sermon | Prayers and Promises

What a Sheep Thinks When You Plagiarize Another Pastor’s Sermon

(Yes, my rant about how a ‘sheep’ feels when a Pastor takes credit for another Pastor’s sermon.)

When I wrote this blog last night I was angry. Today I am sad. I can’t believe there are those who ‘peddle’ God’s Word. And God says there are many who do this. We talked about ‘faith healers’ yesterday and how some Preachers will walk into the anointing from other people’s prayers and perform miracles. Then they ‘steal’ the credit and say they did it. God is the healer, and it is He who does the works. And then there are Pastors who will preach another Pastors words without giving them credit. They preach it as if they wrote it. It’s like a play or performance then. Just reading the lines. I found this about those who ‘peddle’ God’s Word for profit, for gain, and for applause:

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:14-17 NKJV)

2 Corinthians 2:17.

The English word “peddle” is the Greek word, “kapēleuō” and from the root word, kapelos which means a huckster. By definition in English, it means to be a retailer, to make money by selling anything. It means to get sordid gain by dealing in anything, to do a thing for base gain. It means to trade in the word of God for money or personal gain. It means to try to get base gain by corrupting and adulterating divine truth. A peddlers were in the habit of adulterating their commodities for the sake of gain and all these rings a bell in our days.

Apostle Paul outrightly made it clear that those who peddle the word of God for profit are so many. This we cannot overlook in our days with the end time churches. The question then goes, who are these people that peddle the word of God for profit and how do we recognize them?

There is a simple solution. If you find a sermon online – give credit to the Pastor who wrote it. As a Worship Leader our band sings songs that other Musicians wrote. We belong to CCLI and we report the songs we sing. As a Worship Leader we don’t take credit for the songs we sing – we acknowledge that we did not write them and give credit where credit is due. This way the Writer of the song gets credit for us singing their song. It is the honest and lawful thing to do. And it speaks to our integrity. As bloggers we are careful to cite our sources for words and images. It’s about honesty.

Here Are My Thoughts on What a Sheep Feels When a Pastor Plagiarizes Another Pastors Sermon:

You are not talking to God. I want to hear what God has told you this week. What are His thoughts?

You don’t care about the sheep. We don’t matter. If we did you would feed us. We are hungry. We are thirsty. And You have chosen to be the Shepherd of this flock.

You are only interested in the applause or the microphone.

If you steal another Pastor’s words what will you steal from me?

I trusted you to pray for me and bring me before the Father. You broke that trust when I can find your words on Google and some other Pastor wrote it. You didn’t give him the credit. He did the work. You preached it as if it were your words. You are stealing.

It wasn’t the Word God gave you for this body. That sermon was for another Pastor and his church.

If you don’t credit the original Author, what else are you stealing credit for? It is dishonest and makes me question whether I can trust you.

I must not matter to you as a sheep because you are too busy or too lazy to care what God wants to say to me and this part of the body. I trusted you to talk and pray to God for all of this body. God brought us here. I thought you cared.

Pastors have been fired for plagiarism. It is dishonest. It is wrong. If you don’t want to do the work then don’t take the job. (Guess I am a little angry. Help me Lord.)

It makes me question whether God cares about me or not. You are His mouthpiece, and you have nothing to say except someone else’s words?

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Have you been considered? By God? Remember Job? Remember Joseph? Are you going through a test right now? I am. I believe that this is a test, it is is only a test. God is more than able to meet all of my needs in Christ Jesus. He knows what I need even before I ask. I have asked and I will receive. I know I am in my season of testing like Job. He was doing everything right. God even bragged on him to Satan.

I sit in the ashes with Job today. In the past three years I have lost my job, we have lost our house, we have lost loved ones, we have lost animals, even the van died. We used the last of our gas to get to Church yesterday. My husband has 12, yes 12 jobs now, that he has done and is waiting for payment on from various IT Buyers. All have been delayed. Have you been there? I know I am not alone here…

You find out who you are in the valley. And you find out who your friends are and who they are not. Some people will pray for you and some will laugh at you. We have had the ‘naysayers’ tell us that we are creating our own problems and it is all our fault. We have had ‘Christians’ brag about how much money they have and shame us for not coming to events that cost money. They have no idea the valley that we walk through as they point fingers. I have leaned much here in the valley. And yet, I know God is still good, and our ending will be better than our beginning. He promised!

“And though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would greatly increase.” (Job 8:7 AMP)

It is times like this that I remember the Word. And I cling to the promises that God has given us all. He is with us. He knows. And the gold we receive will be well worth the wait.

But He knows the way that I take [He has concern for it, appreciates, and pays attention to it]. When He has tried me, I shall come forth as refined gold [pure and luminous]. My foot has held fast to His steps; His ways have I kept and not turned aside. (Job 23:10-11 AMP)

Then Job arose and rent his robe and shaved his head and fell down upon the ground and worshiped And said, Naked (without possessions) came I [into this world] from my mother’s womb, and naked (without possessions) shall I depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed (praised and magnified in worship) be the name of the Lord! In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly. (Job 1:20-22 AMP)

This morning I remembered Pastor Barnett and his sermon on “Have you been Considered?”

Sermon Notes:

It is great to be called by God, and then it is great to become obedient. and then God rewards you by touching the seeds that you plant, watering your seeds with your faith, and your trust and your belief in God and how you are reaping a harvest.

When God calls you He never leaves you nor forsakes you.

Denominations has nothing to do with the Body of Christ. That’s only something that the Devil uses to divide us. It’s all about the Name of Jesus.

The thing about Job is that he was a man that loved God. When we left the Devil’s Team and joined God’s Team, we are saying that we love God. Job loved God so much that God bragged on him.

Satan came up, God asked Satan, “Where you been?” God said, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him in all the Earth.” We want God to put our name in the place of Job. Satan is still walking to and fro the Earth. Satan is still trying to kill, steal, and destroy. He is still on the job 24/7.

God brags on, “Job hates evil and He loves me more than anything.”

We could put our name in there, “______Loves me more than Desperate Housewives, more than Grey’s Anatomy, more than shoes…”

Satan says,”Yeah, I have seen Job, but because you have a hedge of protection I can’t get to him. He don’t love you like that just for nothing.” Satan says,”He loves like that because of all you give him, because of all the things You have blessed him with. Job is rich.”

God says, “To prove it to you Satan, I will take down my hedge.”

God will ALLOW it. God did not cause it, he allowed it. (We have the ability through prayer to change things for our brothers and sisters. A prayer from a friend will avail much. Prayer changes things.)

God says, ” Ok, I’ll allow you to touch Job’s stuff. The things I have given to Job I will allow you to have power over those things, but just don’t touch him.” Isn’t it great to know that God creates ALL things. No matter how much Satan wants to rule or tries to be a big man on campus’ he can’t do nothing unless God allows it.

Job gets bad news. A lot of times when we go through things It’s just a test. Not for God, but for us to know where we are in God. We don’t know how we will react until something comes up. Let a fire come and take everything that we have. Let a loved one get sick and bring them to being bedridden, Let something happen where you have no control over it, and then will you say, “God is good” ?

It ain’t nothing but a test.

Job’s children died, animals got taken away, some of his household died. But through all of that he still praised God. For the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

I will not put on you more than you can bear God says. We may go through pain and agony, God knows how much you can take and how much they can take. Sometimes with the loss of a loved one we can remember that they belong to God before they belong to us. God knows.

Job still prays, “God nonetheless.”

In the test we may ask, “Lord why me?”

And the Lord turns around and says, “Why not you? You say you’re my servant. You say that you love me, You said that any way I want to use you I can use you. You say that you want to be a light for the world. You say that you said you want to save souls. You said that you want to keep people from going to Hell. You said you want everybody that you know to go to Heaven. You said these things.

“Why not you?”