Waters Church

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This week on Tim Hatch Live.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I see this happening on a regular basis. Even comes
into the church, even comes into the church. If some
dude is in this church and he's sleeping around with
all kinds of women, are you gonna sit there and say, no,
don't judge by the way you telling me not, the
judge is making a judgment about my judging.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
So it falls apart on the marriage.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
No, we've got to judge for an evaluation of what's
right and wrong, what's pitting for God's people. But we
don't condemn because God can save anyone. The title is
words must not be weapons. Words must not be weapons.
James revisits I think what is his favorite topic in

(00:51):
this whole letter that he writes five chapters. He touched
on our words in chapter one. He touched on the
topic of words in two you again in chapter three.
Here's what he says about our tongue in chapter three,
verse six.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
The tongue is a fire.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's a world of unrighteousness to system of unrighteousness. We
talked about that the tongue is set among our members,
staining the whole body is setting on fire. The course
of hell set on fire. By setting on fire the
course of our life, and set on fire by hell itself.
These are not kind words. How many know the tongue
can do a lot of damage. You've got an elevator

(01:28):
in your mouth. You've got an elevator in your mouth.
That means you can lift people up or you can
tear them down. You can encourage, you can discourage, you
can give people faith, you can give people fear. And
here's what I want to start with today. At the
top of your notes, write this down. Words can become

(01:49):
weapons that.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Lead to war. Somebody. You got conflict all around you.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Check your words, and James's gonna really bear down here
on the topic of speaking evil against each other Verse eleven,
Do not speak evil against one another, Brothers. The word
speak evil is one word in the Greek, but it really.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Is to refer. It really means to slander someone.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
That's what it means. Write that down. To speak evil
is to slander someon what is slander? Slander is unverified
bad information that you share about somebody else. So when
you don't have all the facts and you just spout
off at the mouth about someone, or you make assumptions
about someone and you don't know what's really going on

(02:43):
in their life. Our world is filled with slander. This
is nothing new. The ancient world was filled with slander.
In fact, I was shocked this week as I began
to study this text. In fact, I had planned water
shirt to finish up our study the Book of James
next week, and so I was going to preach from

(03:04):
verse eleven of chapter four all the way to verse
eleven of chapter five.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
That was my plan.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
How many no, we have plans, God purposes. God's purpose prevails.
God changed my plan. Could not get past.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
These two verses.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Says, if God has something to say to the church
in this regard, that is of utmost importance to the
life of the church.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
But I was shocked to learn.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
That the sin most often spoken about in the Old
Testament is the sin of slander. God talks about it
more than adult dream, more than stealing, more than murder.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Now to me, that's shocking.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Why would God talk about something so much. Maybe it's
because we do it an awful lot, you know, murdering somebody,
you gotta really put some effort in.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
But the slander, it just takes a word.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
And at the end of the day, what we have
is a reputation that might be besmerged by somebody with
third party information.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
And this is an anathem much.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
To the heart of God, because here's what I know
about my God, here's what I know.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
About the Scriptures.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
God is in the business of building people up, not
tearing people down.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
He encourages us to encourage one another. We are encouraged.
We are repeatedly called to encourage.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
One another as members of the Kingdom of God. There
are countless examples, however, people who spoke against others in
the Scriptures. My mind goes back to Numbers chapter twelve,
when Miriam and Aaron, the sister and brother of a
guy named Moses. I don't know if you know this,
but they had a moment where they slandered Moses because

(04:47):
Moses had taken a Kushite wife.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
The Bible says.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
The reason why I bring that up is because the
Kushites were most likely black people from Middle Africa in
the ancient world. Moses being a Jew and the ancient
was probably a brown person. It might have been based
on racism, it might have been based on ethnic pride
that they slandered Moses over his.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Marriage to a Kushai. The Bible says God took.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
It so seriously he gave Miriam leprosy in response. The
scriptures talk about repeatedly during the Wilderness Wanderings that the
people of Israel slandered God.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
They spoke evil about the Lord.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
They complained about his provision, they complained about the desert,
they complained about what they had, what they didn't have.
They wanted to go back to Egypt, and because of
their slanderous attitude toward God, they missed out on the
Promised Land.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
They robbed their life with the lies.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Of their tongue. I think about Job's friend. When Job
loses everything, they come and at first they're compassionate, but
then they start slandering Job. But they start slandering God,
they start speaking evil. God rebukes them in the end,
in the end of that book. And then I think
in the New Testament, and the scripture says that the
only way that the Romans agreed to crucify our Lord

(06:06):
at the.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Behest of the Jews.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Do you understand that the only reason why they crucified
the Lord was because the Jews had to slander him.
They slandered him with false accusations and false statements.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
They couldn't even come up with accurate charges.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Jesus was crucified at the hands of slanderers. Peter warns
us as New Testament believers. He says that don't be
surprised if unbelievers slander you and speak evil of untrue
things about you, because you are God's people. And then
perhaps the art type of slanderers in the Bible, the

(06:44):
ultimate slander in the Bible. His name is Satan. The
word Satan means accuser. That's what it actually means. He's
the accuser of the broth, and Revelation nine says that
he twenty eight says he.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Accuses us day and night.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
He ever feels about yourself, Satan has a.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Hand in that. Here.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
We feel like you're never gonna make it, never gonna
get better, and you're gonna obey the Lord. God's angry
at you, wants to kill you, mad at you all
those things, doesn't love you. That accusation comes from the
mouth of the devil. The word devil comes from the
Latin diabolos. Diabolos means slanderer. I just want to say
something to somebody who doesn't have a check on their
tongue today when you slander your brother or sister in Christ.

(07:22):
You are doing the devil's work. I don't want the
devil getting any help from the church. Anybody with me
on that. He's got enough help from the world. I
don't think the church needs to help him out. The
church needs to be about encouraging, building each other up,
forgiving each other overlooking offenses, bearing with each other's weaknesses
and failures, and celebrating the gifts and callings of one another.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
That's what the church should be. God takes this very seriously.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
There's actually a passage and I said this before our
words become weapons and they lead to war. Some of
you got conflict in your life because you're filled with slander.
You don't check facts. You say things off the cuff.
People you put them down, and you got conflict as
a result. There's a passage in the Bible that speaks
pretty loudly about this. Back in the Old Testament, Second Samuel,
chapter ten, David is on the throne and he hears

(08:12):
about a rival king who loses his father. And I
just want to show this passage to you because it's.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
A picture of slander.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
And I never saw this before, but it is an
incredible picture, it says in verse one. After this, the
king of the Aemonites died. After this, the king of
the eem Andits died, and Hannah and his son reigned
in his place. So a son loses his father. And
David said, this is David, the King of Israel. I
will deal loyally with Hannah and the son of Nahash

(08:39):
as his father dealt loyally with me.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
So he sent his service to.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Console King Hannan over the death of his father, and
david servants came into the land of the Eem andis
now now here's where this lander comes in, because this
is a noble gesture on David's park. He wants to
show consolation to a rival king keeping the peace.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Verse three, look at his But.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
The princes of the m and I said to hand
and the lord their lord. Do you think that David
has sent his comforters to you, that he.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Is honoring your father?

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Has not David sent his service to you to search
out the city and spy it out to overthrow it.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
That's slander. They didn't have the facts.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
They made accusations based on assumptions, and they started to
instigate animosity and fear into the King's heart. I wonder
how many times has happened to you somebody has said
something about someone towards you, and its assumption accusation, it's
not factual, and as a result, you have harbored ill

(09:40):
feelings towards them based on faulty information. And who knows
what kind of good relationship you could have had with
that person, but you don't have it because of somebody's
foolish speech. The scripture says that because of.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
This hand and freaks out.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
It's not on the screen, but first four says Hannah
took David's servants to kind of send a message, and
he shaved.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Off half their beards and cut their.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Their garments off right at the buttocks to shame these men.
Cutting off half of one's beard was a shameful thing.
Could you imagine if I was up here with half
my beard today, it'd be pretty shameful. So David sends
messengers to his messages to stay in the city until
go hide until your beards grow back, then get some clothing,
come on back. And then he's mad, and Hannon immediately

(10:26):
knows he's made a mistake, so he goes and he
hires the Syrians another nation to join him in battle
against David, and this starts to escalate.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Now we got not two, we.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Got three nations and thousands of soldiers involved in a
war that never had to happen, all because of slander
and David. When you face David, you got to know something.
You're getting beat because David never lost a battle. He
never lost. He is not like Mike Tyson. He never

(10:57):
lost a fight. And the scriptures fast forward to verse
eighteen of that chapter. The Syrians fled before Israel, and
David killed of the Assyrians seven hundred chariot men forty
thousand horsemen wound to show back.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
The commandit of the army, so that he died.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
There a nation loses their commander and forty thousand plus
people die.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Over a needless war because of slander. Words can become
weapons and they lead to war.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
What relationships are you missing out on because of slander?
What family issues are you allowing to continue well past
their expiration date because of slander? This is not the
heart of God. And I got four points to talk

(11:47):
about this, and then we're done. Number one, write this down.
Slander separates us from people we need. Slander separates friends
separates partners. When we hear evil about someone that unverified, unsubstantiated,
assumed facts, and we believe it, be careful, friend, that
you're not entertaining the devil's work to divide you from

(12:11):
your brother or your sister in Christ Jesus. See what
it says in verse four, do not speak evil against
one another.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
What's the next word? Brothers?

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Feel free to write sisters in the margins there if
you want to.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Be a biblical feminist, that's fine. But notice that he
shows the word. He writes the.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Word brothers in one verse three times. You think he's
trying to send a message here, we're brothers, We're sisters,
We're family. Turn your neighbors say we're family.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
We're family. Some of you got to.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Understand something about Water's Church.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
You're new to waterschirtch me. Let me tell you something
that you might not get. Some of you don't totally
get it.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
There are people in the church, and I'll talk about
the global church around the world, that because of their
love for Jesus, their family no longer loves them. This
is a horror for them. This is a safe house
for them, this is their family. You start to divide
them from this family. God takes it very seriously. You

(13:11):
need to love one another, build each other up, encourage
each other.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Again and again.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
The scripture calls on the church to lift up each
other with our words instead of tearing each other apart
with accusations that don't have merit.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
With so much chaos and uncertainty in the world today,
many are searching for hope and truth. At Tim Hatchlive,
we're bringing that hope to those in need. Your support
can help us reach even more hearts and poems. Partner
with us and spread the message of hope. Visit Timhatchlive
dot com, slash tv and give today. Together we can

(13:46):
make a difference.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
And so we see a picture here of brotherhood sisterhood.
At the end of the day, we're children of God.
Now here's what I know about kids, having raised.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Three of my own kids fight.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Some of you come from big families, maybe small families,
but you had sisters or brothers.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Raise your head. If you ever had a fight with
a sister or brother as a kid, and then.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
What happens, Dad or mom says, Okay, dinner time, no choice,
Come to the dinner table, make up, make up, and
come to the dinner table, and we're gonna eat together
as a family. That's what Father does at the end
of the day. That's what we're doing today. That's what
Sunday morning is about. We might have our disagreements, we
might have our blow us, we might have our fights,
but at the end of the day, we're brothers and
sisters in Christ, and we come to the table, and

(14:30):
we fellowship at the table of Jesus Christ, and we
all eat the same bread from heaven. I say that
because some of you will let little things the scripture says,
little foxes spoil the vine.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Some of you will let little things get into.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Your spirit about a brother or sister in Christ, and
you'll separate from the Church that could be a blessing
to you because of one small issue, with one thing.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
That went wrong with one person.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
You gotta have a bigger You gotta have a wide
angle zoom lens on life.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Friend, you can't let this happened.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
The enemy wants to come in and divide.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
The devil loves division.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Look at the divisions of our country that he's trying
to instigate time and time again, racial division, generational division,
gender division, political division. He wants to divide and conquer,
but the church must stand as a beachhead of godliness
to say no, we're not going to separate because.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Of our minor disagreements.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
We might have different viewpoints on different issues, we might
not see everything the same way, but there's one thing
we agree about. That's that the grave is empty, Jesus
is alive, He's coming back again, and he's the Lord
of lords and the king of kings.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
We agree about that, and we got to come together
on that.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
And so this is very serious in the heart of God.
Not to speak evil, not the slander. The ancient world
had a picture for slander. It was called the three
forked tongue, the three fourths tongue, because it actually hurts
three people. Slander hurts the person spoken about, it hurts
the person speaking it, and it hurts the person spoken to.
Because what slander really is is you're talking evil about

(16:08):
someone to someone else. It could be gossip or backbiting
or libel. When you make accusations about someone, you go
to that person. You don't go to the person, You
go and get yourself three friends to talk about that person.
Let us not allow our small groups, our life groups,
to become slander factories where we're talking about somebody we

(16:31):
have no we don't know what's going on in their life,
we don't know where they're at.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
You might have a small, moderate interaction with.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Somebody and it's just a bad interaction, and then you
start to make it like, well, I guess they're.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Not really saved. Well, whoa come down.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Maybe they're having a bad day, Maybe they're going through something.
You don't know what the call was just fifty minutes
before you met up with them. We gotta have some
compassion for people who have to have an openness of
God's grace.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
And our hearts towards to one another. We start to
divide and destroy it and do the devil's works hold
one another.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
The old New England colonists, we're up here in New
England and they took slanders so seriously they actually had
a public punishment for it.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
I want to show you this.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
It was called the gossip Bridle.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Is a picture of it right here.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
It's an iron mask that they would put old New
England colonialists. Come on, somebody make America great again, Come
on with them out. Some people called it the gossip bridle.
Some people called it the scolds Bridle. I actually read
up on this. It was actually even used to stop

(17:39):
a nagging wife. I'm not going to go any further
with that. You just let your imagination.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Play with.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Put this next picture up of it, because it used
to have this, It had this iron tongue that would
suppress in your mouth.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
I mean, this is serious stuff.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
An old colonial New England because they knew the power
of slander. They knew what would happen if you allow
people just to spout off of the mouth our country.
Lest everybody spout off on the mouth social media, lets
everybody just have a megaphone to everybody else. God took
it very seriously in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy, chapter six, nineteen.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Verse sixteen.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Here's the law on slander, who says, if a malicious
witness arises to accuse the person of wrongdoing, both parties
of the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the
priests and the judges who are in office in those days.
The judges shall inquire diligently and look at this. And
if the witness is a false witness, has slandered them,
has accused them falsely, then you shall do to him

(18:39):
as he meant to do to his brother. In other words,
you're gonna bear the consequence for your slander against somebody else.
I mean, just some of that tells me that God
takes this incredibly.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Serious, and so should we.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
James says in verse eleven, you speak against that's your brother.
But then he adds this little qualifier or judges his
brother circle the word judges. We've got to talk about
this because this one is the most misunderstood term in
the Bible. I want you to write this down. To
judge someone here in this text is to condemn someone.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
The word is creno in Greek.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
It means to condemn, to cast them off, to consider
them unworthy.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
There's only one who gets to say that. That's God. Now,
what this does not mean is.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
That we can't call what's right right and what's wrong wrong.
Are you following this because our favorite Bible verse in
America is no longer John three point sixteen, for God,
so love the world. No, it's now Matthew seven, verse one,
do not judge. A lot of Americans think that's basically

(19:52):
the heart of the gospel.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Just don't judge, no judge.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
So we see blatant immorality, and we say no, don't judge. No, no, no,
we absolutely must make distinctions about.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
What's right and wrong.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Isaiah says, woe to the nation that says to good
you are evil.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
And says to evil, you are good. So we've got
to make distinctions. There's a difference between condemnation and evaluation.
Write this down.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
We don't judge for condemnation, but we must judge for evaluation.
When your child uses that don't judge me attitude, you say, no,
I'm your parent.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
I get to judge what's right and wrong for you.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
See this happening on a regular basis, even comes into
the church.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Even comes into the church.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
If some dude is in this church and he's sleeping
around with all kinds of women, are you gonna sit there.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
And say, now, don't judge by the way you telling me.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Not, the judge is making a judgment about my judging.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
So it falls apart on the marriage.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
No, we've got to judge for evaluation of what's right
and wrong.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
What's fitting for God's people.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
But we don't condemn because God can save anyone. There's
a picture of condemnation in Luke, where this Pharisee and
a tax collector go to church. They go to the
temple to pray. The Bible says the pharisee stands by himself,
praying about himself and says God, I thank you that
I'm not like other men, like adulterers or extortioners, or
even like this tax collector. That right there, that is

(21:14):
a picture of condemnation. I'm better than you. You're not
worthy of God's mercy. That's condemnation. That's what James is
talking about here. Don't do that to people. Don't set
yourself up by putting.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Other people down. In fact, the truth of the.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Matter is, and even Proverbs says this, that gossips are
like juicy morsels.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
It's like the fat on the steak. Anybody with me
on that.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
It's like that McDonald's big macburger that RFK is coming
for right now. You know what I'm talking about. It's
so tasty, it's so juicy, but it's filled with all
kinds of nonsense. That's what gossip is. That's what gossip is.
And I thought about this. Some of you need to hear.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
It's gonna pinch.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
But I think that the people who most love gossip
have low self esteem. They just don't love them, so
they don't They hate themselves, and the way that they
feel better about themselves is they are putting other people
down because by somehow devaluing you, I can elevate myself.
What this really is is that you're disconnected from the

(22:19):
love of God for you. You need to get full of
the Holy Spirit. You need to understand God loves you.
You need to have a loving heart toward other people,
no matter.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
What they do. Sometimes, no matter what they do.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
You have to have a heart of love for them,
and that only comes with the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
I can't coach this in you. I can't teach this
in you.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
It comes from the power of the Most High God,
the Holy Spirit, taking up residence, shedding abroad in your
heart the love of God so that you can love
people who might hurt you and despitefully use you. Jesus said,
love your enemies, Bless those that persecute you, bless and
do not curse.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Where does that come from.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
That's supernatural love that.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Comes from the Father. We got to love one another
and care for one another and.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Elevate our brothers and sisters in Christ number two, write
this down, slander sets our hearts in opposition to God.
And that's what James writes about in this text. We're
not just slandering our brother. He says, we're slandering the law.
When we speak evil against our brother or sister, we
are actually.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Speaking evil against God's law.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
And then he says in verse eleven, he says, if
you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law,
but you're a judge.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Now, what does James mean by the law, Because there's
about six hundred laws in the Old Testament. What does
James mean by the law?

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Well, he explained that in chapter two, verse eight, when
he said, if you really fulfill the royal law, you
shall love your neighbor.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
As you love yourself. What the royal law is.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
In the Book of James is love others as you
love yourself. When you slander, you're not loving them, and
then you're slandering that law.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Of God to love other people. You're speaking you're opposed
to the heart of God.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Now you've got to watch out for this because we
live in a slenderous culture that feeds on demonizing entire
groups of people. The last five years, if they've taught
us anything, it is that we are a culture that
loves to lump everybody into one group based on superficial characteristics.

(24:23):
Oh they're white, they must be white supremacists, or they're brown,
they must be illegal immigrants, or they've got pink hair,
they must be communists. Well that might be true sometimes,
but nonetheless, you understand that we can't be in that
business of making assumptions about people that we don't know.

(24:44):
That's not the heart of God. It's actually the counter
to the heart of God. You gotta love the stranger,
you gotta love the foreigner, the sojournal. Yes, this is
an old Testament, new Testament. And I think about it.
Your reputation, no one loves it. When somebody reputation. There's
a picture of having like a tissue box and people

(25:04):
just pulling one tissue out at a time. And when
they speak evil about you, it's just like pulling your
reputation apart, and before you know it, you're empty. That's
what happened when people make false assumptions about you. And
so think about it. You don't want that to come
at you. You got to give grace and mercy to
other people who are unlike you. Don't slander, don't speak evil.

(25:26):
My thoughts go to a guy named Richard Jewell. Some
of you might know that name. There was a movie
about him directed by Clint Eastwood about five years ago.
Richard Jewel was a security guard at the opening ceremony
of the nineteen ninety six Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
And he was working security at this concert and he
saw a suspicious bag sitting under a bench, and he

(25:50):
immediately detected that it might be a bomb. So he
started to run around the complex getting people away from
the bomb, and he saved as the bastarr he saved
up to two hundred people was lives that day, calling
attention to the bomb. One hundred people got injured, but
one person died, but countless lives say. And a couple
of days later, the FBI leaked to the press that

(26:14):
they were considering that Richard Jewel was actually the bomber
himself looking for attention. And this guy's reputation was dragged
through the mud for eighty eight days. The press ran
with it, the news media talking his all came down
on him. The New York Times, CNN doing what they do,
spreading the fake news everywhere they.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Could, and this guy's life was ruined.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
For eighty eight days because of one false, slanderous attack.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
This is the danger of slander.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
And meanwhile, the guy who actually did the bombing got
away with it and for ten years was on the
run and bombed three other locations afterwards.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
So you gotta check the fact.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Don't speak what you don't know, don't do the devil's work.
So many times in our culture we go to these extremes.
I think about the hashtag movement, the hashtag me too.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
One of the statements from me too.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
And as much as we need to call out sexual
abuse one hundred percent as the church, we can stand
against that one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
But when they go to an extreme and before you know.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
It, demonizing all men, demonizing or demonizing all women, it's
the work.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Of the devil to divide and conquer.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
And so we look at these things in scripture and
we realize, this is not our heart, this is the heart,
this is.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
The heart of the world. It's not our heart.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
We've got to be people who unite and build up,
not people who divide and tear down. I think about
Facebook and social media. How often we can get on
these high horses and start to say things about each other,
attacking each other, openly, openly attacking each other on public platforms, insanity.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
That's not the church's way.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
The church's way is to talk to each other, to
bless each other, to build each other.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Or some of you. You know, this is much more
familiar in Florida than up here. It's called the HOA
Facebook group. The HOA is this is your Homeowner's Association.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
And everybody joins that group because they're part of that
particular neighborhood. And I'll tell you, you get on those things
and it is just a slanderfest. Somebody did this, somebody
did that. Look at this kid, look at this person.
And I was actually the victim of this once I
let my dogs off the leash and it went after somebody.
My dogs are friendly, they weren't gonna do anything, but
they went, you know, doing dog things, and they posted
the video of me chasing down my dogs, and I

(28:50):
was so shocked, and like.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Ninety comments were on the video. What an awful dog owner?
Who is this guy? I know that guy. This guy
should be prosecuted. I'm like, what is going on?

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Before I knew it, I was on trial for my life.
Slander Well, in that case, it was zero because I
did let the dogs off the leash. But nonetheless it's
dangerous how we can so easily tear people apart.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
A survey from twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
A career builder found that the number one reason for
people to leave their jobs was because of a gossiping culture.
Just don't want to, just don't need it. How many
people say this all the time. I don't need any
more drama in my life. I got enough my friends,
how much more so in the church. No drama. Let's
be no drama. Mamas, come out somebody, not gossip queens.

(29:40):
No drama, mamas, no drama.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Datus.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
You hear somebody talking about somebody water shirts, you say,
did you actually talk to them or are you just
spreading this? Have you actually asked them about it? Or
are you just spouting off? Don't entertain it?

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Tell people I know it, And this is the problem.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
It takes guts to tell somebody. I don't want to
hear it because you want them to like you.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Who's talking? Oh really? Whoa whoaa huh? I know?

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Oh well yeah that's terrible. Well yeah, I'm with you. No, no, no,
Learn to have a backbone and stand against gossip and
unsubstantiated statements against somebody who goes to your church.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Don't talk about my brother.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
That's my brother, by the way, that's your brother too.
People get on Facebook and they say the nastiest things
about our church.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Stand up for your church, he said, I don't know.
I'm not scared. I'm scared.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
God give you boldness to say truth. I'm amazing at
how quickly one one uh start Google reviews get up
on our page and and most of the time the
one star Google review comes from somebody who's living in
an immoral lifestyle. That I have the boldness to call
out from this pulpit, where's the where's the where's the
voice of the of the Body of Christ, to stand

(30:55):
up and say, no, that's not true.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
You don't know this church.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Let's stand together, Let's stand united for the gospel, full
in the truth of God's word.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Call it out, expose it for the lie in the
slanders accusation that it is.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
If you haven't left a five star review on Google yet.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Just do it. Amen, got to outnumber a couple of
people on there.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
If you're enjoying the content, head over to timhatch Live
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forward in your spiritual journey.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
What did Martin Luther King Junior? Say?

Speaker 2 (31:39):
He said, in the end, it won't be the attacks
of my enemies. It'll be the silence of my friends
that hurts the most. That's true though, in communicating and
and I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
In community, we gotta have each other's back. You gotta
stand up.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
And protect the sanctity of our community.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
This is the heart of God.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
So right number three down because now we talk about slatter.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
But here's what God does.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
God's speech or God's word joins us.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Slander separates us.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
God's word joins us to the people that we need.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
What are we coming together around? Right now?

Speaker 2 (32:16):
We're coming around together around the word of God. James
says in verse twelve, there is only one lawgiver circle lawgiver,
because that's God's identity in this text.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
He's the lawgiver.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Now, some of you have a problem with the law.
You've got actually a tainted you of the law. When
you hear the word law, you immediately think bad law, bad,
la ba.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
And even preachers can say the law, the law is bad.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
But no, no, actually, friend, think about this. Let's just
think about this rationally. The law is good. Understand that
God never puts a law into place for your harm.
Every law he gives you is to preserve and protect you.

(33:00):
You think the law is out to get you because
you've bought wholesale the lies of this world that stands
in opposition to your father. Now, I want to illustrate this.
Will adultery help or hurt you? Your silence is deafening.

(33:26):
That should be an easy one. I mean, there's some
questions up here that could be challenging. That was a layup,
my friends. I'm gonna try this one more time.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Will adultery help or hurt you? Okay?

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Who said thou shalt not commit adultery? God he wants
to help you. Who said don't murder? God he wants
to help you. By the way, let me poke some people.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Right here.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Who, through laws against fornications, say sex is reserved for marriage.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Now you're quiet. That's God's word.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
That's not to rob you of fun, that's to protect you.
When God gives law, it's always because he's.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Looking out for you. And some of you could get
up here.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
We can hear your testimony of decades of your life
ruined because you were convinced by.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
The culture of this world.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
That God's law was to be disrespected.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
And if you had just lived according to.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
It, you would have saved yourself untold heartache.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
In pain. Honestly, So what James, what James is saying.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Here, and God is the lawgiver, is he wants to
help you, protect you and church, listen to me. This
is why you don't entertain slander against one another. He
wants to keep us together because in our community, there's
strength in our community.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
I need. I don't know about you, but sometimes I need.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
I need the faith of my brother because my faith
is low. I need the confidence of my sister because
my confidence is low. And when the devil will have
to get in there and start to upend that apple
car so that you can feel all alone and isolated
in this world and you feel like you don't even
have a church anymore.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
This is so important now.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Now, look, I could say this until I'm blowing the face,
but there's a fact of life that is unavoidable.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
There are some relationships that.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Will get rough, even biblical friendships, even Christian friendships will
get rough.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
So what do you do? Well? The law is there
in the New Testament for what we do.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
I got three points about this, and I want you
to write these down so that we remember them.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Letter A.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
When the relationship is rough, go talk to them, Go.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Talk to who.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Let's try this again, Go talk to who the person
that has a problem with you or you have a
problem with Because here's what the enemy wants to do.
He wants you to talk to three other.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
People before you talk to them.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
He wants you to see if you are in the right,
because you want to feel like, Okay, am I in
the right or are they in the right? And I'm
sure I'm in the right because I always absolved myself
with my wrongdoing.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Surely they're in the wrong.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
So let me go get three people that agree with
me by telling them only my side of the story.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Are you following this? This is why at Watershirts we
will never.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Counsel one party in the marriage. You bring both of
those sinners in, both of those stubborn people in. I
remember years ago, this is way back in the old building,
there was a lady. I was down here praying for people,
and a lady came up to me and said, can you.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Pray for my husband? I said, where is he? She said,
he's over there. I said, go get them. She said no.
I said, then I'm not praying.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
We're not going to I'm not teaming up with you
against him.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Because if there's.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
One thing that I have learned, and I'm telling you
this as truthfully as I can to.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Emphasize, there's always two sides. Always, always.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
The wife wants to come and say, well you don't
understand my husband. Well, your husband is part you. He
is who he is.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Because of you, some of it as you.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
And ladies, you are who you are because of him.
Like at some point we gotta stop blaming mom and
dad for his problems and her problems and realize that
we're part of this now. So there's things that I
gotta fix. There's two sides. There's their side, the other
side and the truth.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Amen, And so we.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Talk to who them you got a problem with employer,
talk to them. You got a problem with a coworker,
talk to them. You got a problem with your family member,
talk to the family member because you want to go
to and you eat the juicy gossip. Man, that's just
gonna just troy the relationship, and then you're gonna turn
that person against the other person. And there's a Bible

(38:04):
verse that scares the life out of me.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
It's from Proverbs.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Chapter six, and it says there's six things that the
Lord hates, and the seventh is an abomination to him.
And the seventh one on the list is a man
who divides the brothers, a false gossip, a false witness
that divides friends and divides family because of malicious slander.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
You talk to them. Now, let me just give you
a little qualifier on talking to them.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Please listen to me. Don't write it down. Don't write
it down. I say this because some of you are like,
I get what you're saying, Pastor, and today I'm gonna
go home and I'm gonna draft that email.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Don't do that.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
You are asking for trouble. It will not be received
no matter how you write it. I have told people this.
I have told people this. I have told people this,
and they have ignored me and ignored me and ignored me.
Don't write it down. You can't expect them to hear
your heart through the written word, especially when there's already

(39:11):
the brewing of.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
A disconnect with them. You're gonna do more damage.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Don't text, call if possible, get face to face at
the coffee shop. Talk to.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Then let her be before.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Them, before them. In other words, when you go in
you work this thing out. Go with the attitude of
I want to help our relationship. I'm not going into
this to tell them what I really think. No, I'm
going into this to help heal. I shared this with

(39:55):
the lady between services today. She said, Yeah, that's my deal.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
My family. They don't like me. I don't understand what
you have to do.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Don't go in there and say what did I do,
because you immediately implicate yourself. And then don't go in
there and say this is what you did, because you
immediately implicate them. Go into the conversation and say it
feels like we're not where we should be, what happened
between us? Start to unearth what's going on because people

(40:22):
are complicated.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
You know what I'm talking about. You're complicated by the way.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
I'm a complicated man, and we're always gonna misinterpret.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
And when you put.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Two complicated people together, you get double the fun. Right,
So it's complicated, and you can't work these complicated issues
out with implicating each other from the jump.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
You know what I never liked about you? Stop that?

Speaker 2 (40:55):
So you ask genuinely. I want us, I'm ford. I
want us to have a healthy relationship. We don't have
to be besties. But can we have peace? What can
we do?

Speaker 1 (41:06):
What happened? What did I do? What did you do?
What can we do to fix this? Before them?

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Jesus mapped us out for us, by the way, I
already mapped this out, this out two thousand years ago.
We've been ignoring him ever since. Matthew eighteen, verse fifteen.
It says this, if your brother sins against you, go
and show him his fault just between the two of you.
You go to them, you talk to them, you work
it out, and then if you he listens to you,
you've gained your brother.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
You're for them, you want to heal the relationship.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Then the Bible goes on and verse sixteen. If he
doesn't listen to you, then you go and get two
or three others now listen. That doesn't mean you get
your posse out and help them, help you make the
argument against them. The two or three are leaders in
the church. That's why we have elders. That's what they're
there for. Friends, That's why we have elders so they

(41:55):
can mediate some of the complicated mess of human relationships.
And then it says, if they don't listen to that person,
the elder or the leader who speaks definitively on the
sin issue that they're not repenting of, then you tell
it to the church. The church is exposed to the
whole ordeal. And then you expel the immoral person. That

(42:16):
means excommunicate. Now I've passed through for twenty years and
in twenty years, I've been involved in three excommunications.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
They're never pretty, but they're very rare. So the chances
that we're gonna get.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
To that level, I'm just trying to tell you, the
chances that you're gonna get to that level are very slim.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Slim to none. Usually we can.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
Solve it, but you've got to do what scripture does,
what scripture tells you to do. Go to them, talk
to them, before them and if they don't listen, here
you go.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Let her see.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Let God be the final judge of them.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
That's his role. Now put them in his hands. Pray
for their repentance.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
If it's sinful and unrepentant, you pray for the repentance.
Because God wants us to come together through his word
and the number four. Write this down. God's word joins
us to his salvation. So where slander separates us from
one another and opposes the heart of God, his speech.
God's word is his speech. His speech brings us to

(43:19):
his salvation. You understand that's what the Bible is. The
Bible is God's invitation to no salvation. James says, there's
only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to
what save.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
He wants to save. He wants to bring salvation to
you or destroy.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
The only option is you receive or you reject. That's
the option. But he listen, He's not out.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
To get you. I think somebody needs to hear me
say this, and then he's.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Not out to get you. He's out to save you.
I think about that guy. Richard Jewel already mentioned him.
He saved hundreds from death by calling out that bomb.
But then he was excoriated in the press as being
the bomber.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
He was made the villain when he was really the hero.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Let me tell you something about some of you. You've
been convinced by this ungodly culture that God is the villain.
He's out to get you, He's out to hurt you.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus said in
John three seventeen, for the Father did not send the
Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
through him the world might be saved.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
He's the hero.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
He's the one who didn't just warn you about the bomb.
He took the bomb, He took the cross. He didn't
come to warn you about hell. He came to take
hell on himself at the cross so that you could
have heaven through his grace and mercy. He wants to

(44:55):
bring healing to your heart, not heartache. He wants to
bring you to ney to your life. He wants to
bring peace to your family, not problems. And that's the
choice you got with the Lord Jesus Christ. Receive him
and receive the grace and the mercy and the peace
of God. Reject him and you get all the other things.
Hi I'm Tim Hatch, host of all Things tim Hatch Live,

(45:17):
and I seek to do two things. Engage your eyes
with what you see in the news, and engage your
heart with what you hear in God's Word, and bring
those two together to help you face these challenging times
with Christian conviction and biblical wisdom.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
So join us in this mission.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Check out the content, consider partnering with us at tim
Hatch Live, and together we will impact the generation for
Jesus Christ.