The chapter that I'd like to focus on is in verse number 5, where the Bible reads,
He also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
And what I want to preach about tonight is sacrifice, or making sacrifices.
Now, the Bible says here that we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God.
He's comparing it to the Old Testament, when throughout the Old Testament, people would bring a sacrifice,
or they would bring an offering unto the Lord, and it was an animal from the flock,
it was a lamb, it was a bullock, whatever the case may be, and they would sacrifice that animal unto the Lord.
Obviously, we don't do that today in the New Testament, because Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God,
who has taken away the sin of the world, once slain for all the sins of mankind.
And so, we don't offer up a physical offering, as the priests of the Old Testament do.
But according to the Bible, every New Testament believer is a priest.
And we offer up spiritual sacrifices. What does that mean?
Well, first of all, the word sacrifice is used in the Bible 339 times.
So this is a really big subject in the Bible, it's mentioned a lot throughout both Old and New Testaments.
What is a sacrifice? Well, just simply, a sacrifice is something that you offer to God.
It's just something that you take that belongs to you, and you give it to God.
Well, we use the term sacrifice in today's vernacular to refer to maybe giving up something that you don't necessarily want to give up so much.
Like, well, you know, I'm really making a sacrifice to be here, because I'm giving up something else,
or I'm putting this place more of a priority than something else I could have been doing,
so I'm making a sacrifice, or I'm giving something that hurts to give that.
Now, God asks us to do sacrifice, and to make sacrifices,
and all throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament, this is mentioned hundreds of times.
First of all, let me say this.
Time is similar to what I preached about on Wednesday night, where Samuel confronts Saul,
and of course he tells Saul to obey is better than sacrifice.
And he explains to him that instead of sacrificing God, he should have obeyed the voice of the Lord.
Well, the Bible says that similar concept in a lot of different places.
I'll give you one place.
Proverbs 21 verse 3 says to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.
So although sacrifice is good, and God wants us to sacrifice,
we should always first and foremost obey His commandments, obey God, do the minimum that He's asking us to do.
But the Christian life is a life of sacrifice.
And there are things that we have to give to God, or give up, and so forth.
Go to 2 Samuel chapter 24.
2 Samuel chapter 24, back in the Old Testament.
2 Samuel chapter 24, I'll give you the context of the story here.
This is where David has sinned and numbered the people.
God had commanded him not to do it, but yet he sent out Joab to number the people,
and God's sending punishment on David because he had numbered the people.
And he sends this horrible plague that lasts for three days,
and all kinds of people are dying in the city of Jerusalem
because of the plague that came as a result of David's sin of numbering the people.
Well, Nathan the prophet is the one who tells David about this,
and he tells him that he needs to build an altar to the Lord here to make things right with God.
And so David goes to a place that's owned by Arana the Jebusite, a threshing floor.
And that's where he needs to build this altar to God.
And it says in 2 Samuel 24 verse 21, and Arana said,
Wherefore is my Lord the king come to his servant?
And David said, To buy the threshing floor of thee to build an altar unto the Lord,
that the plague may be stayed from the people.
And Arana said unto David, Let my Lord the king take and offer up what seemed a good idea.
Behold here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments,
and other instruments of the oxen for wood.
All these things did Arana as a king give unto the king.
And Arana said unto the king, The Lord thy God accept thee.
So David comes to this man, Arana the Jebusite, and he says,
Look, I need to buy this threshing floor, and I want to build an altar to the Lord.
I need to do sacrifice unto him, that the plague might be stayed,
and that people's lives might be saved.
And Arana the Jebusite says, Look, I'm just humbled that you're even here.
You can have the threshing floor. You don't have to buy it from me.
And in fact, you can use all the instruments.
You can have the oxen. You can have everything. Take it.
It's yours. But look what David says in verse 24,
The king said unto Arana, Nay. He doesn't know.
But I will surely buy it of thee at a price.
Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God,
of that which doth cost me nothing.
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
You see, that's God trying to teach us something here.
David says, I want to make an offering unto the Lord.
I want to make a sacrifice unto the Lord.
But I want it to cost me something.
I don't want to offer God something that was just free to me.
No, I want to make a sacrifice here, not you.
I'm making a sacrifice, and I want this to cost me something.
Look at Matthew chapter 10.
But you see, people today, they want a Christianity that costs you nothing.
They don't want to sacrifice anything.
They don't want to give anything up.
They don't want to sacrifice their time to come to church.
They don't want to sacrifice their time to read the Bible.
They don't want to sacrifice their time to pray.
They don't want to sacrifice their money to give the tithe unto the Lord.
They don't want to sacrifice their time and energy to go out soul-ending
because there's other things that they could be doing with that time.
And God wants us to sacrifice an offering to Him,
and not to be selfish, and not to expect a religion that costs us nothing.
You see, it costs something to serve God.
It's going to cost you gas in your gas tank to get down to church three times a week.
I mean, that's going to cost money, especially depending upon where you live.
It's going to cost your time and energy to go out soul-ending.
It's going to cost you friends when you stand up for what's right,
when you serve God.
You see, it's always going to cost you something to serve God.
And David said, that's fine with me.
I want it to cost me something.
I want to make a sacrifice to God.
I want to give God something where it actually costs me.
Now, think about what Jesus sacrificed for us.
At the Last Supper, He took the bread, He break it and gave it unto them,
and He said, this is my body which is broken for you,
this do in remembrance of me.
Jesus Christ sacrificed His body.
He sacrificed His life.
He sacrificed everything for us,
and He asked us to sacrifice ourselves.
He said in 1 John 3, 16, you don't have to turn there.
He said, hereby receive we the love of God,
because He laid down His life for us,
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
You see, there's a sacrifice involved there.
Look at Matthew chapter 10.
Here's a sacrifice that Jesus mentions.
Let me turn there myself here.
I've got part of it in my notes,
but I want to go a little further with it here.
It says in verse number 34,
think not that I have come to send peace on earth.
I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Now, that's not most people's thoughts on Jesus Christ today,
but that's what the Bible says.
That might not be on the back of a greeting card
that you get this summer, this Christmas,
but I mean, it is biblical.
And He goes on to elaborate on that.
He said, for I am come to set a man at variance
against his father.
Now, nobody wants to be at variance against their father,
but Jesus said, I'm come to set a man at variance
against his father,
and the daughter against her mother,
and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
And here's why he needs the next statement.
He that loveth father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me.
And he that loveth son or daughter more than me
is not worthy of me.
And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me
is not worthy of me.
And verse 39, I'm going to touch on later in the sermon,
but I just want to read it now.
He that findeth his life shall lose it,
and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
Jesus Christ is telling us here
that it's going to cost you something to serve God.
It might cause you to be at variance with your own dad.
It might cause you to be at variance with your own mother.
It might cause you to be at variance
with the people in your own family.
The Bible talks about later on,
or earlier on in the same chapter,
jump up if you would to verse number...
Let me find my place.
I didn't have it in my notes, but look at verse 21.
This is talking about in the end times,
and he's giving a little prophecy
about the tribulation in the end times.
He says,
And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death,
and the father the child,
and the children shall rise up against their parents
and cause them to be put to death,
and ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake,
but even a door to the end shall be saved.
Talking about adoring that tribulation
and adoring the end of that.
But when they persecute you in this city,
flee you into another, and on and on.
And I compare it with Matthew 24.
It goes into it in both chapter 10 and 24.
You see, it's going to cost you something to serve God.
And oftentimes, it will cost you friendships.
And I remember...
Well, I got saved when I was six years old.
I was just a very young child.
But I didn't really start living for God
until I was about 17.
You know, all the time in between,
I just wasn't really that serious about the things of God.
There were times when I did a lot of Bible reading,
but I never got anyone else's sake.
I was never able to win somebody to Christ
until I was 17 years old.
And I never really was that serious about serving God
until around the time I turned 17.
And I remember when I was 16
is when I started reading the Bible cover to cover
for the first time.
It changed my life when I was 16.
Worldly teenager.
My hair was all bleached and punked out.
I wore all kinds of crazy clothes,
listened to all the wrong music.
Just, you know, just a typical worldly teenager.
And I remember I decided, I said,
you know what, I'm going to read the Bible cover to cover.
I want to read it all.
I want to know what it says for myself.
Not because someone told me what it said,
but I want to read it myself.
And when I was 16, I started reading the Bible,
completely changed my life.
Just to read it.
And then getting in the right church
was the other huge thing that changed my life.
And that was as a result.
I think God saw me reading my Bible.
He led me to the right church.
I was walking out of a used bookstore.
A man walked up to me right about the time
I was just turning 17.
A man walked up to me and he said,
hey, kid, you want to go to church?
And I took the invitation out of his hand.
It was an invitation to Regency Baptist Church.
And it said, do you know for sure
if you die today, you go to heaven?
And he asked me that question.
I said, I'm saved.
I said, I go to a Baptist church.
I'm saved.
And he said, and I said, you know,
I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And, you know, he said, well, let me ask you this.
He said, does your church go out and get other people saved?
You guys go out and knock doors and preach the gospel?
I said, no, but we should be doing that.
And he just said, amen.
He just walked away.
And I was interested in talking to him,
but he just said, see ya.
So I brought that paper home to my parents
and I said, you know, this is where
we ought to be going to church.
And they looked at it and said, yeah, we'll try it.
And we went and tried it.
Of course, you know, we loved it.
And we said, you know, we were learning the Bible.
We were, you know, within a few weeks they had me,
you know, knocking doors, winning souls with them.
And that's what attracted me to the church
was when he said that to me
and that was exactly what I wanted to hear.
And the first thing I did when I got to church,
I looked for that guy.
And I never saw that guy.
And I went to that church for five years
and I never saw that guy again.
So I don't know, God sent that guy to give me that paper.
You know, I don't know if it was just somebody
who was just passing through, maybe visiting,
so they were using those.
It's literally, it could have been just an angel
that God sent to give that to me.
I don't know.
Because the Bible let us say,
be careful, be not forgetful to entertain strangers
for thereby some have entertained angels on earth.
But either way, whether it was some kind of an angel
sent from God that delivered that to me
or whether it was just, you know,
a guy who was visiting the area,
either way, it's irrelevant.
God sent that guy at a time in my life
when he knew I was reading the Bible.
He knew I was searching for something.
I wasn't finding it in the church I was going to.
And I found that and that transformed my life
by getting under the right preaching,
getting around people that were soul winning
and so forth.
And I got in there and I started learning
and I was excited and I was growing
and I was going out and seeing people saved
and I was just fired up about it.
And I went to all my friends, you know,
in my church and my friends from the Christian school
and all my friends from the Bible Club
at the public school that I went to.
And I was telling them, man, this is great.
We're going out to get people saved.
Man, have you seen this stuff in the NIV?
Where the NIV is blaspheming Jesus Christ
and look, it's leaving out complete verses
and I'm showing them all this stuff
and it's just funny, they just didn't see it that way.
They didn't like any of it.
They didn't like the soul winning.
They didn't like the King James Bible.
They didn't want to hear any of it.
They didn't like the preaching.
I'd bring them to church with me
and they hated the preaching
because it was hidden on all their shows
and all their music and all, you know.
And it was asking them to sacrifice something,
to give something up.
And it was telling them to go out and do something,
to go preach the gospel
and quit just sitting around looking at each other.
And it was great, but they didn't think it was great
and I'll tell you something.
Before I started going to that church
and before I started really reading the Bible
and before I learned about the King James Bible
and before I learned about the order of soul
and I had a lot of friends
and I had a lot of Christian friends, quote, unquote.
And I'm telling you, I literally every single day
I was involved in some kind of a church youth group
or something.
I remember on Sunday morning and Sunday night
I went to my church with my parents.
On Sunday night after church
we'd go out to dinner with a huge group from the church
just every Sunday night.
Then on Monday night I was at a small group Bible study
with some kind of a non-denominational
whatever Bible study it was.
I don't remember what it was called, but it was something.
And then Tuesday night
I was at a different small group Bible study.
Then Wednesday night I would go to youth group in my church.
Then I found a church that had a youth group
on Thursday night
because I just couldn't get enough of church and youth group
so I'd go to a different church
that had a youth group on Thursday night.
Then on Fridays and Saturdays
there was usually some kind of a church activity
from one of the above,
some kind of a field trip or church activity or something.
So I mean, and then I was going and praying
on Wednesday mornings at the flagpole
and then we'd go to this Bible study
and then the Bible Club at lunch.
At school I'd go and do the Bible Club.
But I'll tell you what,
I went from having a whole bunch of Christian friends
being surrounded by so-called Christian friends
as soon as I actually started reading my Bible
and living for God and stopped being worldly
I didn't have any friends.
Gone.
And you say, oh, you left your friend?
No, I didn't leave my friends.
My friends left me.
They didn't want to be a serious Christian.
They didn't want any real preaching.
They did not want the King James Bible.
They wanted their NIV watered down.
They wanted, to them being spiritual is,
hey, let's put in a Christian rock CD.
We're spirit, let's skateboard in my front yard
blasting Christian rock.
We're gonna blast MXTX
and we're gonna skateboard in my front yard.
To them that was serving God.
Well to me serving God was like,
let's go out and knock doors and get people safe.
Let's read the Bible.
Let's memorize scripture.
No, they weren't interested in that.
And I went through, you know, I was a little bit lonely
because the church that I was going to Regency
they just didn't really have a lot of people my age.
There were a lot of younger teens
but when I got to be 17, 18, 19
there weren't really a lot of people my age in that group.
You see, I had to sacrifice some friendships there.
And it wasn't that I wanted to.
It was just that I had to make a choice.
Am I gonna continue in the popular crowd
going with the flow
or am I gonna do what's right
and it's gonna cost me some friends?
And then I started talking to my friends about salvation.
Turned out a lot of my friends weren't even mistaken.
You just assumed that they were, you know,
because we're all Christian.
But then you start talking to them what they believe
and their trust in works for salvation.
They believe all kinds of goofball doctrines
and it was very crushing to me.
But you have to be willing to give that up
if you're gonna follow Christ.
He said, family might turn on you.
Friends might turn on you.
You may have to give up some things.
But if he was willing to sacrifice everything for us,
we ought to be willing to sacrifice for him.
And, you know, Jesus Christ was also rejected of his own family.
Look if you would at chapter 13.
Just go a few pages to the right of your Bible.
Or I'm sorry, this is the part where he's rejected of his hometown.
But he basically, it says in verse 54,
when he was coming to his own country,
this is him and his hometown,
he taught them in their synagogue
and so much that they were astonished and said,
whence hath this man this mighty wisdom and these mighty works?
It sounds like they like him at first.
But that's not what they meant.
They're being sarcastic because they say,
is not this the carpenter's son?
Is not his mother called Mary and his brother
and James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
And his sisters, are they not all with us?
Whence then hath this man all these things?
And they were offended in him.
But Jesus said to them,
a prophet is not without honor,
save in his own country and in his own house,
and he did not many mighty works there
because of their unbelief.
Same thing in Luke chapter 4.
Jesus went and preached in his hometown in Luke chapter 4.
He got up in the pulpit and the Bible says,
they'd heard about everything he'd been doing and could burn on.
They'd heard about the miracles.
They'd heard about his great preaching.
And he shows up and they're all in expectation,
wondering, what's he going to preach?
Is he going to do a miracle?
What's he going to do?
He gets up in the pulpit of his hometown synagogue
in Luke chapter 4 and he says,
the Spirit of the Lord God, he reads from Isaiah 61,
the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me
because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor
and he preaches all this stuff
and he hands the book to the guy who runs the synagogue
and he says, this day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears.
This scripture is prophesying about me.
And he begins to preach the word of God.
And he says, you know,
I know that you will use this parable against me,
physician heal thyself.
You know, the great things we've heard done in Capernaum
do it here.
He said, you know what?
A prophet is not without honor,
save in his own country and in his own house.
That tells me that when you serve God,
when you do what's right,
even some people in your own house
and see, even some people in your own hometown,
they're not going to honor you.
They're not going to respect that.
And they didn't respect Jesus.
And Jesus' four brothers did not believe on him
till after he rose from the dead.
That means the whole time he was growing up
and at the three and a half years
where he was proclaiming himself to be the Messiah
and the son of God.
During that time,
they rejected him and they mocked him in the book of John
and they ridiculed him and they did not accept him.
And in Luke chapter four,
when he finished that sermon,
they literally took him out
and tried to throw him off the edge of a cliff
in Luke chapter four.
I mean, they literally, they,
let's look at it just quickly.
I don't want to spend too much time on it.
But go to Luke four
and quickly see this about Jesus.
He's preaching this sermon
and he's talking about in verse 24,
he said, no prophet is accepted in his own country.
And it says in verse 28,
and when all day in the synagogue,
when they had heard these things,
they shook his hand and said,
well, it's so wonderful to see you grow up like this.
No.
It says when they heard these things,
they were filled with wrath
and rose up and thrust him out of the city
and led him onto the brow of the hill
where on their city was built
that they might cast him down headlong.
They dragged him up the hill
and they want to throw him off the cliff.
And it says that he passing through the midst of them
went his way.
So he escapes narrowly
being thrown off a cliff
by people who are so angry at his preaching.
And yet you expect to live a life
following in his steps
as it says in 1 Peter chapter 2
where we read before the sermon,
you expect to follow in his steps
and everybody's going to love you.
Follow in his steps
and you get to keep all your friends,
all your family's going to love you,
all your finances are going to be great,
you're going to have 25 hours in the day.
Look, you're going to have to sacrifice something
if you're going to follow the man
who sacrificed everything,
who sacrificed fame,
who sacrificed popularity,
who sacrificed his own body and blood
that he might save us.
And so the Bible's clear
that family will sometimes turn on you
and friends will sometimes turn on you.
You know, there have been times
when I've had issues with my family
and I'm not talking about my wife and children.
I'm talking about other family members.
I've had issues with different family members
and you know what?
That's the way life is, you know?
And it's never fun.
You know, you never want to have problems with family
but pretty much almost anybody I know who lives for God,
they've had issues with family,
getting upset at them.
You know, and it's not just the simplest thing.
I mean, you go to a family get-together, right?
I mean, I've heard this story a million times
from a million different people
and I've told you a million times
that would exaggerate.
But anyway, you know, I've heard this story
over and over and over again.
It's the same story.
You know, you go to some family gathering
and they turn on some filthy thing on the TV.
All right, come watch this.
You know, you say, no thanks.
I don't want to watch it.
You know, no thanks.
I'm not interested.
You know, oh yeah, you're holier than thou.
I mean, you know it's true.
And they want to rub it in your face like...
And it's never you that has to bring this stuff up.
They'll bring it up.
Or they just know what button to push.
So they'll just, as soon as you get over to their house,
they just want to bring up every liberal thing under the sun
and the queers, they don't call them that.
You know, gay this, and you know, the...
They want to tell you about the NIV
and they want to tell you about how wonderful Billy Graham is
and they want to tell you about, you know, Rick Warren
and they want you to watch Left Behind series with them
and they want you to watch Chris Farley with them
and Adam Sandler.
And they just want to just push everything on you
that you're against.
Or even better, they want to get your children
and expose them to everything that you don't allow,
that they know you don't allow.
And then you have to be the bad guy that says,
hey, my kids aren't allowed to do that.
And it's like, oh, man!
You know, but they started the whole thing.
They knew you were against that stuff.
They knew you didn't want your kids to go
where they're trying to take your kid
and then show your kids stuff.
And they'll just try to always force the issue with you.
You can try, and I've seen so many people
try to live their life and so many preachers
they try to live a life that's free of conflict.
You can't serve God and live a life with no conflict.
It's not going to happen.
Because there are going to come times where it's either
do right and have conflict or do wrong
and everything will be peaceful and wonderful
because I did wrong, because I compromised what I believe in.
You will have conflict.
And some people just hate conflict.
And they just hate anything negative.
And you know, nobody likes negative things.
But sometimes you have to do what's right.
And sometimes you might get shoved off a cliff.
They did it with Jesus.
Sometimes people are going to get mad.
Sometimes you're going to be in variance with your own father.
You know, I thank my God that my father and I get along well.
I get along with my mother.
I get along with my brothers and sisters.
But there have been times when it wasn't always so
with every single family member.
And there have been other extended family members
who have gotten upset about things.
But I thank God that at this stage in my life, though,
that my brothers and sisters and my parents,
you know, they pretty much are on the same page biblically.
And that's a good thing,
because I did grow up in a Christian home.
And so my family is at peace with me.
And I'm at peace with them.
But you know, it's not always going to be that way.
And there are plenty of other people
that are not at peace with to make up for that, okay?
So don't think like...
Well, that's easy for you to say, past parents.
You get along with your brothers and sisters.
You get along with your parents.
Well, you know, see me after the service.
I'll give you a list of people that are not at peace with me.
I've gone through plenty of persecution, my friend,
for what I preach and what I believe
and what I've stood for.
And I'm sure I'll go through more in the future.
But it's a sacrifice that you have to be willing to make.
And if you love your mother and father more than you love God,
he just says, you know, I mean, you're still saved.
All you got to do to be saved is just believe.
But he says, you know, you're not worthy to be my disciple.
If I sacrifice everything for you
and you're more interested in pleasing dad than pleasing me,
you're more interested in pleasing mom,
you're more interested in son and daughter than me,
you're more interested in your daughter-in-law
or your mother-in-law than me, you know,
and no, I do not love my mother-in-law more than Jesus.
That's an easy one to comply with.
All right.
That one's a piece of cake.
All right. Check. Done.
But turn if you would to Psalms.
There's a lot of great scriptures in Psalms on sacrificing.
. . .
I don't know of anybody who's joined a church like this
or started soul-winning
or started to just change their life for the better
where they start really living for God and serving God
where they don't get just attacked on all sides
by all friends.
You know, it's not as good friends like these who needs enemies.
You know, all their friends are going to attack them.
And I mean, look, Satan is not a fool.
He's wiser than Daniel, the Bible says.
And he knows that our church is doing a lot
to get people saved, to preach the gospel.
We're knocking a ton of doors.
We're preaching the truth. We're exposing the truth.
He knows that stopping our church is high priority for him
and stopping other Bible-believing churches
and stopping other people who want to serve God.
So when he sees somebody come to church and get excited about it,
the first thing he wants to do is stop it.
And he's got plenty of his minions that'll help him do that.
He has no shortage of workers to attack and everything.
And I've seen people start coming to our church
and, I mean, their window gets broken out of their car
and they get a flat tire
and people are calling and screaming at them
and just everything goes wrong.
They say, why is everything going wrong?
You know, the devil is trying to stop you.
You've got to resist the devil and he'll flee from you.
And you know what?
The bottom line is that there are a few people
who serve God for a reason.
There were only 12.
There were only 70 at different times for a reason.
There were multitudes listening to Jesus preach.
Why were there only 12 with them?
Why do you only have 70?
Why were there only 120 in the early church in Acts 1?
That's not a huge group. Why?
Because the rest were getting told by their friends
that they were idiots.
The rest were getting trouble from their mother-in-law.
The rest were getting trouble from dad,
getting trouble from their brother,
getting trouble from their sister.
And they wore them down
and they weren't willing to make that sacrifice
of being popular.
They were getting kicked out of the synagogue.
The Jews said, if you follow Christ,
if you confess Christ, you're kicked out of the synagogue.
They didn't want to be.
That was their social circle.
That was like being thrown out of your church.
He said, you know,
you're going to have to be thrown out of your church
if you're going to be my disciple
if you're in those synagogues.
And that was a sacrifice they had to be willing to make.
There are people today across the world
who make huge sacrifices
where it's illegal for them to even get baptized
or people living in like an Islamic country
or living in other communist countries.
You know, they risk their lives to show up to church.
They go to church in a hotel room somewhere
and baptize people in the bathtub in communist China
because they're not allowed to go to this type of church.
And they would not be allowed
to confess the name of Jesus Christ as their savior.
And they risk their lives,
but we don't want to sacrifice our gas money.
You know, I'm just too busy.
And by the way, I watch sports on Sunday nights.
And other people are literally risking their lives
to be in church.
Others are preaching the gospel in the peril of their lives.
Others are in prison across the world today
for preaching the Word of God.
Are you willing to make any sacrifice at all?
I mean, are you willing to sacrifice anyone
or anything in your life?
That's what God is asking you tonight.
Look, if you would, at Psalm 4-5.
We'll just blow through some scriptures and songs here.
He says in Psalm 4-5,
offer the sacrifices of righteousness
and put your trust in the Lord.
See, living a righteous life is a sacrifice.
And that's the sacrifice God's looking for.
And when God said to obey is better than sacrifice,
and when he said that the first verse I read,
to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord
than sacrifice, what he's saying is,
rather than just sacrificing a physical object,
like putting money in the plate or giving an animal,
he said the real sacrifice is when you start living for God.
The real sacrifice is when you live a righteous life,
which means you purge your life of the unrighteousness.
You sacrifice.
You know, no, you're not going to build an altar
in your backyard and sacrifice a lamb.
Jesus already did that.
Jesus already paid that with his blood.
But you know what?
You ought to build an altar in your backyard
and sacrifice some DVDs on that altar
and offer them up as a burnt sacrifice.
You need to offer a burnt sacrifice
in some of your magazines.
You need to do a burnt sacrifice out of your bookshelf.
You need to do a burnt sacrifice out of your CD case
and give that stuff up for God
and offer it unto the Lord as a sweet saver
because it's junk and it needs to be burnt,
like trash should be burnt.
Look, if you would, at Psalm 27, verse 6.
Psalm 27.
Now, here's an interesting one.
I was studying my Bible, just all the different things
that the Bible says about sacrifice.
And this one kind of stood out to me
because it doesn't really bring to mind
what we would think of as a sacrifice.
But in Hebrews chapter 13, you're in Psalm 27.
In Hebrews 13, the Bible says,
By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise
to God continually.
That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name,
but to do good and to communicate,
forgetting not for with such sacrifice
as God is well pleased.
So the Bible talks about us
offering the sacrifice of praise to God continually.
What does that mean?
Well, look at, that's an Old Testament concept.
Look at Psalm 27, verse 6.
It says, And now shall my head be lifted up
above mine enemies round about me.
Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle,
and that's the equivalent of church
because in the Old Testament,
the tabernacle was the house of God.
Now today in the New Testament,
the local church is the house of God,
according to 1 Timothy 3.16.
And so it says here,
that's not the right passage, but 1 Timothy 3.15,
whatever it is, you know it's there.
Anyway, he says, I will offer in his tabernacle
sacrifices of joy, I will sing,
yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.
Now what does he mean by that?
Sacrifices of praise, singing as a sacrifice.
You know, because we want to listen to the world's music,
that is the flesh.
The flesh wants to get in the car.
You don't want to sing praises to God.
Now if you're in the Spirit,
if you're walking in the Spirit,
if you're filled with the Spirit,
you do want to sing praises to God.
But when you're in the flesh,
and we all live with the flesh,
we all have the old man and the new man.
When we get in the car,
we want to just sit back and turn on the golden oldies.
You know, or sit back and turn on whatever you listen to.
You know, your rock and roll,
or your country western,
or your hip-hop, or whatever.
And just sit back and just listen to it.
You know what?
We ought to make a sacrifice.
And say, you know what?
I'm going to give that away,
and give that up.
And instead of spending my time
listening to world of music,
that's not doing anything for me,
spiritually.
Instead, I'm going to listen to Christian music.
That's not what it says.
It says I'll sing praises to God.
And that's why I'm not a big guy
on listening to Christian music.
You know?
And you say, was it a sin?
I'm not saying it's a sin.
I'm just saying that it's so much more biblical
to sing praises to God yourself.
I'm not saying it'd be wrong to listen to something.
But you know, we just live in a culture
where we spend way too much time listening to music.
See, throughout history,
people didn't have an iPod and a CD player.
And so they didn't just listen to music all day.
They didn't get gas
and just have it blasting at the gas station
and blasting at the grocery store
and playing at work in the cubicle
and playing in the car.
And today, we just listen to music all day long,
and we're just entranced by it.
You know, you need to just stop
and be at peace sometimes and just think
and just have a clear mind.
But God mentions hundreds of times,
hundreds of times,
how we should be singing praises to God,
opening our mouth and singing praises to God.
Never once does he say,
listen to Christian music.
Never once.
Show me the Bible where God commands,
listen to Christian music.
No.
Listen to spiritual songs.
No, it's always singing spiritual songs.
Let's sing them.
And so, not saying it's a sin to listen to Christian music,
but you know, I don't even know
if I even own a single CD of music.
You know, I think, actually, I take that back.
I own one music CD
because I bought the Bible on CD
and it came with the package.
It was a bonus disc, okay?
And it came with some hints on it.
And that's all.
I mean, I didn't buy it, okay?
The bottom line is
that I don't spend time listening to music
because I would rather spend time singing praises to God.
And that is a sacrifice.
You say, that's not a sacrifice.
Well, the Bible says it's a sacrifice.
You say, explain to me how singing hymns to God is a...
I don't have to.
The Bible said it's a sacrifice.
I don't have to explain it to you.
I don't have to defend what the Bible says.
The Bible said,
offer the sacrifice of praise to God.
I think it means
because you need to give up the other stuff,
sacrifice that stuff,
and sing what God wants you to sing.
Sing praises to Him.
Giving to God is what sacrifice means.
Offer God.
Offer Him your voice.
Offer Him your praise.
Offer Him your heart and your mind and your soul
as you're going to work in the morning
or as you're in the shower
or whenever you normally listen to music.
Replace listening to music
with singing praises to God.
And that's why this is the ultimate stereo system
for you right here, for your car.
And it even fits in the same slot.
Like if you remove a typical stereo,
this will actually slide right in the same slot.
You say, I don't know if I can put on that wire.
No, no, there's no wire.
It's really easy.
No tools required, you know.
You just slide it in there, okay.
And you know, don't tell me that you're driving
and reading and say, you know, don't do that.
But you know,
honestly, the more you...
And by the way, here's another reason to come to church.
You learn the songs.
And again, you're not going to believe this.
If you come to church three times a week,
you learn the songs three times at best.
You know, and then basically,
you come to church and you sing these songs
and there have been...
Who before you came to church,
you didn't know these songs?
Or maybe, I mean, you didn't know them.
Look at all the hands going up.
That's like 90% of the auditorium.
And I thank God that our church is not a church
that just retreads people
that just bounce from one church to another.
You know, I thank God that the people who came here,
they learned the hymns here.
And they love these songs.
And I love these songs.
And these songs become a part of your life.
I remember when my son Solomon was born
and he was just a little baby.
He's always been a musical creature.
And he sat there as a baby
and he would fuss unless I sang to him.
That would make him happy.
And I would get home from work
and sometimes I would literally just sit there
for an hour and a half or two hours
until my throat was hoarse.
Just turning the page
and just singing every song I knew to him.
Singing all the verses.
Singing the hymns.
You know, that is a better way
to spend your time than listening to music.
You know, I could have just turned on a CD or something.
Yeah, but that's not...
God didn't say turn on a CD.
And you know, God's much more interested
in listening to you sing
than some paid musician somewhere
in Nashville or somewhere else.
And you say, but they're professional.
You know, I would rather...
You know, I listen to my children sing.
They don't always have the perfect singing voice.
They're not... when they're two years old,
they don't have the perfect key.
And you know, I was listening to Rebecca sing
just an hour ago or two hours ago.
And she's singing, you know...
I'm gonna call it right...
You know, and when I was a kid,
I used to always sing that song,
Dwelling in Yule Land.
And I would sing it like this.
Eh, eh, eh, ah, wah, ah.
Eh, eh, eh, wah, ah, ah.
Praise God.
You know, you can do that singing.
And it was a little...
You know, but you know what?
My parents thought that was great.
They would say, oh, I used to sing
Dwelling in Yule Land.
We have it on tape and everything.
And I look at my kids when they sing
and they sing the words wrong.
You know, and it's...
Christ is captain of the mighty thumb.
You know, that's what we used to sing when I was a kid.
When we get all the words mixed up
instead of the throng,
you know, it's always the mighty thumb.
And we didn't... you know, you don't understand the songs.
But you know what?
We love to hear our children sing, right?
Is it because they're professional singers?
Is it because they have so much talent?
No.
God loves to hear his children sing.
And even if they all have a perfect voice,
it's acceptable to him.
He said, when we sing praises to God,
he wants to hear it.
And so, a lot of people, by the way,
the reason that they don't have a good singing voice
is because singing is an acquired talent.
It's not something that you're necessarily born with.
And if you sing more often,
you'll actually get better at singing.
Now, some of you, there's no hope.
No, I'm just kidding.
You will get better at it.
And a lot of times, people who go to church,
they sing better than people who don't go to church
because they have that experience of just singing.
And if you sing at home every day,
you will develop a better singing voice.
And you know what? You may never sing well.
You may never sing well.
But to God, I guarantee you, it sounds good.
I guarantee you, God listens to you singing
and he wants to hear it.
And you say, yeah, but nobody else wants to hear it.
Well, just get in the car by yourself,
get in the shower by yourself,
get out somewhere by yourself and sing praises to God.
And honestly, you know and I know
that God would rather hear you singing these songs
or playing them on the piano.
The Bible talks about praising the Lord
on an instrument of 10 strings or 187 strings.
Praising the Lord on a musical instrument.
He'd much rather hear you playing the hymns
on that piano right there or on whatever instrument
that you're just blasting whatever worldly song.
And you know what the world's music is all about?
90% of it, love.
But when they say love, you know what they mean though?
It's just all about these boy-girl relationships.
It's all this teenager love songs.
And I'm sorry, when you're 50 years old
and you've been married for the last 30 years,
are you just a little kid or something
listening to all these little teeny bopper love songs?
What's wrong with you?
And that's what's wrong with our society.
We've got 50 and 60 year olds today
and 40 year olds saying,
I'm just not sure I love my wife anymore, you know?
And because they're listening to songs all day
about meeting new people.
Every day they're listening to songs about
how they saw her across the room and blah, blah, blah.
And then they just get that brainwashed into their mind.
Just over, just pound it, pound it, pound it.
That's not real life, it's a fairy tale.
That's what all the movies are about.
That's what all the music's about.
And you get this idea and then the grass is always greener.
You know, you're looking at your husband,
you know, plopped down on the couch or whatever
and he's maybe not as in shape as he used to be
and he's eating chips off of his chest.
And you're listening to some song,
song by song, young, suave guy.
And then next thing you know, you're leaving your husband.
And that's why 75% of marriages are ending in divorce.
I'm not making this stuff up.
It's because people are living in little fairy tale land.
There's no fairy tale in this about leaving your wife.
There's no song, there's 500 songs in this hymnal.
None of them are about leaving your husband.
None of them are about leaving your wife.
None of them are about meeting a girl at a party.
None of them are about going to bed on the first date.
None of them are about how beautiful she was
and how handsome he was and how I'm gonna be happy
the rest of my life and I live only for your happiness
and oh, it's just paradise to be with you.
That's not what these songs are about.
These songs will actually straighten you out.
Those other songs will put you in some kind of a dream world
of a false reality.
And so what do you think God wants you doing?
Sacrificing the world's music and singing these hymns
or just listening to some ungodly, worldly person sing?
And you say, well, I'm gonna get the Christian music
and listen to that.
Well, you know what?
Maybe that's better, obviously that's better
depending on what so-called Christian music you get.
A lot of it's worse than the world's music.
I'd rather listen to the world's music
than this bunch of Christian, cheap rip-off
of the world's music, okay?
But you say, well, I'm gonna listen to the right music.
I'm gonna listen to actual hymns and spiritual songs.
Hey, I'm not saying that's bad, but you know what?
You'd be even better singing this.
Or hey, if you get some hymns, sing along to it.
You know, and if it's the real hymns,
you can actually sing along to it.
You know what I mean?
I don't like some of this other stuff.
I remember I've been to churches before
when I was back in my little days as a teenager.
And they go, all right, let's sing this song.
And you can't even sing this stuff.
They're like, huh?
How do I sing this?
And you know, you gotta put the words on the screen
because nobody knows the song.
And it's not in any hymnal.
So you're not even like watching the bouncing ball
trying to do karaoke with other people.
These songs are great songs.
And if you haven't discovered how great these songs are...
And by the way, if you don't have a hymnal,
take one home with you tonight.
Just, I won't tell anybody.
Just take it.
Just put it in your purse.
Honestly, and we literally,
we're constantly ordering new hymnals.
We buy new hymnals every couple months.
And we've bought probably three times
as many hymnals as you see here.
Because we tell people, take it home.
And some people are like, oh, I don't know.
I don't feel right about it.
I say, here, hand me that hymnal.
I write their name in front of me and say, here, hand me that hymnal.
This is your hymnal.
And honestly, I'm serious tonight.
If you don't have a hymnal, take one home with you.
Who doesn't have a hymnal tonight?
Put up your hand if you do not have a hymnal in your house.
Raise it up.
Pick one up and take it home with you, all right?
Take this with you.
And honestly, this should be something that is with you
that you can sing these songs and learn these songs.
And you can flip through here.
Hey, what was that song we were singing in church the other day?
Look it up and learn it.
Learn all the verses, sing it out.
And I love the hymnal.
I take this thing with me.
I have it in the car with me.
I take it on trips with me.
I pull it out and I play songs on my harmonica from the hymn.
Or I sing the hymns, OK?
And so that's a way to sacrifice and praise God.
He wants us to be willing to give things up.
And one of those things He wants us to give up
is the worldly music.
Because He wants us to praise Him with psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs.
And that's something that you ought to get in your life
is the hymns and start phasing out that worldly junk
because you don't need that stuff.
It's not helping you live for God.
It's just filling your mind with all these little love stories
that you don't need in your mind.
I only need one love story in my mind.
The one of me and my wife when we had our romantic dating
and we got married and I swept her off her feet and all that.
That's all we need.
Just kidding, by the way.
But anyway, that's all I need.
That's the only woman that I need to be singing about
and thinking about.
I don't need some song.
Tell me about some other woman.
And these songs are so stupid.
And when you listen to the worldly music,
you think it's cool,
come look at it from where I'm standing, honestly.
Get away from it for a while.
Literally, just get out of it for a while.
Just do the hymns for a few years.
Then go back and start listening to that music.
It'll seem pretty dumb to you.
You know how young people will be blasting their music
and old people are like, what are you listening to?
And they're like, yeah, it's cool.
And they're like, no, I hate it.
That's how you get after a while.
When you quit listening to it,
you'll be like those old people.
When you're my age and your age,
you'll start to be that guy that's just,
say that joke off.
And you start listening to the words
and you're like, are they serious?
And it seems like the words get stupider and stupider
in the songs that they're coming out with.
And they're meaningless.
I go back to the music, I used to listen to it.
And I try to interpret the lyrics.
It's nonsense.
It's just stringing words together that mean nothing.
These songs mean something.
They're about the Bible.
They're about Jesus.
They're about salvation.
They're about the gospel.
That's what I want to sing.
That's the sacrifice I want to offer to God.
For the sake of time, there's a lot of scriptures
and songs about sacrifice.
I'm just gonna go to two more places.
Go to Romans chapter 12.
Romans chapter 12.
I'm just gonna blow past some of this stuff
and wrap it up here.
I already preached long this morning,
so I don't want to do a marathon at night.
Romans chapter 12 says in verse one,
I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service.
How are we gonna do that?
He says, be not conformed to this world,
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God.
So first of all, we saw that God is pleased with sacrifice.
We are spiritual priests that offer spiritual sacrifices.
Sometimes we have to sacrifice things that we like.
We have to sacrifice some of our entertainment
that God has said is sinful.
We're gonna have to sacrifice some friends,
not because we tell them to take a hike,
but because they tell us to take a hike.
We might have to sacrifice a close relationship
with certain family members if they choose to ostracize us,
but in the end, a lot of times, God will make that right.
A lot of times, you have strife with people,
even just friends, and then later on,
you get along, and it's okay, you know what I mean?
And so hopefully, the Bible says,
would a man's ways please the Lord?
He'd make it even his enemies to be at peace with them.
And sometimes, later on, you can be at peace with people
that are at war with you now.
That's okay.
But you might have to give up some things.
You might have to give up a relationship with parents
or children or brother or sister or mother-in-law.
Isn't that terrible?
And then also, we saw that Jesus Christ
sacrificed everything for us.
He gave up everything.
And it's gonna have to cost us something,
just like it cost David something.
And one of the sacrifices has to do with music.
He wants us to sing praises to him
and use our time and energy for that
and not on the world's music.
But he also says in Romans 12
that we really just need to present our whole body
as a living sacrifice,
and he said it needs to be acceptable.
Let's present him a body that's not conformed to the world.
Let's present him an acceptable body.
You know, a body is conformed to the world.
You know, don't dress like the world.
Don't style yourself after the world's styles.
Don't style your hair after the world's styles.
Don't style your clothing after the world's styles.
Don't style...
And don't destroy the temple of God either,
because the Bible says that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Don't demolish the temple.
Don't put tattoos on it.
The Bible says not to print any marks upon your body.
Don't do other...
You know, today we live in a day of mutilating ourselves.
You know, there are a lot of mutilations and strains.
You know, I have nothing against a woman wearing earrings,
because the Bible actually talks about women wearing earrings
as a positive thing,
and God even talks about women wearing earrings.
There are several scriptures on that.
But, you know, some of this stuff, okay...
Putting a rod...
Putting a metal rod through your tongue.
You know, putting a ring in your nose like a cow.
You know, or here's the one that's really blowing my mind.
Putting a rod in the back of your neck.
Has anybody seen that?
Put your hand above the same head.
It's like a metal ghost in the back of your neck.
And I've seen girls have this.
I've seen guys have it.
And I've noticed sometimes it's like a little bit red and infected around it.
And I looked at that and I said,
that doesn't look like it's working out too well.
It's just like...
Maybe that isn't designed to go there.
I've seen some weird body modifications, my friend.
I've seen some weird stuff.
I mean, I don't want to get too weird in the sermon tonight.
I saw a guy...
Okay, I'll get a little bit weird.
I saw a guy...
He literally had sockets in his head.
Okay?
Listen to me now.
They were mounted into his head.
And he could screw in and out spikes into these little sockets.
The receptacles had become part of his head.
And he would...
Because you know like a Mohawk where your hair is like...
This guy, you know, have you ever seen like the metal type of spiky?
Okay, well I have.
And it was...
I was in this teenage gathering and this guy had sockets in his head.
He had metal and he unscrewed them.
You know, and then he could switch them out for, you know...
He's got to match his ensemble.
So you change out the spikes.
But the sockets were part of his head.
And I mean, of course today we got the dulcim look.
You know, with the big ears.
You know what I'm talking about, real big ears.
And you say, oh you're preaching against me.
Look, if you've already done it, don't worry about it.
You know, and maybe you already did all the tattoos.
But look, I'm preaching to people who haven't done this stuff yet.
I'm preaching to the teenagers who are going to grow up and think it's cool.
And look, if you've done the ears, would you go back and do it again?
You want to go do it again?
And you do the tattoos all over again and everything?
No.
Okay.
And today we live in a body modification society.
And you know, and look, people think it's new.
Because it definitely wasn't around when I was a kid.
But it's not new.
Because it's been going on in Africa for hundreds of years, right?
People putting a bone through their nose and a disc.
Thankfully that disc thing hasn't made it through the United States.
They don't want a disc in their lower lip.
Or the thing where they put the rings so they can make their neck longer.
Who's seen that one?
They keep adding rings.
It'll just give it a few years.
You'll see the teens walking into school.
As they sweat out their neck.
You know, their ears are down to here.
Their neck's up to here.
You know.
And they got a post in the back of their neck.
They have a metal stud.
You know, God wants you to give Him something better than that to work with.
You know what I mean?
And He doesn't want you to look like the world.
He wants you to look like one of God's people.
And by the way, don't damage your body with smoking and with drugs and with alcohol.
And all the other things.
You know, you need to offer Him your body as a living sacrifice.
And you need to sacrifice and offer Him your time, your energy, your talents.
He says you're not your own.
You're bought with a price.
Offer it to God.
It belongs to Him.
But let me just finish with saying this.
Go to Psalm 106.
The last place we'll turn tonight.
Psalm 106.
And I want to say this tonight.
The world makes a lot of sacrifices.
Because you know, when I was studying this,
I saw a lot of scriptures on sacrificing animals in the Old Testament.
A lot of New Testament scriptures about how we need to offer spiritual sacrifices.
I saw financial sacrifices.
I saw sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving and singing unto God.
I saw those kinds of sacrifices.
But you know what I found a lot of sacrifices of?
I found a lot of ungodly people sacrificing unto idols.
And I found a lot of worldly and ungodly sacrifices.
Now, look what it says in Psalm 106 verse 34.
This is talking about the children of Israel.
They did not destroy the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded them.
Remember the seven nations of the Canaanites they were supposed to destroy?
But instead, look at verse 35.
But were mingled among the heathen and learned their works.
And they served their idols which were a snare unto them.
Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils.
And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters,
whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a-whoring with their own inventions.
Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people,
and so much did he abhorred his own inheritance.
And he gave them into the hand of the heathen, and they that hated them ruled over them.
I literally believe that this is a snapshot of Christianity in the United States today.
Verses 34 through 41.
I don't have time to elaborate on it.
It would be a whole sermon in and of itself to show you,
and I've preached sermons out of this exact passage, how this is America today.
We have become, as God's people, we're totally mingled among the heathen.
We completely learned their works.
We served their idols.
And in the process, we sacrificed our sons and daughters to the world, to the devil.
Even in many cases, shedding the blood of our sons and daughters.
When you look at the abortion, and you look at the pills that people take.
A lot of the pills that people take, by the way.
You know, they think it's a birth control pill.
Well, guess what? A lot of it's killing unborn children.
They just don't know how to worry. It's like a day after pill.
You know, a lot of people just, oh yeah, just go to the doctor and get this IDP, take this pill, whatever.
And they aren't even going to look into the fact that it's actually,
you know, if you believe that life begins at conception, that's what I believe.
That's what the Bible teaches. You know, this stuff's wrong.
When you look at how some of it works, and really, you know, as far as I know,
it's pretty much how all of it works, you know.
And so the thing is, we see them whoring around also,
as we see God's people whoring around with their own inventions.
And God's wrath being kindled against his own people.
And then it says, they that hated them ruled over them.
You know who rules over us today? People who hate Christians.
Think about it. Like, look at our government.
Look at our leaders in government today. Do you think that they love Bible-believing Christians?
Do you think that Barack Obama just loves the Bible, and he loves Christians,
and he loves conservative, you know, traditional Christians?
Do you think all these sodomites in the Senate and Congress, they just love Christians, right?
I'm sure Barney Frank loves Christianity.
You know, I'm sure Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton would just love to attend our church tonight.
They would really enjoy this sermon. It would really be a blessing to them.
No, they hate God's people. They mock and ridicule God's people.
And what did Obama say? You know, you want to hang on to your guns and Bibles?
No, I'll hang on to my Bible, then my guns. Get it in the right order, okay?
Bible's my priority. But the bottom line is that they don't love Christianity.
They don't love God's people. If they had their way, we'd all be far, far away, okay?
They might do lip service to it, but you know that they are disgusted and they hate God's people.
And we are ruled over by people who hate us today.
They want to persecute us. They want to take away our freedom. They want to take away our money.
They don't want us to be allowed to spank our children.
They don't want us to be able to preach God's righteous judgments because they fly to the face of their lifestyle.
You think Barney Frank wants me preaching on Leviticus 2013?
That if a man lies with mankind, he lies with a woman?
Even both of them have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death?
And he's running a house of prostitution out of his own house for men?
Barney Frank, U.S. Senate?
They don't want to hear that kind of preaching. They don't want anybody pointing their finger at them.
They hate us. That's who rules over us. Why?
Because instead of sacrificing to God, and this is the final point,
we sacrifice to the devil. We sacrifice to the world.
You think about two men in the Bible, Abraham and Lot.
Think about Abraham, Genesis chapter 22, he offered up Isaac his son to God.
He was willing to offer him to God.
Now, of course, the Bible says he was accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.
From when Saul saw he received him in the field.
So he knew that if he did kill the son, that God was going to raise him from the dead,
because he knew that he had been promised that an Isaac shall I see be called.
And God promised him, Isaac will be the one who carries on the family line.
And so when he said, offer up Isaac, he knew, well, God's going to raise him from the dead.
He pictures Jesus Christ here, which he was a picture of Jesus Christ.
He carried the wood on his back, he was laid upon the altar, he was going to be killed.
Of course, God stepped in and stopped him from actually plunging the knife into him.
But he was willing to offer his son unto God.
Look at Lot, his nephew.
Lot was the worldly one in the family.
Abraham was the righteous one.
Abraham was the godly man.
You know Lot, you know who he was willing to offer his children to?
A bunch of Sodomites.
Remember the Sodomites beating on the door?
And he'd go, oh, here's my daughters.
You know, and too many of us today, we won't sacrifice for God, but we'll sacrifice for everything else.
You know, we won't sacrifice to get our kids to church, to hear the Bible preaching that's their only hope today,
to get them through the society that we live in, unscathed.
They're not hearing this stuff.
I mean, do you think they're hearing this at school, when I'm preaching to you tonight and every night here?
Do you think they get this kind of preaching on TV?
Do you think they get it from Joel Osteen?
Do you think they get it on their favorite radio channel?
Do you think they get it at the university that they attend and the school they go to?
No, they're not going to get it anywhere unless they come to an old-fashioned, Bible-believing Baptist church.
That's where they're going to get the truth tonight.
And you need to make the sacrifices necessary to get them under this kind of preaching.
And if it costs money, pay in the gas tank and get them down here.
And you say, oh, but when I tell them to come to church, he gets mad.
Sacrifice that.
You know, I give me a dirty look, you know.
So what, tell them, son, shut up and get in the car and go to church.
Or I slap you down, as my dad used to say.
My dad used to say, I'm going to slap you down!
Okay, I'm good.
You say, son, I'll slap you down, get in the car and go to church and get under this kind of preaching.
Listen, but you know what today?
Many men today, they won't even make the sacrifice of facing up to their wife to get their kids in this kind of church.
I've seen men who love this church and their kids needed to be in this church to get this kind of preaching.
But instead, they don't want to make their wife mad.
So they'll go to the little liberal, lily liver, you know, sissified church down the street, you know.
And the same thing, I've seen mothers who wanted to bring their child to church, but their husband just, oh, he's just offended.
You know, and the thing is, you know, they're not willing to sacrifice, hey, maybe I'm hearing some stuff I don't want to hear, you know, about my sin.
Maybe I'm getting under a little conviction here, but you know what, I'm just going to suck it up and just put up with it.
Even if I don't agree with a few little things about, you know, my stuff that I'm into, I'm just going to sacrifice it so that my kids can hear this.
And you know, I thank God that my parents took me to churches where I was hearing hard preaching.
And sometimes the shoe fit, and sometimes they didn't like everything about it, but you know what, thank God that they brought me there.
And I didn't like it, and by the way, when I started going to Regency when I was 17, I didn't like everything that was being preached.
He was hitting on a lot of my sin. I didn't like that at all.
But I sacrificed, and I went anyway.
And I see parents today who aren't willing to sacrifice their own little thin skin of wearing their heart on their sleeve.
Oh, I can't believe he touched on my favorite movie.
And then they quit the church, and then their children go to the gym.
You know, and they literally, they won't sacrifice their friends getting upset enough.
You go to that church!
You know, or family, you go there!
And then you say, oh, well I better not go there.
Well you know what, then you don't care about your kid then, because your kid's not getting the right preaching.
You know, and go ahead and send your kid to ASU.
You know, and I'm sure they're going to get all the right teaching over there.
And you'd rather turn them over to the atheists over at Atheist State University.
You'd rather turn them over to the school that has the devil as the logo.
You know, it doesn't take rocket science when you're living in this area.
Hmm, is this place of God or not?
Let's see, the logo is Satan.
Everyone on campus is wearing a shirt with Satan on it.
With boards and a pitchfork.
Hmm, should I go there?
Is this a good place to be?
And you'll say, oh that's wonderful!
And you'll send your children there, but you won't bring them to this church.
Or another church.
And you say, I don't like you pastor.
I say, well I don't like you either.
Go to a church, go find another church.
Go find another church that preaches the Bible.
I'm not the only Bible-believing preacher in the world.
Okay? I hope not.
There are a lot of other guys out there that preach the word.
But guess what? There's more than that.
99% that don't.
And if you trod yourself off to some little sissy wimpy church that won't get on sin.
And then you bring your kids there.
And then you send them to ASU because you wanted to get a good job.
And then you wonder why they go to the devil.
You sacrificed them to the devil.
Because you didn't sacrifice to bring them to God.
And to bring them to the house of God.
And to get them under the preaching of God.
And to sing to them the hymns of God.
You have got to make some sacrifices in your life to get your kids where they need to be.
Amen.
And be an Abraham today and say I'm going to make the sacrifices necessary to raise an Isaac that's going to serve God.
And love God and do the right things in his life.
I'm not going to be a lot who for financial gain lives in a town filled with sodomites.
Hangs around with a bunch of sodomites.
And then finally when I want to save my own skin I say, oh well take my daughters.
I'll sacrifice them.
Don't throw your children under the bus because of your thin skin.
Because you can't handle this kind of preaching.
And I've said it often.
Even if I hated faithful word Baptist church.
If I were a parent I would just say well my kids need to hear this stuff.
I'm just going to put up with it.
You know what I mean?
Because I'll tell you what.
I'll tell you what kept me cure this kind of preaching.
Because if I would have heard the preaching that's going on in most independent Baptist churches today.
I would have heard the preaching that put the fear of God into me about fornication.
About drunkenness.
About all these different things.
And that's what kept me straight.
And young people today are facing an even harder battle in this world today.
With all the bad influences and billboards and the TV and the music.
They've got to have this kind of preaching.
If I didn't think it was important I wouldn't have given everything I have to do it.
And to start this church and to preach this kind of preaching.
Because even if you quit the church and take your kids to somewhere.
Where they're never going to hear any real preaching.
You know what?
This kid is going to hear the right preaching.
That's why I started this church.
And by the way I'll close with this.
When you leave our church.
I'll put it to you this way.
And again when you leave anybody leaving church.
I'm not just saying our church.
When you leave this church.
You lose more than we lose.
It's true.
You lose more than we lose.
Because you know what?
When you leave we'll still be here.
My kids will still be here in this kind of preaching.
And we will still be out winning souls and serving God.
You know you lose more than we lose.
And that's really the bottom line.
And you know we hate to see people go.
And we've seen plenty of people come and go throughout the years.
And we hate to see people go.
But you know what?
We pretty much just move on and live our lives.
Because we still have the Bible.
We still have God.
And we still got plenty of people here who want to serve God.
We still got a nice big crowd of people here.
Who love God.
Want to serve God.
Want to do what's right.
And I'll tell you right now.
Is it a sacrifice to do right?
Of course it's a sacrifice.
Does it cost?
And some of you I know you drive from far away.
It's a sacrifice in the gas tank.
With the gas it's $3.50 or whatever it is.
I go to California every week and it's four bucks a gallon.
Or over four bucks a gallon.
What's the gas here?
Like $3.50 today?
Something like that?
You know that's a sacrifice.
You say man I'm driving from 30 minutes away to be here.
You know what?
That's the most important thing you could be using your gas money on is getting to God's house.
And downloading it on the internet is not a substitute.
You've got to be here.
And get in God's house and sing these praises in the tabernacle.
That's what God wants you to make that sacrifice.
You can't sing praises in the tabernacle if you don't get to the tabernacle.
Just sing those praises.
You know God wants you to make that sacrifice of your time to get down here.
God wants you to sacrifice out there.
And those of you who were out soul winning all afternoon, that's a sacrifice of your time.
There's a lot of other stuff you could be doing on Sunday afternoon.
You made a sacrifice of your time to be here.
That's what God wants us to do.
And that pleases God.
That's a spiritual sacrifice that pays great dividends in the kingdom of God.
And God expects us to live a life that's going to cost us something.
And so we can't just go through life expecting, well I want to have my cake and eat it too.
I want to be a zealous, on fire Christian.
But I still want to have my bowling night.
And I still, and I can't give up.
And that's Wednesday night by the way, my bowling night.
I can't give that up.
And I've still got to have my Sunday night football.
Or I've still got to have my rock and roll time.
And I've got to have my drinking buddies.
And I want to have all, you just can't have it all.
And I want to have a great relationship with my sodomite uncle.
And I want to have a great relationship with my cousin who's a wicked person.
And I want to also just drop my kids off at a daycare so that I can not see them for 12 hours a day.
And who knows what's happening to them.
Because children are just a burden to me.
I just don't want to make that sacrifice.
We need to be willing to make the sacrifices of the Christian life.
Father, thank you for your word.
And thank you for giving us the ultimate sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thank you for your blood that saves us from our sins, dear God.
And Father, I pray that you'd help every single person here, myself included, be willing to sacrifice.
Maybe we can't devote as much time to that hobby or that sport that we like.
Maybe we can just cut a little bit of that time out and spend it reading the Bible and going soul winning and going to church.
Spending it with our children, reading the Bible to them and singing the hymns out of the hymn book.
When they're babies and toddlers and children, help us to make a sacrifice of the things we want to do for the things that you want us to do.
And help us not to fall into the world's trap.
We know the world sacrifices all the wrong things.
Help us to make the sacrifices that you'd have to make, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Alright, let's take 315, Psalm 315.
Take my life and let it be, it's a good song about sacrifice.
315, Psalm 315.
And by the way, let me say this, just as an epilogue here.
I've seen a lot of worldly people make a lot of sacrifices.
I've seen people where sports is like a religion to them.
And they spend more time memorizing sports statistics than you might spend reading your Bible.
They spend more time going to sporting events.
They spend more money buying the equipment or buying the tickets.
And I mean sports are a religion to them.
I've seen it many times.
I've seen people, my wife went to a horse show.
And these people literally travel around going to every horse show and they spend tons of money.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with horse breeding and horse shows.
But honestly, if people can spend so much time on that, you know,
and then they don't want to spend any time on the things of God or sacrificing for that.
And they can sacrifice everything to get their kid in the Olympics.
They do it to win a corruptible crown.
We do it to win an incorruptible crown.
We ought to make sacrifices in our life and not to let the world sacrifice everything
for meaningless hobbies in sports, which I'm not against hobbies in sports.
But, you know, those things need to take a backseat to the things of God.
315, let's sing it out of that first verse.