Oh, not July 6. What are we, the 9th? I don't even know what day we are. Today's July 9.
Right there on the left we have our service times, Sunday morning, 10.30 a.m., Sunday
evening, 4.30 p.m., and Wednesday service, 5.30 p.m. Our sole winning time is Sunday
at 2 p.m. Of course, just like I always let everybody know, anytime anybody wants to go
sewing during the week, just hit me up and we'll get it worked out. And I have a couple
of people that do that. And then the memory chapter of the week is Psalm 23. We're on
the last verse, Psalm 23, 6. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of
my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Year to date, souls won 152.
And right there we have on the right, the July happenings. We have a lot of birthdays
in the month of July. So Boaz already passed, Brother Trey passed. We've got Gentry coming
up, and then we've got Aubrey, Lucy, Victor, and Kevin all in the same week. So just keep
that on. We have our anniversaries there in the middle. And then we have upcoming events
for Spring Crest. July 19th, we have a soul-winning marathon. And I've already given the details,
but if you need any more details on that, basically we're going to go from about nine
to four with breakfast and lunch in between. July 26th will be a church workday. And then
with Steadfast, they've invited us over to the men's retreat. So anybody who wants to join,
just let me know. That'll be August 14th through the 16th. I'll actually, I've been asked or
invited to preach at that event. And then at Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship, August 27th
through the 31st, I'll be preaching twice on Sunday. Not that I'm special because Pastor
Mejia is expecting another child, and so he wasn't able to make it. So I'll be preaching in Spanish
that Sunday morning, August 31st, and then I'll be preaching in English that Sunday evening,
August 31st. And there's a good lineup. I think it's Pastor Thompson, Pastor Russell, Pastor Oz,
Pastor Anderson, Pastor Shelley, of course, and then myself. And so on the back we have the prayer
request. Have you guys been getting those texts with the prayer request? I mean the prayer list
and the service time. Okay. Yeah, just let me know which one's your daughter. Carla Levy.
I don't have a pen here. Levy. Okay, who do we need to add? Shirley Carter. Shirley. S-H-E-R-L-Y.
i or y ley oh ley okay charlie sh er ley carter got it what's your neighbor's name do i just put
Karen's neighbor? No, Karen. K-E-R-R-Y. K-E-R-R-Y. Q-U-A-R-L-E-S. Q-U-A-R-L-E-S. Q-U-A-R-L-E-S. Q-U-A-R-L-E-S. Q-U-A-R-L-E-S. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, I got the two up.
Okay. And then what's going on with Shirley. Okay, Mo, remind me to put these on the prayer
list when we get done. Perfect. All right, is there any other announcements? Pastor Cobb,
anybody else? We need a... No? All right, if nothing else, let's turn our handles over to
page 475. 475, and then we're gonna do 436 when we end. And actually, Mo, I am gonna have you lead
one, which is the song, because I butcher those pretty bad. So, 475, near the cross, near the cross,
to... Actually, he's visiting us here from St. Fast. He's not coming from St. Fast, he's coming
from College Station, where his family lives, but we really appreciate him making the drive.
And just for... Also, in the way of announcements, though, we have a trip planned in conjunction. I
actually have a couple of guys from our church that want to go, so I'll get you all the info.
So we're probably going to send four of us, including myself, four or five, to Mexico City,
September 9th through the 12th. I don't know how many... I'm going to try to be there the whole
week, but if not, I'll be there for definitely several of the days. We're going to go soul winning,
and we're going to be preaching and scouting. Literally the largest city in... I think it's
still probably the largest city in Latin America. Definitely one of the largest cities in the world,
Mexico City. And I may joke, but this last week, Mexico's had a lot of riots because of the
gentrification of a lot of Americans, and people are protesting it. But we're still going to go.
People need the gospel, and I'm really looking forward to it and excited. I've been telling
people for a long time, I think really one of the keys, one of the strengths of Spring Crest is
our Spanish ministry, even though it's not been as strong as it's been in the past. I think that's
really where we need to head just because when it comes to the new IFB and a lot of the preachers out
there, there's already a lot of content, a lot of good information on doctrines from the English
speaking perspective. You can just look up these stuff, there's a lot of guys that have done a
really good job. Not to say that I couldn't do it and it wouldn't be helpful, but that job's done,
but there's in the Spanish world, it's a barren land. I mean, if you want to look up just any
good doctrine in Spanish, you're going to find very little to back up biblically any of those
doctrines. And then when you, on the off chance, you find one that might even line up a little,
nine times out of 10, they'll start out really good. And then they just like veer off into like
charismatic land. It's just the weirdest thing in the world. So we actually need more content.
You know, Diego's a young guy. I think it's really good that he's out there doing that
because we need a big movement. It's the second largest language, at least in our region, you know,
English and Spanish, and we see there's a lot of Hispanics here. So anyways, let's go there to Psalm
67, but we're looking forward to it. But let's turn our our binders over to Psalm 67, and we'll
sing that, and then we'll read the scripture, and we'll have our Psalm 67, Psalm 67, and our white
song binders. That's Psalm 67, chapter number 26. We'll read while the offering plate is passed.
Chapter 26, we'll read there in the Bible, starting in verse one, where the Bible reads,
"Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth
the hand and answered for himself, I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for
myself this day before thee, touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews, especially
because I know thee to be an expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews. Wherefore
I beseech thee to hear me patiently. My manner of life from my youth, which was at first among my
known nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews, which knew me from the beginning, if they would
testify that after the most straightest sect of our religion I lived the Pharisee. And now I stand
and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers, unto which promise our twelve
tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hoping to come, for which hopesake, King Agrippa,
I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought, the thing incredible with you, that God
should raise the dead? I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary
to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did in Jerusalem. And many of the saints
did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to
death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to
blaspheme, and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them, even unto strange cities.
Whereupon, as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday,
O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round
about me, and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a
voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It
is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." And I said, "Who art thou, Lord?" And he said, "I am
Jesus, whom thou persecutest." But rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee
for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen,
and of those things of the which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and
from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness
to life, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. Whereupon, O King Agrippa,
I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but showed first unto them of Damascus and at
Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent
and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. For these causes the Jews caught me up in the
temple, and went about to kill me. Having therefore obtained help of God, I continued to this day
witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than that which the prophets and
Moses did say should come, that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that
should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, "Paul thou art beside thyself,
much learning doth make thee mad." But he said, "I am not mad," most noble Festus, "but speak forth
the words of truth and soberness. For the king knoweth of these things, before whom I also speak
freely, for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him, for this thing was
not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest."
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." And Paul said,
"I was God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and
altogether such as I am, except these bonds." And when he had thus spoken, the king rose up,
and the governor and Bernice, and they sat with him. And when they were gone aside,
they talked between themselves, saying, "This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds."
Then said Agrippa unto Festus, "This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed
unto Caesar." Let's have a quick word of prayer. Dear Father God, thank you for this day. Thank you
for all that you've given us. Thank you for everyone here in the service, Lord. I pray that
you fill a pastor with your spirit, helping to preach a bold and accurate sermon, Lord.
And I pray that you fill us with your spirit so that we can receive your words with gladness
and apply it to our day-to-day lives. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
All right, we're there in Acts 26. Last week, we covered all the instances. I think it was like
seven and now it's eight where basically Paul's been throwing around like a hot potato from one
prison or governorship or leadership to another. And now we see that he is facing King Agrippa,
and he has been asked to speak after a bunch of pomp and circumstance. And we are going to go
ahead and just go there verse by verse, but we're there in Acts 26. The title of the sermon this
afternoon is Acts 26, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." This is one of the most famous
verses in scripture because it really encapsulates a lot of the population. You know, I talk a lot
about the three groups of people, right? We have the reprobates, those that hate God, they're the
sons of Belial, you have the lost world, and then you have, you know, obviously the saved. And I
think that King Agrippa here, he, you know, the way that it's written is obviously he's almost helpful
to the cause of Paul, right? If they would release Paul, Paul would probably get murdered by the Jews,
right? So God's using all these leaders in the Roman Empire basically to protect Paul for the bigger
purpose. But what saddens you about that statement, and we'll get there, but is that King Agrippa
realizes that there's truth, and that there's honor, and that there's like worth in what Paul's
preaching, but his pride just won't let him take that final step. And so he's not necessarily,
in my opinion, a reprobate then. But you know what, if he died without Christ,
then the Bible doesn't really give us that clear indication. But most people that say,
you almost got me, but didn't make that move, probably ended up dying. And you know what,
whenever everybody that's in hell is basically a reprobate, right? Like they've rejected the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it's interesting that there's a lot of people that walk around the
world like that. I mean, I've literally had conversations with people in my life. Even
most recent as last year where I took this guy through the entire gospel message. And he said,
look, you know, I mean, I want to believe it. I think it's really the most accurate,
the most simple way to, like it describes the best form of religion. This is obviously someone
from the world talking. He's like, I just can't bring myself to believe it 100%. That's just
pride. There's nothing. I mean, if you get it, if you've got all the answers, if everything's
standing to, if you have the cure for cancer where you're just like, well, I just don't like
injections. Let's just say that it was a needle and a shot. They're like, look, if you just get
these five injections, you're going to get better. And he's like, I believe you, but I just, you've
almost convinced me to take it, but I just can't come to terms with a needle. I'd be like, so you're
literally going to die over a needle. And the guy would be like, yeah. Maybe that's a weird
scenario. But I'm going to tell you what, it's not a false scenario. People literally will not do
things just for the stupidest reasons. Like, I mean, I know people that won't get on a plane
and you'll ask them, why don't you get on a plane? Well, you know, I just like controlling everything
in my life. I can't, I mean, I've literally had this conversation with a family member. They're
like, but I can't control the pilot. I think to myself, you can control everything in your life.
Shoot, I can't even control what I did this morning, let alone what I did the rest of the day.
Half the time I show up to this, you know, to like a Wednesday service and I'm just like,
I'm just glad I got here and I had something prepared. Like life's just like full of things
that we don't control, right? But these things, choices that we make about our life, we can
control, right? So let's go there to Acts 26. We're there in verse one. And the first point I have
for you is that the gospel gives men peace in any situation. You know, the one thing that we know
about the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we're going to have a tax. If we read our Bibles, right,
the Bible says, "Yea, and all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." We know
that we're going to have good times. We know that we're going to have bad times. But you know what
it does do is it does give us peace. I mean, I've told you that maybe in the last couple weeks,
it's just been a little bit rough on my business. And man, during the day, there's times in the day
where I'm just like, "I'm just going to, I just want to quit it all. I'm just going to close shop.
I'm just, I'm done. It's just too much. I've got church, and I've got family, and I've got work."
But you know what ends up happening though, is at some point, usually right before I go to bed,
I don't go to bed super stressed, I just go to sleep. And then I have a good sleep and wake up
the next day and just go at it again. And what it is is because at the end of the day, the spirit
works in us and gives us a peace to know that my mind will eventually come back to the fact that,
"Well, is it really worth it to worry about the things that I'm worried about?" We have one life
to live and half of the things that we do are going to be burned up as hay and stubble, the Bible
tells us. Like, you know, the gospel gives man peace and we see this in Paul even, right? We
see this in... Let's go to verse one, it says, "Then Agrippa sent unto Paul, "Thou art permitted
to speak for thyself." Then Paul stretched forth the hand and answered for himself, "I thank myself
happy." You know, poor... I mean, Paul's literally been through Felix and Vestas and now Agrippa,
they're about to kill him, they were going to tear him apart. And he says, "I thank myself happy,
King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee, touching all things wherefore
I am accused of the Jews." He's just happy to be able to have a platform to what? Preach the Word.
He says, "Especially because I know to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the
Jews, wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently." You know, at the end of the day, our goal is to
just get an audience, and then beseech them to hear us patiently. A preacher always has something to
say. You know, we get excited about the gospel. You know, one of the reasons that I probably don't
have a lot of friends is when I first got saved, I was a little bit overzealous, and people always
told me, "Well, I don't like talking to you because the only things you want to talk about are politics
and religion." Right? I don't talk about politics as much anymore, but I do talk a lot about
religion, right? My faith, the Bible. You know, I was in a car with my sister-in-law. I feel bad now,
but not really. And I was like, "Why are you not a King James only?" Right? And I had her pull up
her Bible and I'm like, "Go to Acts 8, 37. Go to Daniel 3, 24. Go to all these verses." And she's
like, "Oh, okay. You proved it, but I want to do a little bit more research." I was like, "What
research is there to do?" I mean, it's there. But you know, the thing that it was, was I could have
talked about anything with my sister-in-law, but you know what I chose to talk about? The King
James Bible. Right? I mean, if we're with my kids, eventually the conversation will lead to what?
God's Word, things about God, things about, you know, I just want to talk about God's Word. So,
I'm telling you right now, if you ever hang out with me, I just beseech you to hear me patiently,
right? But go over to Psalm 56. I'll read for you really quick, Proverbs 29 about this piece, right?
The Bible says in Proverbs 29 verse 25 says, "The fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoso putteth
his trust in the Lord shall," what? "be safe." Bible's clear. Doesn't matter what I, my feelings
as in the man, like in my carnal flesh, they deceive me. Because the Bible tells me that I've
put my trust in the Lord. You know, when I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I put my trust in Him.
The challenge is we don't always live in that trust, right? But if I'm trusting in the Lord,
I'll be safe. I'll be safe from all the things that I would tend to fear or have anxiety,
or you would fear or have anxiety. For Psalm 56, we're there in verse 1, the Bible says,
"Be merciful unto me, O God, for man would swallow me up. He fighting daily oppresseth me.
Mine enemies would daily swallow me up, for they be many that fight against me, O thou most high.
What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. In God I will praise His word. In God I have put
my trust. I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. Every day they rest my words." And that word
rest right there, it's not R-E-S-T, but W-R-E-S-T, meaning they twist my words. In the Lord I will
praise thee. Skip down to verse 10, it says, "In God will I praise His word. In the Lord will I
praise His word. In God have I put my trust. I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.
Thy vows are upon me, O God. I will render praises unto thee, for thou hast delivered
my soul from death. Will not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the
light of the living. That's why we love the song, right? Because I mean this is such good edification.
I mean we know obviously the flesh has to die, but God is not lying here where he says for thou has
delivered my soul from death. But you know what will not die is my soul. And we need a you know
we need sometimes a swift kick in the butt reminder that God's got our soul. Because we worry too much
about you know our our life. We worry too much about the things that we do have or don't have.
Last night before I went to bed I was on my phone which is a really bad habit but I was on my phone.
So if you want to judge, judge me. But I was on my phone I was watching this little mini documentary
about this guy in Mexico. I don't know why they chose him. But this guy in Mexico City who lives
in another town but he works in Mexico City because those are the best jobs. And he has to get up at
four o'clock in the morning and he has to commute three hours just to get to his job. And it's not
a commute like, "Hey, I'm getting on the subway in New York," or "I'm getting on the public
transit system." He first has to get on this tiny little van that only comes once a day. If he misses
it, he can't get to work. The van's packed. They literally showed him in the car and he's like this
between two bodies. And he's holding his phone like this. So that's the first part of the trek,
right? And then he has to then get off, get on another train, and then he gets on that train and
he has to walk like several miles. And then he finally gets on another little subway train and
he finally makes it to work. And then he does all this and then he goes home. And he does this five
days a week every week. And I thought to myself, man, what a great country we live in. You know
how far I have to commute to work? I work from home. My commute is from downstairs to upstairs.
And it made me kind of feel a little embarrassed about the things that I complain about. And I'm
not saying that, you know, he has his life, I have my life. But if we have the blessings of God in
our life, we should be just thankful where we're at. You know, some people have better things,
some people have worse things, but God's already blessed us. He's already taking care of us. We
are in His safety. So who cares if we don't have as much as the other guy? Or who cares if we have
more than the other guy? It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Go to Psalm 119. Go to
Psalm 119 really quick. I'll read for you Luke 21. In Luke 21, the Bible says in verse 14,
when we have this piece, it also says, "Hey, settle therefore in your hearts not to meditate before
what ye shall answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not
be able to gain say." You know what we need to do is we need to meditate on the word of God. We need
to focus on the word of God so we don't worry about the things that are going to come at us,
because God's going to provide the answers or the solutions or the things that we need to come out
of. Go to Psalm 119, it says there in verse 41, it says, "Let thy mercies come also unto me,
O Lord, even thy salvation according to thy word. So I shall have wherewith to answer him that
reproaches me, reproacheth me, for I trust in thy word. And take not the word of truth utterly out
of my mouth, for I have hoped in thy judgments. So shall I keep thy law continually forever and ever.
And I walk at liberty, I seek thy precepts. I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings
and will not be ashamed. And I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have
loved. My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved.
I will meditate in thy statutes. But I love that part 46 is that I will speak of thy testimonies
also before kings. I will not be ashamed. You know, recently, and I just saw another pastor do it,
but recently there's been a series of videos, which I think is a testament to just his dedication.
Pastor Anderson has been quoting chapters of the Bible. He's been quoting them almost every day.
I mean, that's impressive that he has that many Bible chapters memorized. But then I saw another
pastor who decided to do the same thing. He quoted Romans 1 just recently, Pastor Mahina.
And I thought to myself, you know, that's the kind of stuff I like to see on my Facebook, right?
A lot of people hate those guys because they're quoting others saying, "Oh, that's bragging."
No, it's not bragging. You know it's bragging when Trump gets up and tells us how great of
a nation we are, right? But what's encouraging is to know that just any old man, because I see
people like that and I think they're no different than I am. They bleed like I do. They get sick
like I do. They have the same fears and anxieties and things that I do. They're men like I'm men,
right? And if they can do it, you know what? I can do it. And even if I haven't done it till now,
you know what? I'm encouraged to say that I can start now. Let me just get it done now.
Let me just do it now. Let me learn more of God's word now today. Those are the things that you want
to surround yourself with. You look at Paul. Paul is always like marking all those people,
not only the bad people, but what all the good people he's surrounded with. And it's always
people in the ministry, in the word of God. And by the time he gets here, you know, he's able to then
fight against these enemies, and he's able to answer these enemies, because he's just been
meditating on the word of God the whole time. And you know, we need to know that the only, the other,
there's a lot of things that come from memorizing Scripture, from learning the word of God,
but the one thing that you can be for sure is that you get a lot of peace. Because no matter what
life throws at you, you can always go to Scripture, and it'll give you peace. I remember when we first
got married, my wife and I, I didn't have as much Scripture memorized as I do now. You know, that's
something that I've worked on over the years. But my wife grew up independent Baptist. Her mom
homeschooled her. She has a ton of Scripture memorized. And every time that I just have like
this, I come from a family. I don't know, you know, we have another Hispanic in the audience.
Hispanics are a little bit dramatic. We're a little bit anxiety driven. Everything we have,
what I call Mexican paranoia. Everything's like we lock our doors and we, I am not kidding. My dad
has a door that has a bolt. It's this big, it's a heavy door. Mary Sarah, you can ask her,
we're not lying. I wish I was exaggerating. And I tell my dad, I'm like, we live in literally
in like the most safe neighborhood of an America probably, right? And what I mean by we, when we
grew up there, it has a bolt, it's a heavy door. And then at the very top is like a six foot door,
you know, like one of those six foot, seven foot doors. It has this huge metal thing that he puts
down so that if somebody would try to break in, like they wouldn't because it's like this big,
basically it's a big metal piece, right, of metal that just blocks the door. Like I don't even
worry sometimes about locking my door now. I should probably be better, but because I have
the peace of God in my life. At the end of the day, you know, like my son said, when I used that
example of like when we were burning the brain here a couple of weeks ago, he said, look,
if the church burns down and we die, well, at least we're all going to heaven. I mean,
I don't want to burn the church down, but he's not wrong, right? We're going to heaven.
But let me go back to Acts 26. So just as a closing to that first point, the gospel gives
men peace, but most importantly, it gives you peace in any situation. The good times are always
good. It's the hard times where our character is built, right? Go to Acts 26. The second point
I have for you is that the world hates the hope of the resurrection, but really the world just hates
the hope that is in us. I guess that would be a better statement, right? We go to Acts 26 and
verse 4 says, "My manner of life for my youth, which was at the first among my own nation
at Jerusalem, known all the Jews, which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify that
after the most straightest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee, and now I stand and am judged
for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers, unto which promise our twelve tribes,
instantly serving God day and night, hope to come, for which hopesake, King Agrippa, I am accused
of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the
dead? You know, basically, the entire time that Paul's been either in prison or in, you know,
detained some way or some sort, he's had two attacks. Number one, that he's claimed that Jesus
Christ is the Christ and that he rose again from the dead. And the other one is there's a group of
what? Sadducees that don't believe in the resurrection and they're literally fighting that Paul is
claiming that they don't even care about Jesus. They just don't even believe in the resurrection,
period, right? Forget the fact that Jesus is the one who resurrected. Before Jesus, they still
didn't believe in the resurrection. At least the Pharisees had mind enough to know that resurrection
is part of the Bible. They just didn't believe in Jesus Christ, right? And he goes here and he says,
"Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" And isn't
that the problem today? People, they're like, "Well, I believe in a higher being. I believe in
an intelligent design, but I just don't believe in God." Or, "Yeah, I like some of the stuff of the
Bible, but really, being born of a virgin?" I mean, either God is God or He's not God, right? I've
always kind of thought it that way. I'm sorry if I'm dumbing it down for you, but before I was
more eloquent, and I'm not super eloquent, but before I was more versed in the Bible,
and people would want to argue this thing, I'm just like, "Well, isn't God able to do whatever
He wants?" I mean, the most basic human can understand. God can do whatever He wants,
and isn't God like most powerful? I mean, we watch all these comic book movies, and we think that
maybe at some house, some way it would be possible that there would be a demigod, like half human,
half God, like Superman, or maybe a human could build a machine like Iron Man, but we don't
believe that God could raise Jesus from the dead. It's always kind of like an interesting thing to
me, what people come up with. You know, I watch these videos, I used to be in the conspiracy
theories. I now just watch them for fun. But every once in a while I watch these videos and people are like,
"Oh, you know, there was giants on the earth." There's this guy that pops up. I really watch
him for comical. He's really funny. He calls himself the fittest flat-earther on earth. He
probably loves that I use his name, but I think he's hilarious because he goes through and he
does these things where basically he's saying celebrities, it's one celebrity and they're using
masks and it's another celebrity and we're just being duped. But then now he's been on this kick
where he's like they're lying to you and the last one I saw was hilarious. He's like this is the
grand titan and he goes they're telling you great titans. These are fossilized dragons that are
living here. If you look at an aerial view this is a dragon not a mountain escape. But the same guy
you go up to him and you try to preach the gospel he's like well I don't know if God can do that.
So you think that a series of mountains are dragons but yet you don't believe that God could
raise Jesus from the dead. And I mean I'm not even exactly I don't know if that guy believes in the
resurrection or not but I guarantee you probably not. It's just the you know the the matter the
fact of the matter is that they probably don't believe in stuff like that. Go to Acts actually
don't go stay there in Acts 26. I'll just read for you really quick in Acts 23 verse 6 we see this
this problem that Paul had right. He says I am a Pharisee the son of a Pharisee of the hope of the
resurrection of the dead. I am called in question what happened in that isn't that where they're
going to tear him apart because some of the guys got on his side they're like oh he's a Pharisee
we're going to bring him over to our side and then the Sadducees were like no we're going to
bring him over to our side remember the basically the the efficient the the police of the day had to
come in and like pull him because they were afraid they were literally going to tear him apart
because one's fighting no he's a Sadducee I mean he's not a Sadducee we need to get him and stone
him and the other one's like no he's a Pharisee he's one of ours let's save him and so they're
constantly fighting about this thing in first corinthians 15 verse 19 the bible says if in this
life only we have hope in christ we are all of all men most miserable that's pastor cobs probably one
of his favorite verses in the last how long have i known you now pastor like 12 years 13 years in
the last 13 years that we've talked about that verse probably more than any other verse in the
bible because this verse really stands out if in this life only we have hope in christ what are we
we are of all men most miserable what is it saying it says look if this thing of the resurrection
if this thing of the rapture if this thing of jesus coming back again if that's all fake then
we should be of them we should be the most miserable people on the face of this earth
baptists that are believing in the bible literally should be the most depressive we should be on all
kinds of xanax and zoloft and we should just basically have all kinds of mental health
providers we should be at the psych hospital all the time but the reality is the verse doesn't end
there right first corinthians is actually talking first first corinthians 15 tells us about what
the resurrection not only of christ but who the saints where we go from an incorruptible i mean
a corruptible body to an incorruptible body to join our what our incorruptible soul we have that
hope we believe that it's not just like some fantasy that we go through life we know that's
going to happen that's why we're not of all men most miserable in philippians 3 verse 10 the bible
says that i may know him and the power of his resurrection let me go there real quick because
i think you cut off uh lately i've been using a different system and i need to get it fixed
sometimes i get these cut off but it's okay we got our bibles for uh in philippians 3 verse 10 the
bible says that i may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings
being made conformable conformable unto his death if by any means i might attain onto the resurrection
of the dead so we we see that the gospel gives peace in any situation and we also see what the
world hates the gospel which is the death burial what resurrection there's a lot of people believe
that jesus lived on this earth there's a lot of people believe that he died not a lot of people
believe he resurrected i mean i literally talked to muslims they're like oh you ever talked to a
muslim and you're trying to give them the gospel they do this thing they're like oh we believe in
jesus too he's one of our prophets we like him a lot he's really cool and we're like yeah but
you don't believe that he's god right or my wife and i had that conversation with a guy trying to
sell his pest control i was like dude you're a mormon aren't you he's like yeah i was like well
you know mormons are going to hell he's like why do you say that i was like well mormons believe
that jesus and satan are brothers he's like yeah how did you know that like literally the guy was
like it's true and i was like well yeah but where do you get that that that doctor from he's like
the bible i was like where it's like i've never seen that in the bible so there's a lot of people
believe in jesus they don't believe that jesus is lord right jehovah's witnesses don't believe
jesus is lord i mean mormons don't believe jesus is lord i mean even eastern philosophy will
recognize jesus as a historical figure they just won't believe in jesus i mean the jews will tell
you that jesus lived but they'll also tell you that he was a that he caused insurrection
and that he was a bad guy and that he's in hell boy you know suffering and boiling in his own
excrement so it's not enough to just hey i believe in this one person who might or might not know
you believe that he is god he is the son of god he died for our sins he died and he rose again
and he's now seated at the right hand of the father right i mean it's pretty simple but people
complicate that issue all the time i mean if there's one thing that you could take from this
study we've done through the book of acts is paul's pretty repetitive i mean paul doesn't
go into like these deep weird doctrines i'm not saying that and what i mean by weird sometimes
doctrines that we don't understand may seem a little odd or weird at first until we get them
paul doesn't even go deep deep into all that he's like you guys can't even understand half of this
stuff you don't even get the gospel why am i going to talk to you about you know the second coming
of jesus christ or the end times or whatever he doesn't do that he just keeps coming back to the
death burial and resurrection of jesus christ you know we go there to go back to axe 26 and verse 9
back to back to axe 26 verse 9 and the third point i have for you is that a man who believes
at axe or works the reason i use axe is because we're in the book of acts but basically axe is
what action or works is never the same and i want to make sure i added that i know it's a longer
point and that doesn't sound as cool as a man who believes is never the same and i do believe that
you know i had originally made it shorter but then i'm like i'm always careful i don't like to muddy
the waters because a man who believes on the lord jesus christ is never the same because the lord
has done a supernatural change of his soul that doesn't necessarily mean that you have done a
supernatural change of your flesh but a man who believes and who takes action who actually is not
just a hearer of the word but a doer of the word that man or that woman is never the same right
the biggest change in my life came when i decided to just read my bible consistently then the bigger
change came in my life when i decided hey i'm going to memorize scripture right then a bigger
change came in my life when i said you know what i'm just going to commit to showing up to church
regularly and then a bigger i mean literally every time that i've just added more work in the ministry
my life gets better now i'm not gonna lie to you there's days like i've told you there's just days
where i just don't feel like it's better but that's the flesh speaking but if i just take a step back
and i look at the grand scheme of my life for 45 years everything that's ever been great in my life
came because of the lord jesus christ now in the flesh i could make i guess justifications for
things that were cool but they weren't satisfying i remember when i was 20 because we were just
talking about this when i was with family on the 4th of july i got an internship and i did what's
called the college program and i worked for disney world you know and when you're 20 i think that's
pretty cool and i was really excited i mean i actually actually got one of the better jobs
i was a jungle crew skipper for five months and then i quickly realized the torture of monotony
and you say what do you mean by that pastor well i had to memorize a script you know because you're
on the jungle cruise boat who knows what the jungle cruise is if you don't know it's basically
you're getting on a little boat and i'm not even driving it i pretend i'm driving it right but it's
just i'm just throttling it and it's on a rail and you're pretending to go through the four largest
rivers in the world i always forget the fourth but it was you know the amazon the makong the nile
and i always forget the fourth i have the script somewhere in my house you we would work these 10
12 hour shifts and in that eight hours of it was actually on the boat other times you were you know
on the queue or you were cleaning you had different uh shifts like maintenance stuff but i'm not
kidding i i did the math i think i would do between 60 to 100 presentations of this boat right what
was really exciting just became this like dread you know i just it was the most horrible thing
because you just repeat yourself over and but you know what we go soul winning and sometimes we give
the gospel 20 30 40 times in a marathon and at the end of it i'm more excited than i was when i
started the morning there's a big difference right because in my flesh no good thing can come out
but in the spirit all the works of god are good right the only time we have good works is is in
god so let's go there to axe 26 verse 9 the bible says i barely thought with myself that i thought
that i ought to do many things contrary to the name of jesus of nasiroth he's like i thought i
thought about this regularly which thing i also did in jerusalem and many of the saints that i
shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priest and when they were put to death
i gave my voice against them and i punished them often every synagogue and compelled them to
blaspheme and being exceedingly mad against them i persecuted them even unto strange cities whereupon
as i went to damascus with authority and commission from the chief priest at midday oh king i saw in
the way light from heaven above the brightness of the sun shining around about me and then which
journeyed with me and when we were falling to the earth i heard a voice speaking unto me saying
in the hebrew tongue Saul Saul why persecutest thou me it is hard for thee to kick against
the pricks and i said who art thou lord and he said i am jesus whom thou persecutest but rise
and stand up upon thy feet and stand upon thy feet for i have appeared unto thee for this purpose
to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen and of those
things which i will appear unto thee in the which i will appear unto thee delivering thee from the
people and from the gentiles unto whom now i send thee to open their eyes and to turn from the
darkness to and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of satan unto god that
they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in
me and so it's not just that jesus was leading them to to him which i've already touched on that
but it wasn't jesus who actually gave him the gospel remember it's ananias who was sent gave
him the gospel he got saved this is just the beginning of that but god had a like a bigger
purpose for him but what did paul have to do he had to get to work you know and and we've already
talked about it and i just paul's one of those guys that i just think is great in the bible because
like he gets beat up at every turn and he's like next let's go you know one of the greatest i don't
remember what chapter was but i love when they stoned paul and they leave him for dead basically
means that they knocked him unconscious and he gets up and he literally goes to the next city
and he doesn't go looking for a hospital or to check his wounds what does he go do he goes to
start preaching the gospel of christ right i mean wouldn't it be great if everybody in churches
showed up to do that work of god people wonder today they say that mental health is at an all-time
high right paul gets kicked and i and i didn't make those references but we've all because we've
touched on this a lot but i do want to touch on it just a little bit now what does it say there
it says paul sorry i lost my my my page but it says there that shawl says why that why persecuted
thou me this is jesus saying and it says it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks
and it's interesting when god's poking you in the direction it's it's uncomfortable but at least god
has a plan for you but remember what happened when peter was preaching the word and it says
that it cut them to the heart what we don't want is we don't want god to cut us and basically
separate us asunder to the fact that we're no good for him anymore right and maybe that's what
happens i was talking to to my business partner friend of mine i was like man i'm really frustrated
you know this and he and he did you know that's why you want to have godly friends also he's like
just remember the bible says life is all about trials right and sometimes when we're frustrated
you know what we're doing we're the ones kicking against the pricks and we got to be reminded hey
take a step back figure out what god's telling you to do and just do it right and the reality is
there's a lot of work to do for god i mean we're gonna spend our entire life i just talked to
diego right here he's 22 i remember being 22 right i'm 45 but i still have a ton of life to
live he has a ton of life to live and i'll tell you one thing though i can guarantee diego moe
pastor cop myself anybody else in the audience you're gonna die and we're not going to finish
all the tasks that we wanted to do like you know if we just think about all the work we want to do
we're just gonna there's plenty to do so just get to work and then you won't kick against the pricks
right just get to work and you'll have peace get to work and who cares about you know what people
are saying online or to your face or whatever let's go to point number four go back to act 26
oh actually i i think i skipped some verses sometimes i get a little excited we might come
back to those or not let me see if uh if if if time permits me but you know first point i have
for you is that the gospel gives you peace in any situation right and then the world hates the hope
i mean they hate the gospel but really the hope of the resurrection because you need a complete
gospel it's like when people argue you know sometimes you'll hear and i've had these
conversations too where people were like well was it the blood that saves or did you know was it
the cross that saves no it's the whole thing that saves right jesus needed to do all the work i don't
nitpick people are like well sometimes you say this when wasn't it you know the bible says that
the blood paid for the sins yeah the blood paid for the sins but you don't have shedding of blood
without first god going on earth and ministering for three years and basically pissing off all
the sadducees and the Pharisees and the scribes nobody thought to kill jesus until he showed up
to the sin and said hey i'm the son of god and we were like whoa wait a second we don't like what
this guy's saying so maybe we should kill him right and then you don't have the blood shed
you can't have the resurrection if the blood is shed and he doesn't give up the ghost so
yeah i understand the blood paid for the sins but it's the whole thing like you don't just have
the old testament and think everything's honky dory we love the new testament because it clears
up the old testament right we need both of them it's just sometimes i mean i just i get frustrated
when i when people do that but let's go to point number four a bold testimony exposes what darkness
or man of darkness and paul did that all the time i was talking to tomo i got here earlier
i got a little bit early to church and i usually try to we have so many comments on our youtube
but we don't have a lot like other people but every once in a while i try to just
go through them and read them and answer them and i would actually read this one to you because
this one made my day i think it'll make your day too i don't normally do this but it exists you
know i preached a sermon about on father's day or raising godly children i don't remember which one
was i was talking about how remember you guys probably remember about how my god my god my
father told me that basically my ex-girlfriend when i was 20 years old was a slut and then i
probably needed you know it's probably good that i was broken up with her and all that stuff
and so mo made a clip of that i mean it's like an innocuous statement like it's like this random
statement well i didn't scream about it i didn't say anything hard i mean and i literally didn't
even say i said it i said my dad told me that i needed to watch out because this girl's a slut
and this i get this comment and it says so she's a slut says really even if she made the decision
to be with a bunch of other guys why would that warrant calling her a slut you know how
how does she deserve being called that for ending a relationship and obviously rightfully so but
what i thought was funny is that a bold testimony always exposed darkness all i did was say hey if
a woman sleeps around a lot and you know that's a slut if somebody got mad and said so just because
a girl sleeps around a lot you're going to call her a slut well i last i checked that's the
definition of a slut like i don't know what to tell you right like you know if i was murdering
people if somebody called me a murderer it'd be kind of weird if i got offended say oh just
because i'm stabbing people day and night left and right every day i'm a murderer but isn't that the
state of the world we're living in we need to preach the gospel because boldness will bring out
all the devils and you say sometimes you oversimplify the gospel actually it's the
simplistic gospel that brings out all the demons it brings out all the soz of belial brings out
all the people that say oh no you need to repent of your sin oh no we're calvinist oh no we only
believe in total depravity of man oh no we we if there's no change was he ever even saved
you know you we think those are dumb statements just like that like obviously anybody here would
be like hey if if we saw like nobody thinks that hey a porn star is is not a slut and nobody here
thinks that oh if i call the porn slot a slut you'd be like well that's really offensive you
shouldn't be saying that right nobody here would be like oh man i'm going to leave that church
because that pastor said that that woman in the corner who's selling services for an exchange for
money is a prostitute i can't believe you use the word prostitute you know it doesn't even make any
sense and it's the same thing here let's go over there to acts 26 we see here in verse 19 it says
whereupon oh king gripa i was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision so paul's like clearing this
up he says but showed first unto them of damascus and at jerusalem and throughout all the coast of
judea and then to the gentiles that they should repent and turn to god and do works meet for
repentance hey people want to argue and the actually the the modern versions actually write
it out that you have to repent of your sins to be saved but if you read the king james which is the
only version of the bible that's god's word you never see the word repent and sin together like
that but what you do see and what we as baptist preach is that you have to repent of what you
believe and turn to who god for your salvation to jesus christ our lord and he says there that they
should repent and turn to god and then do works meet for repentance what is works and i know it's
older english but doing works meet for repentance is what it just means if you're repented and you
believe in the lord jesus christ well now get to work don't just be this lazy guy who's like
tells people yeah i'm saved but you never go soul winning you never show up to church you just never
read your bible you never raise your family in the fear and admonition of the lord you just never do
any of those things you don't pray regularly you know you don't ask for forgiveness from the lord
when you mess up you're just you're just full of pride you know why there's so many few characters
in the bible and i know that sounded weird right so many there's a lot of characters but there's
still few in the grand scheme of history it's because 90% of christians don't do anything for
god you know when shadrach neshach and abednego didn't bow the knee to the image you know what
there was also other christians there in that group they just compromised today you know this
weekend they're gonna the one of the church plants that pastor thompson has sure foundation
baptist church in indiana a bunch of queers are planning protests at that church for the next two
weeks right you know what you're not going to see is other baptist churches in the area showing up
in support of sure foundation what you what you will see is other baptist churches showing up
in support of the sodomites you know why because they don't want to do the work they just want to
be people pleasers right they don't want to do the work part of the work is just you know having the
shield that uh quenches the fiery darts of the devil part of the work is just being ready for
the fact that we stand on the word of god right he says that in verse 21 says for these causes
the jews caught me in the temple and went about to kill me not to just get onto them they wanted to
kill him having therefore obtained help of god i continue until this day witnessing both to small
and great saying none other things than those which the prophets and moses did say should come
hey your your old people are the ones that were preaching this they christ should suffer and then
he should be the first and should rise from the dead and should show light unto the people
into the gentiles he's calling them out with his own medicine i mean with their own medicine you
don't have to turn there for the sake of time but if you want to you can follow me john three
in john three verse 19 the bible says and this is the condemnation that light is coming to the world
and the men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil for everyone
that doeth evil hated the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved
nobody likes to be called out Matthew 10 27 the bible says what i tell you in darkness that speak
ye in light and what you hear in the ear that ye preach ye upon the house tops and fear not them
which kill the body but are able to kill the soul uh but are not able to kill the soul but rather
fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body and hell you know we preach because we fear
god not man Ephesians 5 verse 11 the bible says and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works
of darkness but rather reprove them for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done
of them in secret you know i have i know i talk about my side of the family which is like a bunch
of reprobates and just people that hate the lord but on my wife's side of the family like even up
to her extended family there's a lot of people that are saved she grew up in a christian environment
and you know what you don't see any of them calling me and be like hey man that's great
work you're doing how do i learn soul winning how do i go to our doors you know how do i learn
more about the right type of bible no what they're doing is they're just going to these milli mouth
watered down no good for nothing churches and you know what comes out of their mouth
milli down milli down watered down no good for nothing speech you say something and they get
offended i mean everything offends them everybody gets offended so easily you can't and half the
time you're not even saying it like in a jerkish way right you just preaching i mean i told them
i was like of all the statements in that sermon that would be the last statement i didn't even
say that i said it i said my dad said it my dad was the one that called her i didn't even have
the hindsight to realize that this woman that i was dating in my early 20s was a slut
my dad was the one that was like you know son this is probably not a good idea you know just
so i'm going to just keep pushing it you know if people get mad i'm just going to keep reiterating
it first simothy 5 verse 20 the bible says them that sin rebuke before all that others also may
fear i charge thee before god and the lord jesus christ and the elect angels that thou observe
these things without preferring one another doing nothing by partiality the reason i chose these
verses is you know the bible says them that sin rebuke but you think about it from a preaching
perspective it's not my duty to go around point out your sin one on one but you know from behind
the pulpit i can rebuke all sin and i need to rebuke all sin you know why so that you go home
and fear you're like oh so you're saying that sometimes your your purpose when you preach is
to just scare people yeah you know what sometimes when i'm reading my bible i get a little bit of
a shiver in my back you ever done that you just read your bible you're like maybe i need to stop
that right it's got to take you out i'm not and i'm not even doing this for show or exaggeration
they're talking about going up to my wife i'm like man honey i just i just i just hope the lord
doesn't take me out like i just lord forgive me and in the grand scheme of other people it might
not be that bad compared to what they're doing i'm not looking to compare all sin is is not good in
the eyes of god and if i can figure out what i'm doing wrong i'm going to bring it to the lord and
ask for forgiveness and i'm going to be detailed about it i'm going to be specific about it even
if it's embarrassing which it should be you should be ashamed of yourself for the sin that you do
before the lord jesus christ you should come to the lord jesus and be like lord i'm sorry
and i'm ashamed to even have to say it the way that i'm about to say it because nobody
what do you think that just because you didn't say it god didn't see it you know i mean god's
like he's literally here now there's nothing that you do in darkness that he's not able to see
right we need to expose not only other people but expose ourselves the way we expose ourselves
as we read the word of god and we show up to church and we listen to other people because you
know you can't trust yourself because the bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things
who can know it bible says take heed lest he you know let let him that think if he stand take heed
lest he fall that verse i get i quote it almost on a daily verses i mean on a daily uh uh basis
and the reason i do that is because i have a tendency as since i was a young man to be a little
bit you know arrogant i'm a little bit you know prideful if i'm not careful and i ask the lord to
remind me to not be like that right i want to just you know be the attention getter or the the life
of the party that's how i was when i was young but the bible says john said you know let him let me
decrease that he may increase so you can change but you got to do the work let's let's start to
close this thing out because i don't want to i don't want to focus but before we go to the the
rest of the book of acts the point number five i have for you is that the gospel makes sense right
gospel gives men peace in any situation the world hates the hope of the resurrection
men who believe in jesus christ and do the works they're never the same and we make the change
you know some guy wrote on one of our comments because i was reading him he said oh you know i
guess he didn't like it he said oh the six people that are in church and i said well we have a
little bit more than six people in church regularly now thank god i said well we are a small church
but i said it doesn't matter if we had two people in church because god didn't say preach to 100
people god just said preach the word right i'm going to show up no matter what you know a bold
testimony exposes mess darkness but then point number five is that the gospel makes sense and
what's the point i'm trying to make here i i went on and by the way there are some good things
i know i'm looking at jumo there are some good things with artificial intelligence right now
i don't know about the future but right now one of the cool things is that it has access to like
everything in a very quick way so i i asked chat chat cpt i said hey find me just all the examples
that you can think of obviously it's not perfect but i said find me examples of in the bible of
people that were almost persuaded like king agrippa because i know there is some you know you can think
of some but i was like let me just get some and it does a good job right we all obviously we see
king agrippa but the reason the point i'm trying to make here is that people get it they're just
too prideful to actually believe it that's a big deal you know a lot of our founding fathers not
all of them but a lot of our founding fathers like the bible they just didn't like everything in the
bible right thomas jefferson made his own version and what did he remove not the moral stuff not
the stuff that was common sense he removed all the supernatural stuff he didn't believe in the virgin
birth and you know the resurrection he didn't believe in those things so it makes sense but
you have to swallow your pride and humble yourself to actually believe in the gospel of jesus christ
right you know we have the the rich young ruler all right he says then jesus beholding him loved
him and said unto him one thing thou lackest right and he told him what it was and he was sad
at that saying he went away grieved for he had great possessions what did he say hey if you just
give everything up he almost got it there's a saying in spanish and i'm not doing it because
you guys that's just i'm i'm actually not doing it because of you you're here but we are going to
preach in spanish but there's a saying in spanish because it sounds better in spanish but
almost is the same as what nothing hey if you almost won you know what you didn't do you didn't
win right if you almost didn't crash you know what you did do you did crash right i almost
swerved him nope he didn't almost do anything it almost is the equivalent of not of zero it doesn't
it doesn't detract or it doesn't make things better right almost persuaded means you're still
going to hell right almost believing all the commandments rich young ruler but not willing
to give one up means you're still going to hell because if the problem wasn't he's following the
commandments the problem was he didn't believe in the lord jesus christ because if he believed on
the lord jesus christ who he was looking at and the lord literally the lord himself is asking you
to do this one thing wouldn't it make sense for you to obey but you know that's not what he wanted
remember in x 24 felix the governor he literally trembled and as he reasoned of righteousness
tempered the judgment to come felix trembled and answered go thy way this time when i have
convenient season i will call thee but he didn't believe of course we know judas you know it'd
probably be good to just bring a hard sermon on judas because people believe that judas is like
this nice guy i mean i literally i proved it i said you know the danger i was talking to this
person i said the danger of of these watered down bibles is that they water down sin and then i said
let me ask you a question without any context i said do you think judas was a really bad guy
and the answer was well not maybe not you know because he was with jesus the bible says he was
the son of perdition it would have been better for him not to have been born at all right judas
almost got there i mean talk about being close that's about as close as you can get to heaven
and fall short literally when the bible says for all have sin and come short of the glory of god
nobody literally exemplifies that in the flesh better than judas i mean literally he's with jesus
for all have sin and come short he turned him in and then he hung himself as now in hell herod uh
antipas right he listened to john he almost he didn't even want to cut his head off but you know
he's a people pleaser so we have examples in the bible but also in real life you know we just run
into people sometimes and i've been there you know when we went soul winning in mexico back
in february i talked to this lady and i think she was with a with a gangster guy and she just
wouldn't preach like she wouldn't she believed everything but she wouldn't pray with me
and i think she was embarrassed with that guy and i just prayed that she went home and prayed
because she almost got it i almost persuaded her isn't that the worst like i'd rather just someone
not i i'd rather nobody reject me but if somebody is going to reject me i'd just rather knock a door
and they'll be like get the hell out of here at least i know where they stand but i've gone
through the gospel and you know you give it to them and they're like yeah no i get it i believe
i'm just not ready right now it's like what are you not ready for i don't know i just i don't i
need to do a little bit more research and i i leave sad because i don't know if somebody's
going to clear that up for them i don't know if they're going to get it go back to axe uh well
you're there in axe 26 let's go to verse 24 we're just going to see this real quick and as he thus
spake for himself festus with a loud voice said with a loud voice paul thou art beside thyself
much learning doth make thee mad hey paul you're going crazy bro says but he said i'm not mad
most noble festus but speak forth the words of truth and soberness hey the truth is madness to
the world i mean isn't that what they refer to christians that are hardcore like us bigots
and just indoctrinators abusers and all kinds of weird stuff because they just don't get us is for
for the king knoweth of these things before whom i also speak freely for i'm persuaded that none
of these things are hidden from him for this thing was not done in in a corner i love paul he's like
hey i'm not being secretive about this thing i'm just telling you the truth in light king gripa
believest thou the prophets i know that thou believest then a gripa said unto paul almost
some of the saddest words in the bible right almost thou persuades me to be a christian
and i love paul's responses and paul said i would to god that i'll not only thou but also all that
hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as such as am i except these policies hey i
want everybody to get saved i just don't want everybody to be thrown in jail like me that's
basically what he's saying right and honestly not everybody's meant for it i mean honestly i don't
even know if i'm meant for it i just pray to god that i just keep preaching the word and that you
know if things ever get tough that i would just keep preaching the word because my goal is not
to get people to get saved and then go out and start a war my people just get people saved the
war is already theirs once they get saved right the target's now on their back they've been marked
in the gospel of jesus christ and the blood of christ for life the devil knows everybody that's
saved he's going to make sure to attack them first corinthians 1 verse 18 says for the preaching of
the crosses to them that perish foolishness but unto us which are saved it is the power of god
and act 17 verse 32 says and when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some mocked
another said we will hear thee again of this matter go to rome is one go to rome is one and
then we'll go come back to act 26 and we'll close out rome is one we love these verses but i think
it's good to just make this emphasis it says in verse 16 for i'm not ashamed of the gospel of
christ for it is the power of god unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the jew first and
also the greek for therein is the righteousness of god revealed from faith to faith as it is written
the just shall live by faith and you know we keep emphasizing these verses but every time i do i see
just another point you know the bible says there be few that enter in and if salvation is faith to
faith and there's only few that enter in well then we've got a lot of work to do the problem
is that it's not just few that are saved but then in that few there's even fewer that are doing the
work in business there's an 80 20 rule in christianity it's more like a 95 5 rule 5% of christians are
doing 95 of the work and it's so sad right like if it's faith to faith we need a hundred percent
doing the work i mean that's never going to happen but that would be the goal that's why i get excited
when everybody anybody wants to just show up and do anything and i i've told people and i'll keep
telling them hey you have an open line to my phone i i run my own business you know i work from home
it's not always ideal but if you hit me up and if i can go soul winning or i've called moe i'm like
hey this guy wants to go soul winning i can't do it today can you do it we'll get somebody to go
soul winning with you because there's few that want to do it let's go sunday i get i got back
from a trip and i was you know i actually everything the timing was all off i didn't
really have time to prepare the way i normally want so between services i actually prepared the
evening the the evening sermon which i usually don't do i usually have them both ready for sunday
and so i was like on a tight schedule i didn't know if we were going to go soul winning so soul
winning time came nobody showed up so i just kept working and then i was like well i guess
you know maybe i'll go soul winning mo and i was like well we'll go soul winning during the week
make up for it god blessed it i finished my sermon you know like around three and then i got a call
from one of the church members he's like hey where are you so we can go so and i was like well we
haven't left come to the church and let's go you know what we just went like i will make time even
if it's not the most ideal time if i can make time i'm gonna do it i was like well i'm already
done you know usually i like to review it's like screw it i'm not gonna review it i'm just gonna
just preach it when i get there but let's go and we went out we went out for an hour we didn't get
anybody but it didn't matter the bible doesn't say get people saved it says go out and preach
the gospel people will get saved and you know what we left we planted seeds and we gave the gospel
and we talked to people and you know somebody will come around somebody will listen to the gospel
somebody will do that it'd be better if people showed up in parks and actually came to church
like last week somebody wanted me to know about spanish service when you got here my wife got here
and she's like hey are you expecting something it's like oh yeah she's like well they're outside
in the truck and they look kind of kind of sketchy i said no he's he he's inside and he's wearing a
suit she goes oh and there's somebody outside so i went out there just right now and there's
this guy in the truck and i was like well come with me let's go check on this guy and i hey what's
going on and he rolled down to the window he's like oh it's just a pokemon location and then
he rolled up his window he's like i guess they're playing some weird game i don't but you know what
we're here for people to show up one day maybe i'll give a pokemon location because we get those
all the time it's so weird the gospel maybe they'll give me the time we want to be a light right we
want to be here we want to be exposed we're not in a corner preaching the word of god and if you
need to show up and you need to go soul winning you just tell me and we'll make the time right
that's the most important thing i that's the most important thing we'll do outside of all the you
know the preaching everything we're going to go soul winning let's close this out i've got one
minute but i've got three more verses to read so we've got the gospel gives man peace in any
situation you know obviously we're we're not doing a topical sermon we're going through each each
verse in this chapter so it's a little bit different but we still see some themes right the world hates
the hope of the resurrection a man like paul who believes on jesus christ and then gets to work
he's never the same paul never went back to being paul i mean salt a bold testimony exposes mess
darkness and the gospel makes sense and the last point is that god's servants they may be bound
and it could happen for us in the future but you know what's free the message it doesn't matter if
we live in the united states of america in 2025 where freedom is still free or we live in a
country that's going to oppress us and say hey every time you preach the word of god we're
going to throw you in jail you know what's still free the gospel of jesus christ we'll go there
verse 30 it says and when he had thus spoken the king rose up and the governor and bernice
and then they sat with him and when they were gone aside and talked between themselves saying
this man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds then said agrippa unto festus this man might have
been set at liberty if he had not appealed unto caesar the problem is they didn't know that god
was moving their hearts to get paul to rome right but you know what was being preached freely the
gospel of jesus christ i mean he got an audience with felix he got an audience with festus he got
an audience with agrippa and pretty soon he's going to get an audience in rome right like he's
just getting he's getting all the preeminence and what is he doing instead of saying hey i'm paul
and i know all this stuff he's just like let me tell you about jesus christ you know what we're
supposed to do you know i i tell people all the time i know i say it from the pope it a lot but
i really don't care how small we are and i know one day the lord of blessing will just get bigger
and we're not as small as we used to be i don't really care that we only have 700 people on our
youtube channel what i care is that people listen and you know what people are listening
because what i care about is probably the lord has not probably most likely he has my message
which is the message of christ but to a group of people that only react to the sound of my voice
and my goal is to not even preach to the choir other than in church to be honest with you i
don't really even care if like new ifb or other safe christians sign up to my channel because
they're gonna agree with me right like my my comment section will be like amen great preaching
but they're already get it what i want is all those people that they're like hey why did you
call a woman that sleeps around a slut because maybe one day she'll listen hard enough and she'll
get the gospel she'll get saved paul persecuted the church and got saved i mean i'm not negative
towards all those people i mean the reprobates i have but not everybody right why are we going
to mexico and preaching in spanish for the same reason because i can access a different demographic
than maybe some of the other people can right i don't want to be the cool guy that everybody
listens to and agrees with i mean don't get me wrong it's nice like when we go to the fire
breathing baptist fellowship i'm going to bring some sermons that i probably normally wouldn't
preach because i know that everybody there is going to be like amen right they're going to like it
they wouldn't want to hear that stuff but for the most part i just want to preach the gospel
of jesus christ and what did paul do it didn't matter if he was being stoned or if he was being
torn asunder or if he was being put before governors and kings what did he do he just
preached the gospel of jesus christ and maybe someone will say almost thou persuades me but
you know what in the process of that how many people got saved isn't the book of acts just
replete with saved individuals i mean it's thousands probably tens or hundreds of thousands
the the numbers are immeasurable because the bible only gives us the numbers that
you know on the day of pentecost and then they'd add it to the church daily but when you read it
if you're just reading it says oh and many believed and they added to the church daily and they were
out scattered abroad preaching the gospel of jesus christ i mean it had to just be huge numbers
think about it i just wish that we could do that i know we're doing it but it wouldn't be cool if
all of a sudden we just started getting like this little ticker so and so is in mexico and you know
diego was in mexico again and 20 000 people got saved you know and mo got sent over there and you
know that'd be awesome i mean really that would be the greatest thing and i know there's great
movements i mean pastor stuckey who's in in the philippines i mean those numbers are just as a
matter of fact i look at him just for a little bit and then i try not to look at him because it's
depressing because he'll like send out his missionary like letter and he's like oh this
month we had only 900 people saved because there was rain i'm like oh i'm sorry that you only had
900 people saved because there was rain now like this month we had five people saved because of
the rain you know i say but yeah i'm not i'm glad that he's leading a ton of people to christ
they've had tens of thousands of people led to the lord jesus christ you know why because he's
reaching a different audience he's not trying to preach to the choir he's preaching to the lost
our goal and i'll close out with this and paul's goal was never to just preach to the saved
that's what the church is for it was to preach and reach the lost and that's what we should learn
from the book of acts that the reason it's called the book of acts is a book of action but not in
church you know not in church we don't want the sunday school program and the the baby monitoring
program and the they can now if we have those i'm not against any of that i'm just saying if that
takes pre-eminence to doing the work for the lord then we're doing something wrong and today churches
have programs for everything except what soul winning hey do you go so many no but we have the
the wednesday couples program and we have the single doubt program and we have the youth minister
for this and we have the finance program director for that we have the music program like oh how
many people are you getting saved well we first have to get all this stuff set up before we get
people saved and then they do nothing for the lord jesus christ and then when you actually say
something they get mad so let's just be like paul and let's just go do the work and then you
know you want to have real change in your life get to work let's close in a word of prayer heavenly
father lord thank you so much for today thank you for your blessings lord thank you for a reminder
that we need to do work you know uh maybe the frustration in the last couple weeks over
all the stuff that's just on my plate is just that hey there's work to do and you know what
i appreciate it i just want to take time right now to be thankful for the ability to be 45
and still have a ton of energy to be healthy to be of a right mind to be able to read the bible to
be able to memorize the bible and then to be able to turn around and preach the word of god to other
people lord and i pray that other people will look at this and say hey if he can do it i can do it
this guy who came in this country learned a second language uses colloquialisms the wrong way all the
time it's five foot nothing weighs a hundred nothing if he can do it i can do it that would
be my prayer lord that they the people would watch this and not be like oh that's a great preacher
or i really enjoyed that sermon but more so hey what can i do to make a real change in this world
and the only real change we're going to make is to preach the gospel of jesus christ thank you for
all those in attendance lord thank you for the ability to be here just bless the rest of our
week in jesus name we pray amen and uh we are closing hymn so turn your handles over to page 436
436 we have a closing hymn and i'll just go ahead and uh i'll lead it we're still getting used to
a closing hymn we didn't do it before but we did it we're doing it now 436 more more love to the
let's turn our handlers to 436 i don't know that i