Thank you.
Welcome again to Steadfast Baptist Church. Glad you could all be here tonight.
Let's go ahead and take our hymnals.
210, Wonderful Grace of Jesus.
Again, that's song number 210.
210, Wonderful Grace of Jesus.
Sing it all together on the first.
Wonderful Grace of Jesus.
Greater than all my sin.
Thou shalt my song describe it.
Where shall the praise begin?
Taking away my burden.
Setting my spirit free.
Oh, the Wonderful Grace of Jesus.
Reject me.
Wonderful, the magical grace of Jesus.
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea.
High than the mountains,
both the night and the mountain.
Halt the vision, praise the dream of me.
Louder than the scope of my transgression.
Greater far than all my sin and shame.
Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus.
Praise His name.
Wonderful grace of Jesus.
Reaching to all the lost.
I and I have been born and saved to the utter most.
And free from the torn asunder,
giving me liberty.
Oh, the Wonderful Grace of Jesus.
Reject me.
Wonderful, the magical grace of Jesus.
Reject the mighty rolling sea.
High than the mountains,
both the night and the mountain.
Halt the vision, praise the dream of me.
Louder than the scope of my transgression.
Greater far than all my sin and shame.
Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus.
Praise His name.
Wonderful grace of Jesus.
High as the forming power,
making of God's dear child.
Worked to seek peace and heaven,
for all eternity.
Oh, the Wonderful Grace of Jesus.
Reject me.
Wonderful, the magical grace of Jesus.
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea.
High than the mountains,
both the night and the mountain.
Halt the vision, praise the dream of me.
Louder than the scope of my transgression.
Greater far than all my sin and shame.
Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus.
Praise His name.
Amen. Great singing.
Inspire a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we just thank you again that we could come here tonight.
Let's pray to help us all to learn from the sermon.
We need to fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit.
We give Him wisdom to preach to us tonight.
We just love you.
Thank you for the gift of salvation.
We pray these things in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
Amen.
Next is going to be 197, Singing I Go.
And that's one hundred and ninety-seven.
One ninety-seven.
A trusting heart to Jesus' face.
For any ill for morals.
But at the cause of power's sake.
Praise God for ill with those.
Singing I go on all life's own.
Praising the Lord, praising the Lord.
Singing I go on all life's own.
For Jesus I'll lift Him my own.
The passing days bring many cares.
Fear not, I hear Him sing.
And when my fears are turned to praise.
The burden slip away.
Singing I go on all life's own.
Praising the Lord, praising the Lord.
Singing I go on all life's own.
For Jesus has lifted my own.
He tells me of my Father's love.
And every suffering I.
My everlasting King above.
Will all my needs apply.
Singing I go on all life's own.
Praising the Lord, praising the Lord.
Singing I go on all life's own.
For Jesus has lifted my own.
When to the throne of praise I cling.
I find the promise true.
The mighty arms upholding me.
Will bear my burdens too.
Singing I go on all life's own.
Praising the Lord, praising the Lord.
Singing I go on all life's own.
For Jesus has lifted my own.
Thank you so much for coming to steadfast Baptist Church.
If you don't already have a bulletin you can slip with your hand nice and high.
We'd love to get you a bulletin.
On the inside we have our service and soul winning times.
Our soul winning times are 2 p.m. on Sundays.
Tuesdays at 1030 there's a ladies time that meets here at the church.
Wednesdays at 515.
Saturdays at 10 a.m.
And then we have a couple regional times.
Mondays at 5 in Weatherford with brother Jeff Goodwin.
Tuesdays at 530 with brother Steven Malton.
Meets in different parts of the city.
And then brother Suhail has one on Thursday.
It's in Dallas is that right?
Like the Dallas area kind of.
And then Fridays brother Malton again.
So if you'd like to go any of those times just see the respective leaders.
We also have down below our church stats.
I'm going to get a quick count of some of the soul winning for the past few days.
Was there anything to report from this past Thursday?
Two for Thursday. What about Friday?
One for Friday. What about Saturday?
What was Saturday's numbers?
Two for Saturday.
And then I know the van today had two. What was outside of the van?
So 18 total for Sunday.
Praise the Lord on that.
And then on the right we have. Yeah.
Praise the Lord on that.
And then on the right we have our list of expecting ladies.
Continue to pray for them.
And you can add Sierra Illy to that if you want.
She's also someone you can add to that list.
And just continue to pray for her as well.
Congratulations to them.
And then also on the prayer list.
If you would continue to pray for all of our church family.
If you have any requests just submit those via email.
And we'll try to get those added in.
Also on the back we have just the events.
There's a couple sign up sheets over here.
So just make sure to sign up.
One event that's not listed but is happening April 2nd.
Is the college station soul winning marathon.
So if you want to do that.
It's going to be a pure words event.
But obviously you know you're welcome to participate in any of the soul winning events.
And so lots of soul winning opportunities.
Every week as well as some marathons.
And so that's pretty much all I had.
Just as a reminder that for some reason.
Having an issue with our water fountain.
The smaller one is still working though.
So you can use that.
But if you even just want a bottle of water.
Just grab it.
And I won't yell at you or anything like that.
So you can grab one.
And hopefully we'll get that fixed this week.
We don't know.
But sorry for the inconvenience.
We'll go to our third song.
Two hundred and.
I'm sorry.
One ninety nine.
Let the joy overflow.
Switch it up on you.
One ninety nine.
Might be a new one for you.
This is the first time seeing it as a church.
You can learn together with everybody tonight.
One hundred and ninety nine.
Let the joy overflow.
There's a clear fountain flowing from the bright gold above.
And its waters are glowing with the sunshine above.
Take the blessed consolation which the Lord will bestow.
Take the cup of salvation.
Let the joy overflow.
Oh the joy.
With this wondrous salvation be our hearts all along.
Oh the joy.
Let the blessing.
Many hearts in the story.
Our thirst for His grace.
Go to them with this glory.
Shining out from your face.
Tell of Jesus your savior.
If His birth sees you know.
Show the light of His favor.
Let the joy overflow.
Oh the joy.
With this wondrous salvation be our hearts all along.
Oh the joy.
Let the blessing run over and joy overflows.
Be our lives freely yielded to the Savior's command.
By His care ever shielded and upheld by His name.
And the pathways of sadness sweet as lilies may grow.
Let the soul seeds of gladness let the joy overflow.
Oh the joy.
With this wondrous salvation be our hearts.
All along.
Oh the joy.
Let the blessing run over and joy overflow.
Amen.
Great singing.
As the offering plates are passed around,
please turn in your Bibles to Psalm 136.
Psalm 136.
We'll read the entire chapter prior to the beginning of the sermon.
Psalm 136, the Bible reads.
Oh give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever.
Oh give thanks unto the God of gods, for His mercy endureth forever.
Oh give thanks to the Lord of hosts, for His mercy endureth forever.
To Him who alone do with great wonders, for His mercy endureth forever.
To Him that by wisdom made the heavens, for His mercy endureth forever.
To Him that stretched out the earth above the waters, for His mercy endureth forever.
To Him that made great lights, for His mercy endureth forever.
The sun to rule by day, for His mercy endureth forever.
The moon and stars to rule by night, for His mercy endureth forever.
To Him that smote Egypt and their firstborn, for His mercy endureth forever.
And brought out Israel from among them, for His mercy endureth forever.
With a strong hand and with a stretched out arm, for His mercy endureth forever.
To Him which divided the Red Sea into parts, for His mercy endureth forever.
And made Israel to pass through the midst of it, for His mercy endureth forever.
But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for His mercy endureth forever.
To Him which led His people through the wilderness, for His mercy endureth forever.
To Him which smote great kings, for His mercy endureth forever.
And slew famous kings, for His mercy endureth forever.
Sion king of the Amorites, for His mercy endureth forever.
And Og the king of Bashan, for His mercy endureth forever.
And gave their land for an heritage, for His mercy endureth forever.
Even an heritage unto Israel His servant, for His mercy endureth forever.
Who remembered us in our lowest state, for His mercy endureth forever.
And hath redeemed us from our enemies, for His mercy endureth forever.
Who giveth food to all flesh, for His mercy endureth forever.
Oh, give thanks unto the God of heaven, for His mercy endureth forever.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you for the evening service at Steadfast Baptist Church.
I pray that you would give Pastor Shelley now wisdom and clarity of mind.
And just fill him with your spirit now so he can preach the sermon for us with boldness.
And also, Lord, help us to pay close attention to what you've laid on his heart this evening.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen.
So we are continuing our Genesis series of the days of creation.
And I'm on day three in this sermon.
I wanted to read Psalms 136 because I'm going to use a portion of it.
But keep your finger and go to Genesis chapter one.
We'll kind of read day three.
But you would think that Psalms 136 would be every liberal Christian's favorite psalm ever.
Since it just repeats the chorus over and over and over and over, right?
That's like where they get their inspiration for all their music is Psalm 136.
They just repeat the same thing over and over.
But that's obviously why that's in there like that.
But if you look at Genesis chapter number one, we've been going through the days of creation.
And we're in day number three.
So we're going to start in verse number nine.
The Bible reads,
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place.
Let the dry land appear.
And it was so.
God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas.
God saw that it was good.
So according to the Bible, in day one, we had the heavens and the earth.
We had the heavens and the earth.
We had light.
And then in day two, we had a division of the water from the water, which was the firmament.
We kind of had light.
And then we kind of had clouds and just the ocean in general.
Now, in day number three, though, we see that the oceans are now being gathered together
into a very specific area, which is called the sea.
And it's allowing for land to appear, which is then called earth.
Now I had us read Psalm 136.
Go to there, back, and let's read a few verses.
It actually gives us a little bit more description of what just happened in the Bible.
But it says in Psalms 136, look at verse number five again.
To him that by wisdom made the heavens, for his mercy endureth forever.
So that's, you know, obviously talking about creation.
Look what it says in verse six.
To him that stretched out the earth above the waters, for his mercy endureth forever.
So in fact, as he's creating on day number three, not only is he just having water be,
you know, moved or displaced into a localized area, but he's even bringing up the earth
a little bit, kind of shaping it, forming it above where the water is.
And that's where we basically have what's known today as continents.
Continents is essentially where, you know, we see all the land that's coming up out of the water.
And that's where we live.
You live on the land.
And notice, though, that it's described as earth.
So the word earth, and this is the thing about the Bible.
The Bible uses words to mean different things constantly throughout.
Earth can refer to our entire planet, like Genesis chapter number one, God created the
heaven and the earth, or earth could simply refer to the land upon which the earth, you know,
we live on the earth.
But for certain, the land was already there too.
Can't we kind of discern that?
Go back to Genesis one and look at a few words here.
So even though the earth on a surface level, the face of the earth is covered with water,
it still had land mass, okay?
And, you know, you go to school and you learn a lot of different things in science class.
Some of them are good.
Some of them are junk.
But there was this idea called Pangaea.
Who's ever heard of Pangaea or knows what they're talking about?
It was this idea that there used to be just this singular island, okay?
And then like over time, this island just basically broke apart and then turned into
all the continents.
And it's kind of like based on the fact that if you look at South America and you kind
of look at Africa, your mind kind of wants to maybe think like, oh, it's like a puzzle
and it kind of would like fit together or whatever.
But it forgets the fact that there's land connecting underneath the ocean all the way
from South Africa all the way to, or from South America all the way to Africa, okay?
It's not like all of the continents are these little lily pads just floating on the water,
just moving however you want them to move.
Now obviously we understand through plate tectonics and the fact that the earth, you
know, has earthquakes and different stuff.
Obviously there's shifts and ebbs and flows.
But, you know, they came up with the idea of Pangaea because they were trying to measure
the distance from South America to Africa.
And they noticed like over a period of years it would move like an inch further away or something.
So then they're like, well, we know the earth is like billions of years old so if it's moving
an inch in this direction, what if we go back, you know, millions of years this way?
I guess they were touching, you know, or whatever.
That's stupid logic, okay?
That's not really scientific.
That's just making stuff up.
The Bible teaches though that the land was already there.
If you think about it, look at verse number nine again very carefully.
In the latter portion it says, and let the dry land appear.
So does that sound like the land exists?
Yes, because you can't, it's not going to appear if it's not already there, okay?
So basically the land was there but it's now going to appear because the waters are being
gathered together into one place which then is allowing the dry land to appear.
Notice it's also described as what?
Dry land.
And there's this thing called water, okay?
It makes things wet.
So if the land's covered in water, it's going to be what?
Wet.
So it needs the water to recede or to be gathered so then you can have wet dry land.
And he says in verse 10 that God called the dry land earth.
You know that also implies that there's wet land.
What's the wet land?
Or it's underwater essentially, meaning what?
When you go into the ocean, it doesn't just go straight down into hell.
There's a barrier there called the ocean floor and it's earth too.
It's dirt too but it's just basically wet, okay?
So we have a crust on our earth and that crust is a dirt layer but then there's ebbs
and flows which allows for what?
The water to be gathered together and the seas and all this.
So God's basically allowing this kind of elevation change to accommodate the idea of land and
the seas and we see the continents that appear.
And I personally believe that the continents look virtually the same as they did from the
beginning of the creation.
There is a couple things that are a little bit different.
I'm not going to go too deep in this but go if you would to Proverbs chapter number 8.
Go to Proverbs chapter number 8 for a moment.
One thing that's noteworthy though is because there was a great deluge, because there was
a great blood that covered the entire earth, initially whenever the waters had been covering
the entire earth, the land was going to look a little bit different.
And the reason why is because when you have the entire earth covered in water, you're
going to have a lot of cold climates and cold areas of the earth where most of that water
is just going to be frozen.
It's just going to be ice.
You go up in the northern parts of America or Canada and everything like that, it's going
to be ice.
And in fact, a lot of those areas still look like that, don't they?
I mean, they call it Greenland but really it's covered in ice because it was a trick.
There's Iceland and Greenland and if you don't know this, Vikings tried to trick people and
so the Iceland is actually all green and Greenland is like all ice because they were
trying to confuse people on the name or whatever so it's actually backwards what you think.
But you look at the northern areas and they're all ice.
But right after the deluge, right after the big flood, all these northern areas are going
to be just huge ice repositories.
And then what's going to happen is over time, they're going to continually just get smaller
and smaller and smaller and you're going to have more and more water being filtered and
flooding down into the oceans.
What is that going to do?
It's going to rise the sea level.
Now, if the sea level is rising, what is that going to affect?
It's going to affect what's called the continental shelves, okay?
So what you assume is the beach may have not actually looked like the beach right after
the flood because right after the flood, there was probably a little bit larger areas of
land that were available and since people loved to build cities and towns and stuff
like that next to the ocean, there was probably a lot of primitive towns, cities and villages
that were built right next to the ocean that over time, maybe in the first several hundred
years after the flood, eventually got washed away and destroyed.
Now, you can literally see these things.
If you just go and Google Maps or Google Earth or you look at some of this, you can see through
the water and you can see the continental shelves and how they would actually alter
what Florida looks like and even South America.
And in fact, you can even see continental shelves between Russia and the United States.
You can see continental shelves potentially even all the way to Australia, which suggests
that it's plausible.
I'm not saying this is how it happened.
It's plausible that right after the flood, you could literally just walk from Southeast
Asia into Australia.
But then over time, because there's so much ice being melted and you're kind of recovering
from the flood that the water level rose to a point where now there's not that land
bridge as it were.
But there was probably fluctuations.
Or just simply, you know, people when they travel, they bring with them what?
Animals and all kinds of weird stuff and that's how you got the animals on the different islands
and these continents.
But when it comes to creation here, we have land being elevated above the waters.
We call that earth.
Look what it says in Proverbs 8 verse 29.
When he gave to the sea his decree that the water should not pass his commandment when
he appointed the foundations of the earth.
So Proverbs 8, we already used this in our second day where we talked a lot about the
things that are happening.
But if you keep going down that list, he then brings up the fact that he gave the sea his
decree that the water should not pass his commandment.
Meaning what?
There is certain boundaries upon which the sea cannot overflow.
Even back then, at the very beginning of creation, essentially the water level is a sustainable level.
You know, it's not going to elevate above the earth in any kind of a sense.
It has some kind of a boundary which we call the beach.
You know, we have basically barriers where the waters basically don't cross.
It also says that he appointed the foundations of the earth and so we kind of have an established
earth and everything has been kind of formed in the way that he wants it.
Look at verse 30.
Then I was by him, as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing
always before him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with
the sons of men.
Also, an interesting word here is habitable.
Meaning what?
Not every square inch of the earth is the best place to live.
Meaning that some places are better than others, right?
I don't want to live in Antarctica and I certainly don't want to live in the middle of the sea.
You know, so we have certain parts of the earth that are designated and designed to
what we have inhabited and for people to live in and we see that that's an important aspect.
Go, if you would, back to Genesis chapter number one now.
We kind of talked a little bit.
What happens in day three?
Essentially, we have the delineation of the continents and we have the water and we have
the sea and we have, you know, all these kind of elements that are being created and
they're really setting up the environment for future creation.
We have heaven and the earth as the first day and you kind of have this interesting
three parallel where you have the heaven and the earth, then you kind of have the clouds
and the oceans, then you kind of have the land and the sea, and then on day four you're
going to have all the lights which go in the heaven.
Then you're going to have on day number five you're going to have a lot of the animals
that are going to go into the air and into the sea.
You're going to have the birds and you're going to basically have the fish which is
correlating with day two and then day three you're going to have all the land dwelling
animals essentially, right?
You're going to have all the beasts and you're going to have mankind created on day six.
So it's kind of setting up the environment for each one of these scenarios.
It says in verse number 11, and God said,
Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding
fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so.
The earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding
fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good, and the evening
and the morning were the third day.
Now, if we're going to create a habitat for land dwelling animals and people, aren't they
going to need some things like food?
Aren't they going to need things that are actually going to sustain them?
Now, you know what's so interesting to me about this is I was, I don't know how we got
this game.
I think my wife just bought it for me, but it's called Terraforming Mars.
Who's heard of this game?
Terraforming Mars, okay?
Now, I didn't know anything about it.
We didn't even play it really.
We started like reading all the rules and trying to figure out how to play it, and I
was just like, I hate climate change and all this propaganda thing so much.
It just made me not want to really play it that much.
It was kind of complicated, but the goal of the game is you're taking the planet Mars,
and you're basically trying to turn it into the earth, and the goal is so that people
can live on Mars.
That's basically the essence and what you're trying to do, and they have certain elements
that you're trying to basically increase like you're trying to build an atmosphere,
and you're trying to build like you're trying to add water.
You're trying to add all these different elements and different things that are going on, but
what's interesting to me about the idea of Terraforming Mars is it literally is following
the days of creation that we're reading in our Bible.
Like, they're doing exactly what God did to create the heaven and the earth, and I'm just
thinking like, did you not realize like that you're following God's exact plan of creation?
Don't you think that's a little interesting?
Because I find it fascinating that they have to do everything that God did in order to
sustain life, and it's like this book was written way before you even thought of the
word NASA or you thought about all these inventions, and then yet you're doing exactly what the
Bible told you God did.
It's like, you know, a bunch of big pig farmers and cave dwellers or whatever just
wrote the Bible.
Wasn't it interesting before you even knew the word science and before you even had all
of these inventions, he already told you everything that you would need to do to create and make
a planet habitable for people?
That's not a coincidence.
It's because the Bible's true.
So, anything that's true is going to be biblical, and of course, in order to make
Mars habitable, what are some of the elements they need to do?
They need to create atmosphere.
The atmosphere is not suitable for life.
So, they have to create a pseudo-atmosphere.
Then, after they create an atmosphere, which would have clouds and all this stuff, they
would then have to have greenery.
They'd have to have grass or whatever.
It's funny.
You can go on Wikipedia.
They have an article called terraforming Mars or the terraforming of Mars, and I kid you
not, it's like basically this game, and they're serious though.
It's not a game.
There's literally scientists and people today.
They think that they're going to take Mars and turn it into the Earth, and this guy drew
an artistic drawing of like Mars today and then what it's going to have to look like,
and it's like just a red planet that's just filled with dust.
The second picture starts having clouds, and then like the third picture has like clouds
and then like a little bit of greenery, and then the fourth picture just looks like the
Earth basically, you know, just like kind of like an Earth looking planet or whatever,
and it's like they have to go through this process.
Now I want to read a little bit from their article, okay?
It says terraforming of Mars.
The Martian environment presents several terraforming challenges to overcome, and the extent of
terraforming may be limited by certain key environmental factors.
Here's a list of some of the ways in which Mars differs from Earth, which terraforming
seeks to address.
So in their little article, they say we can't live on Mars.
So we have to do some things in order to fix it, okay?
They have to reduce light levels.
They have to increase gravity.
It has a toxic atmosphere, so they need to go ahead and create atmosphere like day two
did.
Number three, atmospheric pressure.
They say they need cosmic radiation to the surface.
It's too dangerous, which all these things are pretty much resolved through the atmosphere
that we have on Earth.
They have molecular instability because they don't have any organic compounds.
They have global dust storms.
They have no natural food source.
And here's another thing, toxic soil.
So they have to take the soil.
The soil there is not suitable for growing potentially.
And yet what the Earth, if we think about it, in day number three, God is allowing the
land not only to appear, but it's suitable for crops because what's happening?
Grass is being grown and other kinds of vegetation is being grown.
And it has the seed in and of itself and it's allowing vegetation, all kinds of herbs
and grass and all these things to grow.
And so they need to create all those things on Mars.
Now, this is a really big propaganda thing in America.
In fact, there's many movies that are based on what I'm telling you.
There's like a movie called like Interstellar.
Anybody seen Interstellar?
I see those carnal hands up there.
And then there's another movie called like The Martian.
Who's seen The Martian?
Anybody?
Okay.
It's got Matt Damon, all right?
It's basically like this guy goes to Mars with a small team or something.
And I can't remember, but I've seen some of it, like at least scenes of it or something.
But for whatever reason, he's like abandoned and he's like alone on Mars by himself.
And he doesn't have enough food.
So in order to survive, he has to try and take the dust, like the dirt that's on Mars
and transform it into like more suitable dirt.
And he has to like try and create this little like mini atmosphere where he's creating water
and then he's using like dung and certain things that they have like in their packages.
And he's like trying to like grow potatoes.
So he's like trying to grow potatoes on this like planet so they'll have enough time to get them.
Because it takes four years in this movie to travel from Earth all the way to Mars.
But he only has like so many days' worth of food, like 90 days' worth of food.
So he has to create four years' worth of potatoes and everything.
And so it's just like this weird movie where he's like stuck on Mars
and he's like trying to inhabit this planet or whatever.
But this is like a real thing.
Like people want to actually colonize Mars.
Now, go to Deuteronomy chapter 32.
Go to Deuteronomy chapter 32.
Here's the thing.
Is it possible?
I would say it's possible because God gives us all the elements.
We already have all the elements necessary for life and all these different things.
So is it possible that mankind could colonize Mars?
I would say it's theoretically possible.
But I don't think that it'll ever happen, okay, for lots of reasons.
Number one, we don't have enough, you know, time.
We don't have enough time, money, probably enough of our own resources and everything like that.
But God truly created man in his own image.
And, you know, he gives us all kinds of wisdom and all kinds of knowledge.
And, you know, there's probably ways to transform these components and these compounds
and transform them into these type of things.
But realizing how difficult it would be to just point you to the fact that God obviously created it.
And what's interesting is even if you could, what does that prove?
It proves that it took intelligent life to go to Mars and, you know, to basically put all this effort and energy
to create all the things necessary for life.
Certainly not proving anything through evolution or whatever.
And there's another movie.
I don't remember what it is.
I remember seeing it a long time ago.
It seemed like some guy had successfully done this.
He had, like, planted all these different crops and different, like, plants on Mars
and then eventually took his helmet off.
And, like, the theory is if you took your helmet off, you'd just die instantly.
But he didn't die because he had created enough oxygen that it was, like, you're being on, like, on a high mountain or whatever.
I still doubt any of that's going to ever happen or whatever.
But you never know where technology could go or how much longer the Lord would allow.
But taking four years to get there, we're not going to be able to travel that many natural resources.
And, in fact, even on the terraforming article itself, it's, like, there's a lot of people that disagree on this.
Like, if we try to colonize Mars, are we going to waste way too many human resources and money and effort
and just basically run ourselves into extinction on Earth by trying to colonize Mars, which will probably never happen?
But even if it did, I don't care because it really doesn't matter.
It doesn't really impact anything.
It doesn't really change anything.
The Bible says if you dig down into hell, you know, the Lord's still there.
If you ascend up in heaven, the Lord's still there.
And, really, to be on Mars by yourself would be a punishment.
I mean, this Martian movie, this guy's, like, you know, I think in Interstellar or something, these two guys are, like, fighting.
And they're basically, like, you just probably want to kill yourself or something like that.
And it's just, like, probably because, you know, human isolation is, like, the worst thing imaginable.
Why would you want to be stuck on a planet by yourself with nothing and trying to, like, colonize this thing or whatever?
Even if you could survive, I mean, who cares how long you could survive?
You certainly cannot become God.
You know, the things that God did in a few days would take just millions of years.
That's why they always have to come up with millions of years and billions of years or whatever.
And it's just not going to happen.
The Lord's going to return way, way before you could ever think about doing all the things that He has accomplished.
But what's interesting about God's creation and some of the elements that He has is the fact that we have sustainable food sources.
We have grass. We have trees. We have vegetables.
And we don't just have to live on potatoes. I mean, we got it all.
I mean, we got all kinds of food.
And in order for the crops to grow, it needs water.
Well, God gives water in a lot of different ways.
One of them is dew specifically.
And, you know, this is kind of coming from the cloud system that was created on day number two.
But look at what it says in Deuteronomy 32, verse 1.
Give ear, O you heavens, and I will speak and hear.
O earth, the words of my mouth, my doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew,
as the small rain upon the tender herb and as the showers upon the grass,
because I will publish the name of the Lord, ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
So the Bible describes the word of God as rain and as dew.
And that's really what gives us life.
If we did not have rain and dew, we wouldn't have crops.
We wouldn't have all the plants. We wouldn't have all the things that we need to survive.
So we'd basically die.
And if you think about it, what is it accomplishing?
It's going on the ground and it's bringing life.
So if we liken this unto the Bible, because it's the word of God, what does the word of God do?
It brings life.
That water is sustaining and bringing life.
And we needed that day two so that day three could even happen.
So that we could have the fruit, we could have the vegetables, we could have these things that are being created.
Go to Proverbs chapter number three, go to Proverbs chapter number three.
Another thing that's interesting about dew, dew is ascribed in the Bible as coming from clouds,
but you also have an interesting phenomena called condensation, okay?
And it's kind of baffling because if you just take a glass of water and it's like ice water and you just set it, what will happen?
Water will get on the outside of the cup. Isn't that weird?
Now, some people might think like, is the water like jumping out of the cup and like getting on the side?
That's not what's happening. There's moisture in the air, okay?
And if it gets too cold in a certain area or it gets past the dew point, what happens is that moisture in the air will turn into water and so it'll basically condensate.
Just like the clouds. We talked about the water cycle, right?
We have the evaporation. What was stage two?
Condensation. Now, as the gases are rising in the atmosphere, what's happening is it gets higher and higher.
It's getting colder and colder, remember?
And so that cold, you know, pressure and everything like that is causing the vapor to then turn into clouds.
What we know as clouds and that's where the precipitation is being held.
But this even happens on a small level where you have dew on the earth from this process.
Think about when does dew usually show up? In the morning, right?
Why is it there in the morning? Really cold at night.
So that cold temperature is going to produce condensation, produce that moisture effect of where even moisture in the air.
So when you have a glass of ice water, because that cup is so cold on the outside, it'll literally create condensation on the outside.
That's also why you have Yeti cups, okay?
And if you touch the outside of a Yeti cup filled with ice, is it cold? No.
Because it is insulating, you know, the temperature on the inside, it's not a good, it's not conducive to that temperature or whatever.
So because it's not cold on the outside or hot on the outside or whatever, it reduces that condensation.
That's why you have it essentially working in that way.
Something that's very cold, you know, like cans of air or things like that that you spray and they get really cold.
Sometimes they'll feel a little bit moist or whatever on the outside afterwards because that cold air is basically creating moisture and condensation.
And this is just incredible things that the Lord's created.
And isn't it interesting, hey, it gets cold at night to what?
Basically give a lot of moisture, give a lot of the dew on all the earth so what?
We can have food. We can have crops.
So it's actually beneficial that it gets colder at night, okay?
And it's not like you're on the surface of the sun.
Like, I don't know, an area like Phoenix or, you know, the desert or something like that.
Why is it that nothing can grow there?
Well, it doesn't even get cold enough at night to have dew.
And so obviously it's not really a habitable place except with modern inventions like air conditioning and plumbing and all this kind of stuff that's allowed people to live in those areas as well.
Proverbs chapter 3, look at verse 19.
So we basically just have moisture everywhere, even coming down from the clouds.
You can see things like fog and other things that's providing moisture on the earth and that moisture is creating the ability to have crops.
That's why the Dallas-Fort Worth area looks so green is because of moisture, my friend.
If we go to Judges chapter 6, let me elaborate on this a little bit further about the dew.
But everything in the world points to the word of God, to God, to Jesus Christ, to the gospel.
I mean, everything that happens, every process, I mean, it's incredible how just everything points to the Lord in every single way.
It all just gives him glory and honor, even dew itself and even the crops, you know, having the seed and producing fruit and it's coming from the water.
But there's a cool story in the Bible about dew specifically and I wanted to just read a portion of this.
But look at Judges chapter 6 verse 36.
Now, this is arguably, you know, very clearly just a miracle.
Okay, this is not necessarily going to be evidenced by science.
I don't think anybody snuck by with a cold, you know, some kind of cold thing that they're blowing on the fleece or something.
And that caused it.
But obviously, whatever happened, God allowed this fleece to have a lot of dew on it, filled with water.
And the whole land, the whole earth is not, which is confusing because if it was cold everywhere, there'd be dew on everything.
So it's kind of like a miracle.
It shouldn't have happened that way.
Well, then it says in verse 39, and Gideon said unto God, let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once.
Notice, whenever you don't believe God the first time, you should ask with a lot of grace if you're going to second guess the Lord, right?
I mean, he's not quick to be like, hey, I know you already proved it, but will you prove it again?
He's like, don't be angry at me for this.
Let me prove I pray thee but this once with the fleece.
Let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.
And God did so that night, for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.
But what is this picturing, though?
Because God doesn't do anything by accident.
It's actually a lot of symbolism here.
Well, if you think about it, there's only water on the fleece, and a fleece often represents something in your Bible.
It represents the righteousness of Jesus Christ or it represents the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
So a fleece often references Jesus.
Now, here's the thing.
What does the dew represent?
The Word of God, okay?
So what is Jesus Christ full of?
The Word of God, okay?
So we see the whole earth is without the Word of God.
It's void of the Word of God, and only the fleece has the Word of God in the first miracle.
The second miracle, what happens?
The fleece ends up becoming dry so that the whole land can end up having that dew, picturing what?
The sacrifice and the death of Jesus Christ so that the whole world can get that dew.
The whole world can get the gospel of Jesus Christ, okay?
That's what's being pictured here, okay?
And this is important because we're talking about the symbolism.
It's going to apply to our days of creation.
Now, this is what's cool to me.
Let's think about day one.
What is day one?
The light.
What is the light?
The gospel of Jesus Christ, right?
It's getting saved, okay?
What's day two?
Day two is the water and the water.
What is that picture?
Baptism, doesn't it?
I mean, you're surrounded by water and you have the water cycle.
It's picturing, and what's the next step after getting saved?
It's getting baptized.
And then what is after getting saved and baptized?
Bringing forth fruit.
And we bring forth fruit by what?
Abiding in Jesus Christ, okay?
And what is that picture of abiding in Jesus Christ?
Well, getting that dew to come down.
When the land abides in the dew, it brings forth fruit.
And just like a Christian that abides in the Word of God is going to then bring forth fruit.
If you have the dirt without the dew, you don't get the fruit.
You have to have both.
You have to have the Word of God there so that you can bring forth the fruit.
And this is evidenced in so many places in your Bible.
Go, if you would, to John chapter 15 for a moment.
Go to John chapter number 15.
We see these really cool parallels and all these different pictures.
And you know, Jesus Christ's picture is what?
The living water.
He's often representing a lot of different things.
A lot of things picture him.
But go to John chapter 15 and look at verse number one.
I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman.
Every branch of me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.
Every branch that beareth fruit he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except that abide in the vine.
No more can ye except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and then gather them and cast them in the fire and they are burned.
So there's so much that we can talk about with this parallel.
Let's first think about our Mars example, okay?
What can Mars soil do without water?
Nothing.
No fruit.
What can dirt even on the earth without water do?
Nothing.
And here's the thing, a Christian without the word of God is going to do nothing.
They're going to do nothing without Jesus Christ.
We have to abide in Jesus Christ.
Now first of all, we understand that you have to get saved.
If you're not saved, obviously you have no opportunity, okay?
So, you know, that's kind of really, if you think about it, the unsaved man is like the Mars dirt.
Even if you add water, there's no hope, okay?
That thing's just doomed.
It needs to at least turn into the earth's kind of dirt, all right?
Then once it turns into the earth's dirt, if you add water, that's the saved Christian, now you have the opportunity to what?
Bring forth fruit in your life.
You don't have to bring forth fruit to be saved.
All you have to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you're saved, okay?
But just by being saved doesn't mean you're going to produce fruit.
You have to continue being watered by the word of God.
That's why we encourage people to read the Bible.
That's why we encourage people to go to church.
That's why we encourage people to pray and to sing the hymns and to get sin out of your life and to get all this evil out of your life.
So that you can do what?
Bring forth fruit.
And you know what?
The Bible hammers this so many different places.
So if you went to Luke, actually I want to do Matthew.
Do Matthew chapter 13.
Go to Matthew chapter number 13.
You have multiple parables in your Bible that cover this exact topic that we're talking about.
And really it's in coordination when you think about creation.
Having this good dirt and having this water so that it can bring forth grass and the herb yielding seed and it can produce fruit.
There is a very similar parable in your Bible called the parable of the sower.
Now look at Matthew chapter number 13 and look at verse number 3.
And he spake many things unto them in parables saying behold the sower went forth to sow.
When he sowed some seeds fell by the wayside and the fowls came and devoured them up.
Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth.
And when the sun was up they were scorched and because they had no root they withered away.
And some fell among thorns and the thorns sprung up and choked them.
But other fell into good ground and brought forth fruit some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
Now we have this parable and it's talking in a carnal sense.
It's saying look if you want to produce fruit you got to put seed in the ground.
But you can't just put it in any ground.
If I put it in a dirt path where people are driving and riding their bikes and their horses over all the time.
That seeds never going to bring forth and even if it did, even if it had some kind of a sprout it would just be trampled immediately.
But that type of ground is so hard, it's so hardly packed it just won't even germinate.
It just won't even ever bring forth anything.
This is the picture of all the unsaved people in the world.
All the unsaved people are hard-panned.
They just, they've never brought forth, they've never gotten saved and they're just not wanting to hear the word of God.
They got the seed, I mean they heard John 3 16 and they heard some of these verses, I mean they all got some seed.
It just never germinated, it never clicked with them.
And we're going to later get this understanding.
I want to still focus on the carnal.
Then we also have another group that's on stony ground.
And the stones basically make it where the soil is just not very deep for it.
So it just basically can't grow very strong, it's going to be weak, it's going to be damaged.
Then you have the thorns.
So it may be deep enough for it to have enough root, but the thorns end up choking the plants, they can't really produce very good crops.
So you have a lot of things needed in order to produce successful crops.
And typically when you're producing crops you need to go and till the ground, right?
You go and you till the dirt, so you break it up so it's soft, you get rid of the rocks.
You're breaking up any of the weeds or any of the other thorny type plants that would end up taking the water from the good plants and destroying the good plants, everything like that.
Well Jesus explains this, look at verse 18.
Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.
This is he which received seed by the wayside.
And in Luke 8 it makes it very clear this person didn't believe in Jesus otherwise they would have been saved.
So it's someone that had the word of God in their heart, but they didn't get saved.
And we meet this all the time.
I meet a lot of people, they can quote John 3.16 to me, but they're trusting in their works to be saved.
They can quote other Bible verses or they can even tell me the gospel verbatim.
They can tell me Jesus died on the cross and was buried and rose again.
And I'm like, okay, so it's a free gift. Oh, but you've got to be a good person.
See, that person's just not going to get saved.
And a lot of times what happens, someone hears a couple gospel verses or hears the gospel, but then the devil comes around and literally will take that message out of their, they'll forget it.
They'll get distracted. They won't, they won't remember it anymore.
And then because they didn't get saved that day, they'll never get saved.
It's sad.
So, you know, some people say you have to have Jesus in your heart to be saved.
But I don't like that phrase because these are literal people that have the word of God in their heart.
Word of God is Jesus and they're not saved.
Okay, because it's not just putting something in your heart, it's believing on it.
Trusting in Him with all of your heart that saves you.
Not simple, but a lot of people don't do it.
Verse 20.
This is different than the first group.
This group gets saved.
It says,
This is the guy that you got saved at the door, super excited.
He's like, what's the name of the church again?
And he's like, oh, okay.
And then he looks it up on Google and never wants to come.
He's just like, oh, you don't have five stars?
Yeah, I don't want to come.
Okay.
Or he shows up for one sermon and in the middle of the service he leaves, right?
Or it's just a one-time service or something like that.
That is what we're talking about here.
And look, this is a lot of people.
There's a lot of people that get saved and then they're just like, yeah, I don't want to go to church.
Or they find out about church and they're just like, no, I don't want to do that.
Okay, they're just not interested in really serving God.
Like the nine lepers, they like the fact that they're healed, they just don't really want to live for Jesus.
Verse 21.
Or verse 22.
Here's their third group.
Now, the first group's unsaved.
The last three groups are all saved.
Okay?
And it's going to describe the condition of these.
The one is just not serving God because he doesn't like any level of discomfort.
The second one, you know what, he can put up with a little bit of persecution, a little bit of tribulation.
He can get plugged into church a little bit.
But he's still hanging on to all the sins of his past.
He doesn't really want to walk in the new man.
And because he has all these sins and he just has all this other junk in his life that he's not willing to till up and get rid of, he ends up just being a nothing Christian at the end of the day.
He allows the love of money.
He allows, you know, alcohol.
He allows fornication.
He allows drugs.
He allows pride.
He allows all the sins in his life to basically stop him from actually doing anything for the Lord.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't go to church or didn't go to church for a while or even read some of the Bible.
He grew up a little bit.
But what happened?
All that other stuff ended up choking it and ended up just not panning out.
And look, we have that too.
We have people that show up.
They get kind of excited about church.
But then just some bad thing in their life caused them to quit serving the Lord.
Because you're always going to have issues.
You don't have issues and problems and things that can take us away.
That's why we should be careful to get the sin out of our life.
That's why it's important you go to a church that preaches for you to get the sin out of your life so that you're not a do-nothing Christian.
So you actually bring forth some fruit.
Now what's the last group?
But he that receives seed in the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
So then you have the last group.
The last group, they're excited about Christianity.
They're not offended by the persecution, the tribulation.
They're trying to get the sin out of their life and they have this good ground and that good ground ends up bringing forth lots of different fruit.
Now if you go to Luke 8 and you compare this, it actually even makes it more clear what he's talking about.
Luke chapter number 8 and for sake of time I'm only going to read the last one.
But it's very similar passage.
It says in verse number 15, look at this,
But that on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart having heard the word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience.
So what is the Bible like in soil unto?
It's your heart.
So when God created the land, that's kind of a picture of our hearts.
And what kind of a heart do you have?
The heart that's bringing forth the apples and the blueberries and the strawberries and the potatoes, even the brussels sprouts.
That's a good heart.
It might be a weird heart but it's a good one.
All the herbs and all the fruit that God wanted us to create.
And God's obviously more pleased with the watermelon and the grapes rather than the brussels sprouts and everything else.
If you like them, that's your problem.
But what's the point?
The point is the fact that the only way it's going to bring forth is if you get that dew coming constantly in,
that water that's coming in which is the word of God.
That's why we need the Bible.
That's why we need this constant refreshing of the word of God.
That we need all those elements in order to be successful in our Christian life.
And if we think about it, what was that three-step process?
Getting saved, getting baptized, and then producing the fruit.
And you know, baptism is a really important step in your Christian walk.
If you really want to serve God, you should get baptized.
And then not only get baptized, you need to constantly soak yourself in the word of God and be reminded to follow God's commandments.
When you stop getting this moisture of the word of God, what happens?
The corns are going to start growing.
You're going to have lots of other things kind of creeping in and they're going to soak the word
and you're going to eventually kind of dry up as it were and stop producing that fruit.
We want to constantly be watered by the word of God.
Now I want to take a break from this thought and cover one other thing.
Go to Deuteronomy chapter 13.
So we've kind of talked about a lot of the symbolism here and really the Bible is so deep.
And it's interesting how it perfectly matches all science, everything that we could ever dream to want to know.
It all points to the Bible. The Bible already knew it before any scientist ever discovered it.
They're not brilliant. They're lagging behind the Lord's wisdom.
And a lot of their ideas are weird anyways.
Deuteronomy chapter 13, look at verse number 6.
Here's another thing I want to bring up though, is the fact that the word earth could mean just land.
Now it says in verse 6,
If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend,
which is as thine own soul, enticed thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known,
thou nor thy fathers, namely of the gods of the people which are round about you,
nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth, even unto the other end of the earth,
thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shall thou nigh pity him,
neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him, thou shalt surely kill him.
Thine hands shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
Now you might ask me, pastor, what does this have to do with our sermon?
Okay, that was a little bit different point, but this is what I want to bring up.
Because I know you guys aren't idiots, but there's a group of people that are idiots and they're called flat earthers.
And what they like to do is they like to take passages like this that has nothing to do with the shape of the earth,
whatsoever, not even talking about what the earth really looks like, and to teach that the earth is flat.
And they'll literally say in verse number seven, it says, the end of the earth and the other end of the earth.
You know, how can you have that if it's a sphere, Pastor Shelley?
It's like, okay, well, first of all, the word earth is talking about the land, the land.
And if you go to Galveston, you know what you're going to run into?
The end of the earth, the beginning of the sea, okay?
And so from the one end of North America to the other end of North America,
it's saying no matter where you find yourself, reject heretics.
You know what it's not saying? That the earth is a flat disc on the back of a turtle.
Okay? So stupid.
But they'll take this little phrase, just rip it out of its context that has nothing to do with what we're talking about,
and then be like, well, that kind of sounds like a flood of earth.
No, it doesn't. You're just an idiot.
Go to a few more verses. Go to Psalm 67. Go to Psalm 67.
It's just like kicking this dog, okay?
Don't take passages way out of context to prove stupid carnal things.
Because you know what God does? He uses carnal truths to explain spiritual truths.
And I feel like this chapter has done that for us.
I mean, we're knocking out the park all kinds of carnal truths.
Talking about the creation of the land and fruit and how you can't do that on Mars.
There's all kinds of wonderful carnal truths we've learned today.
We've learned carnal truths from the parable of the sower.
We did not learn a carnal truth from killing heretics that the earth is a flat disc.
If anything that's related to, the closest thing that's related to flat earther than that
is that flat earthers probably have worse heresies and they might be on that list of people that need to be killed.
Okay? Not saying all flat earthers, but I'm just saying that's the only parallel I can draw.
It's definitely not the shape of the earth.
Psalm 67, look at verse 7.
God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
Oh, Pastor Shelley, it's the ends of the earth.
Look, it's just again talking about every continent, every area.
Go to Psalm 72.
Psalm 72.
Here's where they wouldn't take you.
Because this one will make it clear what we're talking about when we talk about the ends of the earth.
Okay?
Look at Psalm 72 and look at verse 8.
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
So what's the ends of the earth? Where are we running into water?
Okay, that was the ends of the earth because we're talking about dry land.
We're talking about the continent or we're talking about a state or the boundary of land essentially.
Where it runs into rivers or runs into the seas or runs into the ocean, whatever.
That's what it means by the end of the earth.
Go to Romans chapter number 10. Go to Romans chapter number 10.
So, day number 3.
You know, I really think it just emphasizes the earth or land.
You know, I use the word land a lot of times just because earth and our minds,
I almost always just think of the whole planet when I hear the word earth.
So when I think of land, it's more of what I'm kind of thinking about when I'm talking, when the Bible uses the word earth here.
So we kind of have the light, we kind of have the clouds, we have the land.
And it's really an important aspect.
If you think about all the creation, it's getting more and more important. Why?
The land's important because that's where souls are going to live.
And at the end of the day, God only really cares about souls when it comes to his creation.
You know, I eat the steak because God doesn't care about the cow that much.
It's for me.
Like God cares more about me killing the cow and eating it than the cow living.
He wants us to enjoy it. He made it for us to enjoy.
He made the grass for us to enjoy, to cut.
It's not like there's a million little grass blades that are crying every time you mow your lawn.
Like, ah! You know, they're there, don't cut me!
And he's just going over and it's just like, he believes in the genocide of grass, you know.
I mean, every week he's just going over there, I mean, just mercilessly.
God doesn't care about that. He's like, cut your grass. Go for it.
Dig it up, burn it. I don't care, you know.
Eat all of the fruit. You know, it's not like bananas are giving a little cry when you eat them.
Like, he just took my hat off, you know. No.
God doesn't care. He created the earth for us to enjoy, my friend, okay.
And when we think about the land, why do we have the earth being so important?
It's because that's where people live, that's where souls live that have eternal value.
Why does it make no sense to colonize Mars? Because there's no souls there.
And the only souls that could exist there would be the ones you drug out there.
Which you don't need to drag them to Mars to get them saved.
So there's actually no point in ever even doing something so foolish and nonsensical.
Unless you believe the propaganda lies that, oh, we've run out of earth.
Drive through Texas, okay. You're going to see way more land than souls.
Tons of land. I mean, there's land everywhere.
I mean, yeah, you drive through the city, there's a lot of souls.
But just drive to the next city and you're just going to see land for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles.
I mean, just land everywhere. All kinds of options for people to live, okay.
And we haven't even maxed capacity how many people could live in Dallas.
I wish we had, but I'm just not kidding. People are moving here like crazy, aren't they?
Look, I guarantee if we last a lot longer, I mean, Dallas is going to look way different in 10, 20 years.
I grew up here, like, for a little bit. I was young. I was around five, six, seven when I lived here.
And I lived in the Keller area. And I kid you not, everywhere I lived, like, everywhere around my neighborhood was only land.
It was just fields and just land and it just looked like you couldn't even tell you were in the city, quote, unquote.
And then I come back, like, 10, 15 years, there was no land.
It was just all buildings and houses and concrete and everything like that.
I mean, it was insane. It was incredible how much it was just built up overnight.
And look, it's not slowing down here whatsoever. I mean, you're just going to see huge transformations.
We have the capacity to have so many more people, you know, unless the Georgia guy stones have their way.
But there's no point in colonizing Mars. That's a vain exercise.
God already gave us all the dirt and the land and the earth and everything that we need.
You know, some people get really, they kind of have this attitude of, like, I just don't know what to do with my life.
What should I do? You know, what's my goal in life?
It's like, bring forth fruit. You get saved, you get baptized, you bring forth fruit.
Well, I don't know what I want to do with my life. That's what you want to do.
Especially if you're saved and you're a new man, that's all you need to do.
Don't worry about colonizing Mars. Don't worry about all the vain works that are going on in the world today.
No. If you want to do something really great, you know what you're going to do?
You're going to bring forth 30, 60, or some 100-fold.
You're going to read your Bible, you're going to go to church, and you're going to go to so many and get people saved.
And you're like, oh, well that sounds easy. But it sounds easy. It's hard work, though.
It's not complicated how to serve God. It's real simple. He makes it real easy.
The problem is that people get distracted with all the cares of this world and all the other stuff and all the junk and all their vain exploits and everything like that.
Why would I want to make a name for myself? Nobody will care about all the vain structures and the things that you did.
We'll forget about all of them. You probably couldn't even name the last 10 presidents for me.
And isn't the president the most powerful person on the planet? I mean, in theory. Obviously, Biden is not the most powerful. Let's be honest.
But he's in the position of power, right? Theoretically, again.
I'm just saying someone's got to be at the top of the food chain. It's theoretically the president of the United States, right?
I mean, we can't even remember the last 10, probably. We go back to Bush and then there was another Clinton and another Bush or something like that.
Who was before Bush, Sr.? Reagan, really? Okay, who was before Reagan? Someone's smart here.
Alright, 90% of you would not be able to, just kidding. Yeah. But at the end of the day, I mean, it doesn't really, all those other works don't matter.
Just produce fruit for God. Just make cucumbers for God. Or Brussels sprouts or whatever you, you know.
Watermelons. Look what it says in Romans 10, verse 17.
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, have they not heard?
Yes, verily their sound went to all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.
You know what God wants? Is the gospel to go to the ends of the earth. Every generation, for the gospel to go to the ends of the earth.
You know, he brought the earth up for a reason, so that the gospel could go to all of it. And so, what could happen?
Fruit could be produced on all of the land. He wants us to constantly produce fruit, and not just in one area, the whole earth.
He wants it to be green everywhere, spiritually speaking.
Go to I Corinthians 3, the last place to have your turn. Psalms 19 says this,
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
You know, that's basically where you're getting the quote from Romans, chapter number 10.
But it's saying all of God's creation is just screaming the truth of the word of God, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And it's our job, as saved Christians, to go throughout the whole land, go through the whole earth preaching the gospel.
God didn't just create it in vain. It has a physical importance, and it has a spiritual importance of the fact that that's where we find lost souls.
You know, I'm not interested in going to Mercury, or Venus, or Jupiter, or any of these things. Even the moon. What's the point?
I'm not going to live there. There's no one to get saved there. It's just lonely. It's just as pointless as, you know, going to Joel Osteen's church.
Not interested in going. No, we need to serve God, and get watered by the word of God, and abide in Christ so that we can bring forth fruit.
And not just some fruit, but much fruit. Look at what it says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 5.
Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom he believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
Now, in the context of this passage, Paul's having to deal with an issue where everybody wants to be like, I'm of Paul, or I'm of Apollos, or whatever.
And Paul combats this by saying, who is and is Paul? He's saying like, I'm not special. There's nothing unique about me or Apollos.
We're just simply ministers by whom he believed. And notice, even as the Lord gave to every man.
So every man needs something, though. A minister. And it doesn't matter if it's, you know, Pastor Shelley, or if it's a five-year-old child in this room.
It doesn't matter if it's a lady in this room. It doesn't matter if it's even Dylan. Even Dylan can get people saved, okay?
And it doesn't make it less worthy. You know, it's not like, well, I got saved by Dylan. It's still the same gospel.
You know, it doesn't matter who gave you the gospel. You got saved, bam, you're in the club.
And it's not like, I got saved by Jack Hyles. You know, it's like, okay, great, but, you know, that doesn't change that you're saved.
It doesn't make your salvation better than Dylan's salvation, you know, or whatever. Or Paul, or Paul, I mean, wouldn't it be cool, I got saved by Paul.
But it doesn't matter, because if you got saved by Paul, it's the same gospel. And God gave to every one of them.
Verse 6, I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
And he that planteth and he that watereth are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.
Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying, though. I'm not saying that what you do isn't important.
I'm saying, though, that you're not going to get all this extra special glory and fame for being a soul winner.
In the sense that, you know, it's not like you go out and be a soul winner, the whole world's going to be like, there's the soul winner!
You know, and like, people are going to be so excited about you, and even if they did have that thought, it's a carnal thought.
Because if you're like, oh, we all got saved by Paul, he's like, who cares? You got saved. Okay?
What's important is that people are going out and preaching the gospel and getting people saved.
And that's what's really important. And notice that you're going to get rewarded according to your own labor.
At the end of the day, you will stand before Jesus Christ, and he's going to look at you like you would look at a vegetable or a fruit tree and say, what do you got to show for yourself?
And here's the question, are you going to look like Mars, or are you going to look like a garden?
Some Christians are going to look like Mars at the end of the day.
They're going to burn up and be worthless and pointless and just, you know, like, you had no water.
You didn't know any of the Bible, did you?
Whereas, you know, this church has been watered a lot. We've read the Bible. We know the Bible.
We didn't need to produce fruit on a regular basis and realize that's the main goal that God has in our life.
And look, we're establishing foundational doctrines.
He's giving you the most important things you could ever do in your life. Get saved, get baptized, produce fruit.
That's it. That's your life.
Everything else is vain. Everything else is worthless.
Nothing else matters.
Get plugged into your local church and start producing fruit.
That's why God gave us the land to live on.
Not so that we could just have fun.
Not so we could just build vain works.
Not so we could just name the country after ourselves.
But what so that we could produce fruit on this land?
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this great day of creation that you've given us.
Thank you for giving us such a habitable part of the earth.
For giving us the land and giving us the earth.
Thank you for giving us all the wonderful vegetables and fruits and just foods that are on this earth that we can eat and enjoy.
You give us dew. You give us moisture.
But even more important is the spiritual aspect.
Thank you for the dew that's just the Word of God.
That we can constantly grow and constantly develop.
We can abide in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I pray though that as we abide in Christ that we would put to good effort and good energy the dew that you give us and produce fruit.
And realize the importance of producing fruit.
Not for vain glory or recognition.
But rather that we could get people saved that would go with us into heaven.
And that we would have a yearning desire to see lost people saved.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen. Let's go ahead and sing one more song.
It looks like we've got a baptism or two after the service.
You'll get out your hymnal.
The 207, Only a Sinner.
That's song 207.
Only a sinner.
Not have I gotten but what I've received.
Grace hath bestowed it since I have believed.
Supposedly bestowed it right at base.
I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
Only a sinner saved by grace.
Saved by grace.
This is my story to God be the glory.
I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
Once I was foolish and sin rolled my heart.
Causing my footsteps from God to depart.
Jesus about me hath been my case.
I know am a sinner saved by grace.
Only a sinner saved by grace.
This is my story to God be the glory.
I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
Tears unavailing nowhere in an eye.
Mercy hath saved me or else I must die.
Sin had alarmed me, weary but faced.
But now I'm a sinner saved by grace.
Only a sinner saved by grace.
This is my story to God be the glory.
I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
Suffer a sinner whose heart overflows.
Loving his savior to tell what he knows.
What's more to tell it would I grace.
I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
Only a sinner saved by grace.
This is my story to God be the glory.
I'm only a sinner saved by grace.
Thank you.
Applause
Music