13. Casserole Episode, Covering a Range of Topics

This is the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring to light the legalism and abuse in the independent fundamental Baptist movement and to encourage believers to grow in grace through the scriptures. Now, here's your host, John Hollifield. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. I am your host, John Hollifield, and excited about the episode today. Now, I am going to be doing something a little bit different. I had some different plans that didn't work out, but we'll try to get that going for next week. Today is going to be a different episode. It's going to be sort of what I'm calling a casserole episode. It's just going to be a bunch of different things thrown together, which is going to be very different from what I have structured this podcast to be. But we're just going to jump in. It's been some crazy weeks. Of course, I have a crazy schedule. I am a teaching elder and assistant pastor at my church here in Tennessee, and so that comes with responsibilities and duties that keep me busy. I'm also bivocational, so I work a secular job three days a week and do that. I have a family, four kids, and a relationship with my wife that I try to make sure that we spend a good amount of time together as well. And so with all that, and then I'm also working on a book, writing a book on the IFB movement. So busy is basically just how life is. And so sometimes if something just falls through, it's hard to have something planned in the background. But what I'm going to do today is just talk about some things that I've just been seeing. I'm not going to get into politics, but just I like to keep up with what's going on in the church. And so what I'm going to do is just cover some things that I've just been seeing and had some thoughts on my heart about. And so I'm going to talk about this and some updates of things that I have covered in the past. And so one of those was a few episodes back. I started off with just mentioning about the Todd White situation. Todd White is a prosperity, health, wealth, name it, claim it, preacher. I think he's from Texas and runs with Kenneth Copeland and those types of guys. And he was featured in the documentary American Gospel. And a couple of weeks ago it came out that he preached a message at his church on Sunday. And he said some amazing things. And so many people were out saying Todd White has repented. And I mentioned that, that I really hoped that he repented and I prayed for his repentance. And so, and hoped that that stuck. But I was just a little bit, because of my research, before I got into examining the IFB, I did some research and examination of the charismatic movement. And just understanding what a lot of happens in some of those things whenever there's a light shed on it. And how they do, I was a little bit skeptical and calling for just some pumped breaks on it a little bit, some discernment. Well, the following week, Todd actually preached another message and addressed some of these things. Because he was saying, hey, I said that I liked Ray Comfort and I like Spurgeon. And everybody thought, oh, Todd's repented. Well, here, listen to this. Here's about a three-minute clip of Todd just speaking in that message. I used an example last week of Ray Comfort's book. I have read Ray Comfort since I've gotten born again. I love his stuff. I've read Spurgeon since I got saved. I mentioned it one time and people were like, now he's reading the right stuff. I got news for you. I love them. Andrew Murray is one of my favorite offers in the whole world. I love those. You know who else is a great? I don't know if you guys know who that is. He was in Brownsville Revival. I've never talked to anybody quite like it. I am so thankful for these men of God and women of God. And I want to thank, again, also, there are a lot of people out there that have believed that I'm deceived. Thank you for praying for me. To say that someone's wrong and to not get on your face and cry out for their soul. Their soul. Their soul. Because if I'm deceived and you're not crying out for me and you say that you love God, you're a liar. Because you actually hate me. I'm not going to be one to go on my knees and be human cries like Jesus did. And cry out for them to see the truth. Then I'm not a Christian. I don't love them. I love my opinion. I don't care who you are. You better, if you have a problem with somebody, you better be praying for them. Not just, well, he's deceived. And one day. Do you really want me to go to hell? Did you really want me to go to hell? Like, what if I died in the position that you thought I was? In your eyes, I'd have been in hell. But I'd be at the right hand of the Father with Jesus praying for you. See, here's the deal. Love looks like something. Love doesn't have an opinion. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Our God is an awesome God and created us in his image. And in the likeness of God, he made man. Man fell because of sin. Because of sin. But Jesus restored that which was lost. What was lost? Us. I am overtaken with gratitude for people that have prayed for me. And have said, man, he's going off. They made a movie called The American Gospel about me. None of them called me to talk to me. Not one of them asked me to share my heart. Not one of them asked me what I believe. They assumed and put me into a place of guilt because of association and friends like Bill Johnson or Kenneth Copeland. Now, all of a sudden, Todd's the biggest heretic on the planet. Or Benny Hinn. Shame on you for not praying for me and talking to me, but making a movie thinking that you're God's police. You're going to stand before a holy God and answer for your life of judgment and hate. And it's called murder. It's no different than racism. It's the same thing. So let me just mention a couple of things from what he said. Number one, let me say this. Todd, people are praying for you. Don't just assume because somebody calls out error that they're not praying. And just because somebody calls out error doesn't mean that they're God's police. We are instructed to do that. Paul says to mark them. Paul says many times in the letters is instructing them to call out heresy and false teachers. But those that are doing it, Justin Peters and many others that are doing that kind of ministry, they are praying for you. And also, let me say this. The American gospel was not about you, Todd. It wasn't about Todd White. Todd White was mentioned in the documentary. And the documentary, and I highly recommend it, American Gospel, was about rescuing the gospel from the American dream. On how the American church, and mainly the charismatic health, wealth, prosperity movement, has hijacked the gospel and distorted it and led many people astray. Todd White was featured in the documentary. But let me say this again, Todd. It was not because of your associations. In fact, there's a lengthy segment debunking your leg lengthening movement as a parlor trick, as a deception. And so, it wasn't because of your associations, even though you are associated with some of the worst false teachers out there. It was because of your own problematic practices. And also, let me do this. I have heard as well that the producers of the American Gospel documentary did try to get in touch with Todd White. They did try to contact him and talk to him. His people refused to do that. And so, that was just some things I don't think. I think, judging by that clip, my personal opinion, that Todd White has not repented. It was sort of like, hey, I didn't repent. What are you guys talking about? I am Todd White. I am who I always am. And that kind of thing. The other thing that's been going on that's gathered quite a bit of news was this Jerry Falwell Jr. situation. Of course, I covered in the history of the IFB movement, I mentioned Jerry Falwell and Thomas Road Baptist Church, Liberty Baptist College, or now Liberty University. Jerry Falwell since has died. Jerry Falwell led. He brought his church out of the fundamentalist movement. And basically, the church became a Southern Baptist church. They joined up, I think, with the Virginia Convention. Liberty University grew massively. I think that they say that they have about 15,000 on-campus students, a massive, massive university. And when Jerry Falwell died, he, in a sense, handed the college and the church down to his two sons. Jonathan Falwell took over as pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church. Jerry Falwell Jr. became the head of the college. And so you had, basically, and there was some, there was some, if you follow the social media accounts, there were some questionable, maybe inappropriate stuff that was, that Falwell had been putting on his social media. But then he posts a picture a couple weeks back of him and a young girl who was not his wife standing there together with their pants unbuttoned or shorts or whatever it was. Let me say this. It doesn't matter how innocent it was. For someone who is the leadership of a Christian institution, that is highly inappropriate. It's highly inappropriate. It is not, it's not, that's just not, and he posted it. It wasn't somebody that caught him and then posted this. It's like, oh, now he's doing damage control. No, he posted that himself a few days. It started getting some buzz and people were asking about that. And then a few days later, he posts a video of him in a gymnasium or in a gym, a workout area. And here he is with the barbell on his pelvic area. Two college students on either side of the barbell. And he's lifting up the barbell doing pelvic thrusts. Majorly inappropriate. So the board of Liberty University decides to ask him to take a leave of absence and they were going to do some investigation. And not long after that, he just then says, all right, so here's what's going on. Begins to spill the beans saying that his wife and him, his wife had an affair with their pool guy. This guy then began to leverage them for money and then tried to get them involved in a business scheme. He became a business partner with them then and then basically threatened them to out them if that's the case. And so he said he was a victim. Then more information started coming out. The guy that is the pool guy then comes out and he says, no, let me tell you what really happened. And he's telling his side of the story. Now the interesting thing about his side of the story is he's giving more specifics. And he's telling stories, talks about how Jerry Falwell Jr. sent him a picture to his phone of a Liberty University student topless at his farm. And so it shows that he says that Jerry Falwell was a voyeur with him, with his wife and the pool guy. A lot of times in these situations you don't know what to believe. But what needed to happen was Liberty University needed to grab an independent investigation and find out. And find out if these things were being happened, were happening to these college students. Was there sexual abuse going on by Jerry Falwell Jr. to many of these college girls? And that needs to be investigated because of just the allegations that have been accused. Well, Jerry Falwell steps down indefinitely and has a $10.5 million payout, severance pay. That's ridiculous. Now, I talked to my pastor, me and him were talking about this situation. And he said, you know, it was probably in writing before him, but still, so many times it's about saving face instead of doing the right thing. And Liberty University messed up here. And I don't think they did the right thing. Now, Justin Peters did a video explaining this. And I think he did an excellent job breaking this down and talking about this, how this was just not appropriate conduct by anybody in leadership of a Christian organization. And I posted that video online on Facebook. And I've been getting some criticism. Somebody said, you know, why are you throwing stones? You know, why are you throwing stones? How does this help people get down the aisle? How does this help people receive the gospel? And that kind of thing. So I want to respond to that a little bit. Number one, I don't understand where this whole idea comes from throwing stones. Maybe it comes from the Old Testament story of David whenever he was walking by. And the people from the tribe of Benjamin were throwing stones at him. And Abishai wanted to go chop the guy's head off. And David said no. Whatever it is, I think that that's a weak argument to then there and accuse somebody for saying, you know, you shouldn't throw stones at somebody. Let me say this. What we're doing is calling Jerry Falwell to repent. And that is biblical. We should call people. In fact, those that are in positions of leadership or teaching are going to be held accountable double, according to James. And so for that matter, in fact, in Titus, it talks about for elders even, if they are caught in sin, rebuke them publicly to put fear on others. And so they're held to a higher accountability. Now let me say this in response to how does this help people get saved. Number one, I would say, is that really the only responsibility that we're supposed to have? We're not supposed to call out any sin among leaders. And we're not supposed to sit there and publicly say, hey, that was wrong among our own Christian ranks because it's going to hurt somebody from getting saved. I totally disagree with that. On the other hand, as well, I think that it would help. Because I think that Christianity becomes a joke to the world whenever we stay silent. We sit there and call out the sin of homosexuality. And we call out the sin of murder. And we call out the sins of society, of the unbelieving and secular world. But yet when sin comes to our door, we are what? Supposed to stay silent and not throw stones? And I think that brings a reproach to Christ. And that makes the church look like a joke. So I think that hinders people coming to Christ when we stay silent. I really do believe that. And so I think that that was necessary to say something a little bit of a fundamentalist tie in that one. The next one, I talked about this a few episodes back as well, about Mike Ray and the Hopewell Baptist Church situation. And Mike Ray's son-in-law was his youth pastor who was exposed for having a sexual relationship with a teenager in a youth group. And then nothing was ever done about it. Mike Ray then had to dismiss him and hold a meeting at his church on why he was dismissed because of this event that happened years ago. And then he did it. I explained what happened and how I disagreed with how he handled the meeting, what he said in the meeting, and those types of things. Well, Eric Skorzynski of the Preacher Boys podcast, and I'll link this video into the show notes, just released some information on Saturday about what's going on with this former youth pastor of Mike Ray. His name is Eric Marksack. Listen to this. Essentially, multiple women accused Eric Marksack of basically preying on them, grooming them when they were younger and within the church. One of those relationships did become physical before the girl was even a legal consenting adult. There were others he began grooming at 15, 16, who he didn't engage in a relationship with until they turned 18. And so in light of these allegations that Mike Ray became aware of back when this all unfolded initially several years ago, he just treated it like an affair, had Eric Marksack step away from ministry for about a year, and he was right back to it as the youth pastor at Hopewell Baptist Church in Napa, California. So when this resurfaced again, multiple women started coming forward. Mike Ray had an attempted closed-door meeting to discuss this, and he eventually ended up just taking that entire meeting. He didn't hear from any of the victims, didn't do anything like that. Instead, he spent the entire time gaslighting his entire church and brushing it off as an affair, just made it sound like the church was being persecuted, and we need to push through the valley, in his words. And meanwhile, Eric and his wife, Charity, essentially were packing and just kind of disappeared. And everybody's wondered where they are. People who are familiar with the IFB assumed that he would probably end up working with another ministry at some point. So all of this went down in June, and you can watch the video of the meeting. You can see the methodology and the phrasing that Mike Ray uses to brush this under the rug a little bit. And yeah, so just a few days ago, two or three days ago, I received a message from a member of Temple Baptist Church in Powell, Tennessee. That's the church associated with Crown College and Pastor, or maybe Doctor, but Clarence Sexton, who runs Crown College. So it's a huge name in the IFB world for sure. And I received a tip that said, Eric Markzak, and I'm going to include screenshots of everything I talk about, so nothing is missing here. So it says, Eric Markzak is at Temple Baptist Church in Powell, Tennessee now. It seems he's probably working at Crown College, but I'm not certain if that's... So I don't know if this confirmation... Check out the rest of the video. You know, this is a little bit shaky. It's a little bit slim. This confirmation on whether this guy is at Temple or not, whether this guy's at Crown. Now, the video is... There is a video of his wife singing there in the church, and Tim Tomlinson gets up there and says, Hey, this is, you know, Mike Ray's daughter from one of our friends, and then she gets up there and sings a song. So they were at the church. Are they there at the church for good? Are they there? Here's my biggest problem. Why is he not in California? Stay in California. Why? Because you're under investigation, man. And again, we have the bankruptcy, the moral bankruptcy, of some of these so-called fundamentalists that are in leadership of this movement. And, you know, just keep an eye out for that. And we need to call those to be accountable for these things. The other thing that's been going around in the news quite a bit... Now, I'm going to hit two aspects of this, but I'm going to hit the first one about Jack Treber's church in Santa Clara. Okay, so Jack Treber's church in Santa Clara, California, was hit with a cease and desist order saying that they should not meet. This is not from the state of California. This is from the county government. And they're charging them and they're fining them a lot of money for doing this. Now, this can get you into some hot water because where do you stand on this issue? People are so passionate about it. Should the church be obeying the government here? Where is this government persecution on the church and where we should defy it? MacArthur's church is going through this. Other churches are going through this in California. Let me say this about Treber's church. It doesn't... To me, it's not about whether Treber's church is in the right or in the wrong for what they're doing. Here's my problem. I don't believe Christians should be taking the stance of platforming Jack Treber and that church and coming to his aid and sending him money during this thing. And here's the reason why. Because Jack Treber is disqualified from being a pastor. Because he has covered up sexual abuse and sexual scandal in his church at least three or four different occasions. Again, I'll link another video that explains this. I mean, and one of those is the Cameron Giovanelli case. And not properly handling that. This is not someone who should have the backing and the support of Christians. Do some research into that. Look into that. But on the other hand, Jack Treber's comments have been flowing. And I've been seeing some other things that's been going around this. But this is the guy that really pushes this. And that's this idea of touch not God's anointed. I'm going to do an episode breaking down the whole pastoral authority, pastoral superiority. Don't touch God's anointed. But this really got me this week. So I wanted to just hit it real quick. Listen to this clip. In verse 21, the shield of Saul as though he had not been anointed with oil. You touched. You touched God's anointed. That's why Psalm 105, verse 15, touch not God's anointed. You're going to have to make a decision how much you're going to be involved in criticism of anointed leadership. You're going to have to, well, yeah, but the leader is out. I had the privilege Monday night to preach in my mother and dad's church. And I stayed overnight and then came back in the morning. And I'm grateful that I have parents that have never lifted their hand against any man of God. And by the way, they have been going to church for 86 years. Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. They had one pastor that committed adultery. I never knew about it. I never knew about it. Probably for 45 years, I never knew about it. Never talked about it. But someone came up to me. When I was preaching in another church a few years ago and said, Mr. So-and-so had to be your pastor because he was the pastor of that church you mentioned. And I said, he was. I said, I never know what happened to him. And they said, well, he committed adultery. Well, I knew he was selling cars, but I didn't know the whole thing. My mother and dad never criticized him. So, touch not God's anointed. Who was God's anointed? All right, so let's break this down real quickly. Old Testament. Samuel anointed King Saul with oil to become the next king of Israel. Then, Samuel goes and finds David when God says he's done with Saul and anoints David with oil. It was, listen, a literal anointing with oil done by the prophet of God. Now, let me show you where the disconnect is. Number one, we are in the New Testament. We are in the church. The pastor, no matter how many times some of these fundamentalist guys try to make comparisons to prophets or kings, the pastor is not a king. The New Testament pastor is not a prophet. The New Testament pastor in the New Testament writings is a shepherd. He is a pastor. And this is very different. You want to see what the conduct of a pastor is supposed to be? How he's supposed to be? It's not like a king, and it's not like a prophet. It's like Jesus explained when he washed the disciples' feet. It's that of a servant or a slave, okay? Not a king or a prophet. So, can we stop comparing the pastor to the prophet or to the king? So, with that being said, that entire mindset comes crumbling down. But let's just entertain that mindset just for a little bit. Touch not God's anointed, so don't talk bad about pastors. Don't accuse pastors. Don't do this thing. Where do you draw the line? Because many people say, let God take care of them. So, if this guy cheats on his wife, we don't do anything, he continues as a pastor because we're in a wait for God to deal with him. Because we don't talk bad about the pastor. Or what about if he is stealing money from the church? Nope, nope, nope, nope. You don't talk bad about the pastor. You let God deal with him. So, what if God doesn't do anything with him? You just, nope, you just leave it alone. So, basically, this pastor can do whatever he wants. And you're just going to wait for God, air quotes, to deal with him. Okay. What if he molests a little girl? Do we call the police? Where do you draw the line with this stuff? Where do you say, what offense is strong enough to warrant you actually doing something to the quote-unquote God's anointed? That's my question. At what time does he commit a sin so engrigious to where you can do something? And that's one of the biggest problems with this stuff. Because this is not biblical understanding of the role of the office of the pastor. It is cultic. It is cultic. Because only cult leaders say that you cannot question the leader. The Bible doesn't say that. In fact, the Bible says quite often, and Titus, you can accuse an elder. Now, it says you need to accuse an elder in the presence of two or three witnesses. But, yes, you can accuse an elder. You can bring an elder before church discipline. Oh, but that would necessitate us studying our Bibles verse by verse and in context. Sorry for the sarcasm there. I apologize. So, I'll deal with that a little bit more in depth later on. And the next thing I want to do is, you know, this is just a, this is not going to be a long episode at all. But I'm going to talk about where I want to go with the podcast and just give you sort of an idea of what episodes are coming up. And I have an episode schedule. So, I'm going to give you sort of what to look forward to, the topics that I'm going to be covering. And occasionally in there, I'll, you know, put interviews in there every now and again. But I'll be talking about coming up. These are some episodes we're going to be discussing. Baptist successionism. I'm going to do, it may be more than one episode, but we're going to take a deep dive into the whole teaching of Baptist history and Baptist successionism. Is the, are Baptist Protestants? Baptist, the IFB and those that hold to this believe that Baptists are not Protestants. That the Baptists did not come from the Protestant Reformation. The Baptists have always been the successive line of churches, true churches, all the way back to the time of the Acts of the Apostles. So, we're going to look at that and explain, dive into that. Is that really true? I'm going to talk about, we're going to do several episodes because this is going to be a lengthy diving deep in this. But we're going to talk about King James onlyism and dive into that. We're going to talk about different areas. I'm going to do a segment, do an episode on the shallow preaching that I believe that is characterized in the IFB movement. And I'm going to do an episode on getting into legalism. I'm going to talk about, we'll do an episode, maybe two on music. Do one on dress standards. Where do they look at and examine some of the biblical passages that IFB preachers use for dress standards and that kind of thing? Is it biblical or is it legalism? And maybe music. I think I said music. And then I'm going to talk about, I'm going to do one coming up. I'm going to talk about biblical interpretation and how we interpret the Bible to determine whether these things are legalistic or not. But I want to end on some positive things. I want to end on a positive note today. And with that, I was listening to a message this week. I listen to preaching just about every day along with a lot of different podcasts. And I was listening to a message by John MacArthur. Now, I know John MacArthur is another one of those hot topics. You either love him or you don't like him. It's a pucker or duck, you know, when you mention John MacArthur's name. But let me say this. I have grown. God has used his ministry in the pulpit to help my spiritual growth quite a bit in the last seven years. So I really enjoy his preaching. You know, sometimes you find a preacher or a Bible teacher that the way you pick up and the way you listen and the way you understand teaching, their delivery really helps you and you can understand it well. I understand people could see John MacArthur as very boring. I really do. But for some reason, the way the sound of his voice or the delivery or how he teaches it, I can really digest it. Well, I'm listening to some of his older things, his older messages, and I'm in the 90s. I listened to a message the other day called The Christians Liberation Movement that he preached in 1990. And in that message, he really talks about the difference between legalism and going into license and, you know, bridging the gap, bringing a balance to that, not being in legalism and not going too far with it and living in the abuse of liberty. And so here is a clip of him, two clips of him speaking about what the Christian's freedom is once we're in Christ. I too agree that there are grace killers out there and freedom robbers. Paul would even agree with that. Chapter 2 of Galatians and verse 4, he says, But it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour. Paul says, look, I've met the grace killers and the freedom robbers. I've met them, those artificial brethren who want to put us in an artificial bondage. And I resist that, says Paul, and so say I. Now, when you come to Christ and receive salvation through Jesus Christ, you are freed from all of that, from that terrible, fatal, ultimately damning bondage. Of attempting to achieve something you can never achieve. What a horrible bondage that is. Now, let me dissect that a little bit. Freedom in Christ, then, means freedom from the tyranny of an impossible legal system with demands you can never meet. It means freedom, then, from the terrible, frustrating pressure of struggling to keep a law out of fear. It means freedom from an endless search for a solution to this dilemma. It means freedom from an ever-accusing conscience that he heaps guilt upon guilt upon guilt without resolution. It means freedom from laws which, instead of saving you, stir up your sinfulness. By activating sinful passion. It means freedom from damnation and eternal judgment. Okay, so that was, I thought that was really, really good. I mean, and that's sort of the premise of the podcast, Galatians 5.1. It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. For freedom podcast. And so, to remind people that message, that Christ has set us free. Now, we need to have a qualifier with that, right? Because, and I was talking about this with a group of pastors, sometimes we have this problem with the pendulum swing. Where we leave one imbalance, and so often our human nature sends us to another imbalance. And we end up going all the way to the other side instead of finding that balance. And whenever you're talking about the subject of legalism, when you leave that, you miss the balance that we're supposed to get with biblical Christianity. And a lot of times the balance swings all the way to the left to libertine-ism or license or, you know, antinomianism. That's a big word. Basically means that you live however you want. And there are so many New Testament scriptures that is against that. But this message was really about bridging that. Here's a clip that I really enjoyed. It's a little bit longer than two minutes. But where MacArthur identifies a little bit about legalism. And so they come up with their long lists of prescriptions. For the Judaizers, you have to be circumcised. You have to keep all the ceremonies, all the new moons, all the feast days, all the festivals. All of that stuff that had passed away. All the dietary laws, etc. And for contemporary legalists, they've got their own sets of rules. To one degree or another, probably we've all been exposed to them. They are going beyond the Bible. They do things the Bible doesn't talk about to try to constrain everybody within their own man-made limits in hopes that if they're stuck in there somehow, they will perform and achieve a better pattern of righteous conduct. Let me give you some examples. This is a little list of some of modern legalists' rules. Don't ever allow something like guitar music or drums in the Sunday service. Don't grow a beard. Don't ever take classes at a secular university. Don't ever show affection or kiss your fiancée until after you've married her. Women may never wear trousers or slacks, pants. Don't drink coffee. Coca-Cola's okay. Don't read any modern translation of the Bible except the King James Version. Don't vote for a non-Christian for any public office. Don't ever marry someone of a different race. An innocent woman divorced by an adulterous spouse may never remarry. A woman must never speak to a church group on anything if men are present in the audience. Spiritual people don't ever listen to secular music on the FM station. Spiritual people don't practice artificial birth control. Spiritual people don't play card games except rook. Spiritual people are those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. Spiritual people would never read modern literature like novels. They might, however, subscribe to the L.A. Times. Spiritual people do not wear any makeup. Spiritual people do not wear any jewelry. Spiritual people do not ever get their hair done. Lord help these spiritual people who are in this category. Spiritual people never see a movie. However, they watch a lot of football. Spiritual people never attend any kind of theatrical performance, even to see a musical. Spiritual people never invest money in the stock market. Spiritual people never buy anything on installment credit. Spiritual people pass out tracts, and the number of tracts they pass out each week will determine their eternal reward. Spiritual people don't buy groceries at Safeway because the Mormons own it. Spiritual people are measured by the degree of their busyness activity and how many meetings they go to. Spiritual people tithe 10% of their income, even though the Jews tithe 33 third percent. Spiritual people have their quiet time before breakfast every day. After breakfast doesn't count, I guess. Spiritual people don't ever buy Martinelli's sparkling cider because people will think they're drinking liquor. Spiritual people memorize verses. That's the only right way to learn the Bible. And on and on and on and on it goes. It's amazing how many...and that's just a few. Spiritual people are determined by how they dress, how long their hair is, how short their hair is, this, that, and the other thing. And there are the grace killers and the freedom robbers, and they're around, and they'll do everything they can to make up their little rules. And the sad thing about it is they never come to the understanding that even with all those rules and people living inside all those rules, they may have still massive sin in their hearts. I have to confess to you that the time that I was involved in attending a school that was this way was the most carnal time of my entire life because no one was doing anything to help me learn how to live a godly life from the inside out. Everybody was simply trying to control me from the outside. And legalism cannot restrain the flesh, and if the truth were known, the legalists who are living within their own self-imposed boxes are battling the flesh, and horrendous warfare is going on because they don't know how to live either. Legalism can't restrain the flesh. I thought that was really some good stuff. But let me say this. I'll link the message in the show notes and check it out because that's a little taste of the message. I highly recommend it because we just covered the first part in him talking about the legalism, but what he does, he has some really good exposition after that point in the message talking about the other end of the imbalance, which is going too far into license. So I'll link that in the show notes. Check it out and check that out. And so next week we'll get back into regular episodes. I hope that – I know this was – I call it a cast for – we are here, there, everywhere, and all over the place. But I appreciate you guys. You can follow the podcast on Instagram, Twitter, and on Facebook. And please rate it, share it, give a review, and get some listeners. My statistics show me that I have some listeners outside of the U.S. So if you guys are listening in another country, hey, awesome. Thank you. Shout out to you guys. I think Ireland, South Africa. Listen, I don't know if you're still listening, Puerto Rico. But if you are Spain, Mike Peters, Mike and Jim Peters out there in Spain, shout out to you guys. And if you're still listening, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I hope that I can still continue to put out some stuff that is helpful to you. Until next time, guys, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. Thank you. I will.

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