the castle. And as I learned to watch this family, I saw him — everybody just entertains him as the king — and yet it was the mom that ran that show. And, if they had had any boys, they’d have been queer. But they had girls, and they made them all like boys. Make ‘em tough, because you want to be like Dad.
This stuff just gets me. And I would preach this. This guy, and these other men that are like it, Baptist guys all over the country are like this — they exhort, they want to preach to their kids, they want to preach to their family, want them to get it. OK?
And yet the next one on here is “comforted.” How many fathers comforted their kids? It’s tough to be a kid today. You can preach all you want, you can exhort all you want, you can tell them all the stuff that’s wrong, you can hammer them, you can let them have it, blah blah blah blah, but if you’re not there with your comfort as a father, you’re just going to drive them away.
And sometimes it’s tough for us to comfort a jerk. Because, there’s ages where kids are jerks.
And, do you remember — I’m just winging this, this is totally what I wasn’t planning on telling, just bear with me like Paul says — we learned a long time ago that, in the wilderness journey, Moses and that crowd, that the Bible says in Numbers and in Deuteronomy that God did not hold accountable anybody who was a teenager. Nineteen years and younger, he did not hold them accountable. Nineteen!
So I preached that one time, and Newsweek or Time or something comes up with this big scientific discovery that there’s a gray cloud in brains of teenagers — you know what years it was? — younger than twenty. (Goodnight, Bob.) And I just put all this together. They got a cloud in their maturity and learning process that doesn’t even mature until they’re in their twenties.
And think about it. When does any kid — yeah, even the good guys, the teenage boys that are doing good, you know, and they’re doing their Bible studies, blah blah blah blah — when do they really start thinking? In their twenties. They become more serious about their parents, they understand their parents better. You know — and I’m not knocking the guys; there’s good teenagers. But that just because they’re obedient, and in some cases they just don’t want to get beat by their parents. But they don’t start thinking and challenging and questioning stuff for themselves until they’re in their twenties.
So what’s my point here? The point here is sometimes it’s hard for us to comfort our kids because they don’t want us to. We can preach at them, fathers. Fathers can preach at them. But this comforting thing? A father’s got too much pride to comfort his kids. “Nobody comforted me when I was a kid!” Yeah, well, we’ve learned now that in Paul’s writings, remember, it says up there, “As a father doth his children.” We exhort, we comfort, and we charge.
And this is what Paul does with us. He preaches at us, he exhorts, no doubt. But he comforts us through this whole thing, with Scriptures and doctrine and the whole thing. And then he charges us, he challenges us in our work as growing up. Charge. Does this make sense?
So this father that was just an absolute bear would never comfort his kids. And, as far as charging them, he would charge them unbiblically. “Well, you know, you’re a girl and all, but you still need to get a job.” “OK, well, you’re a boy and all, and you need to,” you know, da da ta da.
And I don’t see the thing with the boys as much as I see it with the girls. Everywhere I go, I see guys out there, fathers out there teaching their girls how to shoot baskets, how to hit the ball, and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And, fine, let them have coordination thing, not a big thing. But sports are humongously immodest to girls, especially. I won’t get into that.
But what is it with these fathers? They’re out there, charging their girls to grow up and be a man. All they do in sports is it ruins their marriages, because their women become agressive, and it just ruins their marriages. And the guys today are being just a little sissified, little kiddies, that the coach can’t dare yell at him, because he’ll cry.
Anyway, we get back to the father thing. Yeah, fathers can preach, get their Bible out and preach. But you better not preach what you aren’t doing yourself.
Then you got this comforting thing. And they need to be comforted. Paul comforts us.
And then charges us. Paul charges us to be the Christian, as we should charge our children, when they grow up, and “Here’s what you need to do, son.” “Here’s what you need to do, daughter.” I charge you to try to live according to God’s word, the final authority, in Timothy and Titus as a girl, as a lady, as a woman.
“Dad, nobody does this anymore!”
“That’s OK. We’re talking about your Judgment Seat — nobody else’s.”
And, da da da. And then it says in verse 12 that you walk worthy of God. A father wants his children to walk worthy of his name. Then he needs to exhort, he needs to comfort, and then he charges them as a father doth his children. And that would make you walk worthy of your name — if your name is worthy to be walked, if you know what I mean.
OK, so there’s my little dweeb. That’s just one verse there tonight. We can probably throw a couple more in here, that we’re looking at what Paul says to us about pastor.
OK, so what should a pastor do? A pastor should exhort, obviously. And he’s going to charge, he’s going to challenge them with their Christian walk. But he’s got to be comforting in there. Comforting — does it mean that he’s got to hold their hand as he preaches to them? Does he have to play the kind of music that they like? Does he have to overlook the fact that the ladies are not dressed modestly at all, and say they look very nice?
I told a lady one time, she couldn’t sing in the choir if she didn’t pin up her blouse. Well, she quit the church. Oh, well. I’m not going to stand for her looking like that. I would tell people — and Bob had to go to sleep, he’s working the night shift and all that stuff — that we didn’t have rules. We didn’t have rules that you had to do nine inches and all this. I just said, “Listen, you come to church modestly. And if you think you can da da ta da, then, fine.”
But the same thing with you men. You need to come to church modestly, too. But, when you go home, don’t change into your immodest clothes for your sons and your daughters to see. Paul calls it his “manner of life.” It means this is how you live. It isn’t how you pretend and show up at places and be fancy.
OK, this whole thing is about the fact that Paul said back in I Corinthians 4 that we have an awful lot of instructors. Everybody’s in the churches telling people what to do. You’ve got plenty of preachers and teachers, you know teaching the stuff in their schools and institutes and stuff, but they’re not fathers. And what does a father do? A father exhorts and comforts and charges. So how does Paul comfort us? Well, he tells us the fact that he’s not trying to get us to stop from sinning; he showed us that Christ made us free. So, when you mess up, you don’t need to get rebuked and chastised, unless you’re doing it on purpose blah blah blah blah. The Scriptures will chastise us. But God isn’t going to chastise us. So, as a father, you comfort your children. You exhort, you charge them. Paul comforts us by showing us the fact that Christ took care of the sin, as well as the sins.
Christ comforts us in the fact that he’s the comforter. Christ comforts us in the fact that we have his word with us. This is his word; this is from the mouth of God. That’s comforting. The stuff that Paul teaches, the stuff that the risen Saviour taught to Paul, that the mid-Acts people don’t see, the hyper-grace people don’t see, the Baptists don’t see, it’s just very simple. The doctrine that Paul teaches from the risen Saviour is comforting.
Again, a little baby is learning to walk, and he falls down and hits his head. And he cries. Does the dad get up and spank him? Well, there are dads that do, no doubt. But the dad who loves his children, he comforts them, he preaches to them. You know, “Stay away from the table” — and he charges them: “Come on, let’s go!” And they try to give him a good cry, and they comfort him: “Come on, come on, come on,” they encourage him to keep coming. “I’m your dad, I’ll take care of you, relax,” you know. “You want to be a woman? You want to be a woman in this world? Hey, I’ll help you get the modest stuff, I’ll help you. I don’t want you working at the local whatever. It’s not your job to be flirting with all these men out there, and these men looking at you and stuff. You need to be home, learn how to be a wife.” Blah blah blah. The list goes on.
OK, is this my opinion? No. Read Titus chapter 2, read I Timothy chapter 2,3. Read I Timothy chapter 5. I mean, this is what the Bible says. That’s why I said tonight that people don’t understand that we are speaking authoritatively, not because we are the authority — it’s the Bible. And I don’t know how these pastors in the pulpit can ignore Timothy and Titus — but they do. The hyper-graces do, the mid-Acts guys do — they just don’t get into that stuff. That’s how they comfort them; they don’t get into the hard stuff.
Titus — Paul says, “Listen, Titus is coming to visit you folks.” And they greeted him with joy. It’s comforting. You know, ladies that are out there listening to this thing later, you ought to be comforted in the fact that if you’re trying to dress modestly, and you won’t give into the thing, just for a moment or whatever, you protect yourself from accidents and all this kind of stuff, and you read Titus, you should be comforted when you read Titus, because it shows that you are doing right.
A man, when he reads Timothy, should be comforted in knowing that he’s doing right. We all have our problems, we all have our issues, our flesh, as Paul said. But that’s where we get our comfort from; not that we’re out there saying, you know, “Patty-cake, patty-cake,” you know, that kind of stuff.
And the pastors today comfort the people by not telling them the truth? Is that comforting? I guess it is to them because they don’t want to hear the truth.
So, I Corinthians 4:15 — that’s the problem with pastors today, according to Paul, according to the risen Saviour, you’ve got a whole bunch of instructors but no fathers out there. And, if you are trying to be a father as a pastor, then you are to exhort — which today’s pastors will not do — they need to comfort — which they will do but they don’t know how to comfort to properly. And they will charge — but they won’t charge them with the right preaching at all.
I think we’ll just leave it at that. That’s enough for a sermon right there. It just encourages us fathers; well, “us fathers”? I’m no longer a “father” here. My kids are not gone, but they won’t even allow me to father them or grandfather them - because of religion, how much it burnt them in the past. And I understand totally.
But if anybody out there is still a father, there is your verse. You exhort, according to Paul, you comfort, according to Paul, and you charge them, give them the challenge for their life, according to Paul. And the pastor — like any pastor is ever going to listen to this stuff — never. If you do, you better exhort your people, you better comfort your people according to the Scriptures, not according to their flesh. And you better charge them, according to what Paul preaches, not the Gospels, not Peter, not Jude, not James, not even Hebrews that is written by Paul to the Jews. Charge them, like Paul charges anybody, especially in Timothy and Titus.
That’s it for tonight. That’s enough to take on right there.
