Alright everybody, we're going to go ahead and get started this evening.
If you would at this time, take your hymnals and turn to hymn number 409.
The fight is on.
Him number 409 nice and loud there right on the first
Good job.
Good singing. Let's open with a word of prayer. Dear Father, thank you for this opportunity
that we have to sing praises to you as a church. Thank you also for this day and for the service
that we have. I pray that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit at this time as we sing,
and I pray that you would also bless the preaching as well, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
For our next song, if you would flip the page to hymn number 410,
Hymn number 410
Hymn 410 will go ahead and start there right on the first
In camped along the hills of light he Christian soldiers rise
And press the battle air the night shall veil the glowing sky
It's a ball.
It's Bill Arshad
this time will go through our announcements. If you don't have a bulletin, please raise
your hand and an usher will bring you one.
On the front is our Bible memory,
verse of the week, Galatians chapter number one, verse 13.
On the inside, you'll see our service times listed,
Sunday morning at 10.30, Sunday evening at 4.30,
and our Wednesday evening Bible study at 7.
Below that, our soul winning times are listed,
and all those meet here at the church building
except for Tuesdays.
So make sure to get in touch with Brother Eric,
if you'd like to go to that time.
Below that is the nursing home ministry coming up for the next two weeks.
Also below that is our year-to-date statistics, and praise the Lord, our final number for March was 104 salvations.
So really thankful for that and excited for the rest of the year for soul winning.
On the right, we do have our upcoming events.
April 13th, that's not this upcoming Sunday, but the one after that is our men's preaching night
That's for the evening service and immediately after that. We will have a potluck
So if you'd like to bring something to share for that, that'd be appreciated
April 19th is the Easter soul-winning marathon
There is a sign-up sheet in the back if you're gonna make it to that
Please let me know so I could order the right amount of food for that
But basically, we're going to have food, coffee and donuts
at 9 AM, soul winning at 10.
And then we'll meet back for lunch at noon
and go out for a second round of soul winning at 2 o'clock.
for that soul winning marathon.
The next day is Easter.
We're gonna have barbecue catered for lunch that day
and our evening service.
We're gonna be taking the Lord's Supper.
I'm gonna send out some communication to our ushers
and musicians for some more details coming up about that.
So you should expect that pretty soon.
May 16th through the 18th is the King James Conference
in Vancouver, Washington
with Pastor Aaron Thompson leading that.
May 31st is the Durant, Oklahoma soul winning marathon
teaming up with Steadfast.
On June 28th, that Saturday, we have the Tinker Air Show Fellowship Day.
Followed by the next day, Brother Ben Naim from Steadfast Baptist Church will be preaching both services for us.
So looking forward to seeing my friend Ben again and having him preach for us. It's going to be a great weekend for sure.
Below that is the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship, and I kind of got an idea of how many people
are going to that.
It sounds like a lot of people are.
So really excited.
I'm going to be going as well.
So that's August 27th through the 31st.
And lastly on there is the Bahamas mission strip that is October 6th through the 11th on the back
You will see do you have a QR code there for those interested in giving and our prayer list
Updated prayer list for the week. Please do keep all of these
Requests in prayer and as always if you have any please email me
I'd be glad to add that for you and at this time we're gonna go ahead and go to the Lord in prayer as a church
Lord, we thank you for this evening service. We thank you for the great month of March that we had
for the salvations. I just pray that you would continue to give us more laborers to preach
the gospel and you would just help keep our hearts lit with love and just appreciation
for our salvation and the desire to go out and preach the gospel to those who are lost.
We also pray for the needs of our church members, Lord, and for those that are friends of ours,
And then she'd also bless Rhea in her decisions regarding his health care and just her life, Lord
We do pray also for miss Sean fur for her granddaughter Hadley
We just pray that your will would be done in that situation and that she'd be able to be home schooled
And that you would just bless the family life there
We also pray for brother Alex for his work situation that you bless him in his career
We also want to pray for miss Remy that her travels would go well that she'd have a
Good time over there that she'd get to see her loved ones that she'd be safe and pray that she'd bring her back safely to us
Lord that she'd bless her visa process if it be your will
We also pray for miss Whitney read for her brother Cole's salvation that she would soften his heart and the same thing for
Brother Zach's loved ones his mother and brother
I pray that they would get many opportunities to hear the gospel.
And Lord, we also just want to pray for all of our
friend churches out there, Lord, both in the United States and abroad,
that you just bless the pastors of those congregations and the works
that's going on there. I pray that you would just give us
free course to continue to preach the gospel and to preach
the word of God, and that you just bless us for the remainder of this year.
We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right at this time we'll go to our third song
All right for our third song if you would at this time take your white handout and
Turn the holy holy holy
That's holy holy holy and the white handouts
Holy, holy, holy, we'll go ahead and start there right on the first.
Holy, holy...
singing this evening as the offering plates are being passed around, turn in your
Bibles to Proverbs chapter number two. Proverbs chapter number two.
Good evening Proverbs 2, the Bible reads, my son, if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee so that thou incline thy ear unto wisdom and apply thine heart unto understanding, yea, if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seek her as silver and searchest for her as for hidden treasures, then shout to understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth, come with knowledge and understanding, he
layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous, he is a buckler to them that walk up brightly.
He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveeth the way of his saints, then shalt that understand
righteousness and judgment, and equity yea every good path.
When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thine soul,
discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee,
to deliver thee from the way of the evil man,
from the man that speaketh froward things,
who leaveeth the paths of uprightness,
to walk in the ways of darkness,
who rejoice to do evil,
and to lie in the frowardness of the wicked,
whose ways are crooked,
and they throwered in their paths to deliver thee from the strange woman,
even from the stranger which flattereth with her words, which forsakeeth
the guide of her youth and forgetteth the covenant
of her God. For her house inclineth unto death
and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her
return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
That thou mayest walk in the way of good men and keep the paths
for the upright shall dwell in the land and the perfect shall remain in it, but the wicked shall
be cut off from the earth and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it." Let's bow our heads
It says, then shout thou understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
Now, the reason I'm starting with this verse
is because verses one through five
are kind of explaining to you how to get to a destination.
And that destination that God wants you to get to
is in verse five, understanding the fear of the Lord.
and finding the knowledge of God.
So if you like to break up the chapters,
number one this evening, the fear and knowledge of God.
The fear and knowledge of God.
How do we get there?
Cause like I said, verse five is kind of a destination.
Verses one through four is kind of the roadmap
of how you get to that place in your life.
Verse number one, the Bible says,
my son, if thou wilt receive my words,
and hide my commandments with thee.
So one of the things you have to do
if you wanna get to the place
where you understand a lot about God and about the Bible
and that you fear God, most obvious thing,
you have to receive his words.
See, it is impossible to know who God is
or to fear God or to have a relationship with God
without the words of God.
And today we live in a time where everyone wants to get into this real spiritual, emotionalism, religion,
where they want to talk to you at the door outside wondering about how they have a relationship with Jesus Christ
and how we just need to feel His presence and love God, but how does that actually happen?
It comes from receiving the words of God. You must have the word of God.
And here's the thing, we know in John chapter 1, the Bible teaches that Jesus is the word of God.
So if you want to have a relationship with Jesus,
You have to have a relationship with the Bible.
Now, some people will call this idolatry,
which is absolutely insane
because idolatry is worshiping a stone, an image
that's not God.
But the Bible says that Jesus is the Word of God
and that the Word of God is God.
So worshiping the Bible is not idolatry.
It's worshiping God.
And worship, it just really means to lower yourself,
to bow down before, or to humble yourself beneath.
And isn't that what we do to the Word of God?
Don't we say like, it's in charge of us,
it makes the decisions, it rules what we do,
what we think, what we feel,
and we submit ourselves to that?
Yeah, I worship the Bible.
We worship the Bible because it's the words of Jesus Christ.
Go to Acts chapter number 11.
You want to fear God, you want to have the knowledge of God, it starts with reading the Bible and someone that does not read the Bible, let me tell you something, they don't fear God and they don't know who God is.
You really want to know God? You have to know the Bible. Acts chapter 17 verse 11. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind.
and search the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
So when it comes to receiving the Bible,
cause that's what Proverbs two verse one is talking about,
receiving God's words,
there's a couple of ways that that could happen.
One is obviously through preaching.
You know, God has ordained preaching of the word of God.
And when we show up to church
or setting where we're hearing preaching,
we should be ready to receive the word of God.
You should not show up to church with a bad attitude or a disgruntled heart or even, you know, people that listen online that go to the old IFB.
You ought to show up to your old IFB church wanting to hear the preaching of God's word.
Wanting to hear the sermon.
wanting to hear the verses read and you know I went to an old IFB church for three years and I was
countless times blessed by something that the pastor said out of the word of God even though I
disagreed with a lot of things that were going on at that church you should always be coming to church
ready to hear. Now on top of that when it comes to receiving God's word you should also be searching
So, there is a responsibility that, not me, you have to believe the truth.
That is, you show up and you are ready to receive the word of God, but you are responsible
for what you believe and you must believe correctly, so what you have to do is search
the Scriptures yourself.
And see, even though I believe we have a great church here,
you never want to take that for granted.
You never want to have a complacent attitude
where you just believe everything you hear.
You know, that's a recipe for disaster in a lot of places.
And you know, some people, they could get lucky.
If they're in a new IFB church,
if you just believe everything you hear,
you're going to believe right on 99% of things.
Because we're preaching the truth here.
I'm preaching the word of God. I'm preaching the truth.
But you don't want to like train yourself
to have that habit of just believing everything
that you hear. Because I
can say things that are wrong.
Other pastors can say things that are wrong
and you know who's going to be held responsible.
Of course I'm going to be held responsible for what I preach
but for what you believe, you're going to be held responsible.
And so you must read the Bible and believe what it says over anything else.
If I say something that's wrong, you believe what the Bible says.
And see, this is how you know that we're not a cult.
We're not like the Catholic Church where we're trying to keep the Bible away from the parishioners.
I'm saying, read it every day.
Fact check everything that I preach with it.
That's going to be safe for you.
Go to 1 Thessalonians chapter number two.
1 Thessalonians chapter number 2 verse 13 says for this cause also thank we God without ceasing
Because when you notice received the word of God, which he heard of us
You received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God
which effectually work it also in you that belief.
You know, it's important not to just get desensitized
to the fact that this is the words of God
we're talking about right here.
This is not just like a good book.
Hey, you know, check out this book.
I reviewed it on Goodreads.
It's just pretty good.
No, like this is the words of God.
And, you know, you should have the utmost reverence and fear and respect for everything
that this book says.
And not just get desensitized to the fact that, hey, you know, we read this every day.
Hopefully, you're reading it every day.
Hey, we're hearing it preached three times a week.
It's the Word of God.
Every time it's opened, every time it's read, every time you read it at home, you should
be revering.
and in all of the words of God and taking it very seriously,
that's part of receiving the words of God.
And when you actually have that much of a receptive heart,
you know what you're going to do?
You're going to end up fearing God and knowing God,
knowing who He is.
Go to Colossians chapter number three.
So we saw that in Proverbs 2 verse 1 we're supposed to receive his words and it said to hide my commandments
With thee now, how do you hide God's commandments with you?
I think one way you do that is by memorizing the Bible
There's reading the word of God, but another important thing is to memorize the word of God Colossians chapter 3 verse 16
The Bible says let the word of Christ dwell in you richly
in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
So letting the words of Christ dwell in you, it says, richly in all wisdom.
What I've noticed is that when I have memorized a passage or memorized a chapter in God's Word,
it unlocks that chapter for me more than anything else.
Like, I can listen to five sermons on a certain passage of Scripture,
but if I memorize it, I will understand that passage.
Because, you know, we're reading the Word of God,
you're just reading a verse, and then go to the next, go to the next.
But when you memorize, you have to repeat this verse like 50 times.
And we're just thick as human beings, you know?
We just need to hear things over and over.
And sometimes I'm just memorizing a verse,
and on that 50th time, I'm like, whoa.
I have not thought of that before, but I've read it so many times, but there's just something about
getting it into your heart that helps you to learn it. And what does that do? It helps you fear God
and know God by having the words of Christ in your heart.
And that also talks about Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
You know, the thing that I love about our hymn book and singing the Psalms themselves
is that a lot of times what we're doing is just singing scripture.
And that's just getting, you know, deep into our heart and those things are staying with us,
especially children that grow up in church.
You know, I feel like they know the songs better than adults do.
Children really get it. It gets put into their heart and they don't forget it when they grow up.
Go to, if you would, Psalm 119.
Psalm 119.
Now just like with reading the Bible, people love to make excuses.
Oh, I'm not a, I'm not a visual learner, I'm not a person who learns by reading, I'm
an auditory person, or I'm a person that learns by doing, and it's just like, God gave you
a book, you just need to read it regardless.
And you know what?
Some people are going to be better naturally at memorizing the Bible than others, I'll
grant you that, but just because it doesn't come naturally to you, or it's a little difficult
for you, does not mean you just shouldn't do it.
Like, what if I told you that you should actually do some things that are difficult in your life?
and not just write off anything that's hard, like,
well, that's not for me, because that's kind of hard for me.
It's like, all the more you should be doing it then.
You know, no one in here should get this idea, well, that's not for me.
No, you should learn to memorize the Scripture.
And for you men, a good time to do this is driving to work.
You know, if you have a commute to work, there and back
is usually like a good 20 to 60 to 70 minutes,
depending on how far you drive,
every single day of your life
that you could be doing something productive with.
You know, sometimes just listening to the Bible during that drive could be good.
Memorizing the Bible, I mean, listening to an audio book, just something rather than
just sitting there or turning on the radio or something dumb like that.
You know, you can make use of that time.
Psalm 119 verse 11 says,
Thy word have I hid in my heart.
Notice that I might not sin against thee.
Sounds like memorizing the Bible actually gets you to fear God.
To where you're hiding the word of God in your heart
and as a result, you're not sinning more, right?
So you can lower the amount of you sin by memorizing scripture.
It says, Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes.
With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth, I have rejoiced in the way of thy
testimonies as much in all riches, I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways,
I will delight myself in thy statutes, I will not forget thy word.
Deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy word.
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
Verse go down to verse 104 verse 104
Notice what it says here through thy precepts. I get understanding
Therefore, I hate every false way, you know when someone loves lies and
Says that they love everyone and they love all religions. I'm just like this person doesn't know the Bible
This person clearly is not receiving the word of God.
They're clearly not laying it up in their heart because according to Scripture,
the precepts of God's words give us understanding.
And what does that understanding do?
It causes us to hate every false way.
See, if you know the Bible and what it teaches about salvation,
you're going to hate the Catholic Church.
When you realize that God says that a pastor has to be married and there's a religion that says you have to not be married
And it's just like you're gonna hate that religion
When it's just constantly against what God's words teach that's gonna make you angry
And you know what you should have a righteous hatred in your heart for the things that blaspheme God
For the things that God hates how about for things that are sending people to hell
No, you should not love everyone.
No, we should not love every religion.
Oh, coexist.
No, I hate Islam.
I hate Catholicism.
I hate Mormonism.
I hate atheism.
Why?
Because I love God's words.
That's why.
Because I actually know God and fear God,
and anyone who teaches this love all mentality doesn't.
They don't fear God.
They don't love God because it doesn't match up with the Bible.
By the way, you ever want to know who's on God's side?
Just who's preaching what the Bible actually says?
Who's actually on the side of what Scripture says?
Not, I mean, well, everyone knows you should love everyone, right?
No, actually, that's not what the Bible says.
No, actually, you should be with what the Scripture teaches.
Go to John chapter number seven John chapter number seven or I'm sorry. I'm sorry Proverbs two go to Proverbs two
We'll go to John seven right after that. Hopefully you're keeping your place in Proverbs two throughout the sermon
But let's read the next verse here in Proverbs chapter two verse two
It says, so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and notice this word apply thine heart to understanding.
See, you will get a certain amount of knowledge from just receiving the Bible.
You'll get a certain amount of knowledge just from reading it,
just from showing up to church and hearing the word of God being preached,
fellowshiping with godly Christians that are going to teach you the Bible.
But you know what? There comes a certain amount of
fearing God and knowing God that comes from doing the Bible,
that comes from actually performing the things that you're reading,
not just keeping it all up here as a head knowledge,
but using the word of God and realizing,
hey, I know from experience what the Bible says in this area.
Go to John chapter number seven, John chapter number seven, and we'll see this principle here.
John chapter seven, verse 15, it says, and the Jews marveled, saying how knoweth this man letters,
having never learned.
So, Jesus is preaching and they're kind of shocked at his intelligence and wisdom because
Jesus didn't have some sort of high pedigree formal education.
They're like, this guy hasn't learned, you know, he didn't go to college or whatever
our modern equivalent would be.
But verse 16 says, Jesus answered them and said, my doctrine is not mine.
but his that sent me.
So he's saying these words that I'm preaching,
they're not just coming out of my own heart.
I'm not just making these up.
I'm receiving these from the Father.
Verse 17, if any man, notice, will do his will.
He shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.
Notice people who do God's will know the doctrine.
And what I've noticed is that people who just show up to church every once in a while,
read the Bible every once in a while,
or maybe they just listen to online preaching,
they have a lot of doctrines still screwed up.
You know what helps correct a lot of doctrinal issues?
Is by actually doing the Word of God.
The people that I know that know the most Bible, you know what's funny? They're all soul winners.
Every single one of them.
I can't think of a single person where I can think like,
man, this guy knows tons of Bible,
but doesn't preach the gospel.
When you do God's will, you'll know the doctrine.
But there's kind of frauds to this because you've got the Calvinists, the Reformed types,
and they love to put on a front of being super smart.
Like, that's their thing.
They want to be seen as so academic and so put together, and they love to use fancy words,
but yet they preach so much false doctrine.
And they're not as smart as they make it out to be.
Calvinists are never almost doing the Word of God, therefore they're messed up on doctrine.
You want to get your doctrine settled?
Yes.
Receive it.
Yes.
Go to church.
Yes, memorize the Bible.
But beyond that, actually apply the things that you hear.
The more that you apply, when you learn a truth, when you hear a sermon, when you read a Bible verse,
the more that you just have this attitude that says,
God, no matter what it is, if it's from your word, I'm going to implement it in my life,
you're going to be a person that starts to understand the Bible very quickly.
And that's what differentiates people who know the Bible really well and who don't.
Go back to Proverbs 2.
Proverbs, chapter number 2.
Proverbs 2, look at verse number 3.
It says,
You know, picture this of someone just crying out
and just yelling about how they want to know the truth.
They want knowledge.
They are truly hungry in their heart for the things of God.
Those are the people that God's going to give a lot of knowledge.
Why? Because they're sincere.
Like this to me proves sincerity and if you want a bunch of knowledge you know
you should do you should ask God for it. If you want a bunch of wisdom you should
cry out to God and ask him to give you that and he will give you that. You could
stay there. James 1 5 says if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God that
give it to all men liberally and a break if not and it shall be given him.
That's a promise that if you ask God's gonna give you wisdom
He's gonna give it to you liberally and he's not gonna abrade you
He's not gonna correct you or chide you for asking because I can kind of relate to this as a father
Sometimes your kids want to play the 50 question game and you know what I should do what I should do is always just be there
And just be like I'll give liberally you want to ask me where trees come from or how do we get you know?
How does someone get to heaven or anything like that like?
I will tell you, but sometimes, just in our flesh,
I'll be honest with you, it can get kind of annoying.
Any other parents can back me up on that,
it gets annoying every once in a while, right?
But God in heaven, he's not like that.
He's just better than all of us.
It doesn't matter how many times you ask him,
he's just ready to give you the knowledge
and ready to give you the wisdom.
Isn't that great?
That's a great promise.
He's not gonna get tired of you asking.
And here's the truth,
you will never stop learning the Bible.
You know, a good prayer to pray before you read the Bible.
Lord, open my eyes that I might behold
wondrous things out of thy law.
He's never going to get tired of you asking that question.
He's not going to be like,
you've learned enough Bible, you're good to go.
He's like, I'll show you more.
This is deeper than you could ever handle.
And deeper than I could ever handle.
Keep asking him.
Verse number four, notice what it says.
If thou seekest her as silver,
and searchest for her as for hid treasures,
then shout thou understand the fear of the Lord.
and find the knowledge of God.
Notice it's comparing like,
hey, if you actually sought knowledge and wisdom
as much as you would search for money,
you would actually learn how to fear God.
You would actually have the knowledge of God.
And I mean, think about if this was actually applied.
In true reality, imagine if this was applied.
Today in America,
how many people dedicate their entire life to getting rich?
Their entire being from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed is how they can make more money, seek more money, get more things, have a better luxurious life.
Like this is the American dream, right?
Is so that you can just live comfortably and get a bunch of money and be happy from all your material goods.
What if God's people actually sought wisdom and sought knowledge as much as people search for money?
I mean, this world would be turned upside down
for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But you know, it actually takes someone
who's not gonna just live according
to their carnal desires and put their will
as the forefront in their life.
That's someone who's actually gonna lower themselves
to what God wants for them.
And for what the Bible says, who's willing to do that.
You could stay there. I'll read Matthew 1344 Jesus said again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field
The which when a man hath found he highteth and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and
Buyeth that field so
Jesus is saying like hey if someone has a field and there's treasure hid in that
Someone's going to be willing to sell everything that they have just to buy that field, to get those gains monetarily, to get that treasure.
And you think about times in history, like the Gold Rush in California, people were literally willing to sell everything they had,
and to travel across the country, through the wilderness, through perils, just at the hope, just at the chance of striking it rich in California.
and being a part of the gold rush of the 1800s, people do that for money.
But you know what? We should be willing to do anything to learn the truth.
You should be willing to do anything. You should be crying out to God asking him for it.
You should be truly desiring in your heart the truth of God's word, no matter the cost.
And you know, a lot of people have done this.
A lot of people have literally moved across the country
to go to what they believe in their heart
is the best church that will preach them the word of God,
that will send them out soul winning,
that will give them the truth uncensored.
And, you know, I could relate with that because I did that when I was living in Idaho with my parents.
I moved to Sher Foundation Baptist Church.
You know, I was tired of the old IFB, but instead of being like these losers that complain about it
and like backstab their pastor or talk crap about their pastor,
I was just like, I'm just going to go behind a pastor that I could support 100%.
And I went to Sher Foundation and I grew a ton because I was hearing the truth.
But you know what? I also just wanted the truth.
You know, we need some more people in this country to stop caring so much about their
bank account and care more about the truth.
Because I don't know if you've noticed, our entire country has kind of been sacrificed
at the altar of making money, and it just seems like so many people in America have
stopped caring about the truth and about preserving hard preaching and about preserving
Instead of thinking like, how do I train my kids to be soul winners?
How do we train the next generation to preach the word of God?
It's just like, how do I train the next generation to go get a finance degree?
And look, I'm not against you if you have a finance degree, but I'm just saying like,
these are the aspirations of Americans today for their kids.
Make a bunch of money.
I just want my kids to make a bunch of money.
You know what, praise God if your kids make a bunch of money,
but I'll tell you what, I'd rather my kids be blue collar,
kind of scraping by, but three to thrive,
but soul winners, but love God, but read the Bible,
but have time for the things of God than just to be rich.
Now, if they make a bunch of money
and they serve God too, praise the Lord.
But you know what, Americans need to stop loving money
because the love of money is the root of all evil.
You need to love God and it should not even be close.
Your love for money or things or prestige
or having the best career you could possibly have,
it should not even be close to your love for the things of God
and for the word of God.
Go back to Proverbs 2.
Number two, this evening, the source of wisdom.
The source of wisdom.
Verse six, for the Lord giveth wisdom.
out of his mouth come with knowledge and understanding.
The Bible says that God is the one who gives wisdom.
And so the Bible, the word of God
is the ultimate source of truth.
The ultimate source of wisdom.
And when you're thinking that you wanna learn
about something about life,
about how to raise your kids,
about how to run a business,
about how to do anything according just to life here,
where do you get that wisdom?
First, the word of God.
Now look, there's nothing wrong with reading other books.
I read other books every single day of my life, okay?
There's nothing wrong with reading other books.
There's nothing wrong with going to school, of course.
I'm pro-education, all those things.
But this should always be the number one source.
And to me, it's kind of weird how, like, Christians will spend all this time, like, reading these self-help books,
reading leadership books, reading psychology books, listening to podcasts,
where they're just giving you all this life wisdom, but yet they won't read the Word of God,
when the Bible says that out of His mouth comes wisdom.
Where should you go first for information the Bible that is the only source in this world that is
100% reliable
That's why it should be your go-to because everything you read in it is going to come to pass look at verse 7
He says he layeth up sound wisdom notice for the righteous
He is a buckler to them that walk up rightly.
See, I've noticed that there's a connection with people who are wise being righteous.
And I've noticed a connection between people who are stupid and foolish and being wicked people.
There is a connection here because God lays up sound wisdom for who?
For the righteous.
People who know the Bible.
People who have a lot of wisdom.
You know what? They're a righteous person.
And the dumbest people on this earth,
you know who they are?
Atheists.
And they're not righteous.
They're wicked people. I'll show you that.
Go to Psalm 14.
Psalm 14.
See, when someone is stupid and foolish,
you need to realize this,
that that is a red flag about that person's character.
not necessarily just their mental capacity barring the exception they have some sort
of deformity or mental handicap, but when someone has all their faculties and they're
foolish and they're stupid, that says something about who they are as a person and it should
be a red flag to you.
Like, I had a red flag a few years ago where this guy at church who ended up being a total
bozo, ended up turning against Pastor Shelley, going online on this railing campaign, I marked
this guy from this moment of my life when he called me and said that he doesn't believe
space is real.
And I'm just like, this is a bad person.
Like, I'm gonna watch out for this person.
This person is an idiot.
I just realized, like, okay,
I am gonna be away from this person,
I'm gonna keep my distance,
because the reason why someone is that stupid
is because they're a bad person.
Look at Psalm 14, verse one.
The who, fool hath said in his heart,
there is no God.
And notice how the Bible describes these atheists.
They are corrupt.
They have done abominable works.
There is none that doeth good.
See, it's not a coincidence that the fool is listed here.
Why is he foolish?
Because he says he doesn't believe there's a God, right?
He doesn't think there's a God.
And then the Bible describes who he's like as a person.
That he's corrupt.
That he's done abominable works.
Now here's the thing.
We all are born into this world foolish.
Foolishness is bound in the heart of the child, the Bible says.
It's totally understandable when kids say and believe all sorts of wild and stupid things.
But you know, as you grow, you should be doing what?
Receiving the Word of God, hiding God's Word in your heart,
reading it, hearing, preaching, all these things, and you should start to mature.
And when someone is an adult and they believe all these things,
it shows a lack of character and maturity on their part.
And especially, because I'll say this,
okay, we all probably believe something that's dumb,
but if you're confronted with facts,
if you're confronted with evidence,
if you're confronted with the word of God
and you still don't change your mind,
that's because you have wickedness in your heart.
That's because there's a problem with you as a person.
And it's not like when you're seeing facts,
it's not like you get to just stand here and say,
well, I just still have my opinion though.
No, no, no, your opinion is wrong.
And Christians, unfortunately, have developed a reputation for themselves of being people who deny science, deny facts, deny reality, and believe a bunch of stupid things.
And unfortunately, there are a bunch of Christians just hell-bent on keeping this stereotype alive.
And it pisses me off, because you know what, it's not that, oh, this person's not saved,
but it's that they have a serious amount of immaturity in their heart,
and they have a serious character problem in their heart,
and when you are presented with facts and truth, you need to change.
You need to swallow your pride and realize you could be wrong about things,
I could be wrong about things, and when the facts are presented, just believe them.
Regardless of whatever your preconceived notions were believe the truth and especially the Bible.
Boy, I wish that some people in the old IFB had this mentality.
It's like, you want to know why a preacher in the old IFB won't acknowledge that the Bible says that the rapture happens after the tribulation.
It's because he has a heart problem.
It's not because he can't understand English and read the words that are on the page.
It's that he has some sort of heart problem.
Maybe he doesn't want to lose his friends over standing up for the Word of God,
doesn't want to lose his donors, doesn't want to lose his Bible college,
doesn't want to lose all the prestige, and so they just refuse.
But you know what? That's wickedness.
That needs to be repented of.
When you get truth, you need to believe it immediately.
Go to if you would.
Colossians chapter number two, Colossians chapter number two.
But we read there how atheists are obviously not good people, folks.
It's not like, well, they don't believe in God, but they're a pretty good person.
No, no, no, they're corrupt. No, they've done abominable works.
This is why it's so foolish and silly to go to these people for the big questions of life.
This is why it's so just asinine to read these books about deep philosophical questions of life and try to get wisdom from people like
Frederick Nietzsche, which is like one of the worst authors in history.
His book, Thus Spake That Zarathustra, is probably the worst book I've ever read. It's terrible.
But see, I wasn't going to that book thinking, oh, I'm gonna get some good stuff.
I was just interested in the history of it. I knew beforehand it was gonna be trash, but notice what it says in Colossians chapter 2 verse 6.
As ye have therefore received Christ, Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built
up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with
thanksgiving, notice this warning in verse 8, beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy.
and vain deceit.
After the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world,
and not after Christ.
What is philosophy? It's just like a belief system.
It's just like a way of looking at the world,
a way of understanding the world and viewing things in the world.
And there's philosophies out there that are noticed after the tradition of men.
So it's not going to match up with the Bible.
It's not going to match up with the truth.
It's after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.
I've kind of noticed in the last couple years
that there's kind of a comeback in the interest of philosophy.
As anyone else kind of noticed that, like I've especially noticed amongst military and police,
that community, there's kind of like this resurgence in the interest in something called stoicism,
right? Stoicism is kind of making a comeback. What are some other ones?
Postmodernism, that's made a huge comeback for a long time. Just go down to the university,
right? A lot of the universities embrace this postmodernism where they want to deconstruct
where they just take every belief that was handed down to us,
every tradition, every way of doing things,
and post-modernists are ready to just destroy it all.
They don't want to build anything, they're saying,
oh, traditional marriage, get rid of it.
Child-rearing techniques, get rid of it.
Church, God, the Bible,
like they just want to destroy all of it.
And people are so into these philosophy books.
People are so into listening to the little psychologist
and philosopher podcast, all these things.
But you know what?
The Bible said is that out of the mouth of the Lord
is where we get wisdom.
You want to learn the meaning of life. You want to learn how to raise kids. You want to learn how to go to church
What a real church looks like how a church supposed to run all of these things are in the Bible and hey
How about the book of Proverbs? That's a good place to start a book that's designed to give you wisdom now
I bring this up because I saw that this ex-New IFB hater,
this person who used to be in a New IFB church,
who now just, you know, hates it and says it's a cult
and is saying that Pastor Shelley is a cult leader,
this person posted a video
and it's from this divorced atheist, feminist, man-hating witch.
That's making a video talking about, like, narcissists and spiritual abusers and all these things.
And on this video, there's a thumbnail that literally had a pentagram.
Anyone else see this?
There was literally a satanic pentagram in the thumbnail.
And here you have this Christian.
that's going to this weird philosopher to try to attack Christians, attack Pastor Shelley, attack
Steadfast Baptist Church. It's like, what are you doing?
Are you insane?
Like, do you ever just look around and look at the battle lines and look who you're standing with?
Like, the atheist.
Oh, but she's a good person.
She's trying to expose abuse.
No, she's corrupt.
No, she's done abominable works.
No, she doesn't love God.
She doesn't love the truth because if she was crying after knowledge,
if she was crying after wisdom,
she'd be giving you the book of Proverbs.
She'd be giving you the New Testament.
She wouldn't be giving you this damned satanic thumbnail
talking about how pastors are narcissistic abuse enablers.
You know what?
These people who overuse these buzzwords are a bunch of idiots.
They're a bunch of idiots.
People will always say,
Narcissist, Narcissistic, Flying Monkeys, Gaslighters,
Soaring Monkeys, Monkeys at Flight.
I don't care what you call it, you're an idiot.
Because if you actually had wisdom, you'd have something to say from the Bible.
But you don't.
You have to go to an atheist.
You have to go to a feminist to attack a pastor.
Woe unto you!
How have you gotten so weak?
How have you gotten so backslidden?
I used to know this person.
This person used to preach behind the pulpit at Steadfast Baptist Church.
You idiot. You coward. You backstabber. What is wrong with these people?
I'll tell you what it is. There's something wrong with them.
Why does someone love lies? Why does someone love stupidity because of their character issue?
And I've seen all I need to see of who's on the right side.
One person has the Bible, one person has the word of God, one person saying go to church, one person saying go
pay your pastor, and one person saying hey look at this feminist whore.
who's been with multiple dudes.
Let's go to wisdom for him.
You're an idiot.
And anyone who thinks that that's normal
should just leave this church
because I don't want to be around a bunch of idiots.
You're mad.
I'm mad about lies.
You should be mad about lies.
Because when you love God's precepts,
you hate every false way.
Every false way.
Proverbs 2
Look at verse eight says he keepeth the paths of judgment and preserve it the way of his saints
Then shout thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity. Yay notice every good path
Now that word good
can be interpreted a lot of ways
if you just use the world's philosophy.
I mean, if you're just going to the world to define
good, you're going to get
a billion different answers of what good is.
But see, this is why
you have to go to the Bible as your primary source.
Why it has to be the first thing
that you turn to is because
God is going to show you what the
good path is.
And you don't get to define what's good.
I don't get to define what's good.
We don't get to say, like, well, you know,
I think it's totally good for people to cohabitate before marriage
and to get to know each other
and to connect on a deeper level before marriage.
It doesn't matter if you think that's good
because the Bible will show you what the good path is.
The Bible says the good path is flea fornication.
The Bible says that the good path
was that it's better to marry than to burn.
But people, they just love to just...
Worship their opinion, and people will accuse us of worshiping the Bible.
Yep, amen.
But you know what you worship? You worship your own mind.
You worship your own human intellect.
You worship your feminist, God-hating, weird atheist podcaster
talking about narcissists. That's who you worship.
But you know what? We should worship the Word of God because
it's going to show us the good path.
Go to Isaiah chapter number five. Isaiah chapter number five.
Because today, people will say,
well, what's good?
Well, just whatever the general consensus is.
That's what people say.
That's good.
But you know, those of us who have read the Bible,
you know that very often the general consensus of what's good
does not match what this Bible says.
And so what do you do when you actually are given that discrepancy?
Well, those who fear God, those who cry after knowledge and wisdom
are always going to pick what the Bible says.
Isaiah 5 verse 20,
whoa unto them that call evil good and good evil,
that put darkness for light and light for darkness,
that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Woe unto them that are wise, notice this, such an important phrase in their own eyes
and prudent in their own sight.
That's where a lot of people are getting their wisdom and knowledge today.
It's just whatever the lusts of their heart want, whatever their eyes think are good,
whatever's nice in their sight, that's what they're going to call good.
But the Bible says, woe unto those who call good evil and evil good.
me, or Anchor Baptist Church, or Pastor Shelly, the former pastor of this church, or Steadfast,
the church that planted this church, people who look at us and say,
we're evil. You know what the Bible says?
Woe unto them. Woe unto them.
And I'm telling you, the amount of people in the last several months
that I've seen just blatantly lie about men of God.
about pastors, about godly churches
that are getting thousands of people saved,
that are sending evangelists,
that are sending out pastors and starting churches.
The way I've seen people just flippantly lie about them
just makes me realize what a wicked piece of trash they are.
And the Bible says,
whoa unto them.
And I'm telling you right now,
I am praying often
that God will judge these liars.
that God will punish them, that God will make it manifest to everyone who is good and who is wicked.
And you should be afraid of that.
I mean, God forbid that I would have a pastor or godly Christians praying for God to punish me.
But you know what? You deserve it.
You need to be punished by God because maybe it's going to be the only thing that'll wake you up and make you repent.
Where you can be like, oh wow, an epiphany.
When I'm standing with sodomites and God-haters and witches and atheists against godly soul-winning Christians, maybe I'm on the wrong side.
Maybe your friends, quote unquote, aren't really your friends.
Because all these people that hate on the new IFB, they all get together, they don't love each other.
They lie about each other.
They talk crap about each other.
They're not good friends to each other.
And so like their lives are just being destroyed.
And they're having all these problems in their lives.
I've seen a lot of lives destroyed lately.
And you know what?
You should be afraid if you're one of these people.
You should be afraid to lie against the man of God.
You should be afraid to attack a church.
You should be afraid to be on these people's sides
because bad things are gonna come unto them.
That's what woe means, woe unto them.
Woe unto them that call good evil and evil good
Go to Jeremiah Jeremiah chapter number four. Can someone give me another water, please Jeremiah 4
Notice what it says in verse 22
For my people is foolish, they have not known me, they are sawdish children, and they have none understanding, they are wise to do evil.
But to do good, they have no knowledge.
So notice again, we see this comparison with those who are righteous, those who serve God, they have knowledge.
They know to do good.
Those that are wicked, what are they?
They're wise to do evil.
Proverbs chapter number two
Number three this evening let's talk about the protection of wisdom
verse 10 it says when wisdom
Entereth into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul
Discretion shall preserve thee
Understanding shall keep thee.
So notice when you actually do cry out for wisdom and knowledge
and you want it and it enters into your heart
and notice how it's pleasant unto your soul.
You're truly receptive, you truly fear God,
you truly want to know the truth.
Notice what the truth does for you.
It preserves you.
It says understanding shall keep thee.
And one of the things that especially people who are new believers or people just like starting in their faith one thing that I just want them all to understand is that following the words of God are going to protect you in your life because we get this brainwashing from the world.
Let the Bible is there to constrict you and to make you have a boring life and God doesn't
want you to have any fun, but that could not be farther from the truth.
God loves us.
God has come to give us life and life more abundantly.
He wants us to thrive in life and so all of God's commandments are there for our benefit.
There's nothing in the Bible that God's like,
well, I just kind of want to stick it to them on this.
You know, alcohol is so great and so wonderful,
but I'm just going to forbid it for Christians just because,
no, no, no, alcohol will ruin your life.
Alcohol will make you lose all your teeth in a bar fight.
Alcohol will make you go get some other guy's wife,
some guy's wife pregnant.
How'd you like that?
Alcohol will make you get killed by the police.
Alcohol will make you get in a drunk driving accident.
Like there's all these terrible things that happen to people
when they drink alcohol
and God is actually trying to protect you.
But those who are immature,
they just see the rule just like a child.
Just like a child that's just stubborn and rebellious.
He just sees the rule and gets mad at the rule,
but not realizing that the parents have that rule
because the parents love him.
or her and want to protect that child.
It's the same thing with God.
He gives us wisdom and all these things
to preserve us, to keep us.
And the Bible gives us an example,
a couple of examples of some things
that he's gonna keep us safe from, verse 12,
to deliver the notice from the way of the evil man.
From the man that speaketh forward
So, we're kind of introduced to this anonymous villain in the book of Proverbs that you're
going to see a lot.
That is the evil man.
And the Bible is saying that knowledge, wisdom are going to keep you safe from this evil
man and it kind of gives you one of the warning indicators of what an evil person is like.
It's someone that is pro-word.
Now, I looked up pro word because that's not a word we usually use today, but it just means willfully contrary, not easily managed.
Whenever I read the word pro word in my Bible, I always think of this contrarian, this person's contrarian, meaning that if I say A, you're going to say B.
If your mom says, do this, you're not going to do it, right?
If someone has an opinion, you're going to have the exact opposite.
If the pastor has an interpretation of the Bible,
you're always going to have an opposite interpretation, right?
This is someone that's froward, someone who is willfully contrarian.
This is a bad attribute in someone when they're just always against things that are good.
Now, every person has blind spots.
I'm sure every person is going to have a wrong opinion on interpretation from time to time.
But I've noticed over the years how some people, they're just like always on the wrong side
of every battle.
And I'm just like, are you a forward person?
Like I'm kind of scared of you.
Like you're always on the wrong side.
You've always got a weird doctrine.
You're always upset at the pastor, even though a sermon came right out of the Word of God.
All men are terrible, right?
It's just like, this is a contrarian person,
this is a throwward person,
and it shows that they're evil.
It shows that they are harmful.
Now, go to 2 Timothy chapter number one.
Second Timothy chapter number one, and while you're turning there, I'll read Galatians 519.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, and then this word variance.
Variance, someone who's just different for the sake of being different.
Not that they have a sincerely held opinion that they came to through hours of diligent
study of the word of God, and they just happen to disagree on this one thing, but they're
usually in lockstep with others, no, no, no, they're just always different.
They've always got their own interpretation.
They're always variant from other godly Christians.
Like, here's this big group of godly Christians.
They all believe the same doctrine on calling upon the name of the Lord, right?
But then there'll be that one guy
where he's different from everyone else and it's like,
you're evil.
Because, again,
Having good doctrine, what does it come from?
From doing the Word of God?
You know what's funny?
Soul winners don't get confused about calling upon the name of the Lord.
People who are soul winners and especially people who are good soul winners,
they never get confused on this doctrine.
It's like, duh, of course.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
It's not a hard verse, right?
But then there's that contrarian guy.
who, oh, everyone's an abuser, everyone's an enabler,
all the pastors are narcissists,
and just so happens that they also believe
that you don't have to call upon the name of the Lord.
Oh yeah, it's almost like God gave us a book
to tell us about all the warning signs
of someone who's wicked.
Oh thank you, God, for Proverbs.
Thank the Lord for this book,
because you know what, the Bible discerns
the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Where you could say action. What's this coming from? Oh, yeah, it's coming from this person being a piece of trash a wicked person a
Variant person a forward person look at 2nd Timothy 1 13 hold fast the form of sound words
which Thou has heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.
See, we shouldn't be trying to sit here at Anchor Baptist Church and think like,
how different can we be from steadfast?
How different can we be from faithful word, or from verity, or for other new FB churches?
I'm trying to think like, how can I hold fast the form of sound words as much as humanly possible?
How can I stick exactly to what the Bible says to the best of my ability?
I'm not getting up here thinking like what new doctrine can I preach?
Oh, what really exotic new sermon? You know what? I'm never gonna preach anything new.
I'm just telling you right now. I am never gonna preach anything new.
It's always gonna be the old King James Bible.
If you're looking for a new doctrine, go join a cult because that's what cults will offer you.
Right? Joseph Smith, he will offer you New Doctrine.
Oh yeah, I've got another Testament of Jesus Christ.
You know, you got that cult in Waco in the 90s.
Hey, what's his name? David Kresch. He's got New Doctrine for you.
Really, just wonderful Doctrine. God told me for you
to give me your wife and daughter. Just wonderful, great New Doctrine.
See, New Doctrine is bad Doctrine.
The old doctrine that comes from the Bible, the timeless eternal doctrine, that's what's good, the old path, the right way, the sound words of God.
I'm trying to hold fast to those things. I'm not trying to see how different I can be.
Now, look, us pastors, we have our differences.
We have different personalities.
We have different preferences.
We have different maybe order of service or little things like that.
But you know what?
My pastor friends, I'm in like lockstep with them on like 99% of issues.
And I'm not just thinking like, how different can I be because I'm a pastor and I've got
to make a name for myself.
I don't care because I love the Bible.
Let this make a name for itself.
Go back to Proverbs chapter number two Proverbs chapter two, but again you see people they always have something different watch out
It's a red flag
Verse number 13 notice what it says who leave the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness.
See, to be forward,
you inherently have to be wicked.
Because there's the right way.
There's the good path.
There's the truth.
There's the right doctrine.
And if you're going to be variant,
you know what that means?
You're going to be on the side of lies.
You're going to be on the side of the wicked.
You're going to be on the wrong path.
That's why it's just, it's automatic.
If you're a forward person,
you're for sure going to be on a wicked,
a harmful path.
Because it's not
the paths of uprightness, you're leaving the paths of uprightness, look at verse 14 and says,
this is crazy, who rejoice to do evil and delight in the forwardness of the wicked.
I mean, this is a crazy person right here.
This is insane.
Someone who does evil and instead of feeling just extremely ashamed
like normal people feel when they sin,
they rejoice.
They get pleasure out of it.
And they delight in the frowniness of the wicked.
They love when they can infect someone else
and make them a hater with them.
They love it when there's a godly Christian serving in church on the right path and they could drag them down into the gutter with them
They love that they actually take pleasure in that these are
terrible people
Terrible people verse 15 whose ways are crooked
and they throw word in their paths.
It says that their ways are crooked.
Think about if you go out into the wilderness,
if you've ever been to a national park
or just anything like that, they usually have a trail.
and what is that trail designed to do?
It's designed to keep you safe, right?
It's saying like, hey, there's dangers out here,
there's snakes, there's scorpions, there's cliffs,
there's sinking sand, whatever the perils
that are out there, this trail is telling you,
hey, if you follow this trail,
you're gonna get to your destination
and you're gonna be safe, right?
That's God's words.
That's the path of uprightness.
But the wicked, what do they do?
path, right?
They want to go off of the path that's already been created, that's already been run by thousands
of other people, that's already been proven and tried.
They want to create their own path and you know what often happens?
They get hurt, they get hurt as a result.
Harm comes upon them they get stuck and lost in the woods they get frostbite
They get bit by that snake they get attacked by that bear or whatever and look in just the carnal example
Sometimes it's fun to go off in the wilderness. Okay, I'm not against you do that
But the spiritual example is true here like God has given us the path and the path is the only place that there's safety
And when you go off that path, you're going to start feeling a lot of harm.
You're going to start feeling a lot of issues.
And it's like, you see this, people stop going to church, they turn on the pastor, they become haters,
they go off the path of what the Bible says, and the next thing you know, it's like, oh, divorced.
And it's just like, why'd you go off the path?
You know, that path was there to protect you, that path wasn't there to harm you.
It's not like the Word of God, the sermons preached against adultery and divorce and remarriage and leaving your spouse.
It's not to hurt you.
Sure, it may hurt some people's feelings, but really, it's there to help you.
It's there to keep you on the safe path.
And that's anything in the Word of God.
It's there to keep you safe.
Look at verse 16.
Then it tells you something else that wisdom will keep you safe from.
This is a big one.
To deliver thee from the strange woman.
even from the stranger with flattereth, which flattereth with her words.
Man, this is a serious danger for people who do not pay close attention to wisdom and knowledge
and stay on the right path.
This is a serious danger today.
And it's interesting because in the book of Proverbs, it just seems like especially the
first portion of it, we're going to be talking about the strange woman like every chapter.
And it's because there's a lot of strange women in this world.
She's on every street corner, the Bible says.
And it's obviously a serious danger for men
because God's constantly warning you.
It's like you're on the trail and like every five yards
there's a sign that says like, hey, there's a cliff
just to your left, stay on the path, stay on the path,
there's a cliff, there's a cliff.
And it's funny, you know what the Bible says?
A whore is a deep ditch.
It's a deep deep ditch and people who are walking on the right path and they get off and they go to that whore
They fall in that ditch and oftentimes when you're in that ditch you can't get out
You are you can't escape you're harmed and what's interesting is that the Bible doesn't constantly talk about the strange man
Have you noticed that it's the Bible's constantly not like ladies be careful watch out for the strange man
Watch out for those dudes. It's like always telling men like be careful of this wicked woman
What does strange mean?
This just means not your wife.
That's what it means.
OK, just a foreign woman, a strange woman
who you don't know, just some random chick.
And she's saying, notice flattering words, which
flatter it with her words.
That is a red flag, folks.
Listen, men, if some random woman that you don't know,
or really any woman that's not your wife does this,
starts flattering you, don't fall for it.
Don't sit here and think in your prideful,
egotistical mind, like, yeah, I really am that cool.
Yeah, I am that awesome.
No, this woman's evil.
She's trying to hurt you.
She's trying to harm you.
She's that deep ditch on the side of the trail.
And you might think you're such a daredevil
that you could handle it, but you know what?
Many strong men have been slain by her.
Many strong men.
Proverbs 31, give not thy strength unto women.
right? It doesn't say like, oh, only the weak. No, no, no, even strong men sometimes fall for that.
That's why Proverbs is just constantly warning you about the strange woman. You got to be careful.
And look, praise the Lord. I don't think that this exists in this church. So I'm not saying this
as a condemnation of anyone here, but it is a warning for the future. Don't even think that
just because you're in church that the strange woman wouldn't hunt there too.
Because the Bible says that the adulterous hunts for the precious life.
And again, I don't think we have this right now,
but I'm telling you, even in churches,
there can be women that are promiscuous.
There can be women that want to show off their bodies.
There can be women making inappropriate comments to men
and flirting with them and coming on to them.
And you have to realize if you actually love wisdom,
if you actually love knowledge,
you have to make a note like, okay, I need to be careful.
I need to separate, I need to not be super close.
I need to do everything I can.
to keep myself safe because that's actually what a wise person with real humility would say.
Not just like, oh, no big deal. It'll never happen to me. Then why is the Bible constantly
warning you about it? If it could never happen to you, no, you need to realize, like, hey,
that's a real danger. That's a real danger that we have to be careful and not even get anywhere
close. Verse number 17, I found this interesting talking about the strange woman. It says,
and forget if the covenant of her God.
You know, this lady, this strange woman,
she's a strange woman now.
She's a whore now.
She's flattering men now,
but it says that she forsook the guide of her youth.
So it's like she had someone in her youth
telling her, do the right thing.
Go down the right path.
You know, follow the words of God, do what the preacher says, do what your parents say.
She had that guide of her youth, but she forsook it.
You know, it makes me think about how you can't force your children to turn out good, you know that?
You can't just snap your fingers and just order your children, be godly when you grow up.
Like, wouldn't that be nice if it was that easy?
But this person had a guide in their youth, and she forsook the guide of her youth.
Man, all we could do is just in those really young years do everything we can, discipline,
pray for them a ton, give them guidance, give them wisdom, give them an environment where
they're going to hear hard preaching, but at the end of the day serving God is a choice.
Doing what's right is a choice.
And you know what?
I could only make the choice at the end of the day to truly love God and His words for
myself.
You know what?
For preaching parents, you're responsible for guiding that young lady and telling her what's right and
Giving her the good path to walk down
But if adults if children just grow up and just decide to go off the path and just jump off the cliff
How is that your fault?
Your job is to warn that's your responsibility
But look even when she has the guide she can still forsake and forget it the covenant of her God
So it sounds like she was getting the Bible too
It sounds like she was getting God's word.
But yet, you know what?
People who grow up in church can still grow up to be adulterous whores.
And men who grow up in church can still grow up to be drug addicts and alcoholics and adulterers.
Why? Because we have free will. That's why.
And so you need to take heed to yourself, to the decisions that you can control,
to loving God with your heart and into giving all the right instruction to your children.
But you cannot force like a robot for your kids to love God. It is not possible.
Look at verse 18.
for her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
Man, men need to memorize that verse right there,
because elsewhere the Bible will talk about how the strange woman will seem pleasant to you,
you know, that it'll look like something to be desired,
but like every time you see the strange woman, you just need to think like death, destruction.
the end of my marriage, the end of my life.
Like, you just need to be thinking, like, death, danger.
And stop being so foolish and thinking, like, oh, she looks good.
Oh, she's cute.
She'll be like, oh, strange woman, dressed like a whore, flattering me.
That's death.
Run away from that, you know?
Don't play stupid games with death.
Don't sit here and get a gun and put one bullet in the cylinder
and spin it and play Russian roulette.
That's like playing around with the whore.
because notice what it says, verse 19,
none that go unto her return again.
Neither take they hold of the paths of life.
Many people who go down the road of adultery
and fornication never recover.
Many people who go down this road
never serve God to their fullest potential.
Many people, whether that's just from their own shame,
or whether that's just from nuking their life
and all the complications of multiple parents and children
and alimony and all STDs, right?
All these issues that come, whatever the reason,
many people, they just never recover from it.
It ruins their life for forever.
So don't be an idiot that thinks,
I got to see if it's true myself. Don't be an idiot. Be warned from the Bible.
See the strange woman and say, death!
Stay away from death! You know, young men that want to get married,
praise the Lord. I want you guys to get married, but beware
of the whore. Don't marry the whore. Don't marry the promiscuous woman.
Don't marry the woman that you just met five minutes ago and is flattering you.
Beware of that woman. She will ruin
Number four, let's talk about the paths of the righteous.
Verse 20 says that thou mayest walk in the way of good men
and keep the paths of the righteous.
So earlier we saw that word good.
And we learned that we don't get to just define good, right?
God defines what good is.
And the Bible here is talking about the way of good men.
You know what that means?
You could actually identify someone who's a good man.
And in fact, you're supposed to identify them
so that you could see the path that they're going in life and follow them.
I'll show you that.
Psalm 37.
You know, we're going to read in Psalm 37, this word, Mark.
And usually we talk about that in a negative context,
how someone's causing division in the church
and the pastor's supposed to get up and mark them,
say, beware of this person.
They're wicked.
They're turning people away.
Don't be friends with them, right?
That's one sense of marking someone.
But look at verse 37 of Psalm 37.
Mark the perfect man and behold the upright.
for the end of that man is peace.
But the transgressors shall be destroyed together
and the end of the wicked shall be cut off."
So the Bible actually instructs us to identify
a good man, identify the perfect man.
And of course that doesn't mean sinless,
it just means that complete.
He's living a complete Christian life.
He doesn't have this huge glaring issue.
He's living a godly life.
You're supposed to mark, identify that man,
and realize, hey, this guy's going a good direction.
Because notice how it said at the end of that verse,
what was the exact wording?
In verse 37, notice the end.
For the end of that man is peace.
Why are you supposed to mark a good man?
Because you're supposed to realize
that if he's following the Bible,
you know what his end is gonna be?
Peace.
And you don't always just look at the immediate circumstances of their life
because the Bible teaches that those who are godly will suffer persecution, right?
So you can't look at a pastor or something and be like,
oh, they've got all these protests and all these problems, so he must not be godly.
No, you have to look at where's the doctrine?
Is the doctrine matching the word of God?
Is he following God's word?
Then you can assume this is a good man.
And you know what, you should follow that good man
because the end of a good man is peace.
Yeah, there's going to be storms in life, there's storms for the wicked and for the righteous.
But here's the thing, the end of the righteous is peace.
The end of the godly is peace.
But the end of the wicked is destruction.
Have you noticed that?
The end of the wicked is their life being completely destroyed,
not just being chastised but being like really chastised
or if they're unsaved, you know, getting a wrath of God on their life.
Go to Hebrews 13, Hebrews chapter 13.
A lot of people who are prideful and arrogant hate this point of actually following a man.
People think they're so godly, they're so smart that they would never follow a man.
But really what that is is that's pride.
And let me help you understand what pride actually is.
Pride is anytime you disagree with what the Bible says.
That's always pride, every single time.
And sometimes people will like accuse pastors of being prideful because of, let's read this verse, verse number 7 of Hebrews 13.
Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow, considering the what, end of their conversation.
Those that have the rule over the house of God is talking about pastors, they've spoken the word of God, the Bible says that you should follow those people.
Now here's what people say, that's prideful for you to say.
Actually, if I'm agreeing with God, that's not pride.
That's humility.
What's prideful is if I had a different idea than Hebrews 13.7.
Do you understand that?
Because some people will accuse pastors, they'll be like,
look at how confident he is and what he's saying
and how he's standing on doctrine.
That's prideful.
No, that's humility.
It's to say the Bible is right for sure.
You understand how that's humility?
Because you're putting your human intellect down.
Your opinions down and you're putting this up high whatever it says
Whether it seems to benefit the pastor doesn't matter. What does God say?
He says to follow right so you should like Proverbs 2 says like Psalm 37 says find a good man
Identify mark a good man and follow him and look hope you can follow me at this church if you can't go follow a pastor
You can
I want people to be happy in their church, and content in their church, and secure in the leadership of their church.
And if you don't feel that way, or if someone online doesn't feel that way,
you should move to a church that you feel that way about.
Because God's command is for you to mark the perfect man.
To identify and follow.
That is wisdom and righteousness according to the Bible.
Go back to Proverbs chapter number two, Proverbs chapter number two.
Notice verse 21,
for the upright shall dwell in the land
and the perfect remain in it, right?
So on the surface, you could just look at this and say,
a godly and wise person is gonna have
a lot of blessings in their life.
They're gonna have a lot of peace.
I also think about kind of a farther application,
the millennial reign of Christ,
when Jesus is ruling and reigning in this earth,
those who are saved are gonna dwell in the land
and the perfect shall remain in it.
And it's gonna kind of juxtapose that with the wicked
in this last verse, number five,
the punishment of the wicked.
Verse 22 says, but the wicked.
shall be cut off from the earth and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
You know, at the end of this chapter, God kind of gives you a sneak peek into the end of two types of people.
The godly, the upright, those who actually fear God, cry out for knowledge,
want to know the truth, want to love God, what's the end for those people?
Blessing, you know, those are great things that we desire.
Then the forward person, the strange woman,
those who don't cry out for knowledge
or care about the true, those who are stupid and wicked,
what's the end for them?
Being cut off from the earth
and transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
And again, you could kind of have a near and far application here.
The wicked, even those who are saved, wicked Christians, backslidden Christians that don't
care about the truth, they want to call evil good and good evil.
You know what is coming their way?
Pain and misery and destruction and ruining their life.
And you know what?
I've seen a lot of that lately and I'm not happy about that.
I'd rather them just stand on the right side and not have to have God come after them.
But I also think about the far application of this, again, is that millennial reign of
Jesus Christ where when he starts that reign, he's destroyed the wicked.
It's God's people living in God's land and the wicked are cut off.
Let's end in Psalm 37 again.
With that in mind, think of the millennial reign of Christ in verse 9 of Psalm 37.
It says, for evil doers shall be cut off, but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall
inherit the earth.
Forget a little while, and the wicked shall not be.
Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.
But the meek shall inherit the earth.
and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace."
You know, a lot of...
This is just true and it may kind of sound weird, but it's true.
A lot of your future and a lot of your destiny actually lies in your own hands.
It really does.
Because you know what?
You get to control.
You get to control if you ask God for wisdom.
You get to control if you actually read the Bible.
You get to control if you come to church ready to receive it,
searching daily in the Scriptures whether those things are so.
You get to control if you're going to actually apply the Word of God
and do the Word of God and you know what?
God has predetermined that the results of doing right are going to be blessings.
So in a large way, you get to decide what your future looks like.
And if you want to decide to be foolish, ignore the warnings,
Go play around with the strange woman.
Go hang out with the evil, throwward man.
You've just chosen destruction for your life.
You've chosen for God to punish you.
You've chosen for pain and misery to come upon you.
That's your decision.
And you know, while our eternity,
it's sealed for those of us that are saved.
That decision's already been made
when you believe on Jesus Christ.
You know, the millennial reign is coming someday
and your standing in that reign is not yet sealed.
And you know what you get to do right now?
You get to decide your future.
You get to decide how good of a time that's going to be for you.
How do you get to decide that?
By actually seeking for wisdom.
By actually calling out to God.
Asking him to give you wisdom and knowledge.
And when God gives it to you, you get to choose to apply it.
You get to choose to not stand with the wicked, not stand with the froward,
not play around with the whore or the strange woman.
You get to choose to fear God. And if you make that choice,
I promise you the millennial reign will be great for you.
But those Christians that despise it don't take it seriously lie about men of God
Stand with the wicked get involved in sin. Yeah, they're still saved
But they're not gonna be ruling and reigning in the same way that godly Christians are going to
They're not gonna have as high of a status in heaven and in the millennial reign when Jesus comes to judge
Why because they already made their decision
So you know what, this sermon, you ought to really internalize this on yourself and really think about like, am I crying out for wisdom?
Am I waking up in the morning and actually wanting the words of God?
Am I showing up to church because I was dragged here or am I ready to hear the word of God?
Your future is going to be impacted by every decision that you make.
You know, we ought to be sober with our lives, sober with the warnings from God's word.
Take those things to heart and actually apply them in our lives.
Let's have a word of prayer.
Lord, we thank you for Proverbs chapter 2 and the warnings and wisdom in your word.
I pray that everybody in here would be moved to want to make the decision.
to love the truth, to ask for the truth, to seek the truth, to live the truth, to
stand behind men and women who are living the truth, to not stand with the
wicked, to search for you in your words, to get wisdom. And we love you very much.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, at this time, if you would, take your hymnals
and turn to hymn number 191.
We'll sing one last song to conclude the service.
Hymn number 191.
Hymn 191, in my heart, there rings a melody.
We'll go ahead and start there right on the first.
I have a song that Jesus gave me.
It was sent from...
In my heart, there rings a melody, there rings a melody of love, I love the Christ who died on Calvary, for he washed my sins out.
a song
singing this evening with