that fast Baptist church.
It's awesome to see everybody here today.
If we can go ahead and find our seats, we will get started.
And once you have found a seat, go ahead and find a hymnal
and we will go to song number 210
for this morning service for a song.
Song number 210.
Wonderful grace of Jesus.
Song number 210.
grace of Jesus. Sing it out loudly. Let's get it started this morning.
Thanks for watching!
Great singing, everybody.
Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer.
Lord, we love you and just thank you so much for this church.
Thank you for the ability to gather here
and hear great preaching and singing, Lord,
and be able to do all these things unto you.
We love you and we just ask that you fill this room
with your spirit and bless this church.
And in the same Jesus name we pray, amen.
All right, for our next song,
let's go to song number 211, the very next song.
Sorry, 211.
Whosoever means it.
Great singing.
Good morning, thank you so much
for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you need a bulletin,
you can lift up your hand nice and high
and one of our ushers can come by
and get you guys a bulletin.
On the front, we are working on Matthew 28.
So if you're able to quote that verse of the week.
and you're 18 and under, you can get an ice cream treat.
Also, if you can do the whole chapter
to a non-family member, there's a special prize
that we give out when we finish that.
Inside, we have a couple things.
I'm gonna wait to get to those.
Our bulletin does have our service and soul winning times.
Soul winning times meet here at the church
in that church-wide category,
and then different parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth area
for our regional times.
if you are interested in going in one of those times,
you can contact those leaders.
But just to give you some kind of idea,
I wanted to ask Brother Sam,
what kind of part of town have you been going on Monday?
So on Mondays, it's kind of like the Irving area.
What about you, Brother Malta, for Tuesdays?
Where have you been kind of going generally?
Fort Worth, is that like West Fort Worth
or just anywhere Fort Worth?
Okay, kind of like a Fort Worth, West Fort Worth.
I believe the ladies, y'all been doing Grand Prairie kind of?
Okay, so kind of Mid Cities Grand Prairie.
Brother Sue L, what have you been doing on Thursdays?
Carrollton, okay.
And then also Brother West,
have y'all been doing Arlington still for Saturdays?
Okay, yeah.
So just to give you kind of an idea,
if you, you know, Irving, Carrollton, Arlington,
you know, people live all over.
So that gives you some idea and see one of these guys.
Also, even if you aren't familiar with them,
but you're just interested,
you could ask your soul-winning captain.
You could ask me, email the church,
and we'd love to help you as far as identifying
maybe an area or a time that works for you to do soul-winning.
And then down below we have our church stats.
We've been doing really, really well
on our church stats for the year.
And so, but we wanna make sure
that we still finish strong.
And I'm really hoping
that next year that we're gonna smash these numbers.
I have a lot of plans and a lot of goals
for us to do a really big push next year,
and so I'm really excited.
But we honestly did very, very good so far this year.
Also, I'm planning on getting a newsletter
from our evangelist, Urbanic, in the Philippines,
and he has, he beat us by himself.
So, you know, he's,
obviously he's had some other people help him,
but it just, I mean, he's just really doing great
over there in the Philippines,
So I'm really excited to have his year end newsletter to share with you.
That should be on the first.
So we should have that newsletter to share with you on the first.
On the right, we have the list of expecting ladies.
We also have our prayer list.
If you'd like any additional prayer, please let us know and we'd love to be in prayer
for you.
On the back has a note about the most upcoming event.
Pastor Enrique Reyes of Springcrest Baptist Church has invited me to come out and preach for him and we're going to do a major soul-winning event the day before.
So we kind of have an itinerary there. So if you'd like to participate, there is a sign-up sheet out here in the foyer.
And I'd really like you to sign up so that way we can coordinate if you need maybe lodging for that Saturday night.
or if you're planning on coming to the event
so I can make sure to purchase all the food
and everything necessary
and we can plan our fellowship event accordingly.
So if you want to go, we'd really like to know
and please fill out that signup sheet
in the foyer for that specific event.
I'm gonna go to, I'm gonna do the other events
before I get to this church reminders.
So in the bulletin, I have a save the date.
Now, this is what's gonna happen.
As soon as the service is over, you're going to come and ask me for all the details about all these events.
This is a save the date, alright?
So, when we get closer, I'll be able to give you the details.
This is just simply, we haven't scheduled as far as the date.
If you want all the other details, you have to wait patiently.
but I just wanted to give you an idea
of what we're looking at for next year.
So if you are interested about dates,
there will most likely still be additional things
that are not even in this
that we'll add throughout the year,
but this is pretty much the things
that have already been locked in
that we have scheduled and we're doing.
Like you had at the very top that spring crest event on the on the 11th the 12th
February 6th through the 8th is our rey nosa soul winning marathon
There's also a sign-up sheet for that. So if you're wanting to go and we'd like to know who's
Needing or wanting to do the carpooling for that particular event, but we're very excited to go down there
We're gonna be staying on the stateside McAllen. We always stay stateside and then just go over into
Mexico for the soul winning and
It's, it's very receptive there. It's always been great. Who's gone to Ray Anosa with me before?
Yeah, yeah. Lots, lots of people have gone. It's, it's great trip. Ask those people about it. It's a lot of fun.
Um, oh, I did want to ask because the next event is going to be this Wednesday.
We're going to have a men's preaching and we're going to have pizza. Who's planning on coming Wednesday to service?
Just so I have some kind of an idea.
All right.
Thank you.
February 16th to the 23rd.
This is a cruise missions trip
that we're going to be sending evangelists fur on.
and some other church members,
but I put in our group chat the actual details
for that particular event if you want to go.
And essentially we're just,
it's just a recommended cruise trip
if you would like to go on one.
Faith Award also has one in March.
I need to get those details
and I'll put that in the group chat too if you're interested.
But it's pretty affordable.
I believe it's about
It's about just under $1,800 for two people.
And so, you know, it's about...
$875, $880 a person or something like that.
But that includes all of your food, obviously,
and everything, you'd have to maybe buy a flight as well.
So I would say for about $1,100, $1,200,
you could go on one of these type
of cruise missions trip options.
And this specific one is from Sunday to Sunday.
It's gonna be a seven day cruise and you have three stops.
One's in Nassau.
Bahamas ones in st. Thomas and the other ones in st. John's now you get quite a bit of time actually you get about
eight to ten hours each stop and so, you know, you can pretty much just
eat the unlimited buffet and food and just hang out and then you get like 10 hours of just
dedicated soul winning time three days out of that seven and honestly it's probably going to be
one of the easiest missions trips you've ever been on if you've ever done one of these foreign
missions trips and so you know if you have about 11-1200 dollars you could take a week off of work
it would be a pretty easy missions trip if you want to try it so we're going to be trying it
And we'll have a sign-up sheet for that too, just so people can know how to coordinate.
But Advanced Sphere will be going on this one, so he'll already have some idea of where they're
going to be going, where they're going to be traveling.
Nassau Bahamas is the main island for the Bahamas.
That's where we went when we went on a missions trip.
It's very receptive.
A lot of great opportunities to go soul-winning there.
And so, and we even have a contact there
that can help with transportation
or getting people to places to go soul-winning.
St. Thomas and St. John's, I'm not familiar with those,
but doing some research there.
English-speaking islands, they have at least 40, 50,000
as far as population,
and they seem pretty densely populated near these ports.
I would assume that it's gonna be pretty good options
as far as getting out there and going so many.
I can't say for sure.
Some people have visited these places
and said it's pretty decent.
So I would just anticipate
that they would also be good options,
but we're kind of exploring and trying new things.
And so if you are interested,
please ask evangelist for about it
or at least indicate on our signup sheet
if you want to try to see about that.
But that's something that you can go on.
I know some people said they're interested.
In later March, there's also one faithful
Word Baptist church is gonna be doing
with brother Chris Segura.
He's gonna be going out there
and being the lead for that particular.
event, and I think that they're going to have maybe four stops instead of three.
But one of those stops is one of those fake islands, so I don't even know that
it's necessarily any much better as far as soul winning is than the one that we
have scheduled. So I've looked at tons and tons of cruise mission options, and I
feel like this one is a really good option as far as being able to go to a
lot of good stops. It's also on the Royal Caribbean.
Which I've heard is a pretty good cruise line, so I'm not not an expert into this
But from the research and the opinions and the people I've talked to this seems like it'll be a pretty a pretty good
Option and you should be able to get several people saved in some pretty receptive spots. So
You may and this is what's funny
People that just go Sony me once a once a week on average or something,
you might get more people saved on one cruise mission strip than you would like a whole year
going in, you know, just this area, just because when you go to these receptive areas, it's just
you have so much more opportunity to get a lot of people saved. So that's just to put that out there.
Obviously, if you don't have the money, you know, there's still lots of great soul-winning
missionships that we're going to have here locally. The church is going to pay for. So don't feel like
If you, if you can't do it, you can't participate in lots of soul winning.
We are starting a kids choir that we're going to do for our Easter services.
My wife's going to be leading that.
It's going to be two to three and it's going to start in March 2nd.
So it's going to be, I, you need to, I need to double check on ages.
Do you have a cap on the, on the high end of the age yet?
Do you know?
Okay, no, I think we're gonna have at least like maybe four or five will be like the bottom cap and then maybe up to 16
So when we get a little closer, we'll have the details
Evangeless Duncan urbanic is gonna be coming on furlough for a couple weeks in March
And he's gonna actually preach for us on March 12th. So that's gonna be a Wednesday night service
We'd love for you to come for that
March 22nd, we're gonna have a spring recital.
So that's for all of you musicians
and you can even do voice if you'd like,
but we'll have our spring recital, March 22nd.
April 19th, so that's the day before Easter,
we're gonna do a Mansfield, Texas soul wedding marathon.
May 16th through the 18th.
That is one of our friends, Pastor Aaron Thompson,
is having a conference about the King James Bible
and it's gonna be in Vancouver, Washington,
where his church is at.
It's our foundation Baptist church.
So if you'd like to participate or visit,
that would be a great opportunity.
May 31st,
We're going to be doing a Durant, Oklahoma Solonning Marathon.
This is in Oklahoma, and we're going to be partnering with Anchor Baptist Church,
who's going to be kind of meeting us halfway.
And so it'll be a great opportunity to go soul-warning with them.
Durant is got...
I think about 13 to 14% Native American population, so it's kind of near some of the Native American
areas and so might give you an opportunity to witness kind of to the Indians. June 15th,
Father's Day floats. June 28th, we're going to do a Shreveport, Louisiana Marathon. July 19th,
Lancaster. Very excited about that because it's only like 25 minutes from us.
So it's just like 25 minutes east of us, but it looks like a very receptive area and so I'm excited to try that one
August 14th through the 16th are men's retreat August 27th through the 31st
We're gonna have our fire breathing Baptist fellowship and I already have several pastors who are lined up for that particular event
And so I'm very excited that we're gonna get to do that again
September 27th or Tyler, Texas. It's kind of a little bit east as well. We're gonna try that October 6th 11th
We're doing the Bahamas missions trip again
And so basically my goal is I'm going to try and get reservations and book a certain amount of locations.
But the way it's going to work this year is I'm only going to provide church lodging for soul winners.
So if people want to take their family, they're more than welcome to go to this event.
It's just the church lodging will be specifically only for
uh adult soul winners so those who want to go and it's going to be limited to the first people
to respond because honestly I've had so many people interested and it's hard to even anticipate
that it's probably going to be about the first 40 or 50 people that have booked their tickets
and then given me their itinerary that are going to lock in a spot for the church lodging um and so
when I get probably in a few weeks or so I'll get all of that
together and make a video about it and I'll let you guys know as well. So if you want to participate
and it's going to be pretty much the same as last time, we have our contact there.
Hopefully we'll be able to get in some of the schools again, but also I'm trying to time it this
year where we're actually going to go when school's in session and like kind of hot and heavy because
the last few times I've gone for some reason it's just I didn't time it well with the college and
to where school is going to be having tons and tons of students there and honestly the
schools are a great opportunity to go soul-winning and the Bahamas is a great place to visit.
So if you can make it, I don't know exactly how much it would cost for someone to go on
a trip like this.
You'd have to look at flights for that time period, but sometimes flights around five six hundred dollars round trip
Sometimes they're a little bit more expensive is if it's a peak season
but you know for about five six hundred dollars you could probably get a ticket per person and then
you know, if you go with the church lodging, you might only have to pay a couple hundred dollars
for the food. I mean, you could possibly go on this trip for like 750, maybe even 800 dollars,
maybe a thousand. If you have to do your own lodging, it would probably be more like 1200,
$1300 a person or something like that. But that's just to put an idea of that kind of an option.
So we had about 60 people go.
Two years ago and it was it was an awesome trip people said it was like their most favorite trip
They've ever been on
So, you know, I highly obviously recommend and encourage trying it and we could have had more people because even going to the schools
There was more opportunities than we had people at a few of the schools and so
We're definitely gonna go hard
This year for the Bahamas again
October 31st, Chili Cook Off, November 9th, Dr. Stringer is going to be preaching for us.
We're going to have our turkey bowl.
And then we have pretty much all of our holiday events.
Christmas party, caroling, cookie bake off, candlelight service, men's preaching.
Like I said, as we get a little bit closer into the season, there might be a few more events that pop up towards the end of the year.
But I just wanted to give you an idea. We're going to be doing lots of soul winning.
lots of events. Really excited for 2025. Thank you guys so much for being a part of this church.
We really appreciate you guys because it helps us do some of these awesome
events and conferences and missions trips and you know we're really making a big impact in
the world and so we want to you know continue to do that and we want to do more next year.
than we've ever done before so we're gonna we want to I want us to really challenge ourselves next
year to just shatter our soul winning records and our and everything that we've done before and
let's do even better and and let's reach even more people I have a lot of personal projects
I'm excited about we'll be working on a documentary again for soul winning a book idea and a few
other things that I'm hoping we'll get accomplished and we're going to try and make some some better
music I've written a couple more songs we're going to implement into our singing so a lot of good things
Down below in our bulletin though, I have one more thing I want to go for and this is long announcements today. I apologize, but
We're ending the year strong. All right, so a couple church reminders
And these are something that we just always need
to be reminded on, but children should not be running
or rough playing in the church at any time.
All right, so just keep your hands yourself.
No pushing, no shoving, no wrestling.
You can do that, just not here.
I'm all for it, just not at church.
Children should not be on the stage at any time.
Children shouldn't be in the kitchen,
getting drinks or fridges or ice machine or anything,
unless they're being assisted by an adult.
So, if your mom or dad are with you, that's fine.
Children should not be in the mother bay rooms without their parents at any time.
So, that's before, during, or after services.
They should not be in those areas unattended.
The fellowship room is not a play area either.
So, when I said no wrestling, I didn't mean only the sanctuary, but it's like a WWE match
in the fellowship room.
Just because we can't see you, it's just anywhere in the building.
anywhere in the building. Also, please make sure you're cleaning up after yourselves. So, and
really, honestly, you really need to just say clean up because most people are like, well,
I didn't make that mess or that's not my water bottle. You know, just help out, help clean up trash
that really helps and
Also, the water bottles in our fridges are for sole winners or guests or visitors.
If you need water, there should be cups right there with our water fountain. And so,
for us, please do that. Also, parents, please make sure you're watching your kids after the
service. You should have an idea of where they're at at all times. And then also, children...
If any adult is telling you
that you're doing something wrong,
you need to just say, yes, sir, yes, ma'am, and do it.
That includes all of our ushers, our staff, my wife,
anybody, if they're saying, hey,
you need to not go in this room,
or you need to move out of the kitchen, or stop running.
You just need to obey them,
even if they're not your parent.
You just need to obey the adults
and the staff in the church, right?
Also, one other thing, I don't think it's mentioned here,
but we have a lot of materials,
We have invitations.
We have cards that you can fill out
for first-time guest visitors.
That is not toys.
Those are not things to play on, draw on, write notes,
or do anything like that.
So please help us that you're not letting your kids
just destroy church materials for no reason, all right?
That's all I have as far as announcements.
We're going to go ahead and sing our third song, and it's going to be a Psalm, Psalm 126, should be in our handout, Psalm 126.
All right, that was Psalm 126.
Psalm chapter one hundred and twenty-six
Everybody's singing out together on the first
When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion we were like them that dream
Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing
Then said they among the east
Thanks for them, the Lord, and thine great thanks for us.
Whereof we are glad.
Turn again our captivity, O Lord,
as the streams in the south.
They that sow in tears shall reap and joy.
a hundred things for us, whereof we are planned.
He that goeth forth, and we've been bearing precious seed,
shall doubtless come again, shall doubtless come again
with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
Then said they among the even, The Lord at thundry thanks for them,
The Lord at thundry thanks for us, Whereof we are glad.
Great singing everybody. Now as offering pleasure being passed around,
go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 7.
That's the book of Jeremiah chapter number 7.
Jeremiah chapter seven the Bible says the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying
stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim there this word and say hear the word of the Lord
all ye of Judah that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord thus say at the Lord of hosts
the God of Israel amend your ways and your doings and I will cause you to dwell in this place
Trust ye not in lying words, saying the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.
For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings, if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor,
if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place,
neither walk after your gods to your hurt, then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
Behold, ye trust in lying words that cannot profit.
Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto bale,
and walk after other gods whom ye know not, and come and stand before me in this house,
which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations.
Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?
But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh where I set my name at the first and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my
People Israel and now because you have done all these works sayeth the Lord and I spake unto you rising up early and speaking
But she heard not and I called you but she answered not
Therefore, will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and
unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh, and
I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole
seed of Ephraim.
Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor pray or for them, neither
make intercession to me, for I will not hear thee."
See as thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem
the children gather wood and the fathers kindle the fire and
the women need the dough to make cakes to the Queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods
That they may provoke me to anger
Do they provoke me to anger sayeth the Lord do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place,
upon man and upon beasts and upon the trees of the field and upon the fruit of the ground,
and it shall burn and shall not be quenched.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices and eat flesh.
for I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in that day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burn offerings or
Sacrifices, but this thing I commanded I them saying obey my voice
And I will be your God and ye shall be my people and walk ye in all the ways that I've commanded you that it may be well unto you
But they hearken not nor inclined their ear but walked in the counsels and the imagination of their evil heart and went
Backward and not forward since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day
I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets daily rising up early and sending them
Yet they hearken not unto me nor inclined their ear but hardened their neck. They did worse than their fathers
Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them, but they will not harken to thee.
Thou shalt also call unto them, but they will not answer thee.
But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the Lord their God,
nor receiveth correction. Truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up lamentation on high places,
for the Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight sayeth the Lord
They have set their abominations in the house
Which is called by my name to pollute it and they have built the high places of Tofet
Which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire
Which I commanded them not neither came it into my heart
Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tofet,
nor the valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter, for they shall bury in
Tofet till there be no place, and the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls
of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth, and none shall fray them away."
Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness
The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride for the land shall be desolate. Let us pray
Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you so much for Jesus Christ.
Thank you for the sacrifice that he paid for all of our sins
and rose from the dead, making salvation a free gift.
Thank you for eternal security. Thank you for the word of God.
Please open our understanding and give Pastor Shelley boldness to preach.
In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.
I want to look at verse 24, the Bibles is this,
but they hearken not nor incline their ear,
but walked in the counsels and the imagination
of their evil heart and went backward and not forward.
And that's really where I'm drawing the inspiration
for my sermon is this idea of going backward.
not forward. Now I wanted to read that verse but I actually want to go through
this chapter quite a bit and before we kind of get back to this this verse and
kind of thinking about what it's really saying but when you get to the end of a
year this is something that I think is really important is to kind of just
evaluate the direction that you're headed.
and what direction have you been going down?
Have you been going forward or have you been going backward?
And when we look at the nation of Judah
and we look at this southern kingdom,
God's basically saying that this kingdom as a whole,
obviously there's exceptions in individuals
that don't fit this, but as a whole, as a conglomerate,
they have gone backward, not forward,
in the service of God.
In fact,
He says specifically that this nation is worse
than the children of Israel were in the wilderness.
And we typically think of the children of Israel
and the wilderness as being kind of like the worst
and a really bad generation having been very backsland.
He's saying they're worse.
Look what it says specifically in verse 26.
Yet they hearken not unto me nor incline their ear but harden their neck they did worse than their fathers
So he's saying the children of Israel that were in the wilderness who are their fathers
We're actually more obedient than this generation, than this specific group of people.
And so when we think about the stiff necked and hard-hearted people in the wilderness
that didn't obey God and constantly complain, rebelled, and worshiped the golden calf and
did all kinds of crazy things, he's saying this generation is even worse.
That, them as a conglomerate, they've gone even further backwards,
not actually forwards, they're not getting more Christian,
more godly, more righteous, they're getting worse
as a whole. Now, if we go back to the very beginning, this is important when we
think about the concepts
and the, who the audience is that he's directing this towards,
but verse one is as the Word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying.
Stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim there this word and say,
Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord.
So who is Jeremiah chapter number seven written to?
It's written to people that are showing up at church, at the house of God,
and with a motivation to worship God.
He's not preaching this to a heathen nation.
He's not preaching this to just generally the inhabitants of Judah.
It's specifically the people that are going to church
and the people that are going to church with a purpose to worship God.
He's saying the people that are going to church trying to worship God,
this is the message for you guys.
This is what you guys are like.
That's important to think about. Verse 3,
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel.
Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
So God's appealing to the people of God,
the people that want to worship Him, saying, hey, if you repent,
if you get right with God, if you actually change the way that you're living,
you could live here forever.
God wants them to be able to dwell in this land
and to be able to be established in this area.
What is their problems? And they have several problems here.
First, when he mentions, look at it says in verse four,
trust ye not in lying words.
What is one of the major problems they have
is they're trusting lying words.
They believe false doctrine.
They believe false teachings.
They have people that are telling them things
that are not true and they just believe them.
And, really, there's a lot of parallels, I think, when you study the book of Jeremiah,
when you look at the nation of Judah, two things we see in today's world, and we see
even in America, where a large percentage of Americans still go to church today, don't
they?
A large group of people in America consider themselves Christian.
They consider themselves people who are trying to worship God, that show up in a building,
that are there to worship the Lord, in theory.
And notice what it says in verse 4, trust ye not, people are trusting in lies, people are
believing and putting confidence in false doctrines and false teachings, they're trusting
liars.
Now what is the lie that they're specifically believing in verse 4?
The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.
I believe the attitude that he's trying to describe here is they believe since they have
They believe since they're the people of God, they have the temple of God, nothing bad can happen to them.
That they're basically immune from enemies, from attacks, from God punishing them because they have the temple of the Lord.
And it's similar, I think, how some people today, they think because they go to church or because they are of a particular denomination
or something that somehow they're just right with God automatically.
or that God's not mad at them, or that God could never
want to punish them, but you know, we can't just trust in the fact that we just
showed up at church
or just trust the fact that because we have a church
or have a building, God would never be mad at us or something.
And I mean, when we look at the temple of the Lord, people often like to brag in
how many people they have come to their church or how nice their church is.
Nothing can compare to the temple of the Lord.
The Temple of the Lord is a magnificent structure and it's drawing people from the entire world
to come and worship God at the specific temple.
But even if you have the greatest church building with the largest congregation, God could still
be mad at you if you're not following His commandments.
If you're listening to false preaching or you have false prophets or false teachers
just lying and telling things to people that are not true.
They have to abide by the word of God.
Verse 5, for if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings,
if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor.
So number one, they trust that because they have the temple of the Lord, they can't be touched.
But secondly, God is mad at them for not doing something.
What is God mad at them for not doing?
And what does it say in verse 5?
That they're not executing judgment between a man and his neighbor.
Meaning what? That they're not actually considering who's right and wrong in situations and they're not actually judging people.
And a consistent theme throughout the Bible, if you actually read it, is you realize God loves judgment, wicked people do not love judgment.
righteous people like righteous judgment and ungodly wicked people,
they don't want to consider the cause of the poor,
they don't want to know why someone's wicked,
they don't want to hold people accountable for what they've said and done,
and they themselves are giant hypocrites about it,
and they only apply judgment to people they don't like,
and they don't apply it to themselves.
And so one of the big problems that you have with church people
is them not executing good judgment.
them being hypocrites, and really you can preach a whole sermon on this,
being holier than thou's, where
they typically are judging everybody else as harshly as they can,
but they're not judging themselves.
and they don't apply standards to everyone.
They only apply standards to the people that they like
and against the people that they don't like,
where they essentially are not executing righteous judgment.
They are constantly condemning the righteous
and exonerating the wicked.
And you know, as God's people,
we need to make sure that we're executing righteous judgment.
You know, they don't care about facts.
They care about feelings.
Judgment doesn't care about feelings it cares about facts and we live in a
society where it's become more about feelings than it has become facts
anymore. Ideas like believe all women or something and and it's just like why.
Why can't, you know, why do we just believe 50% of the world just automatically and we can't believe the other 50% are men
Just objectively worse than women or something like that, you know
And there's just this attitude there's this idea out there that essentially anybody that is a friend of mine
Because we both hate the same person. I believe everything they say
Where essentially just if this person is saying something negative about somebody I don't like it must be true
You know what why because of their feelings their feelings are I want this to be true or I don't like this
Person or something and then they just believe it
I mean look at the Trump derangement syndrome that we have in our country today
Where people just believe any narrative against Trump and it's like it's not like there isn't plenty of things to criticize Trump over
But at the same time our country and our nation
Often is believing things that aren't even true about people
And it's not even just about him, even Democrats.
People believe weird things about Democrats.
People believe weird things about Republicans.
People believe weird things about everyone.
And it's like, it's like we live in this culture
where everybody wants to make like an exposed video
or something, where everybody just wants to go
and just say like everything they can think negative
about somebody and everybody just believes all of it.
It's just a tabloid magazine society.
It's a weekly, worldly news society.
And people aren't executing judgment anymore.
They're not actually looking at facts anymore.
They just look at feelings.
And this could extend to every area of life.
You just talk about professional sports.
If you like a team and you don't like another team, you'll believe every negative thing
you can about the other team.
Just because people care more about their feelings than they do about facts today.
And you know what? That is an ungodly attitude. God has matted them.
God is upset with them for not executing judgment between people.
We need to figure out who's really right, who's really wrong, what are the facts,
and it doesn't matter what my feelings are, whoever is right, that's the person that we need to exonerate.
And it's frustrating when people won't execute judgment either.
Just avoid it. Just like, well, everybody's wrong, everybody's a liar, everything.
And they won't actually deal with situations.
We live in a society now where essentially law enforcement or legal cases or everything,
there just seems like there's no judgment.
or it's just so delayed.
I mean, if you want to actually have judgment in a case, it's going to be years and years
and cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars to get judgment.
And how is that fair?
How is that fair considering the fact that the majority of us don't have seven years
to wait and don't have millions of dollars to spend on a lawyer to defend ourselves and
essentially at this point, there's just no judgment?
Judgment should be free. You should be able to go and allow the judges of the land to rule in situations and to
Exonerate the righteous and condemn the wicked and it not cost you trillions of dollars and take years and years and years
I mean that is a bad system and
God gets mad at this because what often happens is when there's no accountability bad people act badly
they just keep getting away with things and keep doing bad things. You know, some
industries are just really notorious for this. You know, when you think about like
used car salesmen, you think about the construction industry. There are some
people who just have bad businesses on purpose and they rip people off and as
soon as they get caught they just bankrupt their company and start a new
one and they're just like no accountability.
no buddy holding their feet to the fire, no real judgment, and we just live in a society where there's no judgment.
But think about this. We're not even all of what I just said doesn't matter, because the context of this is about church.
And even in churches, even amongst God's people, people get to a point where they're just not executing judgment anymore.
And we live in a culture where if you exercise church discipline, if you hold people accountable
for their actions, then they act like you're a cult or something.
And it's like, wait a minute, you don't hold people in church accountable for what they
say and do?
You're not executing judgment. You mean you let people in your church just gossip and rail and lie about other people in the church
and you don't do anything about it?
You let people in the church rip other people off and do all kinds of crazy things.
You allow people to go out and preach weird things at the soul winning door and no one holds them accountable.
You allow people to believe literally any doctrine and pull people aside and teach them this other doctrine and you don't hold them accountable.
You allow people to just be disgruntled against the pastor and the leadership
and just attack them and try to draw people out of church
and you don't say anything about it and you don't do anything about it.
Look, you're the one that's wrong by not executing judgment.
The people executing judgment are not the ones that are wrong.
You're wrong for not allowing church to be a place of judgment.
Church should be a place where we actually feel accountable and this is what I always hear and it's funny to me
People say like oh, I don't like that church because people feel a little bit nervous or they're a little bit fearful
It's like you should be fearful in the house of God
You know you shouldn't think like I can show up in my pajamas and say anything I want and act however
I want and there's no accountability. That's not church. That's Walmart. Okay?
But you know what, or that's a, what is it?
Planet fitness, the judgment-free zone.
But you know what, that's not the house of God.
This is not a judgment-free zone.
And they say like, oh, you guys are so judgmental.
Well, as long as it's righteous judgment,
then I like that.
Notice God is not saying, you guys are too judgy.
I'm really mad at you guys because when I,
when y'all are going to the house of God,
y'all are trying to make people follow the commandments
too much.
You guys care what I say a little bit too hard.
No, no, he's like, you guys don't care.
You're not executing judgment.
You're not thinking about things that are right.
You guys are wicked.
And of course, why would you want to go to church?
I mean, think about how many non-denominational churches you drive by, and this is what they
say on the sign, come as you are.
What are they saying?
They're saying like, planet Venus, judgment-free zone.
They're saying, you will not show up here and anybody say, hey, you're dressed like
a whore.
You won't show up there and they say hey, why do you have the message in your hand?
You won't show up there and they'll confront you on your false doctrine and your false teaching and all the weird stuff
You got going in in your life. They won't confront the trannies at the door. They won't confront heretics
They won't throw anybody out. In fact, there's no there's nothing to be thrown out because I'm gonna membership
That is not the house of God that is what this is being described as and he's like this is not right
Look at verse 6 if you oppress not the stranger the fatherless and the widow and shed not innocent blood in this place
Neither walk after other gods to your hurt
Then will I cause you to dwell in this place in the land that I gave your father's forever and ever now?
He's bringing up some severe sins
What I think is interesting, and you have to think about kind of this context, God is not saying you guys have to be perfect to stay in this land.
He's like, hey, if you just kind of like high-level aren't doing these things, then you could live here forever, because God does not expect
perfection for them to be here, but he does expect some level of standard. There is at least some standard. There is some object,
objective that if they cross this threshold or this line, he's not going to pardon it.
Now, oppressing stranger, fatherless and widow, taking advantage of people that are dependent
on society.
And again, stranger here is being foreigners, specifically fatherless and widows.
And you know, these three groups of people are in the situation they are, to no fault
of their own.
They didn't choose where they're going to be born.
They didn't choose for their father to abandon them or to die, and they didn't choose for
their husband to die.
You have to think about all three of these people are a victim of circumstance, not a
victim of being a bad person.
So we should not take advantage of people that are a victim of circumstance.
And we live in a society, in a culture where a lot of people are being taken advantage of by circumstance.
You know, especially in America, we really have imported a slave class through Hispanic people coming through Mexico.
And it's not fair. I believe that our country is greatly oppressing them because we allow them to come in illegally
but then we don't either ship them back or give them citizenship and we put them in this weird awkward situation where they
It's like wink wink nod nod you can be here, but we're not gonna actually give you rights and give you a good wage
We're gonna give you a crappy wage
We're gonna give you a lower wage and allow you to just be a slave class imported into our country. That's wrong
God doesn't like that
You know, either A, we should not let them come, or B, allow them to come and be a citizen
and have equal rights, but you shouldn't allow them to come and then have this like subclass
status where they're an illegal and you could deport them and they live under a threat of
being deported or not having rights and then on top of that they don't get the same kind
of wages and it's just all this awkward stuff.
Now, again, I'm not saying if you are nice to an illegal or if you pay them to do stuff,
you're doing anything wrong.
But obviously, if you are paying them slave wages, if you're taking advantage of them
because they're an illegal, well, then you're oppressing them to some degree.
If you know the widow or the fatherless,
they don't have a dad or a husband to defend them
or protect them and you're a car salesman
and you're like, oh, I can jack up the price
because they don't know what they're doing.
They don't have someone to defend them.
Well, now you're oppressing them.
And the same could even happen amongst God's people.
You know, as God's people, we should not be their oppressors.
We should not participate in what the world is doing to these people.
We should be kind, fair, and treat them the same as everybody else.
And I'm not just saying only Hispanic people because there's foreigners from all over the world that are in our country.
And we should treat them the same, not any way different.
And you know our church, praise God, actually has a lot of diversity.
I mean I feel like our church's demographic is almost like the demographic of DFW.
whatever you looked at percentages,
it's probably pretty similar to just the DFW area,
which to me seems like
where the least racist church you could possibly be.
If you match the demographic percentages of your area,
you're gonna be the least racist.
If you're really skewed, as far as what the,
like if let's just say you live in DFW,
and I don't know the numbers, look them up yourself.
Whatever I say is wrong, but let's just say
it's like 40% white.
25% Hispanic, probably like 15% black,
and then like another 10% other,
that's probably not even 100,
so fill it in with something else.
Then there's like this mix or something, right?
But I'm just saying like then your church,
if it wasn't very racist,
it would be like that exact same number, right?
40, 50% white, 20, 25% Hispanic, you know, whatever.
But if you go into a church and it's 100% white,
It's 100% Hispanic. It's 100% black.
Well, that's actually more racist than a church that's actually filled with a pretty much
close percentage demographic of what your city is like.
And then it's funny because then they'll act like you're racist
even though they're the ones that have a crazy
you know, deviation from
the standard mean. And that's a statistical thing but
At the end of the day, when we come to church,
it should be a church for all nations,
a house of prayer for all nations.
And we don't want to be discriminatory against any group of people.
We love all people, red, yellow, black, and white.
They're all precious in His sight.
And we don't want to be guilty of oppressing certain people
or discriminating against certain people
or not allowing people to participate in the things of God the same way.
And I think our church does a pretty good job in that area.
But there are going to be places
where they are taking advantage of these individuals.
One thing I've I've seen and especially in bigger churches is they have these financial gurus coming through and they're always trying to sell them
Mutual funds and they pray on widows
They pray on the ignorant
I also know that they'll come through and they'll do reverse mortgages and other kinds of
Financial scams that take advantage of the elderly and an impoverished people and you know what the house of God should be a place
Where we're taking care of our parents
We honor our father and our mother and we take care of them.
Do not let your parents be taken advantage of by some reverse mortgage scam artist,
by some mutual fund scam artist or something like that.
You help them, you take care of them, you find out the information.
Do not let them be ripped off by these scam artists that cycle through churches.
Here's another thing that he's saying in this particular passage is shedding innocent blood and walking after other gods now
Hopefully our church is not doing this
But I think that some churches, you know if you look at abortion correctly it is shedding innocent blood
And here's another thing though
How many churches just have an unconditional support of a nation called Israel?
And Israel is just endlessly bombing Gaza and all kinds of different areas
and just shedding innocent blood for no reason.
And these churches are literally funding all kinds of events and things going on in the Middle East,
wanting to put these type of people in positions of power and authority in our country.
And think about it, if Christianity in America, if evangelicalism in America actually believed replacement theology,
And actually believed this, what the Bible really says about Zionism,
would we really have the presidential cabinet that we have?
Would we really have the Supreme Court that we actually have?
And is it interesting that we have all these people going to a church,
going to the house of the Lord to worship God?
And they're trusting and lying words.
about four nations and all kinds of things and then our nation is just
filled with people that are just supporting
the destruction of innocent blood all over this nation. And of course these
same people
are responsible for bringing in feminism,
bringing in abortion, bringing in all kinds of these other ungodly things
whereas if Christians were actually Christian in America
it would look completely different.
And people get mad at our church, but let me tell you something.
I'm not going to be a willing participant in all the innocent blood that's being shed in this world.
And, oh, you're anti-Semitic.
Well, if not wanting babies to be killed is anti-Semitic, then please, I want to be anti-Semitic.
Right? I mean, like, do you even listen to what you just said?
It's weird how our country and our nation is just trusting in lying words, and you know what? God gets mad.
God gets really furious. You kind of wonder like why would God destroy
end times Babylon?
Well, the end times Babylon countries really wicked and it's it's it's guilty of the destruction of tons and tons of people and
Just because you don't realize it doesn't mean you didn't participate
Just because you're David and you're hiding in your little castle while Uriah is being destroyed by the enemy on the front lines
Doesn't mean you aren't guilty for his bloodshed
And so just because Americans are sitting in their houses and their temple, their huge temple,
them giving money to these wicked organizations and voting for these type of people and supporting all these kinds of people,
you know what? It's the same thing. From God's perspective, we should not be participating in those events.
Walking after other gods through their own hurt.
You know one application and there's so many applications, but one application
I think this whole chapter that you have to really think about because because I always think about this
I'm like we're not like worshiping other gods. We don't have idols. We're not doing this and then I'm always like
Oh, yeah, what about the Catholic Church?
The Catholic Church literally has idols. It's literally worshiping
Graven images and statues of things that are not God
Let me explain something. That crucifix is not Jesus Christ.
And if you look at any picture of Jesus
as a Catholic, he has long hair. Jesus didn't have long hair, buddy.
Their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible.
All of their paintings, their little picture of
the Lord's Supper, or essentially all the disciples
gathered around a table. Let me tell you something. That was drawn by a faggot.
that is not what the disciples look like. They're worshiping the little Mary
statue. That is not even Mary and the Mary that they worship is like the
mother of God in a completely different sense than what the Bible teaches.
They teach that she's somehow divine.
They teach that she ascended to heaven.
They teach that she's never sinned.
Well the only person that's never sinned is God.
So if you're going to teach that Mary didn't sin, now you're basically teaching that she's
somehow God in a sense.
Which is extremely wicked, evil, satanic, and they're worshiping false gods.
Under the guise of Christianity.
And they were setting up colonies, certain colonies like Georgia explicitly banned Catholics from even practicing their religion in the state.
They said everybody has religious freedom except for papists.
Let me explain that, Catholics.
I mean they said you can practice any religion except for being a Catholic.
think that people forget like what our nation was even built on our nation was
not built on Catholicism yeah there was Mary land I wonder what that was about
But we, as a whole, we're Protestant Christianity, evangelical Christianity.
It's pretty much a lot of Baptist heritage, and that's what built this great nation.
That's why God blessed it so much, and now we've just allowed them to take over.
We look at our Supreme Court, we look at our government, it's filled with Catholics and Jews.
This is not Christianity anymore.
It's a different kind of Christianity.
And why would God be mad at America?
Well, we're allowing people to take over and we're trusting in lying words.
We're letting all kinds of abominations happen.
And if we didn't do it, look at verse 7,
then will I cause you to dwell in this place in the land that I gave your fathers forever and ever?
If we didn't do this stuff, we could live here forever.
America would just live on forever and ever.
If we weren't allowing people to just worship false gods and shedding innocent blood
and constantly listening to lies, and we actually executed some judgment.
and actually said, hey, you know what, the Catholic's not saved.
Sorry, how many Christians today think Catholics are saved?
But you're trusting in lying words because they're not saved.
They don't believe the Gospel.
Verse 8, behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.
I mean, how many times do you need to say,
like you just believe stupid things, you believe lies.
Verse 9, will you steal, murder, and commit adultery,
and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal,
and walk after other gods whom you know not?
and come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say
we are delivered to do all these abominations.
They think that they can do this stuff and that there's no consequence.
You know, what an example of the
indulgences that the Catholic Church literally sold.
Where you could go and commit one of these sins listed
and just pay money to the church and somehow you're absolved of that sin.
Christianity does not teach that you can shed innocent blood and then pay money to have that absolved.
That is not Christianity. That is paganism. That is Catholic indulgences.
If anybody's preaching that, they're preaching satanic lies.
If they think you can pay money to absolve the sin of murder or any sin, there is no sin where God is like,
A hundred bucks, a thousand bucks.
That's the bribery system in American justice, where you pay the judge off, or you pay money,
and these type of rituals.
But you know what?
That is not Christianity whatsoever.
God does not accept ransoms like that.
God does not accept bribes and payments like that.
People that are teaching this are under satanic influence.
It is not Christianity, and they think that they're somehow delivered.
People think, oh, I can commit abortion and whatever and God doesn't care.
I can murder, I can take things, steal, rip people off, take advantage of the poor and the needy.
I can swear false, I can just lie as much as I want.
And again, burn incense in the bell.
I mean, how many Catholics are just have a literal shrine to marry?
I can go to, I can take you to neighborhoods where in the front yard, in the front yard they just have this giant
orifice of just like Mary and all these candles
and their lighting stuff.
And then now we're trying to import Hinduism
into our country and all kinds of other weird religions.
And you know, this is what's crazy.
You think like, well, that's not Christianity.
But I've been around people who are Hindu
and they'll go to the non-the-non church with you.
And they just think, they're like, oh, I like Jesus
because he's just one of the other 50 trillion gods
in their mind. They worship every God. They worship everything.
So they are gonna come and worship God with you. Why would I want to go to church
where I'm sitting next to a Hindu that worships literal
rocks and statutes as God, that pours milk on their head?
And God's them, I'll please that. But let me tell you, you go,
you go with me to Gateway, you go with me
to Kenneth Copeland Church, you go with me to one of these big non-nomen churches,
There will be Catholics in that church service there will be atheists
There'll be everything you could think of and you're gonna all worship God together and truth and spirit and truth
It's a joke. It's a lie. God is not pleased with that
God wants you to come out from among them and be separate say it the Lord
Sounds like a count. Well, it sounds like we actually care what the Bible says. That's what it sounds like
Yeah, I'm not interested in joining hands with the world and singing kumbaya and singing
Oh God is an awesome God he reigns with no real doctrine.
What religion can't sing that song?
Jews could sing that song.
The Jews that crucified Jesus on the cross could sing that song while they're crucifying
him.
Oh, it's such a great song.
But you know what? I don't want to just go and sing just generic, random songs to a random God
while we have all these random people with random beliefs and random Bibles and random sins
and we have no idea what's going on.
We don't even know what the gender of the guy is sitting next to us.
And he's the one that wrote the song that we're singing to.
Because if you've ever gone to one of these churches,
you look at the musicians and the people
that are writing the music,
and none of them seem straight.
Look, can we make music ministers manly again?
Can we make people that play like the guitar
and drums and stuff like normal?
Why do they always have to look like a grungy,
weird, effeminate faggot?
I mean, even the old IFB struggles with this problem.
I'm sorry, but you go to a lot of old IFB churches
and the music minister seems a little sweet.
He seems a little light in the loafers.
He's got that sweet spirit you've been looking for.
And it's like, why can't we have manly guys
leading the music?
I'm sure the men of God in the Bible,
he man, the singers, you know,
These guys these guys know how to play ASAP. I'm sure they're pretty good. They're not like these weak puny guys
We need to you know make Christianity separate again. It needs to be different
God gets mad. Oh, well, we have the temple of the Lord. Who cares? Are you doing all this stuff?
Hey, we're delivered to all these abominations. God's not mad at you
That's what I think of Joyce Meyer. God's not mad at you. No, God is mad at you for committing abortion
God is mad at you for worshiping false gods.
God is mad at you for having the message in your hand.
God does not please with those things.
Says in verse 11,
is this house, which is called by my name,
become a den of robbers in your eyes?
Behold, even I have seen it say of the Lord.
But go ye now into my place, which was in Shiloh,
where I set my name at the first
and see what I did to it
for the wickedness of my people, Israel.
He's saying, oh, you guys think you're good?
How about Shiloh?
What's happened to it now?
Gone, destroyed, become just a nothing.
God will destroy places even that are great,
even built into His name
when they are not gonna follow His commandments.
Verse 13, and now, because you have done
all these works, say the Lord,
and I speak unto you, rising up early and speaking,
but you heard not, and I called you, but you answered not.
Therefore will I do unto this house,
which is called by my name.
wearing you trust, and under the place which I gave you and your fathers as I have done to Shiloh.
Saying, hey, even though this is my house with my name and you're my people,
I will destroy you like I destroyed Shiloh.
I mean, think about this. We live in America. We don't live in Israel. We have a church.
We don't have the temple of the Lord. If God destroyed Israel and the temple of the Lord,
church in America. We ought not think that we are exempt from God's judgment or
God's wrath when he literally did it to his own house, did it to his own land.
Verse 15, And I will cast you out of my sight as I have cast out all your
brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. Therefore pray not thou for this people.
Neither lift up, cry, nor prayer for them. Neither make intercession to me, for I
will not hear thee. That's crazy.
Think like it's not good when God is saying don't pray for these people
God is saying I mean think about this people say like God just loves the Jews no matter what and just loves Israel
No matter what and then you read the Bible and God saying don't pray for them at all
And it you know
There's this argument of like who's really the nation of Israel?
Who's really the children of Abraham and all this kind of stuff nowadays, but back then there's not a question mark here
This is just absolute certainty, God is saying the literal seat of Abraham, the literal nation of Israel, don't pray for them, I will not hear you.
Why? Because God is not a racist. God is not a respecter of persons.
It's not about genetics. It's not about your heritage.
God wants you to serve God out of your own heart.
Let me tell you something children. Your parents being a Baptist does not exempt you
and automatically give you favor with God. You have to choose to be a Baptist yourself.
Be Baptist born, Baptist bred, and Baptist dead.
Now, you didn't choose the Baptist born and bred, but you get to choose if you'll be Baptist dead.
And every child needs to decide for themselves to serve God, to have their own walk with God, to actually read the Bible.
You being drugged to church against your will does not make you right with God.
You should actually desire to come to church yourself. You should have your own walk with God.
You should read the Bible yourself.
He says in verse number 17,
see as thou not what they do in the cities of Judah
and the streets of Jerusalem.
Children gather wood and the fathers kindle the fire,
and the women need their dough to make cakes
to the queen of heaven,
and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods
that they may provoke me to anger.
So these people are claiming that they worshiping God,
but then they're literally performing all these rituals
for the queen of heaven.
How is this not Catholicism?
Where they go to church, they're supposedly worshiping Jesus, they're supposedly worshiping
the God of the Bible.
But then how much time and effort are they spending on that, versus how much time they're
spending on Mary specifically?
And idols of Mary, and food for Mary, and events for Mary, and you know, all these hail
He says, verse 19, do they provoke me to anger?
Sayeth the Lord.
Do they not provoke themselves to confusion of their own faces?
He's saying they just look like idiots.
Verse 20, therefore thus sayeth the Lord God,
behold my anger, my fury shall be poured out upon this place,
upon man and upon beast,
and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of their ground,
and it shall burn and shall not be quenched.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
put your burnt offerings under your sacrifices and eat flesh.
For I spake not unto your fathers,
nor commanded them in the day,
that I brought them out of the land of Egypt
concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.
But this thing commanded I them,
saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God,
and ye shall be my people,
and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you,
and that it may be well unto you.
So,
I'm making this application of Catholics, but there's so many other applications.
But if we stick with that theme for a second, notice he's saying,
if you just did what's right, if you just did what I said, then I would be your God.
And this is what's frustrating. I love Catholic people.
God loves Catholic people.
And if they would just repent from dead works and trust in the living God,
if they actually would put their faith in the gospel that they know so well, God would be their God.
But because they're worshiping the Queen of Heaven in their mind,
because they're thinking they're delivered to do all these abominations,
because they think they can just go confess their sins to the priests and be absolved of all their sins,
because they're not actually worshiping the God of the Bible and truth,
you know what, God is mad at them and God is going to pour his fury out on them,
and we as God's people need to execute judgment between our neighbor and tell the Catholic,
Tell the Catholic, you need to become a Baptist.
Nothing makes me more upset when I go soul-winning
and someone knocks on the door and they say,
I go to St. John's or whatever,
and their soul-winning says,
we want to take you from a good church.
Just like, why did you say that?
What do you mean?
Yes, I do want to take you from that church.
Yes, I don't want you to ever go back ever again.
Stay away from the pagan idolatry. Stay away from the satanic witchcraft.
Stay away from those evil people. And look,
not all Catholics are evil, but look, their doctrine and their priests and their
teachers are evil and satanic.
And some of their adherents are too.
But many of those people are sucked into this, they're trusting and lying words, they're
being destroyed, and you know it extends beyond Catholicism, it goes to the Nothinom churches
and all the Catholic-like churches and the Presbyterians, and many of God's people today,
they're going to church and they're just trusting and lying words.
And what is the consequence, verse 24, but they hearken not, nor incline their ear, but
walk them to the councils and the imaginations of their evil heart and went backward and
God looks at them and says man you guys aren't going forward you're going backward if you look at America as a nation if you look at as a whole
From a religious perspective. We have not been going forward
We've been going backward
We are trying to get rid of Catholicism now. We're bringing more Catholicism
We're trying to get rid of other religions.
Now we're bringing in more religions.
We're trying to get rid of all the heresies
and the false prophets.
Now we're bringing even more heretics.
There's more bad churches than ever before in our nation.
More division.
We're not going forward on the Bible issue.
We're going backwards.
Instead of taking the Texas Receptice
and making even more foreign translations out of it,
we made 50 bad English versions.
We didn't go forward on the Bible issue and getting the Bible in people's hands. We went backwards as
A nation as a whole when it comes to doctrine
The doctrine of Baptist has as a whole has not been going forward. It's going backwards
So many Baptist are taking Baptist off of the sign
If you go back 50 70 years to a Baptist church, it was just they all use the King James Bible
Everybody's King James
You go back that far, in fact, and I'm not saying this is all right,
but if you actually went to a Baptist church, no dancing,
no drinking, you know, they look down on even smoking,
they look down on living a worldly sinful life,
they were conservative, they dressed nice, they went soul-winning.
I mean, they were a lot more conservative as a whole.
We as a society have not been going forward, we've been going backwards.
You look at how people dressed, they showed up at the baseball game in a suit and tie.
You show me the how people dressed in the 1950s, you know
We always like to think that we're always moving forward or we're like getting better as a society
Every time I look at a picture in the past everyone's dressed nicer than society today
Everyone you know this is this just makes me mad. This is a whole sermon in itself. I'll maybe preach it at some point
You know I watch these Christmas plays and
It's like everybody in the Christmas place is wearing like a glorified garbage sack
You know what I'm talking about?
It's like they took this brown trash bag, cut a hole in it,
and just put it on someone's head,
and everybody's just walking around in this weird garbage bag.
And I'm thinking like, why?
Why do you think that?
If you actually study the Bible, people
had better fashion than we do.
And if you look at any picture, look at the 1950s,
everybody's walking around in a suit and tie.
Let's go back to the 1670s, they're dressing really fancy.
Now of course there's always been peasants,
there's always been slave class,
there's always been people that are impoverished in general.
And I'm not trying to necessarily say
that everybody's dressed super nice,
but generally speaking fashion has been on a decline.
Everett is just wearing sweatpants and like a t-shirt
or all kinds of just weird garb, weird outfits.
They don't actually respect themselves. As a society
we have not been going forward backwards. They're in the 60's and 70's
they're singing songs about the itty-bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini.
You know why? Because it used to be inappropriate,
inappropriate for a woman to wear a bikini out in public.
Now you go in public. That's what people are wearing in the mall
That's what people are wearing just up and down the streets. You would get arrested
You would get arrested if you were wearing that
You would be fined if you were a woman wearing pants in the 60s and Houston you would be fined or arrested
Yeah, I just yeah, I don't like what you're saying. Yeah, because you're trusting and lying words
Because you want to go to a church where it's like, come as you are and act how as you are.
But you know, as a society, as a country, as a whole, we've been going backwards and not forwards.
And we need to do some judgment in the house of God, and you need to ask yourself, what direction have you been going?
It's the end of the year. Why don't you ask yourself this question?
What was I like at the beginning of this year?
Now go to Acts chapter seven, go to Acts chapter seven.
What were you like five years ago?
Were you doing more soul winning, less soul winning?
Were you going to church more?
Were you going to church less?
Were you reading your Bible more?
Were you reading your Bible less?
How about doctrine?
Did you know more or less a year ago?
And you would think like, no one would say less, but it happens, for sure.
I mean, there's been times where I've had 20, 30 chapters of the Bible memorized.
I could quote for you right now, and then I lose it, because, you know, if you don't
exercise it, if you don't use it, you kind of lose it, in a sense.
You can go backwards in knowledge.
You can forget things.
You could have been sharper on certain things.
You could have been sharper on soul winning
because you were doing it actively.
You could have been soul winning in a foreign language
and now you're not doing it and you're losing it.
You could have been really good at an instrument
and now you're not playing it and you've gone backwards.
You could have been really athletic
and in really good shape and able to run and lift
and do pushups and now you're going backwards.
You could have been in shape, now you're going backwards.
There's a lot of ways that we can go back where were you a year ago and look don't think about anybody else
Don't be thinking about your spouse or your children or me
Think about you. Where were you?
Are you going in the right direction and in every era of your life?
Or the children of Israel like in the wilderness look at Acts chapter 7 verse 39
says to whom our fathers would not obey talking about the children of Israel and the wilderness but thrust him from them
Talking about God and in their hearts turned back again in Egypt
There's this consistent theme of the Bible where people are going back. It's called backsliding
Backsliding turning back in their hearts constantly wanting to go back to Egypt
The Bible warns about people like this Demis have forsaken me having loved this present world
He loved it.
I bet you if we asked Demis, he said,
oh, my life's so much better since I left new IP.
Because he loved it.
But what if we took Demis and we said,
okay, but let's put you on the scale.
Did you go forward, Demis?
Or did you go backwards?
You came out of Egypt, but then did you keep going
towards the province?
Or did you turn back in your heart towards Egypt?
Were you like the children of Israel where hey, we're trying to worship God
But they actually didn't go forward in the worship of God. They went backward in the worship of God
And where are you at? Where are we at? You know, we want to make sure that we're headed in the right direction
And you know, I have more in fellowship
With someone that's walking in the same direction with me that may not be as close to me
There could be someone that's standing. I'm standing here and I'm trying to walk this way and someone's standing right next to me
But they're gonna go this way and then there's someone else back here, but they're walking this way
You know what? I have more in relation. I'm more interested in that guy walking with me this direction than the guy
That's really close to me, but walking this way
And we need to be careful which direction you're headed
Just because someone's in this room doesn't make them necessarily someone that you should be hanging out with
and being rubbing shoulders with because you have to ask them this question
which direction are you going because you know when I'm walking in this
direction
the guy behind me is not gonna do anything to me but the guy going this way
what if we're kind of yoke together he's trying to go this way
and I'm trying to go this way well someone's gonna win
whoever's stronger or it's just gonna break
and then we're just you know that relationship's gonna break but if I'm
weaker he could he could kind of take me back with him a little bit couldn't he
Or he could just keep me locked in.
I can't go forward because I'm locked in with this guy
and he's trying to go backwards
and I'm trying to go forward and we're just kind of locked.
What direction are you headed in?
Are you going back to Egypt and your hearts?
Verse 40, this is what they did.
Saying unto Aaron, make us gods to go before us.
For as for this Moses which brought us
out of the land of Egypt,
we will not, what has become of him.
This is what's funny.
In Jeremiah chapter 7 what we're reading, go back, just go back because I wanted you
to look at this verse with me again because this is important.
This is the attitude of everybody that's going backwards and this is, it always surprises
me but it shouldn't surprise me, okay?
Look what it says in verse number 24, but they hearken not nor inclined their ear but
Now, you'll read the story about the children of Israel and the wilderness.
They're always making these crazy things up.
They're like, God brought us out in the wilderness to kill us.
Were there not graves in Egypt?
That's insane!
God did not drag the children of Israel in the wilderness to kill them and die without
a grave.
Where did that come from?
Them just dreaming things up and making up weird accusations that are not in reality at all and you'll notice
People that are walking with us to serve God all the sudden they'll turn back and then they'll say these wild crazy things
Like oh, we're just out here. We're in the wilderness just to be killed
It's a cult
Oh, you know, everybody's cartel, everybody's prideful.
Just all kind of, just dreaming stuff up.
That has no basis in reality.
That's not true.
And you're just thinking like, where did that come from?
It came from their back slidin' heart.
Came from their evil heart.
It came from them getting hardened through the deceitfulness of sin
and they allowed their hearts to be hardened the day of provocation
and they turned back towards Egypt and they're gonna go backwards
and no one likes to walk back by themselves. So what they're gonna do
is they're gonna, as they walk by, they're gonna be like, hey, you wanna come with me?
Hey, you wanna come with me? And they're just gonna try and get everybody to come with them
and then they're gonna really spend as much time on that
Because they already know the guy's ahead of them, they can't catch up.
So they're just waiting.
And then they get there and they're like, there's no one else left.
So I better just hang on to some of these people in the back of the crowd.
The people that are young, inexperienced, immature, already kind of struggling to keep
up.
And they're going to try and latch onto those people and drag them down with them.
But you know what?
Don't go backwards, go forwards this year.
Look at where you're at.
What happened to Moses?
Everybody's always mad at Moses.
Have you noticed that?
Have you ever noticed all the people, the children of Israel that were bad?
They never like Moses.
They're never like, you know,
Moses is a pretty good guy.
I like Moses.
But I just want to go back to Egypt.
They don't say that they're like what happened to Moses Moses abandon us
Moses lifts himself up above the congregation
They're just always attacking Moses. No one that's backslidden likes Moses
So you should expect someone that's backslidden will not like the pastor
will not like the evangelist, will not like the soul-winning captains,
will not like the zealous Christians in the church.
They'll attack them and they'll say that they're prideful and they'll get mad at them
because they want to drag everyone else down with them.
They're over here looking at the guy up in front and saying like,
hey, don't keep following that guy, come back with me.
But you know what, we need to constantly go forward.
Follow Paul as he follows Christ, follow the men of God as they follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this is what I think is really interesting.
Think about church history for a second, and none of us are experts,
but just think about it from like a big picture.
Jesus Christ ascends into heaven.
His apostles go out and start a whole bunch of churches.
If we think about what happened here,
We have the Passover, we have the going through the the the Red Sea, and then they're in the wilderness.
Now what do the children of Israel do? As soon as Moses is gone, as soon as Moses goes up in the temple,
then they fashion a golden cap and they start worshiping idols.
And is it any coincidence that it's like as soon as Jesus goes back up in heaven and the apostles are gone,
that then you have spring out of nowhere the Catholic Church with all of their idolatry?
And it's just like this big repeat of it's like as soon as Moses is gone,
as soon as the leadership is gone, it's just like they immediately go into worshiping false gods and idolatry.
And then it's like as soon as Jesus goes up into heaven and the apostles are gone,
then we just have the Catholic church spring out of nowhere with just all their pagan idolatry
and all of their wicked practices, just like the children of Israel did.
Okay, it's crazy.
There's molten images. And they went backwards, not forward.
People often think like you know church always gets better, but that's not true
Church can go in any direction
Church can get better church can get worse
Christians can get better Christians can get worse movements can get better movements can get worse
I mean it's all up to us and what we're gonna do and we as a congregation have to decide
We want to move forward
We don't want to move backwards
You know no one's perfect
I mean, when we read this chapter in chapter 7,
he's not asking for like extreme perfection here, is he?
He's not saying like, make sure everything's always right.
You never sin.
He didn't even bring up fornication.
I mean, that's a big sin in the Bible.
I'm not even trying to downplay it.
I'm just saying, he didn't say,
you all have to never commit fornication
to stay in the land.
He's like saying these big things, like don't trust all the liars, don't kill people, don't worship false gods.
And I'm like, you know, as a church and as a movement and as a society, we don't have to necessarily be perfect,
but we need to make sure that we're going in the right direction and that we're getting better over time and that we're working on our sanctification.
You know, where are you at?
Here's a question you should ask yourself.
Have you gone back to some of your old sins and bad habits or
Have you have you been doing better?
then in the beginning of the year and
How about bad relationships?
Are you are you hanging out with people that you used to not you kind of like realizes a toxic person you stayed away?
And now you're going to go back to that toxic relationship that toxic person
How are you doing? What direction are you headed? And look a companion of fools shall be destroyed is what the Bible says
We need to evaluate and here's another thing you should realize if you think to yourself
You say you know what five years ago. I wasn't really in church. I wasn't really serving God
I didn't know much doctrine. I was getting nobody saved and
Since then now I'm going to church regularly
I'm having kids, I'm loving my wife, I'm getting people saved, I'm reading my Bible more.
Why in the world would you leave that?
Like if you've noticed, like I've had serious growth in the last five, six years, the last
two years, the last six months, why in the world would you go backwards?
And there's so many people that are going to go backwards.
So many people are not going to walk.
And, you know, it's so funny, they're always like,
there's all these other great churches
that they're going to go to.
And I'm always thinking like, look,
I've always said this and I'll always say this,
go to the best church in the area.
Why? Because you personally need to constantly be walking forward.
But then these people will leave and they'll admit that they're going to a church that's inferior or not good
And they're going to church less. They're not going soul-winning
They're not getting the sins out of life now. They're just bitter now
They're just full of railing and they're just like their little leader that they've been listening to online
Because there's leaders out there that'll try to get you out of a good church
They'll try to get you to stop going soul-winning as much and just be bitter, angry and just
constantly attacking things and just be a railer like them.
Don't go backward with that person.
Go forward.
Do more Bible reading next year.
There's the New Testament challenge.
Get it done sooner than you've ever done it before.
Go soul-winning more.
Go to church more in 2025 than you did in 2024.
Go to more events. If you've never been on a missions trip, try to figure out a way to go on a mission trip.
Even if it's not next year, just plan. Maybe it can be in 2026. Maybe it can be in 2027.
Just go on our, I mean, some of the, some of the soul winning events that we're gonna have are 20 minutes from the church.
There was, we had all the regional guys raise their hand. There's probably a region in your area
you could go soul winning in and preaching gospel. And you know, we can't take a lot of things with us.
In fact, pretty much nothing, but we can take the souls with us when we go to heaven.
I could work on so many things.
My car could be taken from me, my house, my job, my family, my wife, this church, my
brain, my health, my everything could be taken from me, but you know what can't be taken
from me is the people I got saved.
And sometimes you just have to ask yourself this question, what direction have I been
walking in?
or I've been walking forward.
And if you're walking forward,
please continue walking forward.
If you feel like you've gone a little backwards,
turn around with me and let's start walking forwards.
2025, there are so many opportunities.
There's so many victories we can have,
but we need to be walking forwards together.
And if someone in here is trying to walk backwards,
let them walk alone.
Tell them to come walk with you, but at the end of the day don't let people drag you down with them
Don't turn in your heart back to Egypt either
You stay serving God and let us not become like the children of Israel where God looks down as is there worse than their fathers
Let us let him find us pleasing in his sight and saying even if we're not close to where we need to be
We're at least just walking in the right direction
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for your instruction,
your guidance, thanks so much for the word of God
so that we can know which direction to head.
I pray that we would all evaluate ourselves,
that we'd all examine ourselves,
that we would think about where we're at, where we've been.
What direction have we been heading?
I pray that you would give us zeal
in our hearts and our minds
to start walking in the right direction
that you'd help us to work on the sins
that we struggle with.
They would help us to avoid the toxic and the bad relationships that exist.
I pray that you would help us to desire going soul-winning more.
I pray that you would help us to have a zeal for going to church and ministering to the saints.
I pray that you would bless all of our soul-winning endeavors next year, that you would bless
our mission's trips, that you would allow us to just get so many people saved and baptized
and give them a zeal to also preach the gospel and a zeal to read the Bible and a zeal for church.
And I pray that you would just help us all to stay away from the people that want to drag us down,
from the people that want to walk backwards.
And I pray if there's anybody that's walking backwards that you could just touch their heart,
convict them and cause them to turn back and start walking towards you,
that you would just give them that desire.
Just thank you for all you give us.
And I pray that we give all the honor and glory to your son in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, in closing, let's go to song number 370, song number 370, song number 370, throw out the lifeline.
Song number 370, and everybody sing it out in verse.
Throw out the lifeline across the dark waves.
There is a brother whom someone should save.
Somebody's brother, oh, who then will dare
Share.
Grow out the lifeline.
Someone is drifting.
You're Terry, why linger so long?
See, he is sinking, go Mason today.
Singing in English where you've never been
Winds of temptation
Let's go to song number 75 75 we'll sing it out together on Jordan Stormy Banks
Song number 75
Back in the noon, Sister Elisa is coming for baptism.
Have you trusted Christ as your Savior?
Have you trusted Christ as your Savior? Yes.
Did I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?
Buried in the likeness of his death.
Raise the walk in newness of life.
Make sure to congratulate our baptism and you guys are dismissed