You
first hymn is number forty-three. We're marching to Zion. Be sure to sing it out.
Ham number forty-three. Four-three. We're marching to Zion.
Forty-three there on the first. Come we
I'm glad you're chillin'
Amen. At this time, we'll open with a word of prayer.
If you'll bow your heads with me.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day
and for your many blessings.
We just thank you to have an opportunity
to freely gather together, to sing out praises
and to learn from your word.
And Lord, though that's a frequent prayer,
it's not in vain or a repetition.
We should be thankful and just,
we are thankful every single time
that we have this opportunity.
to that end Lord I pray that you would just incline your ears we sing praises to you
that you'd fill pasture with your spirit and that everything for the service would be done
decently and in order these things we pray in Jesus name amen all right for our second hymn this
evening turn to 224 there shall be showers of blessing 224
Two to four there shall be showers of blessing
224 on the first
I'll be showers of black
go through our announcements please raise your hand if you need a bulletin and usher will bring you
one. On the front you'll see our Bible memory passage of the week Galatians chapter number one
verse 14 still about two months ish to do this so plenty of time on the inside you'll see our
service times are listed there Sunday mornings at 10 30 a.m. Sunday evenings at 4 30 p.m. in our
Below that you'll see all of our soul winning times listed there as well as our upcoming nursing home
ministry preaching schedule and
Also, we have our year-to-date soul winning statistics praise the Lord for 210 so far this year
And we definitely want to keep pushing that number up and preaching the gospel
Next, Sunday evening, April 13th, we're going to have our men's preaching night.
Please do sign up today if you're going to be preaching for that, that way we have an
idea of how many people are going to be preaching for that evening.
But that's going to be our evening service followed by a potluck, so please do bring
something to share, a main dish or dessert, any of those are fine.
April 19th, that is not this upcoming Saturday but the one after is our soul
winning marathon. We're meeting at Frederick Douglas Park right by the
Willa D. Johnson Rec Center. It's a really nice park. It's a good area for soul
winning so we're excited for that. We'll be getting some food catered for lunch
and there'll be plenty of opportunities of course to preach the gospel.
After that, April 20th, of course, that's Easter Sunday.
We'll be taking the Lord's Supper for our evening service
for that day.
May 16th to the 18th is the King James Conference
at Sher Foundation Baptist Church.
Man, I'm really looking forward to listening
to these sermons because I unfortunately
listened to a debate from James White
and it just made me angry and I'm just ready
to hear some truth about the King James version.
So I'm looking forward to hearing those sermons.
May 31st is the Durant Oklahoma Soul Winning Marathon where we're specifically teaming
up with Steadfast so there'll be a ton of Soul Winners for that event.
Please do join us for that.
June 28th, this whole weekend is going to be great.
We have our Tinker Air Show Fellowship Day where we're just going to hang out and have
a good time as families at the air show.
And the next day, Brother Ben Naim is going to be visiting us and preaching both sermons
August 27th through the 31st is the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship.
It's going to be a great conference. I know a lot of people were really hopeful for Red Hot this year and it didn't pan out,
so get your hard preaching fix at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship.
October 6th through the 11th is the Bahamas Mission Trip, and we're greatly looking forward to that.
On the back you will see our prayer list and some information about giving.
And as always, if you have any prayer requests or updates,
please do email me.
If you need a private prayer request, email me.
I'd be happy to pray for you myself.
But at this time, let's go to the Lord in a word of prayer.
Lord, we thank you for this evening.
We thank you for the blessing of Anchor Baptist Church
and the folks that are here this evening.
I pray that you would bless this time,
that you would keep our hearts soft to the word of God
and to...
the will that you have for us in our lives. We pray also for the requests of our church members
here this evening, Lord, that you would incline your ear and answer these according to your will.
We pray for Brother Miles, for his health to improve and also that you would just strengthen
Ms. Rhea during a difficult time of caretaking and dealing with these issues.
We also pray for brother Alex for his job situation that he's in right now and pray
that he would be able to find a job that's suiting for him that would be your
will Lord that you bless him financially and his search for a great
career. We also pray for Miss Remy that her travels would go well, that you bless
her while she's away from us, that you keep her safe Lord and pray that she'd be
able to bring her safely to us again soon and bless her time with friends and
family. We also pray for
Miss Whitney Reed for her brother Cole's salvation, that she would soften his heart to the gospel,
that he'd get many chances to hear the word of God preached. Also pray for those in our church
who are not feeling well. Pray that they would get better soon, Lord. And we also pray for brother
Zach for his lost family members, that they as well would have a soft heart towards the gospel,
and that they would get many opportunities to hear it again, Lord. We love you and pray that
All right, that's gonna be it for announcements this evening. We'll go and go to our third song.
All right, our third song this evening, if you'll grab your white handout. Our third song is Holy,
Holy, Holy. In your white handout, Holy, Holy, Holy. In your white handout.
Holy, holy, holy they're on the first
Amen. Good singing this evening. As the offering plates are being passed, turn if you would to Proverbs chapter number three.
Proverbs chapter number three.
Good evening, Proverbs 3, the Bible reads, My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments.
For a length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee.
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee.
Bind them about thy neck.
Write them upon the table of thine heart.
So shall thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thine
navel and marrow to thy bones. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all
thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction,
for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, even as a father, the son, and whom he delighteth.
Happy is the man that finds wisdom and the man that gets understanding.
For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof
than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou canst desire are not to be
compared unto her.
Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand, riches and honor.
ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them
that they hold upon her and happy is everyone that retained with her. The
Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth by understanding hath he established the
heavens by his knowledge the depths are broken up and the clouds drop down the
dew. My son let not them depart from thine eyes keep sound wisdom and
discretion so shall they be life unto thy soul and grace to thy neck.
Then shall that walk in thy way safely and thy foot shall not stumble when thou lies down thou shalt not be afraid
Yay, thou shalt lie down and thy sleep shall be sweet be not afraid of sudden fear neither of the desolation of the wicked when it cometh
For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken, withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
Say not unto thy neighbor, Go and come again, and tomorrow I will give thee, when thou hast to buy thee, devise not evil against thy neighbor, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.
Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm.
Am I not thou? Am I thou not the oppressor and choose none of his ways? For the froward is
abomination to the Lord, but his secret is with the righteous. The curse of the Lord is in the
house of the wicked, but he blesseth the habitation of the just. Surely he scorneth the scorners,
but he giveeth grace unto the lowly. The wise shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the
promotion of fools. Let's bow our heads for word of prayer. Father God,
heavenly thanks to this day in our church.
Amen, all right, we are in Proverbs chapter number three.
And for those of you that like to take notes,
I try to do my best to separate these into sections.
So if you'd like to do that number one this evening,
don't forget God's law.
Look at verse number one of Proverbs three.
It says, my son, forget not my law.
but let thine heart keep my commandments.
And I wanna focus in on that word law
because sometimes the law could mean
a couple different things in the Bible.
In one way, it could just be referring
to the 10 commandments.
In other ways, it could be referring
to the commandments in the Old Testament.
Sometimes it could be referring
to just the word of God in general, God's law.
But I wanna focus in on this idea
that God tells us not to forget his law,
meaning the commandments of God.
because today there's kind of a push in liberal churches
to want to ignore everything in the Old Testament,
not want to have God's criminal statutes or moral statutes
and kind of just get away from the law of God.
But here in Proverbs, which is obviously a timeless book
that's applicable to all time periods of humanity,
but the Bible is telling us not to forget God's law.
Go to Matthew chapter number five.
Matthew chapter number five.
And Jesus teaches this exact thing
because people wanna turn the teachings of Jesus
on its head and teach like Jesus came
and wanted us to forget about the do's and the don'ts
and the thou shouts and the thou shouts nots
but really nothing can be further from the truth.
Look at verse 17, what Jesus said,
think not that I am come to destroy the what law.
or the prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfill.
See, the New Testament was not given to us
so that we could forget about thou shalt not kill,
thou shalt not commit adultery.
That was not the purpose of Jesus coming,
but Jesus did come and fulfill the law.
There's a lot of things in the Old Testament law
that was ceremonial or were purely a picture
of the coming Messiah.
And what did he do?
He came and fulfilled those things.
And in the book of Hebrews,
the Bible gives us very specific things
that are done away in the New Testament, right?
So the Sabbath day, the carnal washings,
certain dietary restrictions,
these things were fulfilled by Christ
and are no longer a thing.
But you know what?
God still wants us to remember His law.
He wants us to preach his law.
He wants us to preach the thou shouts
and the thou shout not.
So look at verse 18.
For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law
till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
So if you are saved, and you break the commandments of God, and you teach people to break the commandments of God, you're still saved, but what are you?
You're going to be least in the kingdom of heaven.
And I do think, sadly, there are some saved people that get into this false doctrine that
basically just everything in the Old Testament was done away with.
And look, I think those people are still saved, but really they're setting themselves up
to be least in the kingdom of God.
and they're setting up their congregation, their church,
to be leased in the kingdom of God,
because you know what?
Salvation is by faith,
but God judges us according to our works,
and He's gonna reward us in heaven according to our works.
What are those?
Keeping the law of God,
doing what is good according to the Bible.
But the verse says,
whosoever shall do and teach them,
the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
I don't see how preachers and pastors all over America
are not seeing this verse where Jesus is specifically
highlighting doing and teaching, teaching what?
The commandments of God.
So it's my job to do and teach the commandments.
We should be a people that doesn't disdain God's law,
doesn't shy away from the Old Testament.
We should be people that embrace it and love it.
And a bunch of the Psalms are just talking about
like how we love God's word, how we love God's law.
You know, if you haven't noticed, all of our Bible studies have been in the Old Testament.
Like, I'm not ashamed of the Old Testament.
I don't want to shy away from it.
I love the Old Testament.
It's God's word.
It's God's law.
We should love it.
Go to Romans chapter number three.
But what's fun, what I've noticed is that people who are the most clear on salvation,
being by faith alone, are coincidentally also the people that preach the hardest on the law of God.
And that is not a coincidence.
You'll see that the Apostle Paul did the exact same thing.
Romans chapter three, verse 31, he says,
do we then make void the law through faith?
God forbid, yay, we establish the law.
So no one's preaching salvation
more clear than the Apostle Paul,
but he kind of asks this theoretical question
that people might be asking.
Well, I mean, are you just saying
you could just do whatever you want?
right? That's what people ask us all the time. Oh, so you're just saying there's no consequences
for sin whatsoever. And you don't even need to keep the commandments. You don't need to keep
God's law. It's like, no, no, no, we're saying salvation is by faith. Salvation is not by doing
those things. But are we just getting rid of the law of God? No, we're establishing the law.
No, we're saying you should keep all the commandments. And in fact, God's standard
is so high. It's not even funny. But people that want to believe a works based salvation,
They lower the standard of righteousness as they sit here and claim you got to do the works
You got to keep the commandments. We're over here saying you don't have to do any of those things to be saved
But we actually do believe the law of God
See, work salvationists, they would be terrified by Leviticus, by Leviticus 20, verse 13.
They would be terrified by Leviticus 20, talking about, in verse 10, the death penalty for adultery.
A lot of people would just shy away from that.
We're over here saying, like, yeah, we established the law.
We love the law of God.
We want to keep that stuff alive.
Go to Titus 2.
Titus 2.
But you know you can you can have both and if you rightly divide scripture you understand. Hey salvation. It's not of works
It's not of the law. It's not by doing good
But God still wants us and expects us to do those things to please him to have a good relationship with him
That's nothing to do with salvation, but people will say oh, but we're under grace and so therefore
the words of God in the Old Testament, the commandments, none of those things matter.
Really, because Titus 2.11, look what the Bible says,
for the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
teaching us, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
See, the grace of God did not come to tell you, no big deal, you could drink,
No big deal, you could live with your girlfriend.
No big deal, you didn't even have to go to church.
I mean, this is a big movement nowadays.
Church isn't even a thing, you don't even have to go to church.
You can just have the best relationship
with Jesus in your house, just thinking about him.
No, no, no, actually Grace came to teach us
that we should deny ungodliness,
that we should turn away from worldly lusts,
that we should be, how about this, sober.
That's a big one. I mean, it's not very many Christians who are absolute teetotalers, but you know what?
We are and we believe that you can be saved and drink till the cows come home
But yet I will say that to be right with God. You have to drink this much
Zero and I drink this much and I want people in this room to drink this much
But I could also say if someone drinks and they believe in Christ, they're still saved
If someone drinks alcohol every single day, but they believe in Christ, they are still saved.
This is how we say, hey, of course salvation is by grace, but are we going to get rid of the law?
No, we'll establish the law.
We want to keep the commandments of God, and we do it because we love God.
Go back to Proverbs chapter number three.
And of course, the carnal mind can't understand how we do this out of love for God,
because to them it's just fear of hell.
And they're wanting to do good works and not do terrible things.
And the only thing that's restraining them is hell.
And we're over here saying like, oh yeah, you could do all those things and still be saved.
And they're like, but then why are you not doing them?
Oh, because we love God.
Because we fear God.
We want to be pleasing in His sight.
Look at verse 2, it says for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee.
So notice the law of God is not a burden, it's not something that God gave us to punish us,
the law of God is a blessing.
The law of God is going to give you long days and peace, right?
And this goes for you personally.
This goes for a city or an area.
This goes for a nation.
The more of God's law that you keep,
the more of God's commandments that you hide in your heart,
the longer life you're going to have
and the more peace you're going to have in your life in general.
You know, because some of the things that God tells you not to do in the Word of God,
if you do them, could literally kill you.
And so by keeping God's commandments,
you can kind of prolong your days in that sense, right?
A very easy example, of course, is people getting drunk.
People die getting drunk all the time.
I mean, the amount of just accidental deaths that happen
or the amount of time someone literally
just binge drinks themselves to death
where their heart just stops
or they'll die earlier in life because of liver failure,
heart failure,
throat cancer, stomach cancer, all these things,
is directly related to that sin.
And if they would have just obeyed God's commandments
and been sober, they would have had a longer life.
Okay, then of course, on top of that,
since we actually believe in God
and believe that God can move and work in our lives,
there's also the supernatural element
of God just blessing you.
And so that's why you should always keep God's commandments whether your flesh likes it or not whether you personally agree with the Bible or not whether you understand why God gives you those commandments or not.
It's for your own benefit and God's going to bless you in your life for keeping those commandments.
Go to if you would.
Let's just look at verse number three says let not mercy and truth forsake thee.
Bind them about thy neck, write them upon the table of thine heart.
So by forsaking God's commandments, what you're kind of doing is you're forsaking mercy and truth.
You're kind of like begging for God not to be merciful to you when you just completely disregard God's commandments.
When you keep them, when you fear God, the Bible is talking about how mercy and truth is going to be around you,
Don't listen to it.
It's like you're asking mercy and truth to forsake you.
Then it says in verse number four,
so shalt thou find favor and good understanding
in the sight of God.
man. So again, on one side you have the spiritual aspect of having God be pleased
with you. And that's obviously the most important thing. That's what we should be
seeking in our lives, is to have God's stamp of approval on us, God's hand with
us. But notice also how the Bible says that you're gonna be approved in the
sight of man too. And you know people could say whatever they want about
Christians and Christianity, but everyone knows that Christians that
Everyone knows that and a lot of times when you know people in their youth,
they'll obviously be really stupid and ignorant,
but a lot of times when people mature and life starts to hit them,
they'll be like, oh man.
my grandma was right like some of us may have seen this meme where it was like
when you are like 25 and you realize your grandma was right
about everything being gay and satanic and it's like
you know a lot of youth are mocking oh grandma's crazy
you know crazy she says everything's satanic and gay and then you just like
you wake up one day and you're just like this world is super gay and satanic
it's just like grandma was right and it's like the bible's right about
And people who are not hypocrites, not bad examples,
not people who are, you know, taking the name of Christ,
but just doing everything opposite of what the Bible says,
people who actually live the Bible,
everyone looks at those people and says,
that's the real deal.
That's a happy life.
That's a successful life.
You know, the world, when they actually see a godly woman,
look, the horrors on every street corner of the Bible says,
but the virtuous woman, who can find?
So when there's a virtuous woman, when there's the Proverbs 31 woman and people see that they're just like whoa
This is amazing. How did you find this? How did you get this, right? And the answer is following God's commandments
It's going to make you stand out
We are the children of light in this dark world and the more that you keep God's commandments
The more that you're gonna have favor in God's eyes and in man's eyes as well
And often times what happens is, you know, we end up getting hated and persecuted and
lied about, but it's often for just the words of Christ or, you know, a sermon your pastor
preached or what the Bible says, but usually, you know, Christians have a great testimony
with people that they know as far as like, Hey, this person's a hard worker.
This person's really good at their job.
At least you should have that testimony.
And if you are hated by your employer,
and it's not because of your beliefs,
you should repent.
You need to become a better worker.
You need to work hard and not complain.
Show up on time and have good Christian character,
because if you actually show up to work
and work not to please man, but to please God,
in the process, you're gonna please man.
But your goal should be to please God.
Stay there in Proverbs 3.
I like this Psalm, Psalm 111, verse 10, the Bible says,
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
A good understanding have all they that do His commandments,
His praise endureth forever.
Because, you know, in verse four,
it talks about how you find favor and understanding
in the sight of God and man.
What did we talk about last week?
Those who do the commandments of God
are the ones who understand the most.
The Bible's backing that up there.
Number two this evening trust in the Lord. Look at verse five it says trust in the Lord with all
thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. This is one of the best verses in the bible
and something that is just true about human nature that the world does not understand
is that every single person by nature is very sinful.
Very sinful, very corrupt.
The Bible talks about how our heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it?
And you know what you need to understand about yourself and what I need to understand about
myself is that my heart is not good.
Do you hear that?
Your heart is not good.
You are not a good person.
Okay?
But people that are prideful, they think my heart's telling me what's right, my heart's leading me in the right direction.
But those who've actually read the Bible realize how we feel sometimes is not necessarily what's right.
Our emotions, because what is it talking about your heart?
You know, trust, don't trust in your heart.
That's your emotions.
That's how you feel.
And here's the thing, the feeling of your heart can be very strong.
And that's why the Bible says it's deceitful, because your feelings are real.
You're having real feelings, but a mature person, someone that understands this proverb,
can recognize that even though I'm having certain feelings, it doesn't make it right.
And you should have the Christian character to sometimes look at your feelings and say,
And how do you know that you're wrong?
Well, you have to trust in the Lord with all thine heart.
How do you trust in the Lord?
You take the words of God and you actually believe them.
That's what trusting in the Lord is and by the way
This is a great reason to be King James only because when we're King James only and you actually have a final authority
Standing before you you could take the words on your page and just say
Conversation over heart the Bible says this I'm gonna trust in the Lord. I'm not gonna trust in my heart
It's kind of hard if you don't believe that this is the perfect word of God
Because when your heart is conflicting against the Bible you could have that thought in the back of your head
Well, is this even what the Bible said?
Because my pastor said you got to go back to the Greek to get the real meaning and that this is just the closest thing that we
Have and even though they've come out with like how many editions of these modern versions, right?
It's constantly changing. No, you need to have some solid foundation in your life
It needs to be the King James Bible and you need to be able to put the Bible there as the foundation
And you need to constantly auditing your heart and realize hey is my heart in tune with what the Bible says?
Know that I need to trust in the Lord
with all my heart.
And of course, you can apply this
just so many different ways.
You know, I like to think about
when someone starts reading the Bible
for the first several times through cover to cover,
yay, honestly, your whole life,
you're not gonna understand everything in it.
You're not gonna understand every single chapter,
every single verse.
And I like to think about this verse
when I come to a passage I don't understand,
because you know what I don't do
when I come to something I don't understand?
I don't sit here and wonder, is this true?
What is this right?
I realize, hey, I'm a sinner.
I have bad understanding at times.
I am flesh.
Here's what I know.
Okay, I don't understand this passage, but I do believe God's word is true.
And so I'm going to trust in the Lord with all my heart.
and rely on what the Bible says even if I don't fully understand it.
And often times when you have that mentality,
the next couple of times you're coming through the Word of God,
God sees that you actually trust Him,
He gives you that knowledge, you're praying and asking for wisdom.
You know, God countless times in my life has done that,
but you need to not go to the Word of God as some sort of,
you know, don't approach the Bible like any other book that you would read.
Like any other book that you would read,
you're going to need to be like hyper-vigilant if the information that you're getting is correct,
but you should realize like the Bible is right and it has to be able to correct us.
You have to have that level of humility to get a profit out of it.
Look at verse number six. It says,
in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
So the idea of God directing our paths, again it kind of goes back to this idea that we as human beings are just so naturally sinful and simple
that we don't on our own just know what the right path is.
We don't know where to go in life. We don't know how to do all these things just naturally.
directing our steps and that's a big blessing.
I'll read for you Jeremiah 10 verse 23.
The Bible says, oh Lord, I know
that the way of man is not in himself.
It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
The Bible saying like, we don't even know what we're doing.
We don't even know where we're walking as human beings.
And it's just, I feel so bad for people
that go through this life without the Bible.
I mean, it's got to be just miserable.
I mean, people are just randomly seeking anywhere for information and just trusting everything
they hear and who knows if it's right, who knows if it's wrong.
You need someone to guide your steps in this life.
Otherwise, it's going to chew you up and spit you out.
And the sooner and younger in life you could get a bunch of Bible in you,
the better your steps are going to be.
The more God's going to guide you.
You know, you don't want to wait until you've already gone off the trail
and you've already broken your ankle
and you're already half-mulled by a grizzly bear
to have someone guide you back to the trail.
You know, you want as soon as possible,
get on that trail and stay on it, right?
So we want to make sure we're teaching our kids the Word of God.
Again, remember we're talking about humility, it says be not wise in thine own eyes.
Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
What is being wise in your own eyes?
It's anytime someone disagrees with the Bible.
Look, we could disagree with each other because we're fallible.
But if you disagree with the Bible, that's called you being wise in your own eyes.
You're thinking, I know better than God.
Tons of people, yeah, even pastors,
even churches that are just like glorifying humanity,
glorifying humanism, the human intellect,
the human mind, their sermons are like a TED talk.
They're not showing you a bunch of Bible
and those people are wise in their own eyes.
And it always makes me think about King James onlyism
because if the Bible is not your final authority,
something has to be.
Something has to be your final authority and what are original manuscript only us?
What's their real final authority? It's their own mind.
They're wise in their own eyes.
The pastor will come to a passage of scripture that he and his flesh doesn't like
and he just gets to wiggle out of it by saying,
well, in the Greek.
Well, if you just go to this other version, look at what this version says.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Satan could gather, you know, hundreds of false witnesses
to give people this sense of superiority like, oh, I've got
500 English translations that agree with me. Yeah, but that doesn't make it right.
God's word is what's true. God's word is
what determines right. That's why you need to have a final authority.
And notice what it says, it shall be health, in verse eight,
it shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones.
Keeping God's commandments, yes, it
could be tied to having a longer life,
and it could be tied to having a fuller and healthier life.
God's commandments are going to give you
the best quality of life in every way possible.
And sometimes, living a wicked life, living a life of sin,
can cause issues with your bones and your heart
and your physical body.
This is why people say, oh, she's lived a rough life.
What are we talking about?
We're talking about some woman who's lived on the streets,
who's been a prostitute, who's done meth,
and you look at her and she looks like she's 70 years old,
but she's 35.
And it's like, whoa.
You're 35 years old. Yeah, you've lived a rough life and when you live a rough life
It's gonna take a toll on your health. You know, God has a lot of great health advice in his word
Look at verse number nine
It says honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase.
So we're coming right off of a passage where God's talking about trusting in the Lord with
all your heart, not leaning onto your own understanding.
And one of the first examples that the Bible gives of how you could exercise faith and
with your substance.
An honor often in the Bible has a financial connotation to it
where it's talking about requiting the Lord,
paying the Lord.
Go to Malachi chapter number three.
Malachi chapter number three, but you know we need to realize that money wealth is a gift from God and we should
Show the Lord honor with our finances
We should not get this idea to think that all of our money was earned by our own
You know human intellect and strength and it's ours know everything that you have that's good comes from God
God gives you the power to get wealth.
If you could provide for your family today,
yes, there's an aspect that you have to do there,
putting in hard work, showing up on time,
doing the things you're supposed to do,
but still God is carrying you through.
God is giving you breath in your lungs. God's giving you a strong body or a intelligent mind
And if you have anything good it came from God
This is why God expects us to honor him with our finances verse number eight of Malachi 3 notice what it says
Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed me, but you say where in have we robbed thee?
in tithes and offerings.
So this is the opposite of honoring God with your substance,
honoring God with the first fruit of your increase,
is robbing God.
And just think about the connotation with that.
You know, many Christians would never dream
about just walking down the road and seeing some lady
and just snatching her purse and running away.
Like, could you imagine doing that?
Could you imagine yourself doing that?
Absolutely not. That's crazy, right?
But how many Christians refuse to honor God with their finances?
What does the Bible say?
You're not ripping off some lady.
You're not ripping off grandma.
You're robbing God.
You are hurting God.
And in the process, you're hurting yourself too.
Because again, it's like the person who's not spiritual,
they think, I got all my money myself.
I need it. Me, me, me, my, my, my.
Whereas you should realize anything good I have is from God.
If I, if I'm doing well financially, that's from God and even if I'm not, it's still from God and God can make your situation way worse at any moment.
I mean, I'm not into the stock market, but did anyone hear about the stock market this week?
It's like some of the biggest crashes since COVID, the biggest recovery since World War II.
You know, this world is not sure.
This world is really volatile and you cannot put your trust in the banking system.
You can't put your trust in the Federal Reserve, in these little paper notes.
You can't put your trust in those things.
You need the hand of God backing you up.
No matter what the number in your bank account says,
I want whatever that number is with God's blessing.
I wouldn't trade all the money of the world for this big lump of cash,
but have God against me.
Because God could take those things away so quickly.
God could give you some prolonged, terrible disease
that could suck your wealth away in a matter of a year.
God can, oh man, lawsuits.
God could have someone sue you.
And not every time your suit is a bad,
but man, it could be a punishment, right?
And so, you want your things to go well financially.
You need to honor the Lord with your finances
and not rob God.
And he's saying, how are you robbing him?
Well, by not tithing, by not offering.
And look at the result, verse nine.
For ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
And oftentimes people won't tithe.
They refuse to tithe because they're scared.
They want to hang on to every cent that they have.
But what you're trading by not tithing
according to the Bible is you're receiving a curse from God.
That should scare you because God is a terrible God the Bible says and he will invoke terror
He will invoke fear. He can judge and punish his people greatly and I don't want his hand against me
What's the solution verse 10 bring me all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be
Meet in mine house. So what is God's priority financially is the house of God?
You want to know why God has blessed the United States for so long is because of how much
churches, how many churches, how much work for the Lord has been happening in this country
and how many missionaries have been being sent out out of this country into the world.
You know, we're kind of incentivizing God to bless our community financially when Anchor
Baptist Church is here.
We're incentivizing God to bless America if every church is just preaching the gospel and preaching hard on sin and being a bright light.
You know, that's going to incentivize God to bless a nation.
But when God sees that, oh, the people of the land aren't even prioritizing my house, well then why would he want you to have a swimming pool?
Why would he want you to have a three car garage?
Why would he want you to have a nice piece of land or a nice retirement fund when you're not even prioritizing God's house?
Shouldn't God's house be the best thing in the world, the thing that we're most invested in?
It should be the institution that we want to see thrive more than anything else.
And it's just, if you just realized the truth, you'd realize when God's house thrives,
everything else thrives around it.
When God's house is blessed, everyone around it is blessed.
Look at what it says in verse, or the latter part of verse 10, it says,
Prove me now herewith, sayeth the Lord of Hosts,
if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing,
that there should not be room enough to receive it,
and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground,
neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field,
sayeth the Lord of Hosts."
See, by not honoring God with your substance, you are hurting yourself.
in this idea to try to hold on to everything you have,
hold on to every cent,
you're hurting yourself and you're holding God back
from giving you great blessings.
You know, I believe truly that someone who tithes,
someone who lives off the 90% will be financially better off
in their life than people who do not tithe.
I believe that they will be better off in life in general
because again, there's the spiritual aspect of things
of God seeing you trust Him.
seeing you not make an idol of money where it's the number one in your life
where you're just like, okay God, you gave this to me? No problem.
Give it back to God's house. Now there's some people that have a big problem with tithing.
And you know, I'm not ashamed to talk about it
because I love all of God's word and I love God's house,
but there are people that have a big issue with tithing.
In fact, you know, before I was a pastor,
I would just preach, you know, every now and then.
I preached probably, I don't know,
probably well over 150 sermons before I was ordained,
but I never had a situation happen to me
where someone comes up to you after the sermon
and just starts ripping about all the things
that they didn't like.
You know, I've heard like this happens.
Does it really though?
But it happened to me one time.
And it happened after I preached a sermon.
And I think I mentioned tithing in passing.
It wasn't even the point of my sermon.
But this person just talked to me for an hour
about how bad tithing is, how it's not biblical,
how it's not something that should be preached,
it's not something God's people should do.
And I learned that day that I'm never gonna give someone
that much time to critique my sermon ever again.
It was very annoying.
And what they were saying was just wrong and bad.
Like, why would you sit here and be a part of a church and we're all reaping great spiritual
blessings for being a part of a great church?
On top of oftentimes carnal blessings too.
I mean, look, if you come to our Easter service, you're going to get blessed spiritually and
you're going to get blessed carnally, carne, meat.
We're bringing in the barbecue, all right?
And guess what?
And it's like, who's actually upset by that?
Like, who's upset by a church thriving financially?
I often see god-hating homosexuals and leftists being upset by that.
Oh, yeah, take away the tax exemption from the church.
You call me.
You wicked person and then it's like Christians want to get on you know again
You got to look at who's with you on the battle line if it's like fags and commies and feminists
It's like you might be on the wrong side of things, but look it's just common sense
It's literally just common sense that tithing is a good thing because unless you just literally know nothing about the world
You understand that an operation like this. It is a business folks. It is a spiritual business
But we must be about our father's business.
This place gets run like a real business.
We've got expenditures, we've got income, we've got bills to pay,
we've got things that we're doing, we've got long-term plans that we're saving for.
This is a business here, and guess what? It takes money.
It takes money to print invites to have a building to have lights to have staff
Like these are just normal expenses and if you have a problem with that to me
It just shows like you don't really esteem God's work very highly like you don't esteem God's work God's men
God's you know kingdom as something that's to be respected and honored
It's not even worth the almighty dollar like that's what you're saying. Oh God's work isn't even worth my money
What is money like who cares about money?
We're not sitting here and love money.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
So you should honor the Lord with your substance.
You should tie.
That's not something I'm ashamed to say.
But think about this, like, tithing
was done before the law even existed.
because Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek.
That was before the law was even instituted.
So some people would say like,
well, tithing was one of those things that were done away in the New Testament
because we don't have the Levitical priesthood anymore.
But it's like, okay, but the Levitical priesthood wasn't the only place in the Bible where someone was tithing.
Abraham was tithing before the law.
And so that's something that's existed
from the very beginning.
Why? Because it's common sense.
How could we have the New Testament church?
How could we go out and do great works for God?
How could we go out and do a big,
great commission fulfillment without tools?
We need to do that.
We need to have money.
It's a good thing.
And of course, as well, if you actually read the Bible,
which we're not going to go here,
this isn't going to be a study of tithing this evening.
But if you actually read 1 Corinthians chapter nine,
you know that those who preach the gospel
are supposed to be living of the gospel.
Pray tell me how full-time pastors, evangelists,
deacons are going to exist in this world without tithing.
And just so you know, when that happens you always see more laborers, more staff, more
godly pastors.
What do you see?
You see the work increase.
You see the numbers increase.
You see the soul winning increase.
So for me, my whole life it's always been like a no-brainer, like I want God's house
to thrive, I want more salvation, I want more good sermons, I want more good work for God
to be done, so I'm going to tithe.
It's not a hard concept. It is biblical.
People that get weird about money in church have a bad heart.
You know who really cared about the money? Judas.
Judas was the one who wanted to put on a show and get angry and saying,
oh, this ointment should have been, you know, taken and sold and given to the poor.
But the Bible says he didn't really care for the poor.
He actually just had the bag himself.
He wanted to bag the money himself.
He wanted the profit himself.
And I've just noticed, almost without fail, people that gripe about tithing
and say it's wrong, they almost always get exposed to be a wicked person.
And it's like even, even the guy that did that to me, I'm not going to say his name, but he's not in a good church right now.
I'll tell you that right now. Not a coincidence.
Look at verse number 10, it says in Proverbs 3, verse 10, it says,
So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
See, God's house blessed, you blessed. That's the formula there.
Number three this evening, the chastening of the Lord.
Look at verse 11.
My son despised not the chastening of the Lord.
Neither be weary.
his correction. So of course we are human beings, we are sinful and there's
going to be times all the time where we're not fully trusting in the Lord
with all of our heart, where we kind of are from time to time leaning on our own
understanding and we do sometimes go down the wrong path and sin and mess up
and you know what the result of that is going to be is God punishing us, God
the chastening of the Lord.
What does it mean to despise?
You know, I think it could mean just refusing to correct,
refusing to take the reproof that God gave you through His word,
through a preacher, through your parents, through whatever the authority is.
Despising the correction could be just refusing to get it right,
refusing to change, refusing to repent,
or it could literally mean like you're just angry at God for correcting you.
And of course, you know, that is a terrible attitude to have, to be angry at God for correcting
you.
Why?
Because when God corrects us, he does it out of love for us.
How do I know that?
Verse 12, for whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth, even as a father, the son in whom he delighteth.
You know, those of us who are fathers in the room know that we discipline our children not out of hatred.
That's insane. We do that because we love and delight in our children and we want to see them improve.
We want to see them go down the right path and get better.
And the Bible says that God loves those that he corrects.
And of course, this should also inform us that spanking is a good thing that parents should be doing.
Because here we see what does God do, he corrects, and the Bible says even as the normal father would do.
So that is a good example of a father as one who corrects their children.
Go to Proverbs 19 really quick, Proverbs chapter number 19.
But think about it, even if you do despise the correction,
like if you don't get things right, right away or you're kind of angry at God,
is God just going to stop punishing you or is He going to keep punishing you?
If you're saved, what's he gonna do?
He's gonna keep punishing you.
Now, this should tell us as parents,
what we should be like,
cause look at Proverbs 19, verse 18,
chase in thy son while there is hope,
and let not thy soul spare for his crying.
See if the child is crying,
Part of the reason sometimes is because they're despising the correction.
They don't want to receive the correction or they don't like it or they don't agree with it.
Or they're just obviously they don't want the pain and so they'll cry.
But what are we as parents supposed to do?
We're not supposed to not punish them just because they're crying.
We see, okay, you're crying.
You're despising this punishment.
Too bad, here's some more punishment because that's exactly what God's going to do for us.
If we're just going to not listen, he's going to keep correcting us because he loves us.
He's going to be long-suffering. He wants to see us get it right.
He doesn't want us to see us destroy our lives, so he'll keep giving us that rod.
We need to make sure we do the same for our children. Go back to Proverbs 3.
Number four this evening, the joy of wisdom. Notice what it says,
happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding.
You know, I believe that the happiest people in the world
are people that read the Bible.
people that keep God's commandments.
And it's funny because sometimes people's impression of Christianity
can only be like what the pastor is behind the pulpit.
But God gives very specific directions to preachers to cry aloud,
spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet.
But oftentimes if you interact with tons of pastors,
I mean, I can give you a bunch of examples,
tons of pastors outside of the pulpit, they're always so happy.
Like the guy I'm immediately thinking of is Pastor Anderson.
Like every time I've interacted with him, Pastor Anderson is happy, he has the joy of the Lord.
You know, the Bible says, rejoice evermore, you know, our default as Christians in our hearts should be joy.
Now, I'm not saying you got to walk around like a joker, like Joel Osteen with a weird smile on your face,
but you should have some inner joy and inner peace in your heart. That should be the default of your life.
And you know what is going to give you lots of joy?
reading the Bible.
I'm just telling you, it's true.
You know, even today, during my lunch break,
I cracked open the Bible, I started reading it,
and I just felt great.
I just was happy.
I just love God's law.
And those of you who actually read the Bible
know what I'm saying is true.
You know that God's Word, it'll make you happy.
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom.
You know, when you find out that salvation's by faith,
when you find out it's a free gift,
when you find out you can never lose it,
what does that make you?
That's why it's a great gift, it's the gospel, it's good news, it's glad tidings.
It makes you happy.
And you know what?
Those of you who love God, those of the people in this world that love God, everything in
the Bible makes them happy.
Even the dark stuff, even the negative stuff, you know what makes me happy?
Pedophiles getting bullets in their head.
It makes me happy. It really does. Why? Because I love kids.
I love seeing God, the righteous judge, execute judgment on the wicked.
It makes me happy. Why? Because I love God.
And I love His ways. And I love everything that He does.
And I love everything that He says. And I love everything that He tells us to do.
And it just makes me happy how I'm just constantly seeing that the Bible is true.
It makes me happy. It makes me joyful.
Look at verse 14, for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold.
You know what would make a lot of people happy is finding silver and gold.
I mean, you've ever seen videos of people when they get a surprise check in the mail
or when they win the lottery.
I mean, they're doing backflips.
They're screaming.
They're shouting.
They're so excited for this temporal, meaningless paper, this meaningless number in your bank
account.
They're so excited.
But you know what?
The word of God and wisdom and truth is so much more exciting.
It's so much more fulfilling, it's going to give you so much more joy in your life that the Bible says that the merchandise of it is actually better than the merchandise of silver.
You know, you think about, raise your hand if you know who Mark Dice is.
Okay, we got a couple of people who know who Mark Dice is.
He does these man on the street interviews, where he goes to San Diego on the beach, there's
all these like beach bums around, all these California surfer dudes and girls, and he
does this really funny thing.
I don't know for sure if it's real, I hope it is, but he'll show up to like these California
smoked out pot head surfer dudes, and he'll be like, hey, do you want this chocolate bar
or this bar of gold?
And it's just like over and over again,
he'll have this one thing of extreme value
and then just this stupid little trinket
and just over and over again, people choose.
You want to know why I think it's real?
It's because what this verse says is that wisdom,
the Word of God, is way better than silver and gold,
yet what do people care about so much more?
The thing that means nothing.
People will dedicate their whole and entire life in every waking moment of their existence to make more money.
To get more silver and gold, and they would never go out of their way to read the Bible.
Most people don't read the Bible, folks. Most Christians don't read the Bible.
Even less Christians have read the Bible cover to cover once in their life.
Even less read a cover to cover every year of their life like people aren't seeking wisdom and knowledge like they would silver and gold
But you know what you ought to audit your own life and ask yourself
You know if you found out that you got a million dollars tomorrow
How would you react to that versus do you actually wake up and read the Bible?
Do you seek this like silver and gold?
Do you treat this like a precious asset that's extremely valuable
or do you just go days, weeks, months without reading the Word of God?
It shows you've got your priorities messed up.
It shows that you're walking in the flesh, that you're living in the world too much,
you've got a worldly mindset, you need to renew your mind by reading the Bible,
and what's funny about reading the Bible, it'll make you love the Bible more.
Why? Because it brings you what? Joy. It makes you happy. It makes you excited.
Verse 15, she is more precious than rubies and all the things.
Thoucant's desire are not to be
compared under. Think about what a
strong statement that is right there.
All the things you could possibly
desire.
I mean, that's what Solomon basically did, the richest man in the world.
At one point, he kind of just gave himself everything in his heart's desire.
And he had a thousand women and he had all the apes and the peacocks and the gardens
and the trees and everything.
Where's Brother Theodore?
All right.
I hear him back there.
The apes, all of it, right?
He gave himself all the pleasures that he could possibly think of.
But yet, the Bible says that all the things that man can desire are not to even be compared to the Word of God.
And you know what? Solomon, after his little trial where he gave himself all the desires of his heart,
he came to that realization and he said, you know what? I hate life.
And the end of Ecclesiastes talks about how, look, there's nothing better but to just serve the Lord.
Serve God. Keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man.
That is what the Bible teaches.
Go to Psalm chapter 19 and I want to keep your place in Proverbs 3 and in Psalm chapter 19.
But I just love this string of verses about the Word of God itself.
We just need to remind ourselves how precious and how valuable the Scripture truly is.
Verse 7.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean and enduring forever.
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
Notice the connection, more to be desired are they than gold.
Yeah, then much fine gold sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb
You know the Bible is more valuable than anything you could possibly imagine
And I wish I could just press a button and cause Christians to read the Bible because it's gonna change your life
It's gonna fundamentally change people's lives to read the Bible if you start any spiritual discipline in your life
Start reading the Bible because everything follows from that
Someone who starts reading the Bible,
you know what they're gonna want to start doing?
They're gonna want to start cleaning up their life.
They're gonna start wanting to go to church.
They're gonna start wanting preaching the gospel.
Preaching the Word of God.
Getting people saved, getting people baptized.
It all comes from the Bible.
Go to verse 16 of Proverbs 3.
Verse 16 of Proverbs chapter number 3.
says, again, length of days is in her right hand,
and in her left hand, riches and honor.
See, it doesn't make sense to prioritize money
and riches and honor, because if you actually follow
God's wisdom and God's way of doing things,
God could bless you with riches and honor as well.
It's like, you can technically have both sometimes.
Now, obviously God's will is not for everyone to be rich.
But it is possible sometimes for people to have the best of both worlds.
But if someone is living that life, I could tell you one thing about them,
is that they prioritized wisdom first.
They prioritized knowledge first, and then they got those blessings as well.
But those who will be rich, the Bible says, fall into temptation and a snare,
and into many hurtful lusts, the Bible says.
So if money is the main goal,
Pain is coming your way.
If wisdom is the main goal,
oftentimes God will bless you
with those other carnal things
that you desired anyways.
Verse 17,
her ways are ways of pleasantness
and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to them
that lay hold upon her
and happy is everyone that notice
retaineth her.
retaineth her. You know, you think about obviously in the short term life has its ups and downs and you're constantly going through
battles. You're constantly going through struggles. But I believe that people who have long term happiness in life, people who have
long term peace in life are those who retain wisdom.
retain God's word, retain His commandments.
What does that mean?
It means they didn't just try out serving God for a week or for a month or for a year.
They were steadfast.
They continued serving God.
They continued keeping His commandments even when things were hard.
They continued tithing even though it looked like it was financially hurting them or like
you couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.
in the long term have peace, have, the Bible says pleasantness, I mean don't we all want pleasantness,
that's what everyone wants in life, right, is to just live a pleasant life or things to be going
well, to have peace, to have happiness. These things the world will constantly promise you
through things that will do the exact opposite. The world will promise you happiness by committing
adultery.
happiness by injecting a drug into your body, or happiness by whatever the world
wants to throw you, real happiness comes from following God's commandments. Then
it says in verse 19, the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth.
by understanding how he established the heavens.
Go to Genesis chapter number one.
Of course, we know that God is very wise.
He's the most wise being.
He's extremely intelligent.
He's extremely smart.
And one of the ways that we could just see that
is in God's creation.
in nature itself, in the universe, in the things that are made.
It's very obvious to us that there is a intelligent Creator, and His name is Jesus Christ, of course.
Genesis 1 verse 14.
And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for notice, signs and for seasons and for days and years.
So all the way in Genesis we found out that we were going to be telling time based on the patterns of heavenly bodies, right?
during the day and then the earth spins because we're globe.
I don't know if I need to keep saying that just in case we're globe the earth
spins and when the sun is on the other side of the earth
we're experiencing nighttime and you know what's amazing is that this just
happens in a predictable pattern every single day
and it's just so just like clockwork no pun intended
happens every single day and we always know exactly when
day of the year is. We know exactly when fall is going to come, exactly when winter is going to come.
We know exactly when lunar eclipses are going to happen to the very minute,
and solar eclipses down to the very minute. How are all of these things possible? Because God is a wise creator.
And God obviously created this universe in such a just majestic way to where everything is timed perfectly.
Everything is a system. This is not a cosmic accident.
I mean think about the insanity of the Big Bang Theory.
Like here we are just experiencing just all the time the same things.
We're predicting everything in the universe. It's coming to pass before our eyes.
And then just to think that all that happened by accident.
Everything came from nothing, make that make sense,
that exploded into everything that just so happened to be in a perfect time.
It's just crazy to think about.
And they do, they do time everything, exactly to the minute.
I remember I was at last year when that big solar eclipse happened.
Was it here a 100% eclipse?
Okay, where we were it was a 100% eclipse.
And to the very second, you could take off your glasses and look directly at the sun
and there was 0% of the sun shining and the birds came out and the stars came out
and the night crickets came out in the middle of the day.
And it was just like, I look at this and I was thinking, God is so amazing.
Like that's what any normal person does when they see creation, when they look up at the moon and the stars and the planets
and you understand science, it just puts you in awe of God and makes you realize how amazing and wonderful God is.
You know, we're not an accident. People who believe that, the Bible has a word for those people. Fools.
What's the modern translation of that? Idiots.
Stupid people.
I mean, you have to be so stupid to look at a solar eclipse and be like,
well, that was an accident.
No, folks.
That's not what happens in accidents.
OK?
You know, if you throw a grenade, you're not going to create a universe.
You're going to destroy stuff, and there's going to be chaos everywhere.
Grenades, explosions.
No, that's not how the Earth was created.
Look at verse number 20 of Proverbs 3.
Proverbs chapter 3 verse 20, by his knowledge, the depths are broken up and the clouds drop down the dew.
You know, I think it's a reference the depths to the fountains of the deep the Bible talks about in Genesis how when the Lord flooded the earth he caused the fountains of the deep to open up and cause the water and I'm thinking of Kent Hovan right now.
I'll get to that in a second.
But it's funny like scientists have discovered.
big aquifers way below the ocean floor like way deep into the earth there's all
these gigantic aquifers all over the globe and they discovered that but isn't
it funny how Genesis discovered that how the Word of God told you about that and
you know I say that to say this we should not be afraid of science science is
not a bad word folks I love science I absolutely love it you know what science
You know what science is? It's just truth.
It's just reality.
It's just God's creation.
That's what science is.
Science is the study of God's creation.
Because God made everything.
And anything that scientists are studying,
you know what they're studying? Something that God created.
And to me, I just say, bring it on.
Absolutely. Let's learn about it.
You know, hey, in homeschool, don't skip science.
Teach your children science.
Don't teach them stupidity and stupid conspiracy theories like the Flat Earth.
Don't teach them geocentrism.
It is retarded.
Teach them real science.
And real science is not going to make someone an atheist, folks.
Science falsely so called people try to corrupt children by telling them you have no meaning.
You're a cosmic accident.
You evolved from a monkey.
When you die, nothing's going to happen.
It's just over.
That could make someone lose their faith in God.
But guess what?
Those things are lies.
That's not true science.
But any real science, it just makes me in awe of God.
Everything in this world is so complex we understand so little of the potential of God's creation I believe and we learn more about it every year it seems like human beings are learning more and more things and I welcome it.
I love it. I don't think we should hide from science and from truth. I think Christians have given themselves a really bad reputation for believing really stupid things about science and look you do not have to deny reality to be a Christian.
In fact, I would say if you believe anything that goes against reality, time out, you're
misinterpreting something in the Bible because nothing in the Bible is going to cause you
to deny reality.
You know, like I said before, someone said, Rockets have never left this earth because
the Tower of Babel.
And I'm like, okay, hold on.
Here's how we know that Rockets have left earth because it's happened all the time.
Okay, so that's happened. So here's where we're gonna go from here. You're misinterpreting this story
Okay, if you're looking at reality, we see it happening. You're like well that can't happen because the Bible whoa
That's a bad interpretation
Whatever belief you have that's scary. No believe the truth. What is truth reality is the truth
Science is the truth folks the word of God is the truth and these things will never contradict each other
Real science will never contradict the Bible.
You know, the fountains of the deep.
Let me tell you what this is not talking about.
Kent Hoven believes that the moon,
you look up at the moon and what do you see?
Scars all over it, big deep craters all over it.
Well, did you know, according to Kent Hoven,
the reason the moon got its holes
was during the flood when the fountains of the deep
broke open, the rocks from Earth
were shot out at such velocity and force.
That it overcame Earth's gravitational pull, went out of the atmosphere, went shooting
through space 240,000 miles smack dab into the moon.
That's Christian science for you.
This makes Christians look so stupid it's not even funny.
And this is why people mock Christianity,
is because nowhere in the Bible did it say that.
There's no principle in the Bible that teaches that.
You're just completely making that up out of thin air
and going around saying,
Ha ha, I'm a Christian, I believe this.
And then on top of that you say,
Okay, well let's play his theory for a minute.
How does the back of the moon?
How did the back of the moon get hit then?
Well, what you have to understand
is the gravitational pull of the moon
brought the rocks back like a slingshot.
So it's so strong that it could go past the Earth's gravitational pull,
which is way stronger than the Moon.
Then it goes 240,000 miles through the space, which space has no resistance.
It's not losing any inertia.
It doesn't need any force or any extra push.
It's going the same speed, but somehow the Moon's gravity,
which is way less, is able to pull it back at such force again,
the same force that it exploded out of the Earth to hit the Moon
and cause the craters.
This is so retarded.
And I'm just so sick and tired of Christians making other Christians look stupid.
I'm so sick and tired of Christians denying reality in the name of the Bible.
You don't have to do it, folks.
And you know what, I want a culture at Anchor Baptist Church, where we take learning seriously,
where we love the truth, we love science, we love the Bible.
I want people, I'm just telling you my honest heart, I want people to be uncomfortable to
say stupid things at this church.
And you know what, if I say something stupid, I should feel ashamed.
I should feel ashamed.
I should feel embarrassed.
You know what, there's some shame that's good.
The moon landing's fake.
You know, the Earth exploded and caused all the holes in the moon.
Like, you need to experience some shame, because let me tell you who you're shaming right now,
God and Christians.
And you're making us look really bad.
Knock it off.
Then it says in verse 20 and the clouds drop down the do so again
You could see the wisdom of God just from the water cycle how it's a perfect cycle how water is constantly
Evaporating it's going into the atmosphere. It's condensing into clouds. It's raining down in precipitation
And that just repeats over and over and over again like clockwork
Why because our world was created by Jesus Christ because our world has an intelligent designer
It's God, it's not an accident, it brings honor and glory to God.
Verse 21.
Notice what it says,
my son,
let not them depart from thine eyes,
keep sound wisdom and discretion,
so shall they be life unto thy soul
and grace to thy neck,
then shout thou walk in thy way safely,
and thy foot shall not stumble.
So you're just gonna have some surety in your life.
And it's nice to know where you're going in life.
It's nice to know that you're right.
It's nice to know what God wants from you.
You know, we shouldn't necessarily be as concerned
You know, do you like the truth?
Is it going to feel good as just,
I want to know whatever the truth is.
And the truth is going to give you security, a sure path.
It's going to cause you not to stumble.
When that lie is down,
thou shalt not be afraid.
Yay, thou shalt lie down and thy sleep shall be sweet.
Man, what a blessing to have sleep.
And when you lose your sleep.
You remember what a great blessing it is and oftentimes one of the ways people implement torture is sleep deprivation because it is literally torture.
It's terrible being tired and sometimes you go through those seasons where you're living in torture.
You know, you don't want to be there very long.
You want to have that sweet sleep.
Verse 25, it says, be not afraid of sudden fear.
Neither of the desolation of the wicked when it cometh, for the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken."
So think about what we've been reading a lot in this chapter.
We want to not forget God's law.
We want to keep his commandments.
We want to trust in the Lord with all of our heart,
not lean on our own understanding.
We want God to direct our ways.
What comes as a result of those things
is that God's gonna be your confidence.
You're gonna have confidence that God's on your side.
You're gonna be at peace knowing that his hand
is upon your life, that he's got you.
Even his correction comforts us.
Thy rod and thy staff comforts us.
And so what that should cause us to do
is not be afraid of sudden fear.
What's the sudden fear?
What if a bomb dropped on my head right now, right? What if I lose everything?
What if I die tomorrow? What if whatever the what if in your mind is that's sudden fear when something unexpected happens?
Don't be afraid of those things because sometimes those things just happen and they're going to happen
And you should expect them to happen. You should be ready for them to happen
But you should know that they're gonna happen knowing that God's on your side
knowing that you have peace with God,
that's gonna cause you to not fear the sudden
whatever it is in your life,
knowing, hey, I'm willing to go through whatever God
wants me to go through,
because at least I know that God is pleased with me.
You know what would be torture?
Is going through a terrible situation,
going through the day of evil,
losing your kids in a terrible way,
losing your spouse in a terrible way,
and it was your fault for being wicked.
There's not going to be any peace in that.
There's just going to be lifelong pain and regret.
But you know, you could have a situation like Job,
where the sudden fear comes,
the day of destruction comes.
But you know what, Job retained his integrity.
He didn't curse God and die.
God blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning.
And so there's no reason to be afraid of the evil day of the sudden fear
when God is on your side.
Number five, this evening, Christian behavior.
The rest of this chapter just kind of talks about
some good principles of how we should behave as Christians.
Verse 27 says withhold not good from them to whom it is due,
when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
You know, you could spend a lifetime applying this verse
because whatever's good, whatever it is that you can do
that's good, you're supposed to do it.
You're supposed to not withhold it from other people.
And you know, obviously I think immediately here
Don't withhold good from someone to whom it is due.
Who is the gospel due to the loss of this world?
We owe this world the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Christ commanded us, He gave us the great commission,
the power is in our hands,
we have this treasure in earthen vessels, right?
And so it's our duty, it's our job to go out
and warn people of the fires of hell.
and to offer them the free gift of salvation,
we should not withhold good from those people.
Verse 28,
Say not until thy neighbor go and come again,
and tomorrow I will give, when thou hast it by thee.
So notice, don't delay doing good when you can do good now.
Don't delay preaching to someone in the gospel
when you have the opportunity right now.
You know, I've had people in my life
that I just, when I was really close to them,
when I spent a lot of time with them,
I was young and unsaved,
and so obviously I couldn't have preached them the gospel.
And later on in life,
we lived very far apart from each other,
and I never got the opportunity
to give that person the gospel.
And unfortunately, that person died and went to hell.
And you know, it causes me a lot of pain
to think about that and shame,
because you know what, I could have called him up.
I could have made an effort but you know what unfortunately in my own selfish youth and
immaturity and not thinking about the future in the way that I should have you know I missed
that opportunity and that opportunity is gone for forever and I can never change that but
you know what I could do going forward is that hey when the opportunity presents itself
when I do have the ability I'm not going to withhold good from who it's due.
You know, when we get visitors coming in our church,
we should be preaching them the gospel.
Ladies come and visit, ladies, please approach them
and offer them the gospel.
Ask them if they were to die today.
Are you 100% sure they'd be going to heaven?
Men, same thing.
You know, it's be a shame, it would be insane
for someone to walk into an independent,
fundamental Baptist church and then walk out unsaved.
Not because they rejected the gospel,
but because they didn't even hear it.
That would be a shame.
That would be sad, and you know what, you've got loved ones, I've got loved ones.
We've got a whole city of people here in Oklahoma City that need the gospel.
Let's make sure that we give that to them.
Let's make sure we don't withhold that from them.
Verse number 29, devise not evil against thy neighbor,
seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.
So this is talking about your neighbor in a very physical sense.
You're the people who are in a close proximity to, excuse me, your house.
Be at peace with your neighbors.
Your physical, next door neighbors in your neighborhood,
be at peace with them if at all possible.
You don't wanna have, you know,
Hatfield and McCoy situation going on.
You don't wanna have battles.
You wanna be extremely long suffering to your neighbors
because man, when neighbor feuds happen, it can get ugly.
And it was weird.
This must have happened in my neighborhood
before I moved in.
Because when I moved in, when I met the neighbors,
the first thing they told me is just like, wow.
The people who you just bought that house from
had a rough divorce.
And we're just like,
Okay, like I really don't want to be hearing this,
but it wasn't just one neighbor,
the next neighbor we met and the next neighbor we met.
And then they're telling us about all the neighbors
that they hate and that they fight with.
And like, we almost came to blows with this person.
You watch out for this.
I was like, what is going on here?
And I'm just like, all right, babe,
we need to be at peace with our neighbors, you know?
Because you don't want to deal with that friction
when you have to live there every single day.
And you don't want to move out and the whole neighborhood's just like, yes, that was the worst divorce ever.
It's like divorce is ugly.
How bad was it when the whole neighborhood is going out of the way to tell us?
Like, wow, be at peace with your neighbors.
Verse number 30, strive not with a man without cause.
If you have done thee no harm.
Of course, as Christians, we should be peacemakers, right?
The servant of the Lord should not strive.
We should not be out looking for a fight,
out looking for a battle.
Now we should be ready and willing to fight for the faith
and ready and willing to fight for a worthy cause
whenever, whoever that is, no problem.
But you know, it shouldn't be our desire
to have conflict with other people.
as much as lieth in us, let us live peaceably with all men.
When I go soul-winning, I want to like this person.
I want to get along with them.
I want them to agree with everything that I say
and what the Bible says.
I want to call upon the name of the Lord with them
and leave on a good note.
That's what I want.
I don't want to get in some arguing, shouting match with them.
I don't want to rebuke them and look tough or anything like that.
I want to get along with them and I want them to get saved.
And you know what? That should be our attitude just everywhere.
Like, I want to get along with my coworkers.
I want to get along with my boss. I want to get along with my family.
You know, if you are just constantly in strife with everyone,
every sphere of your life, work, church, neighborhood, marriage,
you're probably just a forward person.
You're probably just a man that loves strife, and you need to realize that, hey, don't strive with a man without cause.
There needs to be a serious reason to fight, not just over petty carnal things.
Verse 31, Envy not thou the oppressor, and choose none of his ways, for the fro-word is abomination to the Lord, but his secret is with the righteous.
the wicked. Look at verse 33, the curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he blessed
the habitation of the just. Surely he's scorneth the scorners, but he giveth grace unto the lowly,
the wise shall inherit glory, the shame shall be the promotion of
And you'll often see in the Proverbs, God ending the chapters like this, where God is
just giving you so much great wisdom, so much instruction and reproof, and he kind of often
ends these chapters like by giving you a choice, by showing you two roads, two sets of people
and the life that that leads to.
And who are the wicked, there are the scorners.
They are the fro-ward, right?
So the people that hear these commandments, hear these instructions and they don't want
to listen to it, they think that they're wise in their own eyes, right?
They trust in their own heart, they're going to lean on their own understanding, they're
going to reject these things.
What's the end of that life?
The curse of the Lord, God's hand being against you.
What does he do to the just?
He blesses the habitation of the just.
And all throughout this chapter it talked about
God blessing those that are righteous with peace.
With even riches and honor talks about in this chapter
all these, you know, pleasantness,
all these blessings on one hand
and God wants you to make the right decision
but he's kind of showing you at the end of this.
Look, you've got a choice to make.
Blessed the habitation of the just, who are those?
It's the lowly in verse 34 describes how those that are just or those that are
lowly and of course that makes perfect sense with everything this chapter has been telling you because what does it mean to be lowly?
It means that you're not gonna trust your heart
You're not gonna put your own thoughts above what the Bible says even if you don't understand something
You're gonna submit yourself to God's word when you're chastised and corrected by God
You're gonna take that in stride and not despise the correction of the Lord. That is the lowly. Those are who are blessed by God
the wise shall inherit glory but shame shall be the promotion of fools.
What is the world going to look at? What are you going to think when you look at
someone that's rejected God, rejected his commandments, not followed his paths?
You're going to say what a shame. You're going to say this person's life is a shame.
Their marriage is turned into a shame. Their childrearing is a shame.
Everything about them is a shame. That's the end of these things.
And I want to read one more time before we close, Proverbs chapter 3 verse 5.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding.
in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
That's what we should want from God is for God to direct our paths.
You know, we should not look at the law of God as a hindrance to our lives
or as something that is there to constrict us or hurt us,
but realize that keeping the commandments of God, not forgetting his laws,
that's going to cause God to direct your steps.
And you know what those steps are directed towards?
Pleasantness, honor, riches in some cases, glory, blessings, all these things, the Bible
says are on that path, or those who are forward, those who don't harken, those who trust in
their own heart, you know what they have to look forward to?
The curse of God.
And you know what?
Christians, their lives can be really messed up by God too.
The unsaved who reject God, they've got the curse of God.
You know what?
The saved can make a lot of stupid decisions too.
I want the blessings of him.
I don't want to see your lives destroyed by God.
You need to trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Let's have a word of prayer.
Lord, thank you for this beautiful chapter
and for your great wisdom.
And I just thank you for the beauty of your creation,
how we could see your glory and greatness
and everything that you've made.
I pray that the people here under the sound of my voice
would fear you, would not forget your commandments,
would trust in you.
and would follow your ways and your path.
Please guide us, Lord.
We love you in Jesus' name, we pray.
Amen.
If you will grab your hymnal,
our last song for this evening is number 105,
All That Thrills My Soul.
Hymn number 105
105 all that thrills my soul
105 there on the first
For as it's all divine, true and tender, pure and precious.
Oh, how blessed to call in line.
Oh, that thrills my soul as Jesus.
He is more than life to me.
I see. Love of Christ so freely given. Praise of God beyond entry.
Mercy higher than the heavens. Deeper than the deepest sea.
All that fills my soul is G.
Bye to be