We are overseers of the things of God, which He has entrusted to us.

The idea is that he doesn’t sit around and condemn himself all day.

Sometimes all we can do is just do our best and pray that God will make up for our failures.

From time to time people will come to our church who are disappointed in some other church or some other pastor, and they will tell me what a horrible pastor this other guy is. A couple of years ago I’d just kind of nod and feel sorry for the other person.

I look at things a little differently now, especially since we’ve begun to have our share of people over the years who have left our church because of what a terrible pastor I am.

I now end up feeling kind of sorry for the other pastor, and wonder just exactly he must have gone through and how he might have been misunderstood.

Misunderstandings are going to happen. Feelings are going to get hurt. Let God do the judging. Only He knows what is going on in a person’s heart.

I received a letter this week from someone who was questioning about a particular paper they had received and they sent it to me, wanted me to read it over and give my opinion to them. And this particular paper was this guy's understanding of the prophecy of Daniel and in the kingdoms that were going to arise, he doesn't see it all as is traditionally accepted and taught by Chuck Missler, and every good Bible scholar. But he has his own private little twist and interpretation. No one else has seen this, no one else has been able to come to this understanding, but oh, he has a special understanding in this particular prophecy of Daniel. And, instead of there being four major world-governing empires, there are actually five and he has the insight into the feet of clay, they are actually the Arab states and so forth, and he goes on to espouse his theory. Yet, Peter said no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation. Now when someone comes along and says, you know, friends, I want to reveal some new truths to you tonight. You know the Bible scholars in the past, they've just not been able to see this, why is it that they haven't taught you this? You see, here it is. And they start then giving you their unusual little twist. No prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. Some guy has some new understanding and truth that has never been discovered before, you can be sure it's wrong. For God has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness and they're all bound up here in the word and they're not for any private interpretation. Now, in order to espouse their particular doctrinal belief though, they've got to put down everybody else that teaches anything else. Anybody that teaches contrary to that immediately becomes a false prophet. There's a fellow here in the area that insists on writing me. He used to come to church here quite regularly. He used to be constantly declaring his love for me. In fact, he came in one day for God had given him a vision that he was to work side by side with me. But other aspects of his visions were a little weird, and so because I did not concur with his vision that he was called by God to work side by side with me, he then became quite upset and has left the church and now is writing me all kinds of letters accusing me of being a liar, a false prophet, a Jimmy Jones, a cultist, and you poor people are all being duped, you know, by the Chuck Smith cult according to his letters. Sad, isn't it, that those who once felt called of God to work by your side, now suddenly have revealed to them by God that your teaching is so wrong and all and, of course, they often say well Chuck really knows the truth but he's afraid to teach it. They don't know me, because I'm not afraid to say anything that I think is right. But Paul was faced with the same kind of a thing in Corinth, they were putting Paul down. Though he said, hey you may have 10,000 instructors that have come along and try to teach a different slant, but you only have one father, and I begot you into the faith. It's sort of sad to see those that you have brought to birth in their spiritual walk get caught up and carried away with some of these teachers of exotic things."

They were quite proud of their tolerance of such sin.

I think the real issue is for those times when a person is not dealing with their sin and they not only don’t struggle with their own sin, but we allow them to just go on and continue with it.

The lines get blurred as to what is right and wrong. Eventually it will affect us.

Again, the idea is not that we are to stay away from a person who is struggling to get free from one of these things, but the person who is happily engaged in these activities.