The NIFB is older than the Catholic Church | Stedfast Baptist Church

Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is the new IFB is older than the Catholic Church.

The new IFB is older than the Catholic Church. Now, what I mean by this specifically is not

necessarily that our movement has a historical timeline of succeeding churches that somehow

predate the Roman Catholic Church, but I have three ways in which the new IFB is older than

the Roman Catholic Church. And that would be in our doctrine. Our doctrinal beliefs go back before

the time of the Roman Catholic Church is origin. Not only that, our practices as a church go back

before, and we can see precedent of the practices that we are doing right now are older than the

formation of the Roman Catholic Church. And third, that the Bible that I hold in my hand,

these scriptures all predate the formation of the Roman Catholic Church. So in many ways,

the new IFB is older than the Roman Catholic Church. Now, we still use the word new, and what do we

mean by new? Well, it's new from a contextual perspective. Yes, there is a sense of newness

in the sense that, hey, we're doing things new right now in our generation that others were

not really doing or other churches are not doing, but the practices by which we're doing are not

technically new, they're actually old. Now, we see the Bible bring up this same phenomenon

or this same type of idea where something is new and old at the same time. Look what it says in

1 John 2 verse 7. Brethren, I write, no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment

1 John 2:7

which he had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning.

Again, a new commandment I write unto you. It's like, what the heck? He just said it's not a new

commandment. Then he says it is a new commandment. What is he saying? He's saying, look, I am

technically writing a new commandment. Yes, I'm technically delivering you new information or

perhaps this is a practice that's fallen out of adherence. People are not really observing

this the way they should be doing it. I'm trying to make it new, I'm trying to freshen it up,

I'm trying to bring it to your attention, but the reality is we already had Scripture,

we already had commandments in the Old Testament that told us to do what I'm about to say.

I'm just basically bring it to your attention and we're going to implement it again.

So yeah, it's new, but it's not really new, it's still old. It's always been a practice,

it's always been something we should have been doing. So it's new and it's old at the

same time, isn't it? He says, again, a new commandment, I write into you which thing is true

in him and in you because the darkness is past, the true light now shineth. Now, when he gives this

commandment, he's not necessarily being overtly direct. He's kind of just talking about this

idea in a big picture, but the new commandment that's kind of being emphasized is loving your

brother and loving your brother as you would love yourself and the way you love God is

how you should love your brother. That's the idea that's being communicated here.

He says in verse nine, he that saved these in the light and hated his brother is in darkness

even until now. He that loveth his brother abided in the light and there's no occasion of stumbling

in him, but he that hated his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth

not whether he goeth because that darkness has blinded his eyes. So the concept that's being

taught is the new commandment is we should love our brother and we shouldn't be hating our

brother. And that's really emphasized in first John specifically is loving our brother and he's

like, this is a new commandment, but it's not really new because we could have learned this

principle in this concept from the Old Testament, from the Bible already. Look at second John.

Just flip a page and look at second John verse four. Notice it says here, I rejoice greatly

that I found of thy children walking in truth as we have received a commandment from the

Father and now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment under thee,

but that which we had from the beginning, notice this, that we love one another.

And he's saying, hey, yeah, I'm writing this to you and I don't want you to think like,

this is a new idea. It might seem like it's a new idea. We might even say at times it's a

new idea, but it's really not a new idea because it's actually something we had from

the beginning. And what is that concept is that we should love one another.

Go to John chapter 13, go to John chapter 13. So I'm just kind of proving this concept before

John 13 · chapter mention John 13 · chapter mention

really get into the details of my sermon this morning. What is the concept? That sometimes

things are considered new, but they're really not new. Oh, you guys are an invention. You

guys are novel. You guys just came around five minutes ago and so you can't be the true church.

You can't be doing the true practices because you guys are a later development,

but the problem is, even if we are new in that sense, if everything we're doing

precedes us when it's really not new, you know, it's just true. Okay. Might as well just call

us the true IFB. Okay. And instead of just the new IFB, because the reality is, hey, we're

trying to do what the Bible says. We don't care about historical practices if they don't line up

with scripture. Hey, we follow all kinds of traditions as Baptist and we find ourselves

doing a lot of things that people have done before us. Hey, we're meeting on Sunday morning.

Hey, we're meeting three times a week. Hey, we have a 400 plus year old Bible. Yeah,

there's all kinds of stuff that we do. Hey, I'm wearing a suit and tie today.

Not everybody's ever dressed exactly like this necessarily. Not everybody's always had,

you know, buildings like this. Not everybody's had air conditioning. Okay, sure. Some things are

just kind of a carryover from what other generations have done or other groups have done. But at

the end of the day, you know, when we are trying to figure out if what we're doing is right,

we should make sure it lines up with scripture areas where scripture is silent. Well,

I think there's freedom there. Areas where the scripture is confirming, we ought to do it for

sure. Areas where the scripture is condemning, we ought to abandon it. Yes. And so what is

the new IFB? It's us trying to go back to what the Bible actually says. It's not that we're

trying to invent something. It's not like we're trying to do something novel. We're actually

just doing again what the Bible already said. And look what it says in John 13 verse 34,

John 13:34

a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you,

that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples,

if you have loved one to another. Now here's the thing. When we take this verse in context of

other verses and other portions of scripture, is this technically new though? Because we already

read in 2 John chapter one that we had that commandment from the beginning. He said

that we love one another was from the beginning. Jesus is saying here the exact same commandment

that you love one another. And he says it's new. So in a sense, we can say it's new, but it's not

new in the sense that, hey, we didn't have this instruction or idea or concept already taught

to us. It's just saying like, hey, I want to give you something else to emphasize,

something else you've fallen out of practice of, something else you haven't been doing.

Hey, I'm emphasizing something new here, but it's technically not new. It really is old.

Govv would do Leviticus chapter 19. Where is this coming from? Well,

Leviticus 19 · chapter mention

number one, I would think he just implied, you know, that we should just love one another.

But we give some pretty explicit commands in the Bible as well. In Levitical law,

we are given instruction to love our neighbor. It says in Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18,

Leviticus 19:18

thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love

thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. So just as Jesus is saying love one another,

second John is saying love one another, just as we had it in first John, that we should love

our brother. We have, hey, Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18, that we should love our neighbor as

Leviticus 19:18

ourself. So it's like, hey, I'm giving you this new commandment, but it's not really new.

It's always been something we've had. We've always had it from the beginning. Obviously,

Cain kills Abel is a concept that's illustrating something that's wicked and wrong. Cain should

have loved his brother, but he didn't. And we should have learned from that. We learned

from the Levitical law. We learned from all these examples. But sometimes things need

to be emphasized. And think about it this way. What if in our church something happened?

Somebody did something weird. Like someone gets up and just draws on the wall.

Someone just gets up and just gets like a big red sharpie and just draws something on the wall.

And then I get up and I say, all right, we have a new rule in the church, no drawing on the

wall. But guess what? It's not new. It was always the case that you shouldn't draw on the wall.

Okay. So it's not like, hey, we're now just coming up with this new idea, this new concept.

It's just like, well, this should have always been the idea. And that's how the law itself

was. It was added because of transgressions. God wasn't saying like, okay, now we're gonna

love our brother. But before we weren't, it's just like, hey, I'm trying to remind you guys,

we should have always been loving our brother. We had this from the beginning.

This is always the concept, always the principle, always the idea, always what

should have been done. But yet sometimes you have a new rule, but it wasn't like, oh, so now

we don't draw on the walls. No, we should have never drawn on the walls. It's just now we're

bringing it to your attention and we're making it clear that they new rule, don't do this. Okay.

Go with the first Corinthians chapter 10. Go to first Corinthians chapter number 10.

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

So you understand that the Bible, while it's given in time and while certain instructions

maybe have a human origin or a point where we can look at it first being delivered,

doesn't mean that that idea, concept, rule, or idea starts at that point. In some cases,

it's always been the case. It's always been the rule. It's always been what should have been done.

It's just being emphasized at a particular point in history. Okay. So it's like, hey,

what should church look like? It should look like this. Not because we started it. It's

these characteristics. We should always have, you know, a man getting up and preaching the Bible.

That's not new. We should always be using these scriptures and these verses. It's not new.

You know, we're not trying to get to the new King James. Okay. But it's like,

hey, was there a point in time where we switched to English? Yeah, that was new,

but we weren't really using a new scripture or new verses. We were still using the same

Hebrew and we were still using the same Greek. We're still using the same words,

the same concept, the same ideas, same principles, even though it may have been in English for the

first time. There would have been a point in history where there was the first time ever

that a church service was done in English and reading English scriptures.

That obviously happened at some point in time, but were they preaching new commandments

and new ideas? No, they're still preaching the same Bible, the same words,

same concepts, same everything. And all the stories of the Old Testament,

what the Bible says about them is they were supposed to teach us lessons. You know,

people will say, oh, you have to understand the historical context or was that was for them back

then, or, you know, that's instructions for the Old Testament. But what does the Bible actually

say about the Old Testament? It says in verse number 11, now all these things happen under

them for in samples and they are written for those people back then and not for us.

No. What does it say? And they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world

are come. Now in verse two, it brings up Moses. In verse five, it brings up the wilderness.

And this is written to a first century Greek population. He's saying, hey, all that stuff

that happened with Moses, that's for you as a Greek citizen of a Greek world with a Greek

culture in the first century, thousands of years later, it was written for you. Why? Because

there's no new thing under the sun. Because all the same life situations and all the same life

circumstances and all the same chorus and day things and abirams and all the same errands

and all the different golden calf ideas and all the same fairs, all the stories are going to

be the same situations we find ourselves in today. And it's emphasizing, think about this,

Exodus. It's like, how do I know in the first century how to handle myself? How do I know what to do?

Well, we've got to figure out what the people believe right now. We need a magisterium. We need

a group of people that have binding authority. We need some normative authority today to tell

us what's right and wrong. No, he says, go back and look at Exodus. Go read the story

about Moses and that's how you know what to do. Oh, well, how am I supposed to go back

and interpret that and understand that? Guess what? You have the Holy Spirit, which will guide

you into all truth. Hey, when you get saved, you have the Bible and the Bible should be telling you

what to do, not historical precedent, not tradition, not what some current magisterium

or council or some group of elders are going to tell you. No, no, no. Whatever the Bible says,

that is always the right thing. Let's point back to that. That was written for them,

not just for them. It was written for us. Okay. I want to go to Ecclesiastes and I'll read the

verse. I know I just quoted it a little bit, but let's just read it too before we move on. But

this is an important concept for you to realize that we follow what the Bible says over

what any human authority says now, what any tradition has had, whatever any historical

precedent it is, we elevate the scripture above that. And we believe that every single person

that is saved has the ability to know everything. Every single person that is saved has the ability

to know anything because the Holy Ghost is living inside of them and the Holy Ghost is

capable of guiding them into all truth. And they need not that any man teach them.

Now that being said, while you're capable doesn't mean you're always necessarily exercising that

capability. So therefore coming to church and having pastors and teachers and evangelists

and other brethren to help you and to guide you, you know, in addition to or help you

is good. You don't need it, but it's helpful. It's like technically I could swim, but you know,

if you're out on the sea, you're out in the ocean, a lot of times they want you to have a life jacket

on just in case. It's like I don't technically need it, but boy, I'm not going to turn it down

if I fell off the boat. It's like it's nice to have a life jacket. It's like sometimes

there's things that aren't quote needful, but they're still helpful. It's like technically

I don't need every single thing I eat and drink to survive, but boy, it's real helpful. Okay.

It's like technically I don't even need necessarily all the clothes or all of the luxuries I have

in my life. You know, I could, I could probably live in a shack and still survive,

but you know what? It's real helpful having air conditioning. It's real helpful having

other accommodations in my life. So we don't want to sit here and say, oh, well, you're saying we

don't need church or we shouldn't have church or churches and helpful. No, no, church is a huge

thing that we need and it's very helpful, but you don't technically need it to learn anything

in the Bible. You could learn it all on your own. Isn't this true about even education

itself? Let's just take all education. You could technically read any textbook. You could read

any information. You could learn calculus on your own. You could learn physics on your own,

but you know what? Going to a classroom, having a teacher break things down,

explain why they understand information, showing you how to do calculations on the

board is helpful. It'd be silly to sit here and say, well, I could technically learn this on

my own. So I'm just never going to learn from anybody else rather than just fast forwarding

your knowledge, fast forwarding your information cycle by having good teachers. That's the whole

point of a teacher. The teachers are trying to help you get there quicker. It's not that you

couldn't get there. It's like, technically I could walk from my house to church today. I could

technically do it, but you know what? The car was real helpful. All right? It got me there

a lot quicker, a lot quicker, okay? Because I drive that thing fast, okay? And here's the

thing. It's just like technically you can do lots of things, but that doesn't mean you

don't want to have helpful guides along the way. It's just like, oh, well, I don't need church,

okay? Sure. You don't technically need it in the context of you could learn anything on your own

with the Holy Ghost in your Bible, but let me tell you something. A lot of people

are fast-tracking their information, their knowledge from church. Not only that,

obviously the Bible commands us to not forsake this everything of ourselves together as the man

of some is. The Bible obviously says that church was purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ

and while you could technically do it, most people won't. Just like, hey, I could technically walk

from my house to church, but if that was what I needed to do to get here, I probably wouldn't go.

Most people just probably wouldn't go. And the thing is, most people, while they're capable

of learning everything in the Bible, they're probably just not going to do it though. They're

probably just not going to study every single section and every single thing. And we all have

different perspectives. We all have different outlooks. We all have personal biases

that sometimes hinder us from coming to that unity and coming to that knowledge.

And so it's helpful to have those guides and those teachers and those pastors.

So you know what? God wants us to constantly congregate together. He wants us to have

people that have studied the Bible thoroughly, that are filled with the Spirit of God,

that are following God closely to lead us and to guide us and to teach us the Bible.

And I guarantee if you go to a church like ours three times a week, 52 weeks out of the year,

you're going to learn something that you didn't already know. You're going to be reminded of

something you forgot. There's going to be something added to. I don't think everyone

that comes here is just like, already got it. Already knew everything. Already could,

you know, teach the teacher. And if you're so great, then let's send you out and you

can start teaching the world. Okay? If you've already got it all locked down, then okay, let's

sign you up, right? Because that would be the goal. If we had young men that learned the

whole Bible, know everything, it can quote the whole text and they're just, they're just on fire.

Well, let's send you out, buddy. I don't want to hold you back. But you know,

the reality is a lot of people aren't doing that, are they? So hey, let's have church.

Please ask the chapter one, verse nine. The Bible says the thing that I've been,

it is that which shall be, and that which is done, is that which shall be done,

and there is no new thing under the sun. Now I want to make it clear what I believe about

this particular verse. I don't think it's saying that there won't be technology. I don't think

that it's saying that a certain practice idea or situation couldn't fall out of style or have

long periods of time where it's not happening. But essentially what it's trying to communicate

is that any situation, any circumstance, any kind of just event that we would see,

there's probably been an exact replica of that at some point in the past. Maybe not in the

recent past, but there's going to be somewhere you could point to and say, hey, technically

this same situations happened before. Technically, there's been an example of this

that we could point to and look at and draw parallels, draw inspiration, draw information

about that people are finding themselves in the same situations. Go to second chronicles,

chapter number 30. Go to second chronicles, chapter number 30. And I want to show you,

this is an important verse from my perspective on understanding a lot of doctrines. One would

be specifically church history itself. Now a lot of people will say, oh, I can't be a Baptist

because their church history disappears after the Protestant Reformation. Who's ever heard

arguments like this? Or they say, oh, your church didn't start until Martin Luther started it or

something, or your church didn't start until John Smith, the first Baptist, or your church didn't

start until Roger Williams, or your church didn't start until Jack Hiles, or your church didn't

start until Pastor Stephanie Anderson. I mean, they'd pick all different timelines, right?

They'd say, all right, your church didn't start until five seconds ago. You know,

you don't have this historical precedent, and you don't have this authority structure,

and you don't have this successionism. But just because someone might have been more

historically having some kind of succession doesn't prove that they're right,

doesn't prove that it's good, and sometimes you have to go back to a previous teaching,

a previous understanding, and what do we appeal back to? Whatever is written.

Now, just to give an example, this Second Chronicles chapter 30, lurk at verse five,

2 Chronicles 30 · chapter mention

this is Hezekiah. So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel from

Bersheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover to the Lord God of Israel at

Jerusalem, for they had not done it of a long time, and such sort, notice this, as it was

written. So what is the Bible saying? They're going to perform the Passover,

and their historical precedent, their tradition, has not been doing it for a long time

as it was written. So then Hezekiah is like, okay, we're going to perform the Passover this year

differently. It's going to be new, but it's not new because it's old. It's not new because

it's what was written. It's not new because it was what we had from the beginning. So it's

back and say, hey, we're going to do this new. So you could have a big stretch of time, a big

period where they were not doing it right, and now we're going to do it right. So let's just,

for sake of argument, let's just pretend that there was no one doing church right

in the 14th century or for 500 years or 1,000 years. It doesn't even matter because at the

end of the day, if you're not doing it as it's written, you need to go back to what the

Bible says. Now, I don't personally think that there's just no Christians and no saved people

and no churches from the first century until the 15th or 16th century. Okay, I don't believe that,

but even if that was true, even if you just totally said, yep, didn't even exist for 1,000

years, well, it's still the right thing to do is to go back to what was written. It doesn't

even matter. It's an argument that doesn't technically matter by biblical principles.

It does not matter even if there was a skip. I don't even believe in the skip necessarily,

fully, but if you understand a lot about church history or you see it really ebbs and flows

and there's a lot of different things going on, but Roman Catholics will try to pretend like

we don't exist or we just came out of thin air. We're just like the Mormons or we're just like

the Muslims, but here's the problem. The Mormons aren't going back to what was written.

The Muslims aren't going back to what was written. They are novel.

Okay, and the Roman Catholic Church doesn't go back to what was written. They go back

only to like around the 300, 380, 80 period. Okay, so they might be older, but they're still

novel because they're not going back to what was written. They're post what was written,

and they are the ones that invented stuff, and they're the ones that are wrong. Now,

let's talk about this, you know, from a doctrinal perspective. I believe that Christ

rose again or was crucified, I guess, April 6 of 30 AD. Some people say 33 AD and some other

timelines, but I think it was 30 AD. That's my timeline. So you could argue that at his resurrection

and then presenting himself to the disciples, this is the formation of the New Testament church.

You have basically a church in Jerusalem with Peter as their observable, visible leader

of this group. The 120 disciples are meeting together. Peter there. Peter seems to be a

leader, and so you have this church that's basically formed and started and continuing,

and that's kind of like the first New Testament church we have in the world. Okay, around the 30

AD, that is the timeline. Obviously, then you have more churches. You have the church in Antioch

that kind of gets formed. That's where they're first called Christians. Then you have the

Apostle Paul being sent out of the church Antioch, and he's going and getting people saved in

areas, where it's basically 100% pagan, 100% heathen. You have kind of just a small synagogue

group, and then virtually everybody else is just this pagan heathen, and it's going into the

synagogues, getting people saved there, and mostly Gentiles, and that's forming churches.

They start forming these churches in all kinds of different areas, like the church at Corinth,

like the church at Ephesus, like the church in Galatia, and sometimes multiple churches.

You have people like Achilla and Priscilla having churches in their home, as the Bible

describes, and so you have all these churches being formed by the Apostle Paul in the first

entry. These are great churches. They're apostolic churches or whatever you want to call them.

But obviously, after Paul's ministry, you can see that some churches have already

started to have serious problems. You have churches like the one that's mentioned in

Second John, I'm sorry, Third John, where you have deotrophies hijacking the church.

You have examples of the Galatian church having had infiltrators come in and Paul's afraid that

no one's even saved there in this particular church, albeit we believe there are saved

people. He's just kind of speaking in a very hyperbolic way. You have the churches in Asia,

the seven churches in Asia, you have one that has a name that lives and is dead,

Sardis. You have Ephesus, which is in risk of losing its candlestick and just basically

being extinguished in a sense. The Apostle Paul's warning in the book of Acts, when he takes the

elders to Ephesus and brings them together, he's like, hey, I've warned you night and day with

tears for like three years about all of the false prophets and all the wolves are going to

come in and there's going to be people drawing away disciples after themselves.

So we see corruption already in that first century. So by the end of the first century,

there would have been a mixed bag of churches. There would have been some that are still good,

hanging on the church at Philadelphia. Then you got churches like Sardis that are already dead.

You have possible churches that have been hijacked by bad actors like deotrophies.

You have so you can kind of have this mixed bag even in the first century.

But also at the same time, the Roman Empire started really putting a lot of persecution on

churches in the end of the first century and into the second century and even the beginning

part of the third century. Okay. So for a couple hundred years, the Roman Catholics were,

I'm sorry, not the Roman Catholics, the Roman Empire was heavily persecuting the church,

heavily attacking churches and you already had a mixed bag. So what would I believe?

I would believe that you have similar things that we have today in the sense that you have

some good churches, some bad churches and all kinds of mixes in between.

Well, eventually Emperor Constantine and 313 AD legalized Christianity because it was so

persecuted for such a long time, but he eventually claims he saw vision and

he legalizes Christianity. Okay. This is where you kind of see maybe the beginning

of the formation of what we call the Roman Catholic Church, because before all the churches

are kind of disconnected. They're all just independent churches. They're all doing their own

things. Some are good, some are bad. Isn't that similar? We have independent Baptist churches

today. They're all independent. We don't have a domination. Now, albeit it was more even

underground at that time just because of the persecution. It finally became legalized.

So they finally have a meeting in 325 AD. So they realize, hey, we've been fragmented.

It's been illegal. We can't meet and the open is easily. So now that it's legal, we can finally

have a meeting. So they have the Council of Nicaea and this is what a lot of people point

to is like, oh, the first ecumenical council and the drawing church leaders from everywhere.

Now imagine if we got today a group of every church leader today. We got somebody from

the Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic Church. We got someone from a Presbyterian

Church and a Lesbaterian Church and United Methodist Church. And we got us all together

and we said, all right, we have to write a document that we all agree on. How good of

a document do you think that's going to be? Basically, it's going to have to be so basic

that we can all agree to it. And it's like, that's basically what they produce for the most

part at the Council of Nicaea is they produce like the most basic document you

could possibly think of. It's just like, hey, God exists and Jesus exists. Now, again,

most of the controversy was because some people in Egypt, some people in Africa were teaching

that Jesus was a created being. And so they're basically like, well, we can't go that far,

you know, like they weren't United Methodist that bad yet. Okay. They're just like, well,

we have to at least admit that Jesus is God. Okay. So again, at the Council of Nicaea,

they all affirm that Jesus is God and they're kind of condemning the idea that Jesus

is a created being. And today we still have cult groups like the Mormons and other groups

that will deny Jesus Christ's divinity. The Unitarians of today will still deny that Jesus

Christ is God. They would say he's a created being in a weird, awkward way. So

this is again, this idea of like, oh, we're getting all together. We're creating this

denominational idea by 380 AD. So within about a 70 year period of time and one generation,

they finally make Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Catholic Church.

So think about it from this perspective, we get every single Christian together in America and

all of the world and they all come together and make a doctrinal statement. And then

several decades pass and we decide we're just going to make Christianity the official

religion of America again or whatever. What kind of Christianity do you think they would

create? You think it'd be like our version or our style? No, of course not. So again,

this is like basically when the Roman Catholic Church is formed and in order to have the entire

nation, I mean, think about it. We had to get every single person in America on board with

Christianity right now. What do you think is going to sell? Do you think our brand,

our version is going to sell? Or do you think a more like culturally mixed in

version is going to sell? And of course, that's what's going to sell, which is bringing along

with it all kinds of baggage like graven images, like idolatry, like a lot of pagan weird practices

and stuff. So again, that's what's being formed here at this point in time is this

very ecumenical, very worldly, very pagan state run church that is kind of being formed at

300 in AD. This is not a movement of the spirit of God. This is not, you know, Christ doesn't

work this way of just forcing the government, force everyone to be Catholic or whatever.

And again, Catholic means the universal church. So they're just like everybody's coming together.

So I'm just trying to give you a little bit of church history, some idea of how these things

form. But I want you to go to Romans chapter four, if you would go to Romans chapter

four, so let's say, oh, well, the new IV is a later development than this formation of this

Roman Catholic Church. But here's the thing, the Roman Catholic Church doesn't form,

but for like 300 years after the New Testament churches have been formed and you have the

Apostle Paul giving doctrine, you don't think in 300 years doctrines could have gone astray or

like weird practices could have crept in or that there's issues or problems. Of course,

there's going to be. Okay. But when it comes to our doctrine as a church, you know, we're not

looking back to, well, what did they teach in 300 in AD when we have a state run religion?

You know, we're looking at, we're looking at first century. We're not looking at the

third or fourth century. We're looking at, hey, what did they teach in the first century?

Why? Because things can go corrupt, things can go bad. We want to do things as they were written.

Romans chapter number four, look at what it says in verse 23.

Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it

shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,

who is delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. So here's the thing,

if I want to learn, how do I get saved? What do we believe as a church? What should our

church have as its doctrine? Do I go back to 300 in AD and figure out what the ecumenical councils

believe or what the Nicene Creed is or anything? No. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go

back to what the scripture says and say, hey, this is what I should believe. And think about

the context of Romans chapter number four. What was written? Well, look at verse one.

What shall we say then that Abraham our father? So what's the timeline here? We're going all

the way back to Abraham and saying what was written about Abraham was written for us right now in the

first century. Why would I then say that us living in the 21st century, why wouldn't we go back to

Abraham? Not only that, in verse six, even as David also described the blessings of the man

and Jim God imputed the righteous without works. So it's like, oh, you guys believe

salvation is by faith, but the Roman Catholic church has never taught that. That's fine

because y'all started teaching this in 380 AD. I'm going back to the first century.

I'm going back to the time of David. I'm going back to the time of Abraham. And guess what? We're

older than you. Our theology, our doctrine on salvation by faith is older than you. Oh, well,

it's new. It's novel. I don't believe that because here's the thing. Salvation is by faith

to faith. So there's always been saved people getting people saved throughout every generation,

throughout every area. Now, did they always have a great church to go to?

Well, let's just answer that question right now. Is everywhere in the world have a great

church to go to? So then why would I think that it was different in the past? That's never

been the case. We go to all kinds of parts of the world where they're like, all right,

what church should I go to? And you're like, I don't know, man. I have people contact

to me all the time reaching out to me, emailing me. I'm talking to people on podcasts. I'm talking

to people on the radio shows, on, you know, internet podcasts. They're just like, what church

are good to? And I'm like, I don't know, man, godresearch.com slash churches. That's that's

all I can point you to. In fact, many times they're just like, I just, I don't want to go

to a Zionist church. And I'm just like, well, then you're really doomed. You know, like,

if you're not willing to hold your nose at that, you really don't have much of an option in many

places of this world. You know, a lot of people that live in foreign countries and foreign areas,

I mean, think about it. You live in a Muslim area. If you live in China, if you live in North Korea,

I mean, there's some dark places in this world where there may not be a great church option

or it may be an underground church option. You know, I know that there are churches that

are underground in China. I know there are churches that are underground in Muslim areas.

And, you know, it's not much different than a lot of people probably in the second and the

third century. They, their best church option might have been underground. And you know,

throughout the campaign of the Roman Catholic Church, there was probably a lot of underground

churches. You're like, how come we never heard about it? It's called it's underground. It's

like that meme. I love this meme template. It's like the black guy is like turning back

and he's like shooting someone. And then he turns around and looks at the mic and they're

like, hey, it's like the Roman Catholic is turning back and shooting all the Christians.

And then he's like, where were y'all? He's just like, yeah, I wonder where they were,

you know, when you're killing us. Okay. And he's like, where are we being killed?

It's so funny that we're like, you guys didn't exist. And it's like, what about all the people

that you killed for believing like we did? Right, you didn't exist. No, you killed us.

It's like, where were you? The guy on the stake, the guy being burned, the guy being,

you know, martyred, this group being slaughtered. It's like, where were you being killed?

It's not that we didn't exist. It's just you keep pointing to all these examples,

all these heretics, you know, all these heretics that we had to kill.

It's just like, well, you know, actually, maybe they weren't a heretic. Maybe you're

the heretic. It's like, oh, we already conquered this heresy. This is what Roman

and Catholics will say. All these people are bringing up these ancient heresies. And it's like,

five seconds ago, you said we didn't believe this. No one's believed this. And then it's like,

oh, you're digging up ancient heresies. Which one is it? Are we going back to things that people

believe in the past? Are we not? Did we exist? Did we not exist? Did you kill us? Did you

not kill us? You know, and again, they don't want to really talk about that too much because

the facts are they've killed a lot of Christians throughout history. You want to know who's

been one of the biggest forces against Christians? It's called the Roman Catholic Church.

You know, we always want to talk about how Muslims are so scary. We always want to talk about

how Jews are so scary. But I wonder what the death toll is if we compared Muslims, Jews,

and then we had Catholics on another side. Like, who's killed more Christians? And there's all

these people like, oh, we need, we need white people to rescue us. Well, you know what,

there's a lot of white people in Europe called Roman Catholics that were slaughtering

Christians throughout history. So it's like, oh, let's give back our nation,

our country to Catholics. You may be signing your own death warrant, buddy.

And not even realizing it. I got a little bit of attention this last week for smashing some,

I didn't even do it. I let the kids do it. Okay. Smash a bunch of idols. And it seems

really fitting that our first person up here was Roman to destroy the Roman Catholic Church.

You know what I mean? Like, that can't be a coincidence. Okay. But in the wake of all this,

you know, I've had so many just emails and just so many voicemails and just all people saying this

online. And I mean, some of them there's like, I can't wait to kill you. I can't wait to curbstomp

you. We need to kill all the people that believe like you. And I'm just thinking like,

you sound just like the Roman Catholic Church. Historically. I mean, there's openly admitting

it. That's how they feel. You, you destroy a ceramic structure that they claim is Mary

and they want to murder you. Think about it. I'm offensive for destroying a ceramic

structure. And they want to kill me. Like it's unacceptable to destroy a graven image,

but it's acceptable to just kill someone. Right. Think about that logic. Think about it. And

they're like, you guys are so violent. Okay. So I'm breaking stone. I'm breaking glass or

ceramic and you're going to kill people and I'm violent, right? That's their logic. They're

like, Oh, you're so unloving. You're not peaceful. I'm like, bro, you're the one trying to curbstomp

me. You're the one wanting to kill us all. It's just like they don't even understand their own

logic. Okay. Cause they're Catholic, of course. It's like, Hey, what should we do? We should

believe whatever the Bible said and look salvation by faith is even if it was a new

doctrine in the Protestant Reformation, it's not new. It's an old doctrine. It's an old

belief. And of course it's not new because there's always people believing it every century,

every year. It's like, where were they being killed? I mean, William Tyndale is being killed

at the stake and one of his first crimes associated to him or within the sentencing,

they're like, what they're saying, why they're killing them. They're saying,

first, he maintained that faith alone justifies. It's like, Amen. Sounds great.

And of course, some people say like, Oh, well, he's a Calvinist. I don't really care,

because if he believes in faith alone, he saved. And look, faith alone didn't come out of a vacuum.

It's been passed on from generation, from faith to faith, from faith to faith.

It went from Abraham to David to the apostle Paul to us. It's always gone throughout history.

We have it. And oh, well, they weren't doing things exactly right in the 16th century,

just like you. Okay. Well, we're doing things as they're written.

You know, you can keep getting better. You can keep improving. You can keep improving.

You can keep revising. You know, if we believe, you know, if the Reformation idea is right,

then why would you stop performing after one iteration? Wouldn't the idea be like,

Hey, if we're going to reform, let's just keep performing and reforming and reforming

and reforming until we get it right. Not just like, Hey, one iteration.

I don't want to be the Anglican church where we're just like one slight dial to the right

of the Catholic church. I don't want to be just slightly not Catholic.

It's like, Oh, the Anglican church, we just don't accept the Pope.

It's like, I wanted a few more notches turned. Okay. There's a lot more that we could have been

like, let's change. Let's get right on this particular issue. That's why a lot of Protestants

are just Catholic light because they just kind of like, ah, we're going to change this

to hair. It's just like, no, we need to change a lot. Okay. We need to get things right

and dialed in. Now I have a lot more verses that we could go to Acts chapter 19 if you would,

Acts 19 · chapter mention

you know, in Jeremiah 6, 16, the Bible says,

Thus say the Lord standing in the ways and see and ask for the old paths,

wearing is the good way and walk there and you shall find rest your souls.

So in a sense, we should be constantly asking like, okay, well, what was

the Bible saying? What is the old path in that sense?

And so we want to be newly doing the old stuff. We want to be newly believing the old stuff.

We want to be newly practicing the old stuff. And look, our practices as Baptist

all predate that 380 idea because they're right here in the text. Salvation by faith was taught

in the first century and baptism by immersion was taught in the first century. We can see in

Matthew 3, 16, Jesus coming up out straight way out of the water. We can see in Acts 8, 37,

that they went down both into the water. Why are you going into the water if you just need to

sprinkle? And of course, then a lot of Bibles will take that verse out. The Roman Catholics don't

like that verse. They want to de-emphasize those kinds of verses because it's also a

prerequisite to getting baptized. It's if they'll believe this with all thine heart

thumbiest. And so we believe that baptism is after salvation and that you must have faith

so we don't baptize babies. We don't baptize infants. We don't sprinkle. All of our practices

are based on Acts, which is before your stupid pagan cult of 380 AD.

Not only that, our practices, like I said, baptism by immersion

is taught in the Scripture preaching out of the Old and New Testament. We can see that

as precedent in the Bible. Going out by twos is taught by Jesus Christ in Luke 10, verse 1.

Luke 10:1

Meeting on the first day of the week is Acts chapter 20, verse 7.

Acts 20:7

Singing hymns, Colossians 3, verse 16. You look at our churches like, what are we doing

Colossians 3:16

that is not somewhere in this text? Right? We're meeting on the first day of the week.

We're singing hymns. I'm preaching long like Paul out of the Old and New Testament.

I'm reasoning out of the Scriptures as the Apostle Paul did. Later, we're going to go out two by two,

preaching the gospel. If some will want to be baptized, we would ask, hey, do you believe in

Jesus Christ? And then we're going to fully submers them and then we're going to bring

them back out. Like what are we magically doing that's not found in the text? They want to

do something I'm doing. Show me something that we're practicing that is new.

Well, you're smashing idols. Not new.

Acts chapter 19, look at verse 17. First,

Acts 19 · chapter mention

and this is known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling in Ephesus and fear fell on them all.

And the name of the Lord Jesus is magnified and many that believe came and confessed and

showed their deeds. Many of them also which use curious arts brought their books together

and burned them before all the men, or before all men. And they counted the price of them and

found it 50,000 pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed. Hey, in the

first century, they're burning books. Oh, you burn false Bibles. Yeah, I do. Guilty as charged.

But you know what? Let's go back to Leviticus chapter 26. Let's go even older.

Leviticus 26 · chapter mention

Not only do we have a practice of them burning books in the New Testament,

you know, we have we have practices of them not only burning books, but also

smashing graven images based on what the Bible says. Now it used to be, it used to be that if

you wanted to get a graven image, you had to go to a Catholic bookstore. Who remembers Catholic

bookstores? Yeah, when I was younger, you know, you went to the Christian bookstore. You know,

it was not in there a bunch of graven images. And you went into the Catholic bookstore.

It was like no books in all graven images. I mean, I remember there was a Catholic bookstore

by the mall where I went when I was in high school in junior high that you could see. And

then basically all the Catholic bookstores went out of out of business because the

Mardels and all the different Christian bookstores just started bringing all the

Catholic stuff into their stores. They started having a Catholic section.

It used to be there was not the Catholic stuff in the Christian bookstores.

Then all of a sudden it was a Catholic section. Now it's just all mixed in. You can't even tell

what's what anymore. And it's just been totally just compromised. Why? Because of the love of money.

Why? Because they just want to maximize their revenue and maximize the revenue and just

make it seem like we're all non-denominational now or whatever. The non-denominational era

that we live in today. But let me tell you something that has not always been the case

and Christians have not always accepted graven images. Leviticus chapter 26, look at verse

Leviticus 26 · chapter mention

one. You should make you know idols, nor graven image. Go to Deuteronomy 4. We're going to go

kind of quickly through some of these but go to Deuteronomy chapter 4. Now this is

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

some of the argument you'll hear and I've heard this week is they'll say things like,

oh well you don't even know what a graven image is.

And then they proceed to not tell you what it is. Okay? It's like it seems pretty self

explanatory. Someone graved it and it's an image? Like is that you know it's usually out of wood or

stone? You know that's pretty much what the Bible says. I don't think it takes a rocket science

to figure out what a graven image is. Okay? And obviously the idea of an idol is just

something that we're worshiping, have some kind of a religious connotation.

You know I've consistently taught and this is just my practical interpretation of this

is that if something doesn't have a utility, okay, it doesn't have some kind of utility,

then it would be in my view in danger of being a graven image. Okay? So a toy, I don't believe

is a graven image because there's the utility it's being used. You know if it's an airplane

and they paint it like a bird that's not a graven image because it has utility.

You weren't using it to fly around. Okay? But if the only thing you're doing is just

putting on a shelf and kneeling before it or you're putting it in church to kneel before it or

whatever, that's not utility. That's not being used. It's just used to be observed, adored,

looked at. Okay? Well now it's in danger of being a graven image that's in violation of the

Bible. So I've always said, hey, if it's not graven, if it's not a grape, like it's not

something that's been literally graved, it's not some kind of a 3D carved structure that's

out of wood or stone, you know, and we can say plastics and ceramics, but I'm just saying

it's not some kind of a graven image. And if it has no utility, okay, you know, these are

kind of my litmus tests. Obviously a doll is not a graven image. It's a doll. Okay? And it's used

as a toy. I don't think pictures are necessarily a graven image. Okay? There's nothing wrong

with a picture. But wait a minute. What if we all start bowing down to the picture?

Now it's turned into an idol. Okay? So we shouldn't have idols or graven images. Okay? So anything

that we venerate, even if it wasn't technically a graven image, but we're all bowing down to it,

what if it's just a rock? But we all start bowing down to the rock. Okay? Now it's become an idol

and we're going to, we're going to toss that aside. Okay? If it's a voodoo doll,

well, we're going to get rid of that. Okay? We're going to get rid of something that

you're venerating, that you're venerating. That's what that, we're not, we're not

worshiping it. We're venerating it. Dude, the word worship means kneel. They are kneeling before

Mary's and they are giving a place in their heart to idolatry for this. Okay? Which the

Bible doesn't do. It's like, oh, well, you don't respect Mary. You don't respect the mother of God

or something. It's like, okay, let's just think about interactions Jesus had with Mary.

All right? Woman, what have I to do with thee? Is that, was that respectful? Okay? Hey, your mother

and your brother in desire to see thee. And he says, what does he say? Oh, well, whoever does the

word of God, that's my mother, my brother. My mother, my brother, are they which hear the

word of God and do it? Luke chapter number eight. Hey, this is your mom. Nope, these are my mom.

Oh, you disrespect the mother of God. You know what? To disrespect the mother of God,

we disrespect any saved lady. Okay? And look, Mary is not a statue. She's a person.

I could smash every single graven image of Mary and it has nothing to do with Mary.

You can call up Mary all day long, but it's not Mary. She's not there. It's not her. And

actually you're doing her some service because if any of you make a graven image of me and

start worshiping it, I want you to smash it. I want to smash it. They're like,

eh, do you smash images of your mom? And I'm like, well, first of all, I don't have any.

Secondly, no one's like bowing down to them. But yeah, if someone made a carved image of my mother

and it looked exactly like her and then people start bowing down and worshiping it,

I will smash it. They're like, oh, you wouldn't do this if it was a Jesus.

Yes, I would because it's not Jesus. They're like, oh, what would you do if someone gave you a Jesus?

I'm like, I'll smash it right now. Give me one. I was like, what kind of a, oh, what about these

big giant statues in South America? Burn them. Crush them. I don't want anything to do with them.

Yeah, but they're of God. You know, we can have graven images of the good guys.

Not the bad guys. Well, let's read what the Bible actually says. Okay.

Do it on me, chapter four, and let's look at verse number 14.

And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statues and judgments that you might do them

in the land, whether you go over to possess it. Take heed therefore, good heed under yourselves

for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in

horror out of the midst of the fire. So what did they not see? They did not see God.

He's like, Hey, you didn't see any similitude. You didn't get to see me. Okay. He was covered.

There was a cloud covering. They didn't get to see God. They didn't get to see the similitude.

Why? Verse 16, lest you corrupt yourselves and make you a graven image. He said, Hey,

even if you made an image of me, it's wrong. Oh, this is an image of God. So therefore it's

okay. The image represents God. No, God saying, I made sure you didn't see me so that you

wouldn't do it because you're not allowed to do it. You shouldn't be making graven images of God.

Because they'll say, Oh, to disrespect the image is to disrespect the person. False. That is not true.

I mean, again, and let's just be honest, these images are not doing them service anyways.

I mean, what if someone drew some cross-eyed weirdo freak and said, This is you because

that's what the Orthodox do with Jesus. Look at their image of Jesus and it's some cross-eyed

weirdo freak. He's like, Look, it's Jesus. It's like, No, that's not Jesus. That's not what he looks

like. It's just some weird cross-eyed freak that we should just burn every image of.

Oh, you don't, you don't want to have this cross-eyed Jesus. No, because he's not cross-eyed.

Okay. He's got some obvious eye blemish with their stupid drawing of him and it's false.

And guess what? The person that draw didn't ever see Jesus.

It's, it's stupid. It's false. You know, the Bible, go to second chronicles chapter 34. There's too

2 Chronicles 34 · chapter mention

many verses on this. There's so many examples. God said, You shall destroy their altars and

break down their images and cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire.

The Bible says in Jun 12, You shall hew down the graven images.

Oh, what Pastor Shelley did was new. It's not new. It's old.

Yeah. Amen. That's right. And you know who did it? Josiah did it.

Second chronicles chapter number 34. We have an example of someone doing this. Josiah.

Why? Because, because of what was written. Oh, Josiah is new. He's doing something new. No,

he's doing what God said for them to do at the time when they entered the land of Canaan.

And of course, I believe they did it in the land of Canaan. I believe they did

burn a lot of their graven images and crush them and destroy them.

Oh, those are the bad guys. It doesn't matter who the guy is. God said not to make it.

Oh, what about the cherrybim? Okay. But number one, they're not worshiping the jaribim.

Okay. And it was usually hidden away and the temple and the things of God.

But frankly speaking, God can say, don't make any graven image, but make this one.

He can say that. He can say whatever he wants. Just like, what, what have your parents said?

Hey, don't eat anything in the pantry, but get this one thing out of there.

That's not a contradiction. If God says, Hey, I don't want anybody to make any of these

graven images. But you know what? A couple of special people that got to see what was in heaven,

I want you to make these specific things that have in my temple. Well, then, okay, he can do that.

That's not a contradiction. That's just an exception that God's making up for himself.

But you know what he didn't tell us to do? Make statues of Mary.

And he's think when they did make the brazen serpent on the stick, once they

started to whoring themselves after that, they immediately destroyed it.

So even if you believe that you're supposed to make a Mary,

the Catholics have whored themselves out to Mary, destroy it. Burn it with fire.

Oh, wow. That's just mean to Catholics. We should be nice to Catholics.

Well, you know what? Let all the other lame Christians be nice to them then.

Seems like they're reaching none. It's like, oh, you're not going to reach Catholics

with this message. Well, then let the lame people reach them. But isn't that not working

as well? It's funny that when it criticized me for not reaching them, it's like,

are you reaching them? Are they actually getting saved through what you're doing?

It's silly to think like you're going to reach Catholics by lying to them,

by pandering to their sin. Did the Apostle Paul pander to the Pagans and their idolatry

or did he tell them to abandon it and they were worshiping idols of devils? They were

sacrificing unto devils and they were having fellowship with devils and he's telling them

have nothing to do with them and to totally abandon them. They're burning their books

in the New Testament. Plus, I'm just following the president of Josiah. He was eight years old

then when he was like basically 16, 17, 18 in that timeframe. He realizes we need to

cleanse the land verse four and they break down the altars of Balaam in his presence and the

images that were on eye above them. He cut down and the groves and the carved images

and the molten images. He break in pieces. Oh, this one's not raven. It's molten.

Okay. Break it too. Notice how it is. It's just like, hey, whether it was carved,

whether it was molten, break them in pieces, make dust of them and strode it upon the graves of

them that had sacrificed to them. Wow. That's intense. Not only, oh, this is disrespectful.

Okay. Do you want me to then take the Mary trash and go sprinkle it in some Catholic graveyard?

That's biblical. Okay. Sorry. Talk about disrespect. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon

their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. Not only that, he's digging up this false prophets

and just, just burning their bones or any bones that have been out, I guess, maybe they were

honoring them. Oh, wait, that's the Orthodox church. Where you go to what, Athos or something?

You go to St. Athos or something and they have like this skull collection,

like a literal just shelves of skulls. And they're like, this was a saint. Burn it.

I mean, here's a dead foot of John Chrysostom. Look, I did a debate with an Orthodox guy

and I said, I had like this dead foot. Okay. And it wasn't real. It's just, you know, a prop.

But I said, if this is John Chrysostom's foot and your church set it out, would you kiss it?

And he's like, yes. So you go to the, yeah, we have the, we have, we have a cult,

but they'll kiss dead feet. But it's covered in plastic. Okay.

You're not going to kiss the bone directly. But would you? Yeah, that should be the real

question. What about before plastics? What did they do? I mean, they say it's a schism.

They're like, they're not real Orthodox, but there's groups of Orthodox that will

pour water on the dead foot and then people come by, take water out of the fountain that's

just been blessed by the dead foot and then drink it. And they're like, we don't do that,

we just kiss it. Oh, okay. Wow. You're so much better. You know, and I'm crazy for

destroying graven images. They're drinking dead foot water. They're kissing dead feet.

And look, you know, in the Bible, there's, there's mentions of like the false prophets

dirtying up water with their feet and then making people drink it. This is like, you're just like

them because there's no new thing under the sun. I mean, think about the craziness of false prophets

like, hey, let's put our dirty feet in water and make people drink it. Like, what in the world?

This is the true religion. This is the real religion. Well, look, I, I'm not, I'm not

novel and not wanting graven images. I'll give you a couple of quotes,

Clement of Alexandria and about 150 to 250 AD. So this is like the second and third century here.

He is quoted as saying, we express, we are expressly forbidden to practice a deceitful art

for the prophet says thou shalt not make a likeness of anything that is in heaven above

or in the earth beneath. The prophetic word refutes the custom of idolatry when it says,

all the gods of the nations are images of demons, but God made the heavens.

Tertullian, same timeline. He said, quote, the images of those things are idols. The

consecration of the images is idolatry. God prohibits an idol as much

to be made as to be worshiped. He's saying, oh, it's not just the worship, it's even just

making it. Tertullian, that's before your 380 timeline. Yisubius of Caesarea,

also before this timeline said, can it be that you have forgotten that passage in which God lays

down the law that no likeness should be made, either of what is in heaven or what is in the

earth beneath? Have you ever heard anything of the kind either yourself in church or from

another person are not such things banished and excluded from churches all over the world?

And it is not common knowledge that such practices are not permitted to us alone.

Now here's the thing, in this quote from Yisubius, there was someone that was asking him, hey,

make me an image of Christ, make me a graven image. And then he writes a letter back.

And what he says is that are not such things banished and excluded from churches all over

the world? He said, hey, this is from 260 to 340 AD that this guy lived, okay? I don't know

exactly when this specific passage was written, but you would assume not when he was a baby,

right? So it's very likely this was written at the timeline that this Roman Catholic Church

is even having its prototype creation. This is when it's legalized. And he's saying, hey,

no, we're not going to have carved images. Now who would want that? How about the Roman

pagans that have had to convert to Christianity now? And they had all these graven images

before and they want images again. And he said, no, churches don't have graven images.

Have you forgotten the commandments? Have you forgotten what was written? Have you forgotten

what God said? And now it's forbidden in churches all over the world? This is not something that

we practice. You guys are new. No, we're going back to what was old. It is new. Well, you're

breaking stuff. Well, that's not new. People have been breaking stuff all the time. And the

eighth century, okay, I'll just give you a quick timeline. And I know I'm getting close

to time on my sermon, but I'm not going to read all the quotes, but essentially for the first

300 years, you don't have graven images because they're all right on this doctrine. So we don't

have to worry. Like no one's smashing them because they don't exist. Then buy about the

force. And once you finally get the Roman Catholic Church as the official state church,

now the sudden idolatry is popping up. And then by the sixth and seventh century,

it's flourishing. It's just everywhere. It's just part and parcel. So you have people

that freak out about this. They get mad about this. Emperor Leo III, he sees some like natural,

I want to say it differently. He sees some kind of just natural disaster or something

that he attributes to God being mad about idolatry. Basically, there's something crazy

happens and he's like, wow, God must be mad at us for all this idolatry. So he decides we

need to clean up our Christianity from all this idolatry. So he banished icons and started

destroying all the graven images throughout his empire and through the Byzantine empire.

And this is called an iconoclasm period. Who's ever heard this term iconoclasm? That just means

that it's like a period of time where they were destroying. And someone that destroys graven

images is called an iconoclast. So I would be your iconoclast. Now people that love these

things are called iconophiles. You know, like you have a pedophile. You have an iconophile.

Because file, if you think about it, like Filayo Philadelphia means love. So whatever they say

at the first is what they're loving. So pedo is child. That's why that's disgusting.

Icon is the image. So it's an iconophile is someone who loves the iconoclast is someone that

breaks someone that destroys. So it's just like, Hey, Pastor Shelley is an iconoclast because he

destroys Roman is an iconoclast because he's destroying the images. Okay. So there's

an a period of iconoclasm where you have people breaking graven images and Leo is doing this

Emperor Leo the third. There was even a second wave. Now what was interesting is when he did this

all the Catholics are freaking out and they call him a heretic. And then this is what they would

call him a Muslim. They started calling him a Muslim and a Jew. It's funny because then,

you know, I go on shows debating these people and you know what they call me a Muslim and a Jew.

It's no new thing out of the sun. But he was of course a Christian. He never adhered to

these false religions. He wanted to clean these things up based on the Old Testament,

not based on Islam and not based on Judaism or anything like that. Okay. These are just

false accusations. It's surprising. The same guy breaking images called a Muslim. And look,

you look at my ex feed, you look at my post, it is just, you're a Muslim. You're a Muslim.

You're just like Islam. You're just like Sharia. You're just like, no, I'm like the Old

Testament. I'm like Josiah. Yeah, I'm doing that, which was written.

There was a second wave under Emperor Leo the fifth and Zurich in the 1520s. Zwigli also images

were removed and destroyed in the 15, in the 1500s. England under Edward the sixth also had

orders to destroy images and 1566 there was widespread popular iconoclasm. In France and

in Geneva, there are as many places where people were destroying images in the English

Parliament in 1641. This is what they passed legislation in the English Parliament in 1641.

All crucifixes, scandalous pictures of any one or more persons of the Trinity,

and all images of the Virgin Mary shall be taken away and abolished and that all tapers,

candlesticks and basins be removed from the communion table. Oh, you're just, you're

going back to something that was old, destroy all those Virgin Mary statues. In 1643,

they passed even more legislation about crucifixes, crosses, images and pictures of any more

persons of the Trinity or the Virgin Mary that they were superstitious inscriptions

and they should be taken away and defaced and no one should be permitted to do such a thing.

It's just, oh, you're doing something new. I'm not doing anything new.

Good act 17, good act 17. I'm going to finish. Look, destroying graven images didn't start with me

and it's not going to be finished with me. And even if you go in the modern era,

there are other people who could point to, you know, I've seen a video of a guy in Mexico City,

Pastor Kevin Nguyen destroying Mary statues in Mexico City. Now look, what we did pales

in comparison to the bravery of destroying a graven image. It is meaningless that we destroyed

something. To destroy graven images in Mexico City is about as bold as you can get. Okay.

That guy's a man. I'm just telling you. I mean, we got emails of death threats. This guy's getting

like real death threats. Okay. In fact, there's even testimonies of people coming to the service

trying to kill him potentially. So, you know, oh, Pastor Shelley, you know, came up with this

idea. I didn't come up with this idea. Anybody that reads the Bible comes up with this

idea. Anybody that believes the Bible would think, you know what? This is how we should

behave ourselves. And you know what? In America, we need to get rid of these graven images.

And you say, well, how do I know it's right or wrong? Do the councils told me it's okay?

Well, I don't care what the council said. You know, we're supposed to, we're supposed to

check everything. And you know, if you don't like something I do, look and check and see if

it's in the Bible and then decide if you like it or don't like it. Look at Acts chapter 17

Acts 17:11

verse 11. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica and that they received the word

with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things or so.

Here's the thing. We believe in the idea, a principle of Sola scripture, that scripture is

the highest authority. That we don't put any man on that same level. Yes, the pastor has

authority, but his authority is not above the Bible. Apostles authority is not above the

Bible. Apostles are verified by the Bible and we should always be checked by the Bible.

If it doesn't match the Bible, then we don't do it. And you know what? That gives us some safety.

Oh, it's a cult. Well, wait a minute. We're saying this is what, this is right.

And this is through the test of time. This goes back to David. This goes back to Abraham.

This goes back to the Genesis. This goes back all the way from the beginning.

And anything I say, even if it seems new, hopefully it's from the beginning, it's old.

Oh, y'all are the new IFP. Y'all are so new. We're not really new.

And people get mad. Oh, you're doing something new. You're having kids and not doing birth control.

Well, let me tell you something. Birth control is new. Having kids is not new.

Oh, all your women are wearing dresses and skirts. That's new. Nope.

What's new is women pants. Okay. Hey, a lot of things you all are doing is new. No, no,

it's not new. It's just what was already done before. We're going back to the old ways,

to the old path. And even if it is new, oh, it's new that churches are doing these things.

Well, it's because culture sucked for a long time. Because they were doing it wrong for a long time.

And we're going back to that, which was written. And, you know, hey, we check everything with

the Bible. The Bible is our final authority. Oh, you wouldn't have a Bible if it wasn't for

our church. Look, the Bible predates your church. Everything in this book was written

by the first entry. I mean, everybody pretty much agrees. Everything in this book was written

in the first entry. And what's silly is like, oh, we gave you the Bible. We created the Bible.

This is what Catholics would say. They created the Bible. Okay. That would be the same as

someone taking credit for creating gold. Okay. You didn't create gold. You might have found

gold. You might have discovered some gold somewhere. But you know what makes gold,

gold, gold. You don't make gold, gold. Gold just is gold. It's like, oh, how do you know gold is

valuable because of its intrinsic qualities? How do you know the Bible is the Bible because

of its intrinsic qualities? And we elevate this book above everything else. And just because

somebody can identify what gold is, doesn't make them right. Everybody can identify what

gold is. And look, everyone that even gives a rip about Christianity all agree that the 66 books

I hold in my hand are the Word of God. Whether you're a Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox,

they all believe this is the Word of God. What they do is they add a bunch of fool's gold in with it.

And they're like, well, why don't you accept this fool's gold? Because it's trash.

When I test it, when I inspect it, it doesn't have the same internal qualities as the actual

gold. The real gold is very clearly different than your fool's gold that you're bringing

with you. And no, you didn't create it. You tried to add crap to it. And we said,

we don't like your crap. And we don't like your crappy traditions. And we don't like your crappy

practices. And you know what? Your doctrine is dung. And you know what? Using the word

crap didn't start with me because, you know, in the Old Testament, they were saying things

are dung. And God said, I'll rub the dung in your face. I don't like that word. Well,

you don't like the Bible. Everything that we should do should be based on the Bible.

And you know what? Don't get intimidated when people are like, oh, no, that sounds scary.

Oh, new IFB. We're old IFB. You're crusty and stale, okay? Got some old heresies or something.

Yeah. But who's really new here? Is Zionism actually a historical practice?

Is that a historical belief? Is that a historical doctrine? Or is that new?

And we're going back to the old way. Well, we have to go back to the church fathers

in their view of the Trinity. Well, you know what? I want to go back to the first century

understanding of the Trinity, not your fourth century, not what St. Augustine decided. I

don't follow St. Augustine. I follow Paul. I follow Jesus Christ. I follow whatever this

book said. And you know, we should always, you know, test everything with the Scripture.

Even if it's new, though, it doesn't mean it's bad. New IFB is good because it's that which we had

from the beginning. That's why it's good. That's why we should follow it. And you know, I don't

mind that title. It can be new and yet old at the same time. Don't get intimidated by the

Catholics. They're a bunch of lying, pagan, cult-falling weirdos. And you know what?

If you give me a Jesus statue, I'll destroy it right now. Let's go somewhere.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for your word. Thank you so much for these instructions.

Thank you for having so much consistency in Scripture so we could know that even if people

haven't been doing something for a while, we can bring it back. It's always in style.

The Bible never goes out of style. And we can always bring it back. And even if it seems new,

we realize that it's the true doctrine that's always existed. I pray that you would help

people to be inspired to read their Bible more and study it more and make sure that

everything we're doing lines up with the Bible and with what you would have us do,

rather than what culture tells us. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.