Because he says in verse 38, for this council, for if this council or this work be of men,
it will come to naught.
In other words, it's going to come to nothing.
And then he says, but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest happily be found
even to fight against God.
I want to read this, you know, I'm encouraged to be honest with you, because of the fact
when you think of the local New Testament church, okay, nothing can overthrow the local
New Testament church, nothing.
There is no outside force that can destroy the local New Testament church.
I don't care how powerful they may be, how much influence they may have, you know, how
many articles and how many videos they make, it doesn't matter.
They cannot overthrow it if it be of God.
The only person who can overthrow a church is Jesus Christ himself.
It's the only one, he's the one who has the authority to remove the candlestick, right?
He said, you know, thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates
of hell should not prevail against it.
You know, Satan and his minions, Satan and his people and his principalities and powers
and his rulers of darkness, they could try to fight against us, fight against local assemblies
and try to tear us down and destroy us, but at the end of the day, no weapon formed against
thee shall prosper, the Bible says.
Because God didn't give authority to any human being in this world to destroy the local
New Testament church, the only one who can do that is God himself, okay?
Now obviously, a church can implode from the inside out, right?
If we allow sin to permeate the church, you know, and just allow it to just leaven up
and have a bunch of leaven in it, a bunch of sin and heresy and false doctrine, if we
stop doing what God has called us to do, we just completely negate the great commission,
we're no longer preaching the word of God, we just become lazy, at that point we implode,
but it's still God who comes and removes that candlestick.
Still God is the one who comes and says, okay, you're no longer a church, right?
But you know what?
Attacks from the outside actually strengthen us.
Criticisms from the outside actually strengthen us.
They want to weaken us, they want to hinder us and slow us down, but you can't stop us.
Yeah, you can maybe slow us down a little bit, you know, cause us to go from fourth
gear to first gear for a short time, but you can't stop us.
You won't cause us to put it in park and take the keys out of the ignition and just leave
it at that.
No, we're still going to be going forward, you know, and it doesn't matter how many videos
you can make, whatever YouTube channels you have, you know, how many slanders you can
put out there, how much dirt you're trying to dig up on church members or the pastor,
you can say whatever you want, no weapon formed against thee shall prosper.
You will not be able to take down first works Baptist church, period.
And I'm not saying that based upon, oh, I'm just such a great leader, I'm a great pastor.
No, it's the fact that the only one who has that authority is Jesus Christ himself.
And as long as we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, we're in good hands, amen?
I mean, you know, 10,000 shall fall on my right hand, 10,000 shall fall on my left.
It shall not come dying to me.
The world can be falling apart to the left and to the right of me, but God's heads of
protection is still there.
He can keep us.
He's the one that determines whether our church exists or it doesn't.
And let me just tell you, God's not going to listen to the prayers of these wicked reprobates
who want to destroy our church.
You know, he's not going to give them any ground.
He's going to give them enough, you know, a robe to hang themselves is what he's going
to do.
He's going to give them enough robe to make them think like they're making some sort of
progress, but they're not going to be able to stop us.
Oh, we're going to shut you down and we're going to shut down YouTube.
Yeah, you can shut down a YouTube channel, but the church still exists.
And you know what?
YouTube is not the one that gets the word out.
It's God who gets the word out, because the word has gotten out for thousands of years
without YouTube.
YouTube has been permeating throughout cities, states, and countries.
The message of the gospel, the message of the Bible has always permeated societies without
technology.
Now, we'll use technology, amen?
And we're going to continue to utilize it.
But if they try to shut us down in that area, God's just going to open up another door somewhere
else for us to be able to propagate the word of God, because he's the one who allows us
to prosper.
He's the one that gives the word of God a free course.
There's wicked and unreasonable men who want to hinder us and stop us by criticizing us,
by trying to wear us down, but you can't stop us.
It's impossible.
It is impossible.