morning everyone and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church thank you all
for coming we're gonna go ahead and get our service started if you could go
ahead and find a seat once you found a seat go ahead and grab a hymnal we're
gonna start in song number 68 this morning remembering in heaven it's a
little bit of a newer one for our church so if you know it sing it out nice and
loud song number 68 68 remembering in heaven father we thank you for this
church we thank you for everyone that's gathered here today ask that you fill
pastor Shelley with his with your Holy Spirit so that he can preach an
edifying sermon unto us we can walk out better Christians than we came in and
we can honor and glorify you and everything that we do it's in Jesus name
we pray amen all right next up we have song number 335 if Jesus goes with me
song 335 Jesus goes with me song number 335 on the first morning thank you so
much for coming to steadfast Baptist Church if you didn't already get a
bulletin you would like one you can lift up your hand real quick
can come by and get you guys a bulletin and we are on Jonah chapter 2 verse 10
is our grace week and so if you can quote the entire book I'm sorry the
chapter of Jonah 2 you can receive a special prize and we'll try to get those
doled out next week and then also if you can quote those this verse again week
service our children can get an ice cream treat inside we have our service
times our soul winning times and our church stats yesterday we had a soul
winner marathon in Miami Florida we were actually doing it on Friday too so we
had a part we had a half day Friday we did like an afternoon time with some
people and then Saturday morning and then Saturday afternoon we weren't
actually in Miami proper we were more kind of doing the Fort Lauderdale area
Friday we've done some in West Palm and we had about on Sun on Saturday we had
about 30 people come out for soul winning and then we had 48 salvations
for Friday and Saturday and so thank you so much to everybody who prayed great
work that was done over there generally speaking you know I don't know that I
could say that it's honestly any more receptive than another big city in fact
I kind of think that the DFW area is probably actually more receptive but it
was kind of a small sample size so you never know it's definitely from my
experience and you could ask other people that are on the trip there's a
lot of diversity in Miami specifically there was people from Haiti all kinds of
Haitians and I met I talked to a Brazilian obviously people from a lot of
Caribbean areas and and then you kind of have people all over I met a German and
so I think it's just kind of a hub of just like anything and everything that's
down there the beaches are beautiful so I have to admit that the the weather was
amazing and the beaches are beautiful they told me that November is kind of
like the prime time to go to that part of the country and so they said the
summer though is very hot and very humid but I had really enjoyed it was really
beautiful and it was it was fun to be out there but you know for me personally
it wasn't as receptive it could be because I'm white I don't know I don't
think I had the white privilege or something over there but I gave the
gospel about six times and I only got one person saved personally so that's
not as typical for me but maybe next time we go out there you know we can
maybe find some different spots too but it was a lot of fun and we really had a
good time as well and so if you're ever in that part of the country you know I
highly encourage you to go check out the beaches and of course there's some good
so wanting opportunities still as well but that was just a little testimony
make sure to ask some of the other guys that went with us on our trip what they
what their experiences were as well on the right we have a list of expecting
ladies and then we also have our prayer list down below and on the back we have
a couple notes some good things though one good thing is we actually met some
people again that we had been friends with from Jacksonville Church and it was
great to see them again I got to meet some new people out there that were
soul-winning and it's good to know that there's still a few names you know out
there that have not defiled their garments and are still doing the soul
winning and we gave them a ton of our material so we're gonna have them help
you know pass out all that material sodomite deception tickets and preserved
Bible tickets and some of our Spanish New Testaments and all that kind of
stuff and so hopefully they'll stay encouraged out there and keep preaching
the gospel because I think Miami is like six million people like that metro area
like it's a very large area and so definitely you know a lot of work would
need to be done over there on the back we have a note about a turkey bowl this
is gonna be help hosted by Brother Marcel he's he's helped leading this it's
gonna be on the seventh from one to three and we're kind of doing like a
kids younger game first and then we're gonna have like a teen and adult game
later so of course everyone's welcome to just come out and hang out but we are
gonna be playing some football all right so I'm excited also ladies
Christmas party there should be a sign-up sheet that we have out here in
the hallway if you could please sign up for that the details are listed down
here below it's from 6 to 9 dinner is gonna be catered and provided plus they
they've historically always had like a little gift exchange if you want to know
anything about this or if you have any questions you can ask my wife about it
also it's nurselings only and that that announcement is for you guys okay so
please please if you can help you know watch the kids one night you know you
got the one night I always say you can throw peanuts at them okay just put them
to bed early I don't know you just do something play football you have a lot
of options here but just try to help help them so that all the ladies can
participate and be a part of this this fun night and we do have an RSVP to just
help us to make sure that we order enough food for everybody but if you'd
like to attend and of course if you any ladies you want to bring you know your
sister your mom or anybody especially since the holiday season of course
you're welcome to invite them to participate in the event as well just
make sure to sign up and have them included also down below other other
events November 24 so that's next week we're gonna have the ordination service
for brother Oz who's gonna be starting anchor Baptist Church and so very
excited for them and a great work that they're gonna be doing up there and you
know brother Oz has been a great blessing to our church he's he's been
very loyal to us through a lot of persecution and a lot of affliction he
showed himself to be very steadfast and so even though he may change his name
we're gonna still understand that he's steadfast all right he's gonna be
steadfast in his heart and his mind and then hopefully in their works up there
preaching the gospel and Oklahoma is a great place to live and then preach the
gospel and everything like that and so we're looking forward to what the Lord
will do up there and bless their church please just pray for us even if you're
not able to attend I think a lot of people are planning on sending who's a
planning on attending tomorrow or next Sunday so I have some idea okay yeah so
we're gonna have a lot of people don't think that like the preacher rapture
happened and you got left behind next Sunday or something like that if you
don't end up going up there so that would always be a joke in my family
whenever some somebody was missing we were like did we did we miss the rapture
or something but sorry that's for pre-tribbers sorry we're post-trib so
you're like it's post-trib you could still get left behind okay just means
you're not saved all right December 7th is the turkey bowl and then December 9th
is the Christmas caroling that'll be fun we'll meet here I don't know that we'll
meet at the building or not we might actually just meet on location I think
last year we just met on location so we'll update you on that December 25th
Christmas cookie bake-off and that's a lot of fun when we get closer I'll give
the announcements for that January 1st is men's preaching night so a lot of a
lot of fun activities for the end of the season people have been asking me
though even though I gave you see one like five or six different events
people are still asking me what's gonna happen after this I don't know okay so
but I do have some some plans and some things that we're working on we just
don't have dates and things like that but whenever I know you'll know alright
so that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements go ahead and sing our
third song 150 Psalm 150 we're gonna sing it out nice and loud it helps if
you use your handouts and it's got a little extra coda there but you can of
course use your Bible
of the trumpet raise him with the psaltery raise him with the timbrel and dance
raise him with stringed instruments and raise him upon the sim raise him on
sounding sims let everything that have breath raise the lord
praise ye the praise god the power god raise god pray god
singing everybody the offering plates are going around would you please turn
your bibles to Isaiah chapter number seven
Isaiah chapter number seven Isaiah chapter seven the Bible says
and it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham
the son of Uzziah king of Judah that resin the king of Syria
and Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel went up toward Jerusalem to war
against it but could not prevail against it
and it was told the house of David saying Syria is confederate with Ephraim
and his heart was moved and the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are
moved with the wind then said the lord unto Isaiah
go forth now to Ahaz thou and Shirjash of thy son
at the end of the conduit of the upper pool and the highway of the fuller's
field and say unto him take heed and be quiet
fear not neither be faint-hearted for the two tails of these smoking fire
brands for the fierce anger of resin with Syria
and of the son of remaliah because syria Ephraim and the son of remaliah have
taken evil counsel against thee saying let us go up against judah
and vex it and let us make a breach therein for us and set a
king in the midst of it even the son of tabael
thus saith the lord god it shall not stand
neither shall it come to pass for the head of syria's damascus
and the head of damascus's resin and within three score and five years shall
ephraim be broken that it be not a people and the head of
ephraim is samaria and the head of samaria is rimaliah's son
if you will not believe surely ye shall not be established
moreover the lord spake again unto ahaz saying ask thee a sign of the lord thy
god ask it either in the depth or in the
height above but ahaz said i will not ask neither
will i tempt the lord and he said hear ye now oh house of david is
it a small thing for you to weary men but will ye weary my god also
therefore the lord himself shall give you a sign
behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son
and shall call his name emmanuel butter and honey shall he eat
that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good
for before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good
the land that thou abhorres shall be forsaken of both her kings
the lord shall bring upon thee and upon thy people and upon thy father's house
days that have not come from the from the day that ephraim departed from juda
even the king of assyria and it shall come to pass in that day that the lord
shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of egypt
and for the bee that is in the land of assyria and they shall come and shall
rest all of them in the desolate valleys and in the holes of the rocks and upon
all thorns and upon all bushes in the same day shall the lord shave
with a razor that is hired namely by them beyond the river
by the king of assyria the head and the hair of the feet
and it shall also consume the beard and it shall come to pass in that day that a
man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep and it shall come to
pass for the abundance of milk that they shall give
he shall eat butter for butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the
land and it shall come to pass in that day
that every place shall be where there were a thousand vines and a thousand
silverlings it shall be even for briars and thorns
with arrows and with bows shall men come thither because all the land shall
become briars and thorns and on all hills that shall be digged
with the matic there shall not come hither
the fear of briars and thorns but it shall be for the sending forth of
oxen and for the treading of lesser cattle
let us pray dear heavenly father thank you for the word of god
i thank you for this day i thank you for the souls that were won
this weekend i pray that you would please bless pastor shelly and help him
to preach the word in boldness and please give us
attention in jesus name amen amen isaiah chapter seven is uh
identifying a particular uh geopolitical situation
when it is addressing kind of the southern kingdom of juda
and how they have this foe that's kind of confederate with another foe
and how it's a danger unto juda specifically
now it says in verse two and it was told the house of david saying syria
is confederate with ephraim and his heart was moved
and the heart of his people as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind
then said the lord unto isaiah go forth now to meet
ahaz thou and jashua thy son at the end of the conduit of the upper pool
in the highway of the fullers field and saying them take heed and be quiet
fear not neither be faint-hearted for the two
tales of these smoking fire brands for the fierce anger of reason
with syria and the son of remaliah now you kind of have these confederacies
where you have syria and ephraim ephraim is often just kind of
a you've missed you've missed euphemistic way
of identifying the northern kingdom of israel just because ephraim is such a
large geographic section of the northern kingdom of israel
and it's very populated so it's just kind of like
loosely identified as ephraim even though we're talking about the northern
kingdom of israel just because they're the most
predominant tribe just like we know it as the southern kingdom of juda
but you know benjamin lives there so it's not just juda it's just that juda
is the main character so that's who we think of and associate with
and then additionally in the same vein ephraim is just kind of also identified
as the northern kingdom of israel they're confederate with syria now
that's also kind of coming from the heels of the
assyrian kingdom they came down so you kind of have
like these two giant forces these two giant kingdoms that are
confederate and they're saying we're going to come and attack juda
and specifically it even says verse five because syria ephraim and the son
of ramali have taken evil counsel against these saying
let us go up against juda and vex it and let us make a breach therein for us
and set a king in the midst of it even the son of tabael
so this they're not only saying we're going to destroy you they've already
picked out their next leader they already know what
they're going to do their plan and they're trying to scare and
intimidate juda and trying to put them in this great
straight of just being nervous maybe just surrendering automatically
many times in warfare there's a first a psychological element
where they try to intimidate their opponent they try to get their opponent
to just quit or surrender without them even
happening to fight and so they're trying to get juda just
give up just feel weak and even if they're not going to
actually want them to surrender they just want them to be psychologically
defeated already so that when they go to battle
they're going to be very victorious because when the enemy is psyched out
when the enemy is already mentally defeated when the
when the enemy walks into the ring and they look like an old man that can't
even move well it just doesn't seem like a fair
fight at that point and yes mike tyson fight was fake okay
sorry sorry to burst your bubble or whatever but he didn't even look like he
wanted to fight okay and here's the thing that's what
they want they want to intimidate their opponent they want to scare their
opponent they want them to be afraid and isaiah is getting a word from the
lord saying don't be afraid you will be delivered and in fact
specifically the whole passage is basically saying
pretty soon these two guys are going to be nothing anyways they're going to be
destroyed you don't even have to worry about it
and he kind of tells them like hey why don't you ask me a sign
and they're like i don't know i can't ask for a sign and then
god kind of makes this interesting thing in verse 13 he says and he said here are
you now oh house of david is it a small thing for
you to weary men but will you weary my god also he's like man
you ask people for stuff all the time and you're wearying like your boss and
you're wearying all kinds of different people
and you weary all these individuals saying asking for stuff
constantly needing things and he's like are you really going to weary me by
asking me for something but he's like he's like hey give ask
me a sign and then god says hey i'll give you a sign verse 14
therefore the lord himself shall give you a sign behold
a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name
emmanuel butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse the evil
and choose the good so god says you know what
even if you don't even ask for a sign i'm going to give it to you anyways
here's your sign a virgin's going to conceive and bear a son his name is going
to be called immanuel now in chapter eight look at verse one
moreover the lord said to me take thee a great role and write it in the man with
a man's pen concerning mayer sheila hashbaz and i
took under me faithful witnesses to record
heriah the priest and zechariah the son of jeberkiah
and i went unto the prophetess and she conceived and bear a son
then said the lord to me call his name mayer sheila hashbaz
okay i'm just going to give you my interpretation of what's going on
in this in this period of time i believe what it's trying to say is like isaiah
must have either had a fiance or maybe a wife
that just somehow hadn't consummated and so she's a virgin
but then he knows his wife he knows the prophetess
and then she conceives and bears a son but what's interesting is the way that
god words this it's true it's not that it's not true
but then it can be a euphemism or a metaphor
or a foreshadowing of what's going to come with the lord Jesus Christ
and how in this sense this wasn't necessarily a miracle
this was not a virgin conception but that there will
literally be a virgin conception in the future with Mary
who she has the holy ghost come upon her and then she bears a son and his name is
Jesus and so we have this future prophecy of
the lord Jesus Christ so in the moment he's saying no no
there's a virgin that's going to conceive and she's going to be her son
that's most likely again in my opinion Isaiah
having this child may may or shallow hash baths
and this is a foreshadowing in a picture of
the lord Jesus Christ now why is he giving him this child he's saying
well this child think about a timeline if you if you haven't even conceived yet
then we're saying at least nine months out from it being born
and that's why he's bringing these things up he's saying look you got at
least nine months then you got another timeline it says
in verse 15 butter and honey shall eat that he may know to refuse the evil and
choose the good verse 16 for before the child shall know
to refuse the evil and choose the good the land that thou abhorrest
shall be forsaken of both her kings so he said
you're gonna have nine months then you have this other timeline where the child
hasn't really figured out you know this this idea of eating good and refusing
evil and before all that happens these two
guys that are threatening you and intimidating you or whatever
they're going to already be destroyed and you don't even have to worry about it
now i can't give you an exact timeline of what that means
but i'm guessing it's probably you know it could be as young as like
one maybe two probably certainly well before three or four
okay that you're kind of getting this idea of what's being described here
in verse number 16 and really i wanted to kind of explain this from
a bigger picture first but then i want to kind of focus on
the details for a moment what is kind of the
the big picture god is saying hey you have these enemy forces coming to attack
you they want to destroy you but i'm going to
deliver you and i'm going to give you a sign what is that sign
a child and this child is going to be a sign of what
deliverance and why is that significant because it's the same
from a spiritual perspective of how we have an enemy
the devil who wants us to feel intimidated and that we're going to be
destroyed but you know what god gave us a sign
of deliverance and that was through the lord jesus christ and of course as we
enter into the christmas season we understand that the birth of jesus
christ is what gave hope into the world that the virgin conceived and she bear a
son and his name is jesus and its goodwill
towards men and this sign is a sign of the
deliverance that was to come this child being born was a sign of the
deliverance to come his birth did not give the deliverance
in this chapter it did not give the deliverance he was going to have to
still grow older but before he ended up understanding the
good and the evil then they would get the deliverance in
the same way the lord jesus christ when he was born
that did not give us the deliverance but it was the sign of the hope
that the deliverance would come and his deliverance came through the death
burial and resurrection of jesus christ and now salvation is by faith
not by works also think about this message this is a message of deliverance
given under the king of judah not of hey you need to work in order
to deliver yourself hey you need to worry about what you
have to do no you simply just have to trust in the lord
and trust in his sign and trust in this child
as the hope for your redemption for your salvation
in the same way that we trust in the holy child jesus christ
that we trust in the lord jesus christ for salvation we don't have to earn our
salvation we don't have to work for our salvation
we simply receive it by faith and it's the lord that fights for us
it's the lord that delivers us it's the lord that gets all the honor and the
glory for our salvation so there's so many great messages from
this particular passage but i want to then focus now on
verse 15 i gave you that just so you could kind of understand the
context we now understand the context now this is what stuck out of me i was
reading this chapter and this verse just really stuck out of me
but verse 15 says butter and honey shall eat and i just i don't know why
but it's really stuck out to me and so the title of my sermon this morning is
butter and honey all right so we're going to talk about
butter and honey now i kind of just spoiled you
with a little bit of butter and honey if you even know what butter and honey
really is because here's the thing where do you get butter from milk okay
what is milk spiritually speaking it's the word of god
it's the bible and now the bible says the simple
doctrines the easy to be understood doctrines those are milk
how do you get butter you have to churn the milk and we'll look at a few verses
on this because i want to prove these points in a minute but
you churn that milk into butter so it takes time it's meditate so here's the
thing when you meditate on the word of god
and when you allow that to churn you can turn
milk into butter and then not only do you get these just surface understandings
but then you see the prophecies of the lord jesus christ
then you get to see all these wonderful things that are also
the hidden wisdoms that are found in the bible and the bible is likened unto
honey it's likened unto milk it's likened unto
butter and when we think about the lord jesus christ himself
he also consumed butter and honey from a spiritual perspective
meaning he's consuming the word of god and then he's also delivering the word
of god unto us here's what's important anytime we want
to understand anything in the bible we have to understand that there's always
a carnal truth mixed in with the spiritual truth and that
god helps us to understand spiritual truths
through the realities of the world and through the realities of his creation
and that god created everything to give honor and glory to the lord jesus christ
and the physical realities that exist in this world
give glory and testimony to the truths of god's word
god does not use carnal examples that do not fit the spiritual example
and so that's why it's so important to understand the carnal truths of the
bible so that you can understand the revelations
and the spiritual wisdom that comes from the scripture and we must
understand both in order to get a lot of the deep and the
full meanings of the scripture and here's the thing this is not just
saying a spiritual truth this is a carnal truth
this child is going to literally eat butter and going to literally eat
honey and notice it says that he may know
to refuse the evil and choose the good let me explain something to you
butter is good honey is good you say like what are you trying to say
something like there's this metaphor are you trying to
say something spiritual pastor shelly no i'm saying literal butter is good
and i'm saying literal honey is good and there's an attack
on butter and honey all the time called margarine you know what i mean
it's all these all these substitutes all of these niv esv versions of butter
okay and i'm telling you there is not anything wrong with butter biblically
now i want to give a quick caveat for some people okay
there is some people that are lactose intolerant and there's even especially
if you understand like parts of of uh the world that are kind of in asia
some of them have some lactose intolerant things and maybe it could be
harmful for them to digest certain dairy products okay so i i want to give that
exception but just in general dairy products are good biblically
speaking dairy products are considered to be praised
and they're healthy and they're good for us to consume and most of us in
america you know what as part of our diet and it's it's a it's a good thing
there's nothing wrong with these substances
now i want to prove this with a lot of verses go to genesis chapter 18 go to
genesis chapter 18 i've given you a lot of truthful statements
but let's prove them a little bit further in the bible okay let's let the
bible tell us what these things are like and this is important because the child
is supposed to know to eat the good and refuse the evil what is the good
good is steak good is salt good is butter good is water good are the things
the bible says what would be evil what would be bad um batteries poison you
know animal feces all these different things i mean liquor drugs all this
different stuff but here's the thing you and i both know if you actually have
kids a little baby or a little toddler they don't know what is good and what is
evil they put every single thing in their mouth who can testify to this your
toddlers and babies will put literally anything into their mouth they will put
poison in their mouth because they have no idea what is good and what is evil
and here's the thing it takes time for them to figure out what's good and what's
evil it's like no no you eat butter you eat honey you eat milk you eat these
things. Now, of course, a little baby can't digest or handle every single substance immediately.
They can't have steak and they can't necessarily even have some of these animal products right
away. So I'm not trying to say give your six week old baby these type of foods. Of course,
we want to be reasonable and understand the nutritional aspects here. But what I'm saying
is they don't understand what's food and what's not food. They don't understand what's good
food and what's not good food. And that's something that we have to learn over time
as well. But generally speaking, food is good. And that's kind of the essence. Food is good.
Some things are not good though. And these children have no idea when they come out of
the womb. They don't just instantly know what's food, what's good, what's not, what's right.
They literally think everything's food. And they're literally trying to chew on and consume
everything. And this is an important carnal truth that we have to understand. We'll make
some spiritual applications here as we go through the sermon, but look at Genesis chapter
18 verse 8. The Bible says, "And he took butter," this is talking about Abraham, "and milk,
and the calf, which he had dressed, and set it before them. And he stood by them under
the tree, and they did eat." Now you know what this is? This is the Lord and the two
angels that appeared with him before they nuked Sodom and Gomorrah. So here's the thing.
Go home, have a nice steak dinner, and then watch Sodomite Deception. And then you can
be like Genesis 18 and 19. But notice, I mean, here's the thing. This is Jesus Christ appearing,
the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ appearing, and he obviously has flesh in some way. I
don't know. That's a miracle. I don't know how to explain that entirely, but he's obviously
eating. He's obviously consuming things. He's eating milk. He's eating butter specifically
and the calf. So yes, beef is consumed by the Lord. In fact, maybe you can correct me,
but I think this is the first mention of Jesus eating, and he's eating steak. Actually veal,
I guess, if you want to be technical or something like that, but he's eating the calf. He's
eating steak, butter, and milk. And you know what? A lot of people put butter on their
steak. If you go to a nice steak restaurant, they'll put some butter on there. And so Abraham's
giving him a nice delicacy. He's not eating some low humble meal. He's not eating some
just rice or beans. It's not Indian food. It's a steak with butter. Okay, folks? I'm
just, I'm just messing with people. I'm sure that they ruin steak by putting Indian spices
on it or something. No, I'm just kidding. I just like to make y'all feel uncomfortable.
So there you go. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 32, Deuteronomy chapter 32. You got to understand
that most people, like in general, especially across the world, we all pretty much have
the same ingredients to start with. We kind of all have the same resources. It's just
how you prepare it, what kind of techniques, what kind of spices, what kind of seasonings
and stuff like that. And of course, American seasonings and spices are always the best.
And so that's my personal opinion part of the sermon. I'll try to get more to the Bible.
But I'm just saying in general, we can't sit here and then say that the resources that
God has given us, the raw ingredients that God has given us, they're bad or something.
God basically is teaching us like throughout the scripture that the natural resources,
that the things that He's given us are good. The meat that He's given us is good and the
plants and the vegetables and the seasonings and the spices. Like all of this stuff is
good. And specifically, butter is good. Butter is good. Milk is good. And steak is good.
And let me tell you something. There is an attack on butter and milk and steak in this
world. It's usually coming from the Democratic Party, okay. And I'm just going to throw it
out there. Veganism and all kinds of stuff. And look, there's nothing wrong with not eating
this stuff. You don't have to eat milk. You don't have to drink milk. You don't have
to eat butter. You don't have to eat steak. There's nothing wrong. You're not wrong with
God because you don't eat these things. But you know what? It's wrong to condemn people
to eat these things or act like they're bad or something. Because biblically speaking,
they're the best. Biblically speaking, these are the cream of the crop, literally. Butter
is the cream of the crop, literally, when it comes to food. It's considered a delicacy.
It's considered a luxury. It's considered a blessing. But the thing is, there's nothing
wrong with consuming it. The Bible says in Deuteronomy, I had you turn, look at verse
9. We'll read a little bit here. Chapter 32 verse 9, "For the Lord's portion is His people.
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling
wilderness. He led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
As an eagle stirs up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings,
taketh them, bare them on her wings. So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no
strange God with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might
eat the increase of the fields. And he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil
out of the flinty rock, butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams
of the breed of bachon, and goats with the fat of kidneys of wheat, and thou didst drink
the pure blood of the grape. Now what is the Bible saying? God is saying, I delivered you,
I took you on my wings, I brought you here to do something specifically. What is it that
God wants the children of Israel to do? God wants the children of Israel to suck honey
out of the rock. God wants the children of Israel to have the oil out of the flinty rock.
God wants them to have the butter of kind. The word kind is a word for cattle. It's another
word for just cows in general, or that basic idea of classification of animal. Milk of
sheep, fat of lambs, rams of the breed of Bayshan, goats, the fat of kidneys of wheat,
and they'll just drink the pure blood of a grape. That is what we think of as juice.
And it is basically just saying that God wants people to be eating, you know, the steak and
the lamb and having milk and having butter and having juice and having breads and having
pancakes and having all basically all the stuff that's great. He's saying, I brought
here to do this. Where did God take the children of Israel to the land flowing with milk and
honey? Wouldn't it be weird if God says, hey, I've taken you to the land of milk and honey.
Don't eat any milk or honey. That's weird. God wants them to live in the land of milk
and honey. And this thing, when you follow God's commandments, when you put God as the
God of your nation, when you put God as the God of your state, when you put God as the
God of your home and of your business and of your activities, God wants to bless you.
And when you follow biblical principles, you know what, you will be blessed and the blessing
of God comes with these particular blessings.
And God wants you to have them and God wants you to enjoy them.
But what can happen is often when we get a lot of blessing, it can cause us to go down
the wrong path.
What does it say in verse 15?
"But Jeshuan wrecked fat and kicked, thou art waxed in fat, thou art grown thick, thou
art covered with fatness."
He's really hammering this point.
"Then he forsook God, which made him and lightly esteemed the rock of salvation."
So here's the thing, you can have too much of a good thing, but that doesn't mean the
thing's bad, it's just saying, hey, we want to have this with some self-control.
We want to have the blessing of God, but not forget God.
We want to do the right thing, but then we also need to balance ourselves with some level
of exercise or discipline.
So again, is there something wrong with butter?
No, but we shouldn't necessarily go beyond what God has given us and have too much of
a thing because that could ruin us.
I want to go to Proverbs for a moment and I want to look at a specific verse.
Let's look at a few verses here, let's go to Proverbs 24 to start.
So of course, there's nothing wrong with butter, there's nothing wrong with milk, there's nothing
wrong with steak, there's nothing wrong with all these different foods, but we also have
to balance them a little bit.
Now Proverbs chapter 24, I want to look at verse 13.
The Bible says, "My son, eat thou honey, because it is good."
What does the Bible say?
"Eat honey."
Did the Bible say, "Don't eat honey," or does it literally just say, "Eat honey?"
I mean, the Bible says, "Eat honey."
Why?
Because it is good.
"And the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste, so shall the knowledge of wisdom be
unto thy soul when thou hast found it.
Then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off."
Of course, there's two meanings.
Number one, eat honey because it's good.
And then what's the other aspect of honey?
The Word of God.
And when we eat the Word of God, it's sweet under our taste and additionally it gives us
wisdom and it gives us knowledge and it helps us in our lives.
And God is using this metaphor of the fact that honey is good in the same way that the
Word of God is good, and that we understand that.
So here's the thing.
To say honey isn't good is to say the Word of God isn't good.
To say milk isn't good is to say the Bible isn't good.
To say butter isn't good is to say the Bible isn't good.
These things are good, and we want to make sure that we realize how good they are.
But look at chapter 25 verse 16.
Here's another thing you have to understand, though.
Just because the Bible uses a metaphor or uses a picture or a carnal example does not
mean that that carnal example is locked in with that meaning in every context, okay?
Sometimes you have the same object being positive and negatively mentioned.
Like leaven.
Leaven is a picture of sin in some parts of the Bible.
A little leaven, leaven at the whole lump in 1 Corinthians chapter number 5 is talking
about a little bit of sin could corrupt the whole church.
But then the Bible also uses leaven in a picture of how the gospel going out in a small little
picture could spread the gospel all over the world.
Because leaven is just a carnal truth that you put a little bit of leaven in the bread
and all the bread is going to get the leaven.
Now that could be applied in a positive and a negative way.
Same way, honey, milk, these things, sometimes they have positive and negative mentions,
sometimes they mean different things.
Most of the time, honey, milk, and stuff like that refers to the word of God, refers to
the Bible.
Let's also get some balancing verses here and think about them.
Proverbs 25 verse 16, the Bible says, "Hast thou found honey?
Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it."
Here's the thing.
This verse though, I'm not going to go so as far as to say, well, honey's always the
Bible because I don't personally believe you could read too much Bible, okay?
But at the same time, the Bible still gives us just general wisdom in the sense that like,
don't have too much honey.
And that is reality.
Look at it says in verse 27, let's keep going.
It is not good to eat much honey for so men to search their own glory is not glory.
So here, this isn't talking about honey being the word of God.
Honey here is in reference to basically understanding how great you are or the joy or the pleasures
that come from recognizing your own achievements.
So it's saying, hey, it's okay.
Notice it doesn't even say here though, it's not good to eat honey.
It says it's not good to eat much honey.
So of course there's a little bit of, we can't necessarily just completely abstract ourselves
from the concept of the works that we do, of the accomplishments that we have, who we
are and what we've done.
But it's basically saying, we don't want to spend all of our time constantly just praising
ourselves, glorifying ourselves, thinking about all the things that we've done.
We want to make sure that we're not really focused in on that.
Just like, just because honey's good, we don't want to literally only eat honey.
We want to make sure that we're balancing honey with things like bread and milk and
meat and vegetables.
We want to have a balanced diet in life.
And though the Bible always gives us balance in a lot of these areas, honey and milk and
butter is also a balance.
I'm not going to literally only eat butter and honey.
That would be gross.
Butter is great on bread.
Honey is great on bread.
In fact, it's great on a biscuit.
I love honey and biscuits, okay?
That is delicious.
I pretty much never just grab a spoon and I'm just like, "All right, honey jar, you're
going down."
It's just not really good, okay?
You want to sprinkle in a little bit of honey.
Sometimes I drink a hot water with honey when my throat hurts and that kind of helps a little
bit.
But I'm not going to just drink honey.
I'm going to basically put some honey in and mix it with some hot water and then I
drink that.
But I've had some times where I had a really bad sore throat and I had like two or three
of those and then I kind of started to feel even sick because I'm like I had too much
sugar, I've had too much honey and it didn't really feel that good.
And so we want to make sure even from a carnal perspective that we're not having too much
butter, too much honey because that can also be damaging, that can also be bad.
But generally speaking, honey is good.
Eat honey.
Eat as much as is sufficient under thee, right?
But we don't want to overindulge.
We don't want to have too much honey physically speaking.
Now, again, I'm trying to focus mostly on the carnal aspects here.
I want to make sure, yeah.
So here's an application that I want to make, and then I'm going to talk about some spiritual
things.
There is this ideology, there is this belief system out there that has affected a lot of
false religion, but even Christianity as well, and it's the idea of asceticism.
Now, who knows what asceticism is?
Okay, a lot of people.
I'm just going to read for you some dictionary definitions, just because it's not a word
that we often use that much.
But asceticism is characterized by this.
It's a lifestyle characterized by absence or abstinence from worldly pleasures, often
for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals.
Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their practices or continue to be part of their
society, but typically adopt a frugal lifestyle characterized by the renunciation of material
possessions and physical pleasures and also spend time fasting while concentrating on
the practice of religion, prayer, or meditation.
Here's a simple definition of being ascetic.
So the word ascetic is often used as an adjective.
Being ascetic is practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual
discipline.
It also is identified as being austere.
Astere is an appearance or manner or attitude that is reserved or strict or played down.
Austere is giving little or no scope for pleasure.
Little or no scope for pleasure.
What could this look like?
This could look like saying I'm never going to have butter.
I'm never going to have milk.
I'm never going to have honey because they're practicing a form of asceticism.
Now I want to look at some verses on this, a lot of verses.
Go to 1 Timothy chapter 4, go to 1 Timothy chapter 4.
I want to say that first of all I don't think that I could argue or say that for sure asceticism
or being ascetic is sinful.
I mean if someone says I don't want to eat butter, I don't want to eat honey or whatever,
technically nothing wrong with that.
I mean you can't really say that's violating anything in the Bible.
You get to choose whatever you're going to do.
But this is typically what happens though is that these type of individuals they don't
just, they're not just ascetic for themselves, they're trying to be ascetic for everybody.
And they're saying like, "Oh, everybody should not eat milk.
Everybody should not eat butter."
And then they try to turn the religion that they're practicing, or their spiritual practices,
into a view that everybody that's truly following this religion is going to be like me.
So like if you're a Buddhist, you're going to really do a lot of self-denial.
Like Gandhi or other individuals, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of these different individuals
of the past have kind of practiced this extreme version of asceticism.
Another individual that practices this is Mother Teresa.
So it's also crept into Christianity as well, where you have individuals trying to act like
Christianity teaches asceticism, that Christianity promotes asceticism.
And I want to say that I believe the opposite, okay?
I believe the Bible promotes what I've been reading and what I've been showing you.
Now again, if someone practices asceticism, there's nothing wrong with it.
I'm not saying that they're not being spiritual, I'm not saying they're not being Christian.
I'm saying that forcing asceticism or teaching asceticism is unbiblical, okay?
What's the verse on that?
Look what it says in 1st Timothy chapter number 4 verse 1, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly
that in the latter times some should depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits
and doctrines of devils, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared
with the hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God
hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving."
This is what the Bible teaches.
Hey, eat the good stuff, eat every animal, here's the exception, but you better be thankful
for it.
Be thankful for it.
Now, Mother Teresa, I'm just going to give you a little bit of a rundown of what she
was like according to, I think this is like an AI.
AI is pretty accurate on some of these things as far as just what the world believes.
Mother Teresa is a Catholic nun and saint.
I would say she's not a saint.
All right, there we go.
She was known for extreme asceticism.
I want to make this clear too, even though I'm using Mother Teresa as an example, she's
an extreme version of this.
You don't have to be at this extreme to still be an ascetic.
I'm just going to extreme.
What does this look like?
And then we'll talk about how many people fall into this trap anyways.
She says this is a hallmark of her spiritual life missionary work.
Here are some key aspects of her ascetic practices.
Renunciation of material possessions.
You know who also wants you to renunciate all of your material possessions?
Communism.
Just throwing that out there.
Mother Teresa renounced all material possessions, living a simple and austere life with her
sisters and the missionaries of charity congregation.
They only shared a few basic belongings and relied on donations for their needs.
Well, you know, if everybody renunciates everything, then how is anybody going to get done or paid
for?
I guess she needs the people that didn't renunciate everything to still pay all of her bills and
give her all the stuff that she needs.
Interesting how asceticism only works for the few.
Severe fasting and abstinence or abstinence.
Go if you would to Matthew 6 for a moment.
Mother Teresa practiced severe fasting and abstinence from meat and other pleasures.
She believed that self-denial was essential for spiritual growth.
Let me read this to you again.
She believed that self-denial was essential for spiritual growth.
You know what she's teaching?
To abstaining from meats to be more spiritual.
What is the Bible saying in 1 Timothy chapter 4?
That's a doctrine of devils.
And it's no shock this is a Catholic.
And it's like what do Catholics believe?
Hey don't get married, be a nun, be a monk, if you're a priest don't get married.
And then they command to abstain from meats.
Like having fish fry days.
Like having like all of these different events where they can't eat meat.
I've been around, and it's not just Catholics, Orthodox is the same way.
I've been around some of these people and they're saying if you do all the fastings
that our church teaches, you basically can't eat beef like half the year or less.
You can't even eat all these different things.
I mean they're just living this extreme version of asceticism.
And I'm just going to say it.
Seafood is worse than beef.
Seafood sucks.
Sorry there I said it.
Okay?
Now if you like seafood, I'm not mad at you.
But you know what, it's not as good as beef.
It's not as good.
In fact, God is not even going to have the sea and the ocean and the new heaven and the
new earth, folks.
But we're going to have lots of land, all right, for land animals, okay?
Now I don't know if we get to eat meat or not.
It's maybe my flesh, but it likes it, okay?
And that carnal truth is true.
Other people, PETA, protecting animals, doctrine of devil, Indians, and I'm not talking about
Native Americans.
I'm talking about the people in India, the 7-Eleven workers, okay?
And you say I'm lying.
I went to 7-Eleven in Miami, and it was like, "Do you have a membership card?"
I didn't choose that.
I didn't force that person to work there.
They literally worked there, okay?
And let me explain something.
That religion of India is a satanic devil religion that worship cows.
They bathe in their dung and then their feces, and they don't know to eat the good or refuse
the evil.
Instead of eating the steak, they bathe in the dung of cows.
And look, I'm not against Indian people.
There's plenty of wonderful Indian people that are Christians, but the Indians that
are practicing the religion of Hinduism or Buddhism, or in fact, in some cases, they
even practice Islam, you know what?
Those religions are the religions of the devil.
And many people in India are worshiping cows, and you know what?
The Bible says that the devil, his face looks like a calf.
That's not a coincidence.
And they're often even making feasts and giving them idols and false gods.
And they're even raising up false gods in our country.
And let me explain something.
I'm not trying to make you mad.
You're probably already mad if you, you know, based on previous points I made.
Let me explain something.
There's people making Indian false gods, Indian churches, and whatever.
And let me explain something.
In order for that idol to be raised up, someone's got to pay for it.
I wonder how they pay for it.
Well, maybe they open an Indian restaurant and they need people to go in and they're
going to buy and give them money so they can make a bunch of money and build up these false
gods.
Sorry if you didn't understand that point.
I'm going to eat cow, okay.
I'm going to eat the butter and I'm going to eat the milk.
Now if you make stuff at your home, I'm not judging you, okay, ask.
If you go into a restaurant, ask, you know, not ask if it was sacrifice or an idol for
conscience sake, okay, so the Bible does teach.
But I'm just saying in some ways these false demonic religions, they destroy everything
around them.
You know Catholicism is a wicked false religion that Mother Teresa is a part of and she's
saying it's essential.
It's essential to being spiritual.
No, no, no.
You know what's essential to being spiritual?
Butter and honey, which is the word of God.
It's the Bible.
Consuming that.
And look, you don't have to consume literal butter and literal honey to be spiritual.
But you know what, you have to consume the spiritual butter and the spiritual honey in
order to be spiritual.
And you know Mother Teresa didn't do that.
She doesn't know what verse Timothy, chapter four says.
She doesn't believe that verse.
And a lot of times what these ascetics do is they're not content being ascetic in private.
They have to be, it's a public show.
It's for attention.
It makes me think of Matthew chapter six, verse one, "Take heed that you do not your
alms before men to be seen of them."
What is Mother Teresa known for?
Giving her alms to the poor and talking about helping the poor.
Here's other things that Mother Teresa did.
What a wonderful person.
Mother Teresa subjected herself to physical hardships such as sleeping on the floor, wearing
simple and worn-out clothing, and going without proper medical care or comforts.
This was meant to demonstrate her solidarity with the poor and to cultivate humanity and
attachment.
You know what's better than sleeping on the floor to stand with poor people is working
and buying them a bed.
What weirdness.
It's funny to me because I worked at this homeless and addiction recovery center and
this one guy's like, "I want to go on the streets and act homeless just to get a better
empathy for them."
And I'm thinking like, "Why?"
I'm pretty sure it's a terrible lifestyle.
I don't think you need to lay on the floor to realize that it's not cool.
There's a reason why someone invented a bed.
There's a reason why someone makes beds.
There's a reason why people sell beds.
Because they're great.
Because they're wonderful.
I mean, the Bible says the marriage bed is undefiled.
It didn't say the marriage floor.
Okay?
I mean, this is just weird.
I even saw, it was like the Olympics, they were trying to make these like terrible beds
for the Olympic athletes to sleep on.
And I'm not gonna go down that rabbit trail, but I'm just saying like, that's just weird.
Sleeping on the floor to prove how spiritual you are.
Extreme poverty.
Mother Teresa chose to live in extreme poverty, often goes without basic necessities like
food, shelter, or healthcare.
The Bible says when you don't have food or clothing, you don't even have to be content,
biblically speaking.
I mean, the Bible is basically saying if you have food and clothing, then you're supposed
to be content.
But if you don't have food and clothing, the Bible is saying don't be content.
Pray and ask God, "God, give us this day our daily bread."
That's the Lord's prayer.
And it's so weird when people want to go to this ascetic viewpoint of lifestyle and saying
like we should not eat and not sleep and not have any pleasure and just live this life
of misery and woe to prove how spiritual they are.
You're not spiritual.
You're under the influence of demons that want you to suffer, folks.
God does not want us to live on this earth just to suffer.
Yes, he brings persecutions and he brings afflictions along with blessings, along with
joys to help keep us humble, to help test us, to help prove us, to help make us better
people, to help give us a better heart.
But he does not want us to just live this life of misery and woe.
He doesn't want us to live Job the entire life.
In fact, if you understand Job, it's like greatest life ever, a few weeks of the worst
life ever, and then the greatest life ever again.
But in the grand scope of things, Job's life was 99% great.
Yeah, it had 1% bad.
But Mother Teresa wants us to live 99% horrible.
You know what?
This is not biblical, and you know, there's so many people out there that want to condemn
you or make you feel bad or act like you're not spiritual because you're eating butter
and milk.
Oh, you eat nice meals.
Yeah, I do.
Why would I not?
Oh, but you know what?
You have to eat bad meals in order to be spiritual.
No, you sound like, that sounds like a doctrine of devils.
Look, I know what to eat and I know what not to eat.
I eat steak.
I eat butter.
I eat milk.
I don't eat drugs.
I don't eat prescription meds.
I don't eat all of this junk.
And look, if you need prescription meds for a legitimate reason, okay, but there's a lot
of people that are constantly on medication that they don't need.
Adderall, and all these, they're always suffering, and they're always in depressed states, and
they're always having all these issues, and I'm thinking, have you tried butter?
Have you tried steak?
Have you tried being married?
Have you tried liking your spouse?
You know, yeah, God gave us certain things that are really pleasurable.
Do them.
Don't go and say, "My life's miserable, so I'm going to have drugs to fix that."
Because often, you know what the drugs are doing?
They're releasing the insane endorphins in your brain that happen when you eat great
meals and when you're performing the duty of marriage.
But you know what?
Several of the day, they're filling themselves with birth control and birth control ruins
all the hormones in a woman to where now she doesn't even want that anymore in many cases.
And then they have to have more drugs to basically get all of the endorphins that would be released
from not being on birth control and actually wanting what God created.
And then people are not eating the right kind of meals.
They're eating these weird soy burgers and they're eating vegan things and vegetarian
things that this is what's funny to me.
I don't think there's anything wrong with eating vegetarian or vegan meals, but why
do they always have to look like a burger or a steak or whatever?
It's like, I'm going to eat carrots, then eat carrots.
I'm going to eat celery.
But it's like, this is a burger out of carrots and celery.
And you're like, no, it's not.
It's like, if you want to have a vegetarian meal, go for it.
I'm all for you.
But don't try to, like, why are they always trying to, you know, we never see us being
like this is a salad and it's like steak and brisket and barbecue.
This is my barbecue salad.
It's like, you know, we're not trying to take meat and make it look like vegetables.
We all know what they're trying to do.
They're trying to convince you that it's meat.
Why are they trying to convince you that it's meat?
Because meat is delicious.
Why is it that on the margarine thing it says I cannot believe it's not butter?
Because butter's great.
They're trying to make it like butter.
But it's not.
And look, if you eat margarine I'm not mad at you, but you know what?
Let's just be honest.
There's probably more chemicals that are more harmful to your body than the supposed fat,
you know.
Everybody wants to act like you're so bad for getting the fats of butter and milk and
meat.
These are just haters, these are just people that don't understand the biblical truths
of the Bible.
Look, you know what?
God wants us to eat butter and milk and steak and all these wonderful things.
Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 3, go to Ecclesiastes chapter 3.
Butter and honey are good, they're blessings.
Here's another thing, butter takes time.
That's why it's a luxury in a sense, because you not only have to have milk, which is
a luxury, you also have to then churn it and in fact many times, I didn't go to this verse
but in Job, the Bible says that you basically have to have an abundance of milk to have
butter, because if you only have milk, you probably just can drink milk, if you don't
have like extra, if you don't have enough, but if you have plenty of milk, more than
you could drink, then you start doing other things with it, making cheeses and making
butter and making all kinds of other delicacies, and you know what God is saying, like I want
to bless that.
The Bible says that Job is walking on butter.
Why would God give him butter to like walk on, if it's so bad and so bad?
God wants us to enjoy our lives folks, now again we could get over the top and think
like Joel Osteen style Christianity of like God wants you to have your blessed life now
and you know basically he's going to open the windows of heaven to where you're going
to be a billionaire or something like this.
That's taking it a little too far, but we don't want to go on the other side of the
equation and act like Mother Teresa.
You know there's Mother Teresa and then there's the billionaire, Kenneth Copeland or something.
Obviously both of these extremes are not biblical, but in general I don't even think it's necessarily
directly in the middle.
I think it leans in the side of blessing.
The Bible literally says, "Give me neither riches nor poverty, feed me with food convenient
for me."
The Bible's saying like, "Don't try to be poor."
And of course we don't want to necessarily labor to be rich, but there's technically
nothing wrong with even being rich.
I mean if there was something wrong with being rich, wouldn't it say in 1 Timothy, I'm sorry,
1 Timothy chapter number six when it's talking about charge them that are rich in this world,
it wouldn't say charge them that are rich in this world to not be rich.
Charge them that are rich in this world to just end their life because they're a terrible
person for being rich.
No, it's saying like charge them that are rich in this world to be, to not trust in
the riches, to not be high minded, to be ready to distribute, willing to communicate.
And boy, isn't it nice that there's some rich people that actually help buy all the stuff
that we use and need?
You know, it's like when I started Pure Words Baptist Church, I had a nice rich friend that
makes lots of money that none of y'all even know that bought all of our chairs.
And boy, it was nice when I came into church to be able to sit down.
Boy, it was really nice that that person helped me out and was kind and loving.
And look, lots of times in a church, we get to enjoy nice things because of the rich people.
We get to enjoy the conferences.
We get to enjoy the building.
We get to enjoy all of these things.
And then people are like, "I just hate people that actually work hard or make money."
It's like, "Yeah, because you're lazy."
God is not sitting up in heaven like, "I hope that they have a miserable day today."
Lay on the floor.
No butter for you.
Cancer-causing margarine or nothing.
You better eat boxed food that costs ramen noodle or nothing.
I mean, do you really think that's what God wants?
But make sure you're buying plenty of lottery tickets, doing drugs and alcohol, and wasting
thousands of dollars to go watch Mike Tyson not fight anybody.
Because I don't spend thousands of dollars on vanity and stupid things and garbage, then
people are like, "Oh, but you spend money on good food?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Oh, you buy organic?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Oh, you eat butter?"
"Yeah, I do."
Because God is telling us, "Hey, eat butter, it's good."
There's nothing wrong with this.
What does it say in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 22?
"Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his
own works, for that is his portion, for he shall bring him to see what shall be after
him."
Is there one time to eat it up?
Eat it up, bro.
Look at chapter 4 verse 22.
I'm sorry, I meant 3.42, but look at 5.18.
"Behold, that which I have seen, it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink and
to enjoy the good of all his labor that he taketh unto the Son all the days of his life,
which God giveth him for it is his portion."
What does he say?
It's good.
It's good to work hard and then eat good food and eat good drink.
That's what the Bible says.
What does chapter 6 verse 1 say?
"There is an evil, which I have seen under the sun and is common among men.
Amand him God hath given riches, wealth, and honor."
This is where a lot of people just stop reading.
Oh, being, having stuff is bad.
No, what is the evil?
"He gives it to them, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that desireth, yet God
giveth him not power to eat thereof."
He's saying, look, you know what's bad?
When you actually work hard, make money, have good stuff, and then you don't get to enjoy
it.
When that thing is not enjoying it, the good thing is enjoying it.
That's what the Bible says.
Look at what it says in chapter 8 verse 15, "Then I commended mirth," mirth is joy, "because
a man hath no better thing unto the Son than to eat and to drink and to be merry."
You know what Mary is?
Happy.
But you know what?
When you're eating and you're drinking and you're happy, the sons of Belial come and
beset the house round about because they hate the fact that you're happy.
The devil comes out of the woodwork and then tries to make you feel bad for actually enjoying
the blessings of God.
You know what?
Nuts to the haters.
They're just envious and they're just mad that they're not having fun.
But the Bible says there's nothing wrong with it.
It says, "For that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life, which God
giveth him unto the Son."
I mean, how many verses do I have to show you?
Go to Proverbs chapter 5.
Go to Proverbs chapter number 5.
Now, again, the Bible's clear.
Labor not to be rich.
The Bible's abundantly clear that when we talk about the sower sowing the word, that
cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches enter in choking the word, less to be and
fruitful.
Obviously, we don't want to have too much honey.
Obviously, we want to eat what's sufficient unto us.
Obviously, we don't live on this earth only to eat food, folks.
But we have to understand that these are good things.
And if you want to have a healthy life, if you want to have a sustained life, hey, eat
the good.
Enjoy your life.
Enjoy your wife.
Enjoy the things that God has given you because without pleasure, you'll probably burn out.
You know, when we go on when we go on mission trips, I'll just be honest with you.
We have a great time.
And when I say great, I mean excellent.
I mean awesome.
I mean, I'm trying to make it as fun as possible.
You know why?
Because we're not going to do one missions trip, folk.
We go on missions trip and go and small town so anytime we go do these things all the time.
And what I don't want people to do is like, hey, we had to sleep on the floor and eat
ant covered peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Because then less people are going to come because nobody wants to be Mother Teresa.
But they're like, man, we had so much fun.
We saw the beach.
We ate good meals.
We stayed in nice lodging.
They had beds.
God forbid that they actually, they didn't even have to sleep on the floor.
Why?
So then it was like, I can't wait to go on the next one.
And you say, why?
Because we got 48 people saved in Miami.
And how many churches out there are going to get 48 people saved all year?
Someone's got to do the work.
And you know what?
You could be here and say like, well, John the Baptist, he lived an austere lifestyle.
Yeah.
But then they called him a devil.
I'm not going to read the verse for a second time.
Jesus Christ is being ridiculed for being a winebibber and a glutton.
And then he's like, he's like, hey, you call him a devil.
You say that I'm wicked.
You know, I'm a winebibber and a glutton for how I live.
He's like, basically, you're just going to hate me no matter what, because I'm doing
the work of God.
If I went out and we did soul winning in the most austere way possible, people would criticize
us and say that we're crazy and lunatic and weirdos.
And then if we go have a great time, they're going to say, "ah, you're a whine-debber
and a glutton."
Just because they're mad that they're not having fun.
You know what?
I'm going to have fun and serve God.
And here's the thing.
You know how I know that I'm not crossing some of these balancing verses?
Because I'm not forsaking soul winning church, reading the Bible and praying to go live
it up.
I'm serving God and living it up.
Why not?
Now again, I'm not living it up by having fentanyl and cocaine and going to gentleman's
clubs and going out and living the life of this world.
We're not going out and hanging out with wicked people and going to the bar and doing whatever.
Hey, we're going to churches and going soul winning and preaching the gospel and having
fun.
You know, hey, yeah, we did go to the Bahamas and we had a great time.
And there was a day that we went and we rode jet skis.
You know what?
People are getting saved on the beach while we were swimming.
People are getting baptized when we were out there on the jet skis.
And I didn't even try.
I was trying to have fun.
I was trying to just enjoy myself.
And then people are coming up to me.
This guy's coming up to me like, "Hey, tell me about baptism."
I'm like, "Fine."
You know, I'm like Jonah over here, like, "I'll get my Bible out.
I don't want a whale to come get me or something."
Showing this guy.
He's not even saved.
So I had to preach him the gospel.
And then I, and then he's like, I'm like, "Let's get baptized."
And then someone, I think Brother Marcel got someone saved and he's like, "He's here too.
Let's get him baptized."
And they're just baptizing people.
This is what the naysayers, "Ah, you're right, yes he's here."
Nuts to you.
I don't have to live like Mother Teresa.
You go live with her in the monastery somewhere.
Except for she won't let you because she's taking a vow of celibacy or whatever.
You know, these people are weirders.
Did I have you turn somewhere?
Proverbs 5, right?
What does the Bible say in Proverbs chapter 5 verse 15?
"Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well.
Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad in rivers of waters in the streets.
Let them be only thine own and not strangers with thee.
Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth."
Hey, be blessed and rejoice with your wife.
You know, we should not withhold the pleasures that God gives us within marriage because
everybody else is seeking the pleasures outside of marriage.
And it's wrong and it's wicked and it causes problems.
We should enjoy marriage and what God has blessed us with.
We shouldn't, you know, there's this weird ideas out there where people are literally
having marriage and then not taking the benefits and the blessings of marriage.
There is this weirdo guy, I can't remember, my wife could probably tell me better.
This weird guy saying like, talking about him and his wife, saying how it's like wrong
to perform the duty of marriage and this guy saying like whenever I'm tempted I just go
and eat a raw potato to lose all desire.
I'm like what a weirdo, freak.
I'm like you're just a double destroying yourself in your mind.
You're going to hate potatoes.
You know and sometimes when I'm alone with my wife or just having fun I'm just saying
like I feel like I need a raw potato.
Just a joke folks.
Hate raw potatoes.
Have butter and milk and steak and have fun and enjoy your life because that is your portion.
That is what God has given you.
Choose the good and not the evil.
And look our world is not screwed up because we're eating too much butter and steak.
It's because people are on drugs and alcohol and drinking poison and not only cartily spiritually.
You know what's wrong with our country?
It's not that they're reading too much of the King James Bible.
It's that they're listening to too much junk.
The lies that are coming from Mother Teresa.
The false doctrine that's coming from the Catholic Church.
The lies of Hinduism.
The lies of all kinds of ungodly, wicked, unsaved people.
There's so many fad diets and fad ideas and there's so many people that want to criticize
you and make you feel bad for having fun while serving God.
But you know what?
Serving God is fun.
We don't have to live this ascetic's lifestyle and deny ourselves of all pleasure and all
fun.
Look, if you want to lose that, I'm not going to fight you.
But you better not try to make me do it.
You better not try to make everybody else do it.
I can't say that it's biblically wrong to be a very strict, austere person.
But you know what?
That's just not my ministry and that's not what I'm trying to do.
Now if you want to do that, show us up.
Go to 2 Timothy chapter 3.
You know this is what I know, serving God is already hard enough.
I don't need to make it harder than it already is.
And there's not a lot of people that are going to want to join you, Gandhi.
Not a lot of people that are going to want to join you in those efforts.
But you know what, when you can at least make Christianity fun,
a lot more people are going to get on board.
And what's more important?
Me just showing you how much better I am by being austere
and doing it by myself.
Or me having fun and a lot more people doing it with me.
And us doing greater works because more people are involved.
What's more important?
Me going on missions trips and showing you how I could literally sleep on the floor.
Because let's be honest with you.
I work so hard that I can probably sleep standing up.
I've literally when I was talking to my wife like I'm just sitting on the couch having a conversation.
I fell asleep in the middle of my own sentence.
I can sleep on the floor.
I can eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
I can do a lot of these grueling things.
But I don't have to and I don't want to.
But you know what?
It wouldn't be that cool.
I mean look when we went to the men's conference the first time I called it prison camp.
Because it kind of was.
And look a lot of people were like saying like I don't want to go because the bed sucks so bad.
And they were beds.
They weren't even concrete floor.
And I'm just thinking like I had a great time like I was it was fun.
But you know not everybody can go as hard as you.
Not everybody is amazing as you.
But you know you don't have to brag and show off to just try and get extra brownie points.
You know what's better encouraging other people.
Condescending the men of low estate.
Encouraging the brethren.
Helping the weaker brother.
Blessing other people.
And you know what spiritually speaking is the same way.
That we don't necessarily have to prove how hard we can go.
Sometimes we can try to come alongside other people and just ease them along.
Win them over.
Show them the good and the fun aspects of Christianity.
Hey the Preserved Bible is an awesome movie.
There's some fun parts of Christianity.
There's some fun sermons.
There's some fun.
There's some good music.
There's some good things to do.
And you know we don't always have to prove to other people
how hardcore we are in Christianity.
Let us show them the good parts of Christianity too.
And we need to constantly be eating the right things.
I had you go to 2nd Timothy chapter number three.
Look at what it says in verse number five.
It says, "Having a form of godliness, talking about wicked people,
but denying the power from such turn away,
for of this sort are they which creep into houses,
and lead captives, silly women, laden with sins,
led away with divers lusts."
There are so many losers, false prophets, heretics, and evil people
that want to destroy and hurt.
And they're trying to hurt women.
And they're hurting them with messages.
There are so many people like Jesse Duplantis, like Mike Murdoch,
these televangelists that go online and they creep into women's houses
through the television, through the internet.
And they convince women to give them money and to be ascetic.
In fact, they had convinced my mom to be this way at one point.
To the point where she sold all of her jewelry,
even her own engagement ring, just to give it to people like this
and give it to the bad churches.
And you know what?
It's just sad how many people--
I mean, there's people living paycheck to paycheck, having no money.
Old people, old grandmas, all kinds of people
that are listening to these kind of things and thinking like,
"Oh, I just give him $58, sow a seed, and then God will bless me,
or I'll have whatever."
And they don't even realize they're being taken advantage of and ripped off.
They don't know to eat the good and to refuse the evil.
And they're being led astray and taken advantage of.
And you know what?
We need to come alongside those people and help them realize,
"Butter's good. Milk is good. These people are bad.
These people are wicked. These people are evil."
And we need spiritual understanding.
There are so many messages out there.
There are so many false prophets.
There are so many lies out there today.
And we need to read the Bible.
We need to meditate on God's Word
so that we can know what's good and what is evil.
We need to know who is of God and who is not of God.
We need to understand the people that got people saved,
that started churches, that built churches,
that changed people's lives,
and the people that destroy churches and hurt churches
and attack churches and cause strife and unnecessary division.
And they just preach messages that are heresy and lies.
And you know what? They're of the devil, folks.
Whether they're literally of the devil
or being influenced by the devil,
it doesn't matter to me because it's the same enemy,
it's the same tactics, it's the same destruction.
The thief cometh not but for to steal, kill, and destroy.
And you know what? The devil doesn't want you to have fun.
The devil doesn't want you to enjoy your life.
But you know what? We need to enjoy the good.
Enjoy the butter, enjoy the milk, enjoy the kind, enjoy the cattle.
And you know what? We need to enjoy those things spiritually.
Hey, I love the Word of God.
And you know what? Where does the milk come from?
Where does milk come from?
Cattle, right?
What are cattle in the Bible?
Pastors.
And you know what? When people hate pastors, it's wicked.
It's wicked.
How can you say you like milk and you like butter when you hate pastors?
Because you can't have one without the other.
Where do you get great preaching from?
Great pastors.
Where do you get great milk and great butter from?
Great pastors.
But then there's people, they just hate good pastors.
They hate good preaching.
They hate big movements of God.
And you know what?
It's weird to despise pastors.
It's weird to attack pastors.
We should realize that milk and honey are good.
There are so many enemies in the world.
We should not be attacking saved godly pastors.
It is bizarre.
It is a tool of the devil.
Look, Joel Osteen, kick him.
I don't care.
Kenneth Copeland, go after him.
But you know what?
Save brethren.
We should not be on a war campaign to take them down
because you know what?
Milk and butter and honey are good and we should love them
and we should embrace them and we should want more of it, not less.
We should live in a society that you know what actually loves pastors.
And you know what?
When people don't love pastors, it's weird to me.
It's weird when they just want to take away all their authority.
I mean the Bible says to esteem them very highly and love.
To esteem them very highly in love.
That's what the Bible says.
But I just see there's a lot of disrespect.
There's a lot of hatred.
Why?
Because you know what?
When you stand on the word of God and when you preach the Bible,
there's going to be opposition.
And we need to realize that we're going to love the good.
Hey, if you eat butter and you eat milk, you're going to get opposition.
From PETA, from the Catholics, from those that are envious
that you're having a good time.
But you know what?
You just have to say nut to the haters.
Nuts to you guys.
And that's why you literally have to eat nuts.
Okay?
I'm going to eat the good stuff.
I'm going to have fun.
I'm not trying to start a John the Baptist ministry
where I go out in a Canadian tuxedo.
It's an animal skin, leather skin suit out in the middle of nowhere.
You know what?
I'm going to be in a building with linen and I'm going to have air conditioning.
And you know what?
We're going to have fun.
Now we might be a little bit out.
Okay?
They were out in the wilderness.
But you know, I don't have to be John the Baptist.
You know, Jesus Christ wasn't and other men of God weren't.
And you don't have to be.
You know, just because John the Baptist is the great leaves of God
doesn't mean other people weren't.
And you know, the Apostle Paul at times was greatly blessed and had a lot.
And then other times he didn't have a lot.
But I don't have time for this.
But there's a disease out there.
It's called a poverty mindset.
And you know what, it's affecting a lot of people
because they almost think that having poverty is somehow being spiritual.
Some people think being rich is being spiritual.
Both of those are wrong.
You can be super poor and super godly.
You can be super rich and be super godly.
You know what, you can be super poor and really ungodly.
And you can be super rich and be very ungodly.
It's not about that.
It's about, you know, where your heart is and serving God.
And you know what, why in the world, how would it feel,
how would you feel if you made this great meal?
You spent all this time cooking a brisket or steak, all this food,
and you gave it to someone you love, and they literally just threw it on the ground.
And so this is trash.
That'd be disrespectful, right?
Wouldn't that be rude?
In fact, it's actually rude to ask for A1 sauce when you get a steak.
This is gonna tell, I'm just throwing it out there, especially in Texas.
If you go to a nice restaurant, just be prepared that if you ask for A1,
they will take it as an insult literally, okay?
But when it comes to this analogy that I'm using,
I'm trying to say God is literally offering you these good meals.
God is offering you these things.
And when we say that's bad, it's wrong, and refuse it,
we're kind of like spitting in the face of God.
Kind of saying, "No, I don't want that.
I don't want the blessings that you're giving me.
Give them to someone else."
And you know what?
He might just give them to someone else then.
Let us receive everything with thanksgiving.
Nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving.
Hey, these aesthetics?
Yeah, don't have it because you're not thankful.
But you know what?
I am thankful for the things that God's giving me.
And I'm going to praise God every time I get to eat these things,
because communism might take them away eventually anyways, okay?
And then we don't have that choice.
But as long as we have it, let's embrace it and love it.
And let's fight Chick-fil-A and say, "I'm not saving the cows.
I'm eating the cows," okay?
All right, let's go for a prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for your Word.
Thank you so much for the butter and the honey that comes from the Word of God.
Thank you for literal butter and thank you for literal honey.
Thank you for allowing us to live in a literal land of flowing with milk and honey.
I pray that we would just rejoice and be happy
and enjoy the mirth of all the blessings that you've given us,
all the prosperity and all the joy.
I pray that we wouldn't look at those things as bad or negative,
but rather we would just give thanks unto you,
that we praise God for them, that we'd be thankful for them.
And, of course, that we wouldn't live our lives only for the carnal pleasures,
but rather we would use them to motivate us to serve you spiritually as well.
And I pray that you would help us to have a good balance
so that we could have a lifetime of serving God,
and not just a quick moment.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
For our last song, we're going to go to song number 194,
"Since Jesus Came Into My Heart."
Song number 194.
Let's sing it out.
"Since Jesus Came Into My Heart."
Song number 196.
"Since Jesus Came Into My Heart."
Song number 197.
"Since Jesus Came Into My Heart."
Song number 197.
"Since Jesus Came Into My Heart."
Song number 197.
"Since Jesus Came Into My Heart."
Song number 197.
"Since Jesus Came Into My Heart."
For that sermon, everybody, you are all dismissed.
Thank you so much for coming.