 Good afternoon and welcome to Unfiltered. Pastor, welcome. Hey, John. Pastor, I wanted to ask the question today. Why do people idolize their pastors or idolize a pastor? Yeah, that's a great question. Why do people idolize a pastor or their pastor? I guess because idolatry is something that is within human nature, the desire to worship or venerate, highly honor, something greater than yourself, is within us. That's why the scripture forbids us from idolatry, because by nature we have a desire to honor, in a very high sense, something that we consider to be superior to ourselves. So idolatry in and of itself has various forms that it takes, and it's not just some graven image of any sort. It can be a religious figure, because that person represents something that you aspire to and appear sometimes to have those things that you wish that you had yourself. And so you can bring an honor to that person. I think the scripture is very clear. We honor those who are worthy of our honor. There is such a place, in other words, for us to show regard and respect to one another, and we should give honor where honor is due, and therefore ministers are to be highly valued, Paul has said, especially those who labor at the word endocrine. And so you give honor to where honor is due, and there's a certain proper place for that. In the early church, Acts 2 speaks concerning the fact that they continued steadfastly in the apostles, doctrine, and fellowship. And so the apostles had a certain place in the church where the people regarded them highly, because they were feeding them with the word of God. But you don't see any indication that they venerated or worshiped them or gave them an honor that was reserved to God only. In our day, because there's so much darkness, somebody who seems to be doing that, which we respect and want to do ourselves, but perhaps aren't gifted enough to or qualified to or given opportunity to, we see somebody doing that, which we regard highly, and we begin to regard them highly and begin to think of them as being some kind of superstar, some kind of hero. And because there's a dearth of heroic figures in our society, we have a tendency of just gravitating towards them. And in doing so, we're feeding them something they don't need, because anybody who truly is walking with the Lord and walking in the spirit is not going to want people's attention, because it is something that should be directed to God alone. And therefore, if somebody says thank you for the work you've done, it's simply I'm only doing that, which I'm supposed to do. And so I think that in the church today, there are those who are looking for somebody to venerate and somebody to say, yeah, that's my warrior. And I learned a long time ago, because I had a particular minister in my life as a young believer and it wasn't Pastor Chuck. It was a different minister that I highly regarded and I had seen people respond to his ministry and invitation he had given and he was older than me, he wasn't a younger man. And he wasn't a Calvary pastor, he was somebody who ministered in a different place. But I regarded him highly and a friend of mine, and I went to hear him speak and Hal Lindsey and all of this and I'll never forget turning to my friend and I was 23 years old and I turned to my friend and I said, you know, this guy here, you know, and I lifted him up and I thought he was great. And this pastor that I admired so much came out and said, there are, you know, 20 people with $100 that you're going to give, there's 50 people with 20 and he started telling people how much money they had in their wallet and you need to come up and you need to give towards this great ministry and I'm sitting there just aghast at what's he doing. I was just totally deflated and then somebody sitting in front of me said, who is this clown anyway? And I sensed to within myself, I'd like to say it could have been that quiet voice of the Lord who spoke to me at that point and it was very clear, you're honoring a man, you shouldn't be honoring a man. And I, I, that was the only time I can remember that I needed to be told that and so every man has words, everybody does things that, that, that only, only they and God know and, and only God is the one who's to be reserved for the honor and so why do people do that, John? I think it's because they want to and also sometimes they have somebody who is willingly accepting it. Anytime you have people standing for you, every time you walk out on the stage, it has to go to your head and, and I believe people can be responsible for the encouragement of a man to fall because he begins to think of himself as being unable to do so. And that's a dangerous, very dangerous thing. And we're just before shooting this, somebody was mentioning to us that they were going to a church and that was almost expected to put the pastor on the pedestal or to idolize the pastor and, and it's almost a, a atmosphere that's created that can be dangerous, that can keep people's eyes off Jesus. And so, well, pastor, thank you for giving us some insight on that. I do want to remind the church family that we have our services at 8.30 and 10.45 this Sunday. If you're taking us through Acts chapter seven, snapshots of acts that you've been given to us. And then after second service, we're going to have our church baptism. Amen. So we invite you guys to come out and join us. It's going to be a great time. Pastor, thank you for joining us today. Of course, John. Thank you guys for tuning in and God bless you.