Sermon Trading Revealed!

All right, well, let's get started here today. I hope you had a good weekend. I had a great weekend, and yesterday, actually, at church,

I had the opportunity, my pastors asked me to do a Sunday school series about the

Social Justice Pharisees book. So, do it in a few weeks, we'll see how that goes. Everyone seemed to like it yesterday.

I felt like it was a little bit scattered because I just don't really do in -person teaching, really, ever.

I used to do it back when I was a pastor, of course, preaching and teaching. A lot of times, it goes kind of hand -in -hand, although it's not quite the same thing.

But anyway, it went pretty well. I think they recorded it, so maybe we'll put that on the video on the channel, and we'll see how that goes.

But I hope you had a good Lord's Day as well. Now, I did wanna talk a little bit more about Ed Litton.

Well, actually, not really Ed Litton. He's the catalyst, of course, of all this plagiarism talk and all of that.

But I did see this article on the Roy's Report, and I don't really care so much about the article itself.

I've heard the Roy's Report is highly suspect in general. I've heard that they do some good stuff, and then some of it is just really lame.

But anyway, it's not really about the Roy's Report article, although I did wanna attribute where I found this website.

But it talks about how there's a whole cottage industry of people buying and selling sermons.

I guess this is like a trading platform for sermons. It's called sermoncentral .com. I just wanted to check it out.

And you pay for, I think you can pay for a subscription, or you could buy individual sermon series and stuff like that.

And apparently, you just go here, and you just type in whatever the topic you want, or maybe you want a certain pastor or something like that.

And it's like a trading platform for sermons, which, you know,

I don't know.

I mean, it's the morning, and I feel like I need a stiff drink. But you feel like you know it all, what's going on, but I didn't know this was going on.

This is pretty remarkable. Let's check out the website here just for a second, and let's see what this is all about.

This is TriPro. So this is you could buy $15 a month when you pay annually, and you start a free trial.

So this is product -led growth. This is what this is called, where you get a free trial, and you can check it out.

You can access all the sermons. You can unlock pro illustrations. What's that? Pro illustrations.

So I guess if your life is too boring, or if your mind is too, the lack of creativity, you can purchase an illustration.

So you'll be like, you know, one day I was sitting in the DMV, and I was thinking about the gospel.

And I guess really that didn't happen to you, but you bought the illustration. Look at this, copy and paste sermons.

So I don't know what that is, but that certainly doesn't sound very scrupulous.

Scrupulous, or is it unscrupulous? I don't know. I'm poor at English. I don't do English very well.

Okay, look at this. You can access free sermon collections, stuff like that. It looks like a lot of preachers have verified how good this service is.

Look at this, five -star reviews. Oh, look at this one. This guy says it's acceptable. This person only gave it a three -star, this service.

It's acceptable, but he doesn't really like it that much. That's interesting. Maybe we'll go through some of those things.

But yeah, you could just go here, and you can buy sermons. That's what you do. So let's check out, let's try this out.

So I'm gonna do, oh, you can even go by denomination. This is very interesting. So whether you're a

Seventh -day Adventist, or if you're Pentecostal, or even Presbyterian, or United Methodist, you could make sure that your sermon is coming from your denomination.

Let's do this. So we're gonna do, let's do sermon illustrations, and then we'll do, let's see.

How about, how about grace? We'll type in grace. That's a good popular topic.

Here's the sermon illustration. So what's going on here? We got, this is a five -star illustration.

Grace is locked by pro. It says, okay, grace the boy stood defiantly. The boy stood defiantly.

Go ahead, give it to me. The principal looked at the young rebel and asked, how many times have you been here?

The child sneered rebelliously, apparently not enough. You have been punished each time. The principal responded, yeah,

I've been punished. If that's what you wanna call it, go ahead. I can take whatever you dish out, I always have.

And no thought of your punishment enters your head the next time you decide to break the rules, does it? Nope, I'd do whatever

I wanted to do. Ain't nothing you people gonna do to stop me either. The principal looked at the teacher who stood nearby.

What did he do this time? Fighting, he shoved Tommy's face into the sandbox. The principal looked at the boy.

What did Tommy do to you? Nothing, I didn't like the way he was looking at me. The teacher stiffened, but a quick look from the principal stopped him as he quietly said, today is the day you learn about grace.

Grace, isn't that what you old people do before you sit down to eat? I don't need none of your stinking grace.

Oh, but you do, said the principal. The principal studied the young man's face and whispered, oh yes, you truly do.

The boy continued to glare as the principal continued. Grace, in its short definition, is unmerited favor.

You cannot earn it, it's a gift, and it's always freely given. It means that you will not be getting what you so richly deserve.

The boy looked puzzled. You're not gonna whoop me? You're just gonna let me walk? The boy studied the face of the principal.

No punishment at all? Not even though I socked Tommy in the face and shoved his face into the sandbox? Oh, there has to be a punishment.

What you did was wrong, and there are always consequences to our actions. There will be punishment. Grace is not an excuse for doing wrong.

I knew it, sneered the boy as he held out his hand. Let's get on with it. The principal nodded toward the teacher. Bring me the belt.

The teacher presented the belt to the principal and carefully folded it in two, then handed it back to the teacher.

He looked at the child and said, I want you to count the blows. The principal walked over to stand directly in front of the young man.

He gently reached out and folded the child's outstretched, expected hands together, and then turned to face the teacher with his own hands outstretched.

One quiet word came from his mouth. Begin. The belt whipped out the outstretched hands of the principal.

Crack. The young man jumped. Shock registered across his face. One, he whispered. Crack, two.

His voice raised an octave. Three, he couldn't believe this. Crack, four. Big tears welled up in the eyes of the rebel.

Okay, stop. That's enough. Stop. Crack came down the belt on the hands of the principal. The child flinched with each blow.

Tears beginning to stream down his face. Crack, crack. No, please, the rebel begged. Stop it. I did it.

I'm the one. Okay, so this is an illustration about a boy who learns about grace. That's a beautiful story.

I like that story. That's, you know, nothing wrong with that. It's a beautiful demonstration of grace.

But if you want to see how the story ends, then you got to pay $15 a month,

I guess. Or I wonder if you can do this a la carte. Is there an a la carte option? Let's find out. Let's see.

We got the help section here. Oh, sermon series kits. Look at this. I'm going to get distracted here.

Let's see. Sermon, royalty still background stills. Okay. Preaching articles.

I don't know, man. A sermon series kit. Let's check this out. Let's not do that. Let's not. This video, video illustrations.

You can play videos at church. All right. This is all pretty interesting. Oh, a comedy. There's even a comedy section.

Let's find this out. Singles advice. Let's check this out. It's a humorous video. This is a humorous video.

Let's find out what it has to say. Have you talked to Marcus yet? He'd be such a good fit for you. I don't know.

There's so many white ladies here. Hold on. Let me. Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh my goodness.

You can buy this one. This, you can buy this video for $18. Wow. This is something else.

Okay. Let's check out this humorous video on sermoncentral .com. This, this video can be yours for $18.

Let's check it out. Marcus yet? He'd be such a good fit for you.

I don't know. I've talked to him and I'm just not that interested. He'd be so such a good fit for you. Like it would be totally awesome.

We're going to find you a good Christian man. You really don't have to do that. Oh my gosh. Brent, he's a financial advisor for Wells Fargo.

He brags about it a little bit. Wells Fargo. Did you hear Wells Fargo is canceling all their personal lines of credit?

Just, you can't do it anymore. I mean, but don't worry though. The economy is very, very strong, but Wells Fargo is extremely concerned that their customers won't be able to pay them back.

So they're just canceling everyone's line of credit. He's also on the treasury board for the church. That means he cares about the

Lord's money. I actually tried to talk to him after church last Sunday and we literally talked about Excel spreadsheets.

My gosh, y 'all have talked? Isn't he so smart? Listen, I know what it's like to be young and single and in the church.

Okay, I didn't meet Jeff until I was 18 years old. What? Okay, yeah. And those three months in between him and my other boyfriend were the hardest three months of my life.

I'll get you out of this single place. You just have to find you someone, anyone. As long as they're Christian and go to church, they'll be good enough.

I'm fine. I don't mind being single. You probably should get married though. That lady should probably get married. These girls are really annoying, but they're right though.

She should get married. I mean, she looks to be what, like 30 something years old. I mean, she should get married.

I'm not in a huge rush. What? No, you should be in a rush, okay? Yeah. You don't want to spend the next five to 10 years of your life not married.

Definitely not. Until you are evenly yoked with your husband, you'll be unevenly yoked to the world. Oh my gosh, yes.

Oh, Kevin. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Yeah, but he volunteers for communion every Sunday. Oh my gosh, Tyler! He's a lead vocalist in the worship band.

And all he does is play guitar. You know, I've... I have never seen him not on stage. Yeah, but when he sings

Oceans, I cry. I cry. You know who you could love? Derek. Isn't he dating

Laura? No, they actually broke up two days ago. But I see him with Claire, like, all the time. No, they're just talking. He's actually talking to Claire and Tiffany.

But you could be the one he more than talks to. Michael! Yeah, sure, he thinks you're in love with him after you've only...

You know, I wonder if there's a company that just makes these... Maybe this is it, Cedarville Comedy, where they just do these stupid little shorts, and that's all they do, and then they sell it for $18 a pop.

You know, I wonder if that's a business. It probably is. That's... Talk to him once. That's pretty weird. Time.

That's the end goal, anyways. No! Bill? Oh, he's so fatherly.

No, that's not his child. He's always holding someone else's child. Like, what is he trying to prove?

Uh, that he's a good, good father? Yeah. What about Ken? He's looking at you.

What? Are you kidding me? What's happening? Excuse me, excuse me, everybody.

This is my friend Liz, and she is the most eligible bachelorette I have ever met.

She is desperate. I'm not. Alone. I'm fine! She will literally date anyone.

Guys, she will date you, you, you, you. Do you have a brother? She'll date both of you.

We just have to get you married so you can be blissfully happy. You know, maybe you've been single for so long.

What is the point of this? Because God is trying to teach you something. Okay. How are your marriages?

Huh? Eh, yeah, it's okay. What? Okay, so here's the point.

It says, this humorous video, allegedly humorous video, illustrates how sometimes we can treat singleness like it's an unwanted phase of life that we need to quickly get out of.

But singleness is a worthy calling. And it shouldn't be considered less valuable than the calling to be married.

So I guess it's supposed to show you that that girl don't need no man. That's not actually accurate.

But, you know, I'm sure that there aren't any real theological barriers to uploading your stuff here.

But this is pretty crazy. So let's check out some sermon collections here. I heard that Mike Stone was selling his stuff here.

Let's find out. Mike Stone. Oh, maybe he deleted it.

Oh no. Is J .D. Greer on here? I heard J .D. Greer was on here too. Making some of that sick sermon money, you know what

I mean? Alright, let's see. I can't find anything. Interesting.

Let's see. Sermons. Maybe they just sell individual sermons. Let's find out.

Mike Stone. Uh -oh. Stona, that's not how you say his name. Mike Stone.

What's going on here? I was told that there were sermon series like Mike Stone. Okay, look.

Maybe this is where you get to it. Here it is. Mike Stone. Look at this.

It is a la carte. Okay, so it sounds like this. You could either get... Oh, this is a different service.

This is Sermon Central. This is Sermon Search. So, Sermon Central is a subscription service where you can get sick videos like that one we just saw about how that lady don't need no man.

And then on Sermon Search, you can buy individual sermons a la carte for six bucks a piece.

So, Mike Stone, he was running for Southern Baptist President. He lost to the

Liberal. But he's also selling his sermons. So, you can buy his sermons here for...

There's 75 sermons. You can get it for 550 bucks. Let's see J .D. Greer. Let's see the kind of sick sermon money he's making.

J .D. Greer. All right. So, J .D. Greer. Oh, man. Oh, wait.

Hold on. Hold on a second. Hold on. Here we go. Oh, look.

You can see all the authors right here. Look at that. Oh, here's J .D. Greer. Perfect. Let's do this.

J .D. Greer. Looks like he's only got 51 sermons on here. Let's check it out.

J .D. Greer. This content is part of a series. Let's check out the series. Okay.

So, you've got the Blessed series and then the Wonder of Mystery series.

Let's add this to the cart and see how much it costs. J .D. Greer. Oh, look. He only has a couple here.

Look at what's going on here. J .D. Greer's not even selling as much as Mike Stone. Yeah, this is pretty weird, guys.

Selling sermons. You know who else does this? Tim Keller does this. He sells his sermons as well. I think his sermon series is like his lifetime achievement of sermons.

He was selling the sermons for like $2 ,000 or something like that. I think it was marked down.

It was like $4 ,000, but he had it marked down. It was like a special. He must have been doing the

Ed Litton special selling his sermons for $2 ,000. That's pretty interesting because you would think that he probably got paid already for those sermons since he was a minister of a church.

I would assume he had a salary, but, you know, I guess that's… Check out the

FAQ of Sermon Search. SermonChurch .com is an online resource for sermon outlines and preaching ideas.

We offer 30 ,000 -plus outlines and 10 ,000 -plus free sermon illustrations. The outlines cost, but the illustrations are free here.

I guess that's a little better than Sermon Central, the other trading platform, because the illustrations are free.

You'll write powerful and fresh messages every week with our preparation tools. You get a free trial, 30 sermons for free.

Then if you do an annual membership, you can get it for $12 .42 per month, and that includes 360 sermons a year.

You even get extra sermons. There's only how many weeks in a year? Well, 52 weeks in a year, so that would be 52 sermons, but you're getting extra sermons so that maybe you could pick and choose or maybe steal a little bit from this sermon, steal a little bit from that sermon, and all that.

Then they've got, of course, an a la carte option here, $5 .99 per sermon. That's what's going on here.

You can pay $5 .99 a sermon, or you can pay annually to get the most bang for your buck.

Monthly here, you have that. Let's see if What's -His -Face was selling sermons.

Ed Litton, because Ed Litton was selling sermons. I mean, was stealing sermons, but let's see if he was reselling the sermon.

It doesn't look like it. I wish there was an easier way to search this. Some pretty big names on here.

This is pretty ridiculous. I'm not going to lie. This is absolutely ridiculous. Ed Litton, let's find out.

I don't think you can search it. Oh, no, no, no

Ed Litton. Well, that's good. I mean, that would be pretty ridiculous if he was repackaging the sermon and then reselling the sermon.

I wonder if the sermons he bought had, allegedly bought, allegedly had reselling rights to them. That would be something.

But I said on Gab yesterday that, you know, I wonder if pastors are worried because we've got a lot of price inflation out there right now, and the price of lumber has gone up, the price of oil is increasing.

The technical analysis chart of the gold market looks pretty good for a bull run on gold.

I wonder if there's going to be a bull run on sermons. If I was a pastor, I might be worried about that. I'm going to get inflation is going to make the sermon trade one that's attractive to people.

It costs $6 per sermon now, but I wonder if inflation is going to raise that price the way that the price of lumber went up.

That would be pretty damaging, I think, to a lot of smaller churches that are stealing sermons like this. I guess I shouldn't say stealing, but purchasing sermons.

I got to go because my mom told me if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it.