All hail the power of Jesus' name, Let angels prostrate fall,
Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all.
Ye chosen seed of Israel's race, Ye ransomed from the foam,
Hail Him who saves you by His grace, And crown Him Lord of all.
Let every kindred, every tribe, On this terrestrial balm,
To Him all majesty ascribe, And crown Him Lord of all.
O that with yonder sacred throng,
We'll join the everlasting song, And crown Him Lord of all.
All right, let's have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank You for this evening, and thank You for our church.
I pray that You would bless this service.
Please be with all those that are out sick.
I pray that You'd just heal our church up, Lord, and help us all.
Just have a great service this evening, praising and honoring You.
We love You. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, for our second song, we're going to song number 30,
Nothing But the Blood.
Song number 30, Nothing But the Blood.
Song 3-0, Nothing But the Blood.
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
For my part in this I see.
Blood of Jesus. For my cleansing this my plea.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Nothing can force an atone. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Not of good that I have done. But the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my hope and peace. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
All my righteousness. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Good evening. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you don't already have a bulletin, please lift up your hand nice and high
and one of our ushers would love to give you a bulletin.
We have our Bible memory passage, John 1, verse 47,
and then we have our service times, our soul winning times, as well as our church stats.
Is there any soul winning that did not get reported to your soul winning captain for the last few days?
Did you go with anybody? Okay.
All right. And then continue praying for our expecting ladies.
Also we have our prayer list and we had a couple to add down here.
We have the Negiros, pray for the upcoming MRI, pray for Ms. Lucy's mother's tumors.
Brother Cameron Hall, we're still continuing to pray for his leg to heal
and we're praying for Ms. Holder's husband's visas interview.
Brother Pendleton's brain cancer.
Brother Hernandez is asking for prayer for his night shifts as he's been having to work them.
Brother Scott was asking for prayer for some job applications.
Brother Nick Shermer-Andrioli is in Ecuador and he's asking for prayer while he's out there preaching the gospel.
I think I got an update from Ms. Ophelia who was visiting us
and said that he had gotten like maybe 18 or 19 people saved already while being down there
and so praise the Lord on that.
Also, Brother Gail's asking for prayer for his travel during some night school.
Brother Conley is taking a trip to the Bahamas soon and I just saw a post, I need to verify it,
but I saw that the Bahamas might have taken away their COVID restrictions
and if that's the case then we need to reschedule our trip.
So, because boys, the Bahamas is one of the best places I've ever gone soul winning
and I know that a couple of our brethren, I think Ethan and Nick Shermer-Andrioli went there
a few months ago or maybe six months ago or something like that.
So, not that long ago and they said it was great too.
So, definitely lots of witnesses to how receptive it is out there
and it's fun just because the people out there, it's kind of a Christian nation.
You know, it's funny, it's like America is like a Christian nation, right?
But then actually there are nations that are actually kind of Christian
where everybody does kind of know the Bible and it's like everyone's kind of a Christian
whereas here it's just kind of fake.
But it's nice.
Again, the other thing though, you still run into saved people here.
Virtually everyone there is not saved.
Like virtually everyone there believes in a workspace salvation or is unsure or something like that.
Even though they know the verses really well, they're King James only by preference at bare minimum
and they speak English very well so it's very, there's not a language gap.
Really the accents are not even that, you'll notice it but it's not that different.
Jamaica is a little bit more extreme but the Bahamas was a little bit clearer
and so they're pretty well educated.
So, I mean, honestly, I've never been to Africa or the Philippines
but it's definitely got to be one of the most receptive areas to preach the gospel
and so I'm just plugging that into your heart right now.
But we'll be praying for them as they go that they'll be successful
and have opportunities to speak to a lot of people.
Brother Kenton Knowles, anybody know, he's from there as well and his family's out there
and so he's definitely a dedicated soul winner.
Also we have Brother Capito asking for prayers for his health.
Brother Goodwin was asking for prayer for his brother-in-law's court case
and then we were praying for Ms. Bethany Awe's health.
Honestly, I think a lot of people are actually sick right now
and I guess that's what you get after a conference, just a lot of people sometimes get sick
so we'll definitely be praying for everyone to recover soon.
Let's go ahead and say a quick word of prayer for those that were mentioned.
Thank you Heavenly Father for this evening.
Thank you for our church giving us this opportunity to meet and to have church services.
I pray that you would just please bless all of our expecting ladies.
Please help them. Please help them with their children's development.
I pray that you would just help give them a timely birth.
I pray that you would just bless our church family that has various health concerns,
that you'd strengthen them.
Please help our church family members that are going through upcoming procedures
or recovering from surgery or any of those type of situations
that you would help them to recover quickly.
Thank you so much for opportunities to go out soul winning, even abroad.
I pray that you would just bless our brethren as they go.
They'd be safe. They would be filled with boldness to preach the gospel.
I pray that everything that we do would just be in honor and glory of your Son.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
As far as on the back, we have a couple upcoming event announcements.
October 29th, we have the Arlington Soul Winning Blitz.
The 30th is going to be our Sunday Sundays.
31st is our Texas Chili Cook-Off.
If you would like to enter the competition portion,
you need to have your chili here by 5.30.
We'll probably begin eating around 6,
just to give you some kind of a general timeline.
And then November 5th is going to be the music recital.
Tonight is the night to sign up by.
So if your kid's wanting to participate in this,
please sign up from 5 to 18 years of age.
You need to get a time slot because there is a rehearsal on the 22nd.
And my wife is going to try and organize that and schedule that as quickly as possible.
If you have questions, you can always reach out to my wife.
And she would give you the best answers.
Also, November 10th through the 12th is the Matamoros Soul Winning Marathon trip.
And that's going to be a really fun trip going over there as well.
Again, we've done it almost every year.
We've gone down there maybe even twice on some occasions in that area.
And just that area is a real receptive area too.
It's a lot of fun, so it's kind of a great getaway.
November 23rd, Thanksgiving Desert Fellowship.
December 2nd is our ladies' Christmas party.
Other announcement, next Sunday night is just our annual church business meeting.
It's just going to follow the church service right after the service.
I do ask all the members to participate.
Also, I'm going to cover a few updates in regards to some of the future decisions for our church.
So if you'd like to attend, it's highly appreciated.
That's pretty much all I have in the bulletin.
There is one other thing that I wanted to just cover real quick.
We had the kids' conference and it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.
But I just want to remind people of just some of the church house rules that we have.
So we do have a mother-baby room over here.
It is for mothers and their children only.
So it's just for mothers and their children.
And all children must be accompanied by their parent at all times.
So it's not a place for kids to hang out before, during, or after service at all.
If there is a child in there for any reason, they should be asked to leave or to go find their parent.
We just don't want any issues.
Also, please pay attention to your children in the building at all times.
So don't let them just run around or go wherever.
The ice machine is also not for children to help themselves.
They should be assisted by an adult.
Also, we have rockers throughout the auditorium.
That is for pregnant ladies.
This is not for your children to sit in.
Also, if you're single, don't sit next to one.
I know you might be excited about your future pregnant wife, but we need to wait until you have one.
Because most pregnant mothers don't want to sit next to you.
That's the reason why you're single.
Just giving you some nice helpful tips.
Also, any child that's misbehaving or whatever, I've already told my ushers this, but just to help me to keep them in check.
So we're not trying to be their parent or do anything, but we just want to make sure everything is always safe.
Please don't let your kids run on the stage or anything like that.
Running just in general is a no, but I'm just saying the stage is not supposed to be a hangout place for the children.
We just don't want any of the instruments up here or any of this kind of stuff to get broken.
We don't want to break some of these pipes and then have water flowing everywhere.
Obviously, the piano is a very expensive, nice piano.
We don't want to just have to replace these types of things.
Obviously, the pulpit gets a little beat up.
In general, we just want to make sure that we're taking better care of the things here than we would at your house.
Just a couple reminders.
I'll probably put those in the bulletin for Sunday as well, but I just want to remind everybody of that and so that everything going at church is smooth.
If you would please turn in your hymn books, we're going to sing, or actually, they're handouts.
Holy, holy, holy.
So it's our separate little handouts we have and we'll sing our third song.
Again, that's holy, holy, holy.
Sing it out nice and loud together.
Holy, holy, holy.
Lord God almighty.
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy.
Merciful and mighty.
God in three persons.
Blessed Trinity.
Holy, holy, holy.
All the saints adore thee.
Casting down their golden crowns
around the glassy sea.
Cherubim and seraphim.
Falling down before thee.
Which word and art and evermore shall be.
Holy, holy, holy.
Though the darkness hide thee.
Though the eye of sinful man.
Thy glory may not see.
Only thou art holy.
There is none beside thee.
Perfect in power in love and purity.
Holy, holy, holy.
Lord God almighty.
All thy works shall praise thy name.
In earth and sky and sea.
Holy, holy, holy.
Merciful and mighty.
God in three persons.
Blessed Trinity.
While the offering plates are passed around,
turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 22.
2 Samuel chapter 22.
We will read the entire chapter as is our custom.
2 Samuel chapter 22.
The Bible says there,
And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song
in the day that the Lord had delivered him
out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul.
And he said, The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer.
The God of my rock, in him will I trust.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation.
My high tower and my refuge.
My savior, thou savest me from violence.
I will call on the Lord who is worthy to be praised.
So shall I be saved from mine enemies.
When the waves of death come past me,
the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
The sorrows of hell come past me about.
The snares of death prevented me.
In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried to my God
and he did hear my voice out of his temple
and my cry did enter into his ears.
Then the earth shook and trembled.
The foundations of heaven moved and shook because he was wroth.
There went up a smoke out of his nostrils
and fire out of his mouth devoured.
Coles were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also and came down
and darkness was under his feet
and he rode upon a cherub and did fly.
And he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
And he made darkness pavilions round about him,
dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled.
The Lord thundered from heaven
and the Most High uttered his voice
and he sent out arrows and scattered them,
lightning and discomfited them.
And the channels of the sea appeared.
The foundations of the world were discovered
at the rebuking of the Lord
at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
He sent from above, he took me,
he drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy
and from them that hated me,
for they were too strong for me.
They prevented me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my stay.
He brought me forth also into a large place.
He delivered me because he delighted in me.
The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands
that he recompensed me.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord
and have not wickedly departed from my God,
for all his judgments were before me
and as for his statutes I did not depart from them.
I was also upright before him
and have kept myself from mine iniquity.
Therefore the Lord hath recompensed me
according to my righteousness,
according to my cleanness and his eyesight.
With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful
and with the upright man thou wilt show thyself upright.
With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure
and with the froward thou wilt show thyself unsavory
and the afflicted people thou wilt save,
but thine eyes are upon the haughty
that thou mayest bring them down.
For thou art my lamp, O Lord,
and the Lord will lighten my darkness.
For by thee I have run through a troop.
By my God have I leaped over a wall.
As for God, his way is perfect.
The word of the Lord is tried.
He is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
For who is God save the Lord?
And who is a rock save our God?
God is my strength and power and he maketh my way perfect.
He maketh my feet like hind's feet
and setteth me upon my high places.
He teacheth my hands to war
so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation
and thy gentleness hath made me great.
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me.
So that my feet did not slip.
I have pursued mine enemies and destroyed them
and turned not again until I had consumed them.
And I have consumed them and wounded them
that they could not arise.
Yea, they are fallen under my feet.
For thou hast girded me with strength to battle.
Them that rose up against me hast thou subdued under me.
Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies
that I might destroy them that hate me.
They looked, but there was none to save.
Even unto the Lord, but he answered them not.
Then that I beat them as small as the dust of the earth,
I did stamp them as the mire of the street
and did spread them abroad.
Thou also hast delivered me from the strivings of my people.
Thou hast kept me to be head of the heathen.
A people which I knew not shall serve me.
Strangers shall submit themselves unto me.
As soon as they hear, they shall be obedient unto me.
Strangers shall fade away
and they shall be afraid out of their close places.
The Lord liveth and blessed be my rock
and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation.
It is God that avengeth me
and that bringeth down the people under me
and that bringeth me forth from mine enemies.
Thou also hast lifted me up on high above them
that rose up against me.
Thou hast delivered me from the violent man.
Therefore, I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord,
among the heathen, and I will sing praises
unto thy name.
He is the tower of salvation for his king
and showeth mercy to his anointed unto David
and to his seed forevermore.
Let's fire heads for a word of prayer.
Father God, we thank you for the Wednesday evening service
and for the opportunity we have to listen to the word of God
being expounded.
I pray, Lord, that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit.
Help him to explain this chapter to us.
Give him clarity of mind as he preaches.
And, Lord, help us to pay close attention to the message
and just pray that you would protect our church, Lord,
from its enemies.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Amen.
Look at verse 25 again,
and we were covering this chapter previously the last week,
and we kind of stopped off about the midpoint of this chapter.
It says in verse 25,
Therefore the Lord hath recompensed me
according to my righteousness,
according to my cleanness, in his eyesight.
And I kind of left off in this chapter talking about
how even though salvation is a free gift
and we're going to go to heaven no matter what,
and our righteousness is technically for salvation
is imputed from Jesus Christ.
It has nothing to do with us.
There is still a form of righteousness
that is important to the individual,
and the Bible is describing how the Lord essentially
is going to judge us according to our own righteousness
and how he treats us in this life,
and even our rewards in heaven
are going to be determined upon our own righteousness.
Now again, we have to take all these words
in their own proper context.
When we talk about salvation context,
I don't have any righteousness to offer God.
My righteousness is filthy rags.
It's not that I don't have righteousness.
It's that it's so bad of a righteousness
that offering it to God is like offering filthy rags.
However, in the context of already being saved
and just simply living the Christian life,
God wants me to try and be as righteous
and Christ-like as possible.
This process of becoming more like Christ
is what's often referred to as sanctification.
Sanctify means to set apart or to separate yourself,
and of course, God wants us to be separate from the world.
He wants us to be sanctified on a daily basis,
constantly trying to be more like Christ
and following the commandments,
and of course, the more you walk in the Spirit,
the more you're not going to fulfill the lust of the flesh,
and you're going to be sanctified in your daily actions.
So of course, God is going to recompense.
Notice this, me according to my righteousness.
What is that talking about?
It's talking about basically how you live your life.
God rewards you for that.
Look at the next verse.
With the merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful,
and with the upright man, thou wilt show thyself upright.
With the pure, thou wilt show thyself pure,
and with the froward, thou wilt show thyself unsavory.
So essentially, God has a program in essence
that however you behave yourself,
however you perceive the world,
is often the exact same way God is going to recompense you
or God is going to treat you.
So God often will give you exactly what you deserve in essence.
Some people talk about karma,
or they'll use these other non-Christian terms
to kind of describe what the Christian Bible is actually teaching,
that it's not like there's this good karma you send out
and then you get good karma back.
It's rather how you are to God,
He will treat you in the same manner.
So if you're pure, if you're righteous, if you're upright,
God will be pure and righteous and upright to you.
However, if you're a froward person,
He's going to be unsavory.
Good karma and bad karma also does not define a list
of moral attitudes that are correct.
You know, what is good karma, even, theoretically?
But we have in the Bible a clear standard of righteousness,
we have a clear standard of uprightness
and being pure and being clean,
so we actually know what that even means.
Someone could think that they're issuing out
all this good karma, quote-unquote,
and then receiving all these bad things,
but that's because it's a made-up man philosophy.
Whereas, according to the Bible,
we have a righteousness standard,
and when you are righteous, you're pure and you're upright,
God will end up treating you in the same manner.
It really just boils down to you reap what you sow.
That's what the Bible constantly reiterates
and God is constantly showing here in the Scriptures,
but He is kind of, you know, also kind of, in my mind,
dictating the thought pattern of a particular person.
There's like, to someone who's pure,
they have a pure outlook,
and then someone that's froward,
they have an unsavory outlook,
and this is something that the world doesn't seem to get,
but there is a dichotomy of perspectives
around the same facts.
You can have the same facts in a particular situation
and one person looks at them as being great
and another person looks at them as being horrible
even though the facts don't change.
And this is where you really start seeing
how the Bible becomes true,
because you can have people just deny reality,
deny facts, look at a situation
and come to completely different outcomes,
and this happens all the time.
You know, there's even been divisions within our church.
Whenever I wanted to offer to be the pastor
of Steadfast Baptist Church,
and I made a couple videos about that,
man, the reaction to that was so polarizing.
Some people thought that that was good news
and some people thought that was the worst news ever,
even though all the facts were the exact same.
You know, some people are like,
I like this guy, he seems like a good guy,
and they said some positive things about the situation,
and then other people are saying just really horrible things
even though it wasn't like they had new information.
It's not like the people saying negative stuff
had all this extra information that's new
or the people who are saying good things
have all this good information that they're not sharing.
Everybody's looking at the exact same facts,
it's just they're reinterpreting the situation
based on their own perspective of the situation.
You know, this is really what you see in the world today
in politics often.
You kind of have conservatives and liberals
often fighting over issues,
but instead of realizing that the left,
it's not like you can show them more facts
and they're going to change their mind,
it's that they disagree on the same facts.
You show someone facts,
and then two people come to completely different conclusions on it.
And it's like the conservatives pretend like,
oh, well, if we just keep giving them enough facts
and reasoning and logic, we'll win them to our side
rather than just accepting this fact.
Some people are going to have the exact opposite opinion of you
based on the exact same facts.
You know, when it comes to Indian food,
that is not something that I'm on board with, okay?
I don't look at this with pure and clean,
I don't look at this with pure and clean intentions or whatever, you know,
whereas other people are thinking like,
I'm going to go pay money to eat that.
It's like you couldn't pay me enough money to eat that, okay?
So it's like two completely different opinions
on the exact same facts.
It's like, but have you smelled curry?
And it's like, yes, everyone smelled curry, okay?
Everyone.
There's a reason why when I go to the workplace
and you have the common break room,
for everyone, it says no Indian food on the microwave.
You know, I didn't put that sign.
I didn't say that I put the sign.
It is a common area, and think about how woke our world is,
but they're still just all in agreement.
No Indian food.
Because once the Indian food comes, the smell never leaves, okay?
You know, someone could just open their front door
and you know if they eat curry or not.
You tell, don't lie to me, you know.
And look, there's some bad food out there
that you wouldn't know for sure.
Like you wouldn't just open brother Ben's door
and smell McDonald's necessarily, okay?
Even though we know he likes McDonald's, right?
But if it was somebody that ate Indian food on a regular basis,
you would know as soon as they opened the door.
You can usually smell it before they open the door.
Opening the door is just like you learn the rule of science
how you're supposed to waft before you get a big sniff.
You know, I don't know if they taught you that in science class,
but in science class whenever you're doing experiments
and you're testing the odor of something,
you don't just go straight for the big sniff.
You have to waft.
You kind of try to get it from far away
because there's certain chemicals that if you took a really big sniff of,
you would just pass out or it could cause some kind of a problem.
And so like with the Indian food,
you want to waft that from a far safe distance
and then realize like I don't want a big, big sniff of that.
But in essence, I'm trying to use this silly example
though to prove the point that not everyone's going to agree.
We have to just, let's get some facts of reality.
Not everyone's going to agree.
That's why it's also foolish to have an entire nation,
so-called, based on the idea of tolerating all religions.
You know, some people try to make America
turn into this secular co-exist mentality
when that's never been the case.
America was always Christian
and it was built on Christian principles.
It was built on the Bible.
The variance in belief was within the realm of Christianity,
saying we're not going to tell you
here's your doctrinal statement from the Bible,
but yeah, it was just carte blanche fact.
The Bible's the word of God.
The Bible is the ruling authority here.
We're not saying when we have freedom of religion that you can be a Hindu.
We're not saying when you have freedom of religion you can be a Muslim.
We're saying you can be a Baptist or a Methodist.
That's what they were saying.
That's why it's so stupid when they try to have all these atheists get in there
and try to secularize America or its history or its laws.
I mean, our laws are coming from the Bible, folks.
And our government was founded upon biblical principles and biblical ideals,
and so you cannot have a society where one part of the country
wants to worship the devil in child sacrifice and murder
and is antithetical to everything like family and marriage and morals and values
and then have another side trying to worship God at the same time.
That doesn't mix.
That doesn't work.
It's never going to operate correctly.
And, of course, someone who despises everything about God
and despises the word of God and despises all those in reality,
of course they're going to come to a conclusion and say,
Well, I don't like the God of the Bible.
You know, it's kind of similar to the idea of some robber or thief or a criminal.
He's probably not going to like cops.
Why? Because he's done a lot of wicked things,
and the cops come and drag him off and haul him to prison or whatever.
But it's so funny because as soon as these people get harmed or hurt in any way,
they want to call the cops, don't they?
So they're always a hypocrite about it.
But in our world and in our society, we have really loud voices
that will say a lot of negative things about God.
And they'll bring up all these negative things that exist in the world.
But to me, it's really just a fulfillment of these verses
where it says the throw word, thou wilt shew thyself unsavory.
And honestly, it's not like God has all these attributes
that we don't model ourselves.
Because think of it this way.
If someone approached you and in your first interaction,
they just start being rude and hostile and saying negative things about you,
wouldn't you most likely probably scowl back at them
and kind of treat them differently and just kind of,
like if they were being really rude and mean and hostile towards you,
you'd probably reciprocate a pretty similar attitude or approach towards them,
whereas someone that's being friendly and kind and nice,
you'd probably reciprocate a pretty friendly, kind, nice approach.
That's the same way it is with God
in the sense that people that are just sitting here
spitting in the face of God, mocking the Lord,
rejecting all the things that he's done for them,
he's going to end up treating them in a negative way.
And they basically, this is what they end up doing.
Well, God's bad.
And it's so funny, you have these atheists like Richard Dawkins
who will say that God doesn't exist
and then this is their evidence that God doesn't exist
because God's bad.
They're saying, well, if God exists, you know,
then why is there all this cancer
and why is there all this evil
and why do I have all these problems
and, you know, they just point out all the problems of their life.
And it's like, well, okay, even if the God of the Bible
is doing all these things to you,
that doesn't change his existence.
You know, it's like a bad God doesn't mean that a God doesn't exist.
Right?
So it's like my evidence for the fact that God doesn't exist
is he's a bad person.
And it's like, well, there's a lot of bad people that exist in this world.
You know, I've never thought like, you know, Jeffrey Dahmer,
I don't think he exists because he's just a bad person.
You know, Adolf Hitler just must not exist because he was a bad person.
You know, Joseph Stalin just must not exist because he was a bad person.
You know, that's a foolish logic
that doesn't really make any kind of sense.
But why is it that they find God so repulsive?
Is it because God is really a bad God
or is an evil God or an unfair God?
Or is it because they themselves are a froward person?
That's what the Bible is actually teaching
is that the people that hate God,
it's because they're a bad person.
Now, go if you would to Proverbs chapter number 3 for a moment.
We'll go to Proverbs chapter number 3.
And, you know, people that don't like steadfast Baptist church,
is it because steadfast Baptist church
is just a bunch of mean, awful, ugly people?
Or is it because they're a bunch of evil, awful, ugly people
and they don't like us
because of their own insecurities of who they are?
And that's the same way with the atheists today.
They're so froward and yet they think that everything's negative.
Well, of course you're going to think that everything's negative
when you're a froward person
because that's the definition of being froward.
Being froward is being contrary.
Being froward is being against things.
So, in essence, what a froward person is like
is they just bring up all the negative,
all the negative situations, all the negative context,
all the problems that they can think of about any situation,
person, company, whatever it is that they want to talk about,
they focus on the negative.
Not only do they focus on the negative,
but they almost delight in or find pleasure in
going against anything and everything.
So if someone comes up with an idea at work
of how to solve a problem,
they're going to be against it,
even if it is a good idea,
even if it does make sense
because they just want to go against the grain.
Basically, they're just lifestyle.
Their attitude is just to be against anything that someone champions.
It's not that they really care.
It's kind of like a troll, in essence.
You know, what is a troll?
Sorry, I'm just defining some key things for you, okay?
And some of you fall victim to this, I can fall victim to this.
You have to remember that a troll does not believe anything that he says.
A troll's only goal is to waste your time, effort, and energy.
A troll wants one thing, attention.
That is the goal of a troll.
And that's typically the goal of a contrarian or someone who's froward
is they want attention.
Because if someone comes up with an idea,
or has a solution, or they talk about something,
and I just say, I agree,
there's not really any discourse that's going to come as a result of that.
You're not going to really give me attention for just simply agreeing with you.
However, if someone says, you know,
hey, here's our plan, here's our strategy, what we're going to do,
and they say, that's not good at all,
then what's going to happen?
They're going to say, okay, well then tell us why.
And then they start getting all this attention and all this focus,
and they get to explain all of their reasoning,
and really just pontificate about how they think they're
intellectually superior to you and your ideas and everything like that.
But it's really just a bag for attention.
It's just, I want attention, give me attention,
I'm going to attack you so that I can get attention.
And it's just an attention grab.
The worst thing you can do is give attention to a troll.
Because that's the one thing he wants.
It's simply just like bugs and food.
Like typically bugs are attracted to the food areas of your house,
or maybe if there's water in a particular area.
Bugs are often going to be found in the kitchen, right?
The kitchen or the garage area,
wherever you put the trash bags or things like that,
that's where you're going to find a lot of bugs.
So the worst thing you could do if you don't want bugs is leave food out.
If you leave a lot of food out and you have a lot of trash out,
you're going to attract a lot of bugs.
Why, when you go into the poor income areas and the low income areas,
do you find a lot of bugs in their house?
It's because they've got McDonald's spread on the floor
and they've got crumbs and they've got,
they're not keeping it clean and tidy in a sterile environment,
so it attracts a lot of bugs.
The worst thing you can do is keep putting more garbage food out
and laying things out because you're going to attract more and more bugs.
So the more and more that you give your attention to a troll,
the more and more trolls are going to come.
The worst thing you can do for trolls and contrarians is give them attention.
It is the absolute worst thing you can do.
And, of course, you want to.
Like, everything inside of you wants to give them attention.
You'll say, you know, I believe in Jesus Christ,
and they'll say, like, God's not even real.
And you're like, yes, he is. Let me prove it.
And it's like that's all they wanted was you to get upset
and to give them attention.
It's all they want.
And when you give it to them, it encourages them to keep provoking you
and to keep saying things and to keep attacking.
You know, it's no different than the stupid protesters at our church.
The absolute worst thing you can do is talk to them.
The worst thing you can do is acknowledge their presence,
and it always happens this way.
They'll start getting discouraged and not that excited,
and they're kind of done.
And then someone gives them attention, and then they're all excited again.
And then they're trying more things,
and they're going out there and doing whatever.
The worst thing you can do is acknowledge their presence.
Just like if someone's contrarian at work and they say,
hey, here's the idea we have for work.
And they say, I don't like it. No one cares. We're doing it.
That's what you do.
You don't say, like, oh, well, tell me why.
It's like that's above your pay grade. You're doing it. Or leave.
You know, that's your options.
You know, it's not beneficial to engage in discourse
with every contrarian, every forward person.
You're giving them exactly what they want.
You've got to shut them down, shut them off,
not pay attention to them, not give them any kind of attention.
And, you know, frankly speaking, God doesn't really give them attention.
He gives them the cold shoulder.
He's unsavory to these people.
Proverbs chapter 3, look at verse 32.
For the froward is abomination to the Lord,
but his secret is with the righteous.
Think about this verse for a second.
Is God giving all the same information to the righteous as to the froward?
No.
Because the froward's abomination to the Lord,
but his secret is with the righteous.
And let me tell you something.
Someone who comes to church and reads the Bible,
you know so many cool things about this world and how it works
that God has given you, he's given you the secret.
God is going to give you secrets.
How is it a secret if he's telling everybody everything?
He's not. There's certain people he's not talking to.
A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition,
reject is what the Bible says.
It doesn't say engage in, talk to, have fun with.
You know, people like, some people just like to fight.
Some people just like to contest.
They're a froward person.
The worst thing you can do is give them a fight.
Is, you know, stoke their ego.
Think about a reprobate.
They're the most prideful people on the planet.
So the worst thing you could do to them is to try and attack their ego.
Attack their pride.
Because if you attack their pride,
they're going to just come at you ten times harder
because they can't handle it.
This is why when it comes to fighting,
you know, like you get two guys that are going to box or whatever,
what do they do?
They're always talking trash to each other like,
man, I'm going to beat you up in five seconds
or I'm going to KO you or you can't even take me.
Whenever they talk more trash,
it just makes the guy even angrier
or want to beat them that much harder
or want to, you know, talk even more.
And it's just this ever-stoking event.
You know, football fans or any kind of sports team.
The one side's over here saying like,
we're going to beat you so bad.
Then the next side starts getting riled up.
You know, whereas if you don't engage in that discourse,
no one really gets that riled up.
It doesn't really benefit Christianity to sit here and mock the devil
and say how much better we are and we're going to beat him.
Because all it really does is it's kind of like drawing that extra attention
or that extra heat on yourself and you just don't need that.
You know, we can have secrets.
It's okay.
You know, we want to keep some things secret
and we want to allow ourselves.
You know, I know that we're going to win,
but I don't have to brag about it in front of them
because that's just going to make them angry with me, right?
There's a lot of things that I understand about wicked people
that I don't necessarily want to say out loud
because it's not that beneficial, right?
Especially, you've got to use discretion.
Didn't Jesus know a lot of things about the Pharisees and stuff?
He didn't always open his mouth and say everything that he thought about them.
He does in the Bible, but not necessarily to their face,
not in every single situation.
There are certain times when you don't need to give them anything.
You know, Herod, he didn't need to give them anything
because what if he had started mocking Herod?
Herod might have just killed him on the spot instead of letting him go to the cross,
but that wasn't his place.
You know, once the Jews got upset, Jesus kind of shut his mouth
and just walked through the midst of the crowd
before they could throw him off the brow of the hill.
What if he just kept stoking the flames?
Like, y'all are never going to do it.
You know, this is a bad idea.
When you're around a dangerous person or a bad person,
you just don't want to stoke them.
You don't want to encourage them.
You know, it's better to just allow them to think that they won
or allow them to think that they're doing good or whatever
and just keep your secret to yourself.
Just allow yourself to realize, you know what?
They're not going to win.
They are destroyed.
No one does love them, but you know what?
At the end of the day, I don't need to sit here and brag about it
because if you put a dangerous person in the corner, what happens?
They become even more dangerous.
Okay, so you want to let them just kind of just do their own thing
and attack some other person.
Let some other person give them their attention.
Look at chapter 6 and look at verse 14.
Chapter 6, verse 14.
Throwerness is in his heart.
He deviseth mischief continually.
He soweth discord.
You know why I'm bringing this verse up?
He soweth discord.
Notice this.
But he deviseth mischief continually.
When is this guy going to stop?
Never.
So it's foolish to engage with the person
because they will never stop.
They are implacable.
So the best thing to do is to ignore and hope that someone
else stirs them up.
Someone else garners their attention
and they can move on to another distraction, another foe.
But the problem is they will never stop fighting.
So as long as you continue to give them what they want,
they're just a leech.
And as long as you feed them blood,
they're just going to keep sucking your blood
as long as they possibly can.
You know, that's the one thing I liked about Trump
is he was just like a distraction for all these evil people.
You know, I'm not saying that I love Trump or anything
like that, but I'm saying like one thing I like about Trump
is that a lot of horrible people like to attack him.
And so he just gets to be a target for a bunch of people
that don't attack me right this second.
OK?
And you know, even our church.
Our church gets attacked by a lot of people.
And I think that some people don't realize
that we're shielding them from being
attacked by those other people.
OK?
You know, those people, until a society deals with it,
which our society is not going to do it right now,
they're going to have someone to attack
because they're a froward person.
A froward person will.