 Welcome everybody to Unfiltered. Pastor David, welcome. How you doing, John? Good, I'm doing well. You know, I wanted to ask you some questions regarding something you mentioned in our last Unfiltered, and you're alluding to what we're speaking about, is there a new Jesus movement? And I like what you said about the distinction between two types of churches. One is a activity-centered church versus a Christ Word of God-centered church. What are the distinct differences between those which are obvious, but how does it impact the believer? You know, I don't know that they are obvious. That's a good way to ask it, John, John, because I don't know that they are obvious. If it was so obvious, then the churches that aren't teaching the Word of God would be empty. So, you know, it's not really obvious at all. I think there are quite a number of people who go to a church service and believe that they are being taught simply because the book is open and the guy is talking behind a pulpit. I really do. Not every person who opens the Bible is actually teaching it. And there are some well-known, very large works that the pastor boasts about how he's a Bible-teaching church in the area, and this and that, when in fact they aren't always teaching the Bible, they're teaching their opinions, and I'll misquote in Scripture. And on occasion, I will encounter that sometimes people will send me a message and they want me to listen to it or whatever, and all of that. And I'll hear the exposition of a verse, and I will scratch my head saying, but that's not what he was saying, right? So, I'm not sure that every church actually, as a matter of fact, I am sure that every church that meets is not necessarily having a pastor teaching of the Bible. The day will come, the time will come, when people will no longer endure healthy teaching. And I believe we're in that day right now, where instead of wanting a doctrinal teaching to understand the ways of God to grow in the things of the Lord, we're more interested in current events. And we're more interested in hearing from somebody who presents himself as the one who can give you those current events. And all of that, we see that. I mean, that's not brand new. That's something that's been around for a while. And so, without the word being rightly divided, there is no real discernment, John. There is no real discernment. What you end up with is you end up with people who believe themselves to be well-fed, when in fact, they're not getting the whole council of God. And so, what happens is churches that are teaching very often, because teaching in and of itself is not necessarily exciting. The pastor doesn't necessarily have to raise his voice and prowl the stage. And we've seen that. I've been around a long time as a believer. And the guy's entertaining. I mean, let's face it, he's riveting in the way that he's presenting. But if you were to read what he's saying, if you would just take some time without the theatrics, without the light show, without all the hype that went on before he's spoken, the hype that goes on afterwards and people shouting from the audience and this and that, which happens in so many churches today, what happens if you just get out of all of that hype and you just read and you start taking notes and actually cross-referencing and seeing whether that was exegeted properly, whether he is reading into it or letting it say what it actually says, you might find that quite a number of Christians are actually not well-fed. When God was speaking to the nation of Israel, he said, I'll give you shepherds according to my own heart. We'll teach you with knowledge and understanding. And the true shepherd after God's own heart is going to make sure that they have personal understanding and personal experience and then to give that to the people who are also going to be able to share to a degree in the anointed teaching with experience that will help them to see the ways of the Lord more clearly. Not every pastor does that. And so what happens is because we are children tossed to and fro, as Paul would say, by every wind of doctrine. It's like cutting of men because we are more entertainment centered, especially in these latter days. If it feels good, it must be true. If that person has been around for a while, he must be telling the truth always. And it's sad. It's sad we fail to actually evaluate what we're being told. And if it was packaged in a beautiful way, we buy into it real quickly. I'll say it and kind of close in this. When my brother and I were less than ten, both of us, we grew up in Norwalk. And Norwalk at one time was more rural than it is now. There were little farms still. And my grandmother had a farm and she had chickens. And it was on Pioneer Boulevard off of Imperial Highway. And so I would go into the coop where she had her chickens. My brother and I did. And sometimes we'd bring the eggs to my grandmother and she'd use them for cooking and all that. So that's kind of how I grew up. And so one day my brother and I, as well as my uncle decided, we would pull a prank on some neighbors. And so we went in there and got some of the rotten eggs. And we got some of the chicken dung. And we put it in a cardboard box. And then we wrapped it as if it were a gift and took it to people's houses. We had more than one. And we knocked on the door and it just said surprise or whatever. And so the package looked good, but the contents were bad. So I learned that long time ago what appears to be good isn't always good. And so sometimes you may go to a church and everything seems to be doing well when in fact what's being said is not necessarily true. At one last thought, I just saw this morning somebody had posted something where they're giving their opinion on what pulpits ought to be like in America. And then the person making the comment quoted a particular scripture and used it in a way that I said to myself, that's not what that means. So I researched it. And indeed it wasn't what was being said in that scripture. It was out of context. It was interesting because the person said something to the fact that I'm not sure that it says this and then quoted it and stood by it anyway. See, that's the stuff that guys like me, people like me will see and say, well, if you're not sure, why are you quoting this? If you're not sure why are you feeding all of these people something that's not true? Well, it's because he gets away with it. It's because nobody is going to tell this person. And it's not just one. I mean, I could name names, which I don't feel like doing. But no, they're quite a number, John. And so the one that God looks at, he says, is one who trembles at my word. And I really believe that that we need to have an understanding of the value of the word of God and the rightly dividing of the word of truth and the presentation. And that the people are not coming to be entertained, but they're coming to be edified. And those who want to be entertained, they'll always be a place that they can play in the youth youth group, you know, Rover Red Rover or whatever. Because that's what happened to me when I first got out of the military. I went to a particular church where the youth group wasn't taught the word of God or encouraged to tell our friends about Jesus. They had play night. And we would just gather together and we would play children's games. That didn't last in my life too very long. I said to myself, this is, you know, I may be going, I was going there for the wrong reason. And I need to go to a place where I can get taught the word of God. And that actually led to my becoming a teacher, where I thought, you know, I need, I need more of the word. And I would study, and then I learned that I could communicate. And that's how the Bible Bible studies began. And really quickly, this is another topic we can talk to, but you just shared the implications of what an activity center church would be in the life of somebody who needed a spirit-filled word church and families, brokenness, divorce, relationships. And what are the results of those, you know, just putting a band-aid over it? They're broken lives. Yes. We have broken lives. All the pastor has to do is stand up in that sage one day and actually look at the people. Look at the people and said, wanting them to look at you. How about looking at them? How about looking at that widow over there? She just lost her husband. How about that little boy over there whose father just said, I don't love you? How about that? How about the person who's spouse died of COVID that is coming to church by herself now? I mean, we have that here. We have that here. So you don't play with people's hearts. You want them to walk out saying, I know Jesus better and he's with me. Amen. That only comes through the word of God. Pastor, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing about that because today, yes, the pulpit is, it's not Christ-centered and that we can go on and on, but we won't. But just thank you for sharing that. And thank you guys for tuning in and watching this. It's so important that we're involved in a Christ-centered church and just thankful that we are here and at the other churches that are teaching God's Word and that people's lives are being transformed. So thank you. I just want to remind you that we have our services on Sunday at 8.30 and 10.45. Invite a family and friends to come out and join us. And then again, following week, we have Wednesday evening services at 7 p.m. Great opportunities for you to come and get involved in a Bible study and get involved in having worship together. And so we want to thank you for tuning in and we hope to see you soon and God bless you.