Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
It's great to see everybody here this afternoon.
If we can go ahead and find our seats, we will get started.
And once we've found our seats, let's grab a hymnal and go to song number 114.
Song number 114, let's all sing it out together on the first.
The Green
we love you and just once again we want to thank you for this church we want to
thank you for everything you're doing here we're just so honored to be a part
of it and we just ask now that you bless this church fill it with your spirit
and help us to sing out unto you and it's in Jesus name we pray amen all right
for our next song let's go to song number 448
coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not already get a bulletin and you would like
one, just lift your hand real quick when a rushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. On the
front we have our Bible memory passage, Matthew 28 verse 17 and then on the inside we have our
service times, several soul winning times there. Down below is our church stats. Please keep the
great work on our soul winning up.
And on the right, we have a list of expecting ladies.
Upcoming events.
We have our kids choir practice.
They've been working on that Sundays at two.
And we're looking forward to them performing
on our Easter services.
So that's gonna be a lot of fun.
We have a spring recital this Saturday at 4pm and so make sure you if you signed up for one of those tryout times are showing up for that.
We have the Foley wedding coming up the following Friday which is going to be March 28th at 6pm and they have invited the church.
So if you'd like to attend, we would love for you to attend but please they have a RSVP if you'd please just fill that out so that way they can prepare.
And we can have a good idea of who's planning on coming.
Also, there's a Mansfield soul-winning marathon, April 19th.
We have some Easter invites that we've already made,
some flyers, and so we'll get those set out
so you can start handing those out.
And then, of course, our Easter service is April 20th.
So it's a little bit later in the year this year.
It's going to be April 20th.
Down below, some church reminders on the back is our prayer list.
Go ahead and just walk through our prayer list.
We're continuing to pray for the Naeem's and their grandmother's vision health and salvation
We've been praying for the Carlson's mother and also father's health
We've been praying for the Millers one of their friends is having cancer treatment. So we're continuing to pray for them
Also, we're praying for the Scots. We're praying for a brother Horace and miss Grace and they have several a
couple different health issues there
Continue to pray for them. We're praying for brother Tony's health
We've been praying for well
This is actually turned into a praise request
But we've been praying for the Foley's for the fiance visa to get here and and praise God that's happened
So that's exciting. We've been praying for the Good Winds friend miss Sarah for continued recovery from surgery
We're also praying for brother Nick's mother for her salvation
And then he also had a prayer for a co-worker for their salvation
We're also praying for Brother Stewart's stepmom who had passed away.
And if you could pray for his dad, pray that he would get saved.
And then we're also praying for Miss Larky for her arm, unfortunately, had been broken.
So several prayer requests there.
Please make sure you're praying throughout the week,
but we're going to go ahead and just say a quick word of prayer as a church family.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church.
Thank you for all the ladies who are expecting.
I pray that you would please just help them
with their pregnancies.
I pray that you would help those that are desiring
to conceive, that you would bless them.
I pray that you would help those who have recently
given birth, that you would be with their children.
I pray that you would also just help our church family
that's struggling with chronic illnesses or health issues.
I pray if possible that you would just give them health.
Please give them grace.
Please also give them peace during this time of difficulty.
For our friends and family, I pray that you'd also bless them
with health and also give them an opportunity
to hear the gospel, that you'd soften their hearts,
that you'd give us the boldness to be able to confront them
and help them to understand the gospel.
I pray that you'd also just bless our church family
that's needing a request with.
their job or with favor.
I pray that you just please bless them.
And I pray that you would continue to bless
the work that we're doing in the Philippines
with our evangelists and his family.
I pray that you keep them safe,
that you'd keep them encouraged
and give them a lot of zeal.
And I pray that you would continue to use our church
for your honor and for your glorious
and Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
So we're gonna be singing Psalm 58. It's a special song. We just learned it this week
It's a little bit lower of a of a tune, but it's kind of a somber song
And so of course, you know, not only do we sing the positive things
We're seeing some of the negative things in the Bible and and Psalm 58
It's got some some
Sombring verses in there. So Psalm 58 and our special binders
All right, that was Psalm 58.
Psalm 58, let's all sing it up together.
All right, let's all sing it up together.
the earth, the wicked or the strange from the moon.
They go astray as soon as they before speak.
Because they go astray as soon as they hear.
day preciousness.
Hope our creation, through each other, might be.
Holy sons of man, their voice and his light.
The boys in the fire, serve if they are lying.
But the fatter gap, stop it for a year.
to the voice of Charmers Charming.
Never so wisely the voice of Charmers Charming.
Never so wisely.
Speak righteousness, O congregation, do ye judge a pride me?
Holy sons of men, break their teeth, O God.
Two students, their roles might be empty, Asgard in pieces, Asgard in pieces,
Dignity, sweet righteousness, Low congregation, and duties of the bridegroom,
has a way like a untimely birth of a woman that they may not see though.
All praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you, all praise be to you,
Now, as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to
Matthew chapter 14.
That's the book of Matthew chapter number 14.
Matthew 14, the Bible Reads.
At that time, Herod the Tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus and said unto his servants,
This is John the Baptist, he is risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do show
forth themselves in him.
For Herod had laid hold on John and bound him and put him in prison for Herodius' sake,
his brother Philip's wife.
For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her.
And when he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude because they counted
But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod,
whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask.
And she, being before instructed of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head and a
charger. And the king was sorry, nevertheless, for the oath's sake, and then which sat with him at
and his head was brought in a charger and given to the damsel and she brought it to her mother,
and his disciples came and took up the body and buried it and went and told Jesus.
When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by shipping to a desert place apart,
and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities.
and Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them,
and he healed their sick, and when it was evening, his disciples came to him saying,
this is a desert place, and the time is now past, send the multitude away,
that they may go into the villages and buy themselves vittles.
But Jesus said unto them they need not depart give ye them to eat and they said unto him
We have here, but five loaves and two fishes
He said bring them hither to me and he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass and took the five loaves and the two
Fishes and looking up to heaven
He blessed and break and gave the loaves to his disciples and the disciples to the multitude
And they did all eat and were filled and they took up of the fragments that remain twelve baskets full
And they that had eaten were about 5,000 men beside women and children.
And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship
and to go before him and to the other side while he sent the multitudes away.
And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray.
And when the evening was come, he was there alone.
But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves, for the wind was contrary.
And in the fourth watch of the night,
Jesus went into them walking on the sea and when the disciples saw him walking the sea they were troubled saying it is a spirit and
They cried out for fear
But straightway Jesus spake unto them saying be of good cheer it is I be not afraid and Peter answered him and said Lord
If it be thou
Bid me come unto thee on the water and he said come and when Peter was come down out of the ship
He walked on the water to go to Jesus
But when he saw the wind boisterous
He was afraid and beginning to sink he cried saying Lord save me and immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and
Said unto him oh thou of little faith wherefore did thou doubt and when they were coming to the ship the wind ceased
And they that were in the ship came and worshiped him,
saying of a true thou art the Son of God.
And when they were gone over,
they came into the land of Gennesaret.
And when the men of that place had knowledge of him,
they sent out into all the country,
round about and brought unto him, all that were deceased.
And besought that they might only touch
the hem of his garment.
And as many as touched were made perfectly whole.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this chapter of the Bible.
Thank you for this church.
Thank you for our pastor.
I just pray that you bless Pastor Shelley,
fill him with your Holy Spirit,
help him to preach your word unto us,
and help us to receive your word with open heart.
Pray us in Jesus' name, amen.
We've been going through the book of Matthew in chapter 14 it says in verse 1 at that time
Herod the T-Trark heard of the fame of Jesus.
A T-Trark is someone that's a lesser ruler, a subordinate ruler, and specifically over
four provinces.
So Herod is a ruler of a fourth of the region of the Roman Empire specifically.
And that's a vast area.
This would be a great position of power and authority at this time.
because of course you can't really hide the spirit of God under a bushel because
when someone's doing great works of the Lord Jesus Christ people are going to
hear about it and there's going to be fame associated with that and so I
believe anytime you see the work of God being performed in the Bible
people find out about it and even rulers find out about the work of God that's happening.
It says in verse 2, and he said in his servants, this is John the Baptist.
He has risen from the dead and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him.
Now, what's interesting is it's going to kind of go and do a little bit of a
going back in time here in the next few moments to kind of explain what it's bringing up, but
When Herod hears about Jesus, he thinks it's John the Baptist and what's kind of interesting is
He thinks that John the Baptist came back from the dead
Now, this is just crazy to think about because the Sadducees, according to the Bible, don't
even believe in a resurrection, and yet Herod believes in a resurrection and he's not even
a Jew, he's not even of the Jews' religion, yet he also recognizes the idea or the concept
of a resurrection specifically.
working of God in the sense that he's kind of afraid of what he's done under John the Baptist because he knows he was a man of God.
Another thing that's interesting about this is he says,
and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves
in him, the Bible makes it clear that John the Baptist did no miracle.
And yet Jesus performed a lot of miracles
and Herod thinks that John the Baptist is doing a lot of miracles
And I think that just goes to show that when you preach the word of God and when you're doing the works of God the
unsaved, and those in positions of authority actually think that all things are possible.
They actually are afraid of what you could possibly do, because it's funny how John the Baptist didn't even do any miracles,
but that he's kind of afraid thinking, but he's capable of doing all manner of miracles.
He could raise himself from the dead, he could go out and do all these kind of miracles,
because he's kind of attributing Jesus' miracles.
to John the Baptist specifically and of course Jesus is doing things like healing everybody.
He's raising people from the dead. He's doing all kinds of things that are miracles by the
Bible's definition and so it's attributed unto John the Baptist. Now it's going to give us a little
bit of information about why John was dead. It says in verse three, for John had laid hold on John,
I'm sorry for Herod had laid hold on John.
and bound him and put him in prison for Herodias' sake,
his brother, Philip's wife.
For John had said unto him,
it is not lawful for thee to have her.
Now this is what's interesting,
keep your finger here and go to Leviticus chapter 18,
go to Leviticus chapter 18 in the Old Testament.
What's interesting is that John the Baptist
is telling Herod that he's doing something that's wrong.
He's preaching against Herod.
Lots of things we could learn from this number one is that no one is exempt from being preached against period.
God is not a respecter of persons and preachers should not have respect of persons either.
A lot of preachers today want to come and parade the mayor and parade governors and parade
congressmen and parade all manner of people in positions of authority in front of their
church and not rebuke them for their sin.
And not call them out for their sin because you know what? They're a specter of persons
But John the Baptist was not a respecter of persons and he called Herod out for his sin
Another thing is Herod is not a Jew again
Herod is not under Jewish law. Herod has not been circumcised. Herod is not trying to be a part of the Jews religion
and yet John the Baptist is using the Old Testament to rebuke Herod.
Now what verse, look at verse 16.
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife. It is thy brother's nakedness.
Now if you understand the context of the entire Old Testament you would realize that if your brother died
You could marry his wife, but what you can't do is you can't be with your brother's wife while he's alive
What would this look like most likely his brother had divorced his wife or perhaps?
Maybe they didn't even divorce she just kind of ran off or she's just with
Herod even though they haven't even officially divorced. They're just kind of separated or having this adulterous affair
Whether it's divorced or not and God's eyes is adultery period
And the Bible says it's wrong to be with your brother's wife and so he is rebuking Herod for having his brother's wife.
You know, some people think like, oh, the Old Testament law applies to the Jews, no, it applies to everyone.
God's law applies to everyone, period.
We are all His creation.
We're all His creatures and we're all His servants
and we're all expected to follow all of God's commandments.
The Bible says that the law of God is written on our hearts.
And the Bible tells us in the book of Romans
that even though the Gentiles didn't have the law,
it wasn't given to them physically,
they had the law of God written on their hearts.
And so the Gentiles were expected
to keep the Ten Commandments just like
The Jews were expected to keep God's Ten Commandments
because everyone is expected to keep God's Commandments.
Now, of course, the Bible says in the New Testament that
at the times of this ignorance, God winked at.
For some reason in the Old Testament, God was a little bit more long-suffering or merciful to the
heathen nations. But at the time of the gospel going forth, God is basically saying there's no longer
this this grace period.
It's time for you to get in line with Christianity.
He's going to really hold nations that have false religion
and false gods accountable for their actions much harsher
in the New Testament and he wants people to convert to Christianity
and not just have a singular nation for Christianity
but rather have a spiritual nation of all believers in the New Testament.
But no matter what era we're in, whether we're in Old Testament or New
Testament, we were all expected to keep God's commandments
And this is a great proof text of this,
because some people say, oh well,
you know, the law only applies to Jews,
or the law only applies to this group of people.
And it's like, no, no, the law applied to everyone
all the time.
And of course to understand in the New Testament, some parts of the Old Testament have been
changed.
The Bible says, for the priesthood being changed, there's made of necessity a change also of
the law.
This is in the book of Hebrews.
And it makes it clear, the meats, drinks, divers, washings, and cardinal ordinances were only
imposed on them until the time of Reformation.
But Christ being come...
Now we don't have that certain cardinal ordinances imposed on us.
We can have bacon, amen?
And let me tell you something, Christians are okay with the bacon doctrine.
You know, when I meet these Christians that are trying to be Torah observing,
I'm like, man, you're just hurting yourself, okay?
Bacon is a good doctrine.
And I love the New Testament.
It's called the Better Testament.
And, of course, no creature of God is to be refused.
We're supposed to receive it with Thanksgiving, okay?
So, I love the New Testament,
but this is a great proof text to help people understand,
you know, everybody was under God's law period.
And John the Baptist preached against anyone,
he was an equal opportunist in preaching the word of God.
But, of course, this is gonna threaten somebody.
Think about this.
If John the Baptist is saying to Herod,
it's not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife,
Who is kind of the most threatened person in this scenario?
It's Herodias, because if John the Baptist does,
I'm sorry, if Herod does what John the Baptist is saying,
he would then put her away from him
and she would lose her position of authority and power
because Herod is the top guy, Herod's the one in charge
and she's kind of there with him as second in command
in a sense.
Just saying that he's the wife. She's the wife of the person. That's the most powerful person
So she kind of has obviously some power some influence as being his wife or being with him
So by John the Baptist preaching against him it is by in fact, you know threatening Herodias's position
Herodias is being threatened by this
Now it says in verse number five and when he would have put him to death
He feared the multitude because they counted his profit now Herod wanted to put John the Baptist to death
but was afraid of doing it because he didn't want to become unpopular.
And no one wants to become unpopular as a politician because
your constituency could potentially overthrow you.
Maybe they might even just kill you, especially in the Roman Empire.
A lot of leaders were killed.
They were taken out of positions of authority and power because their constituency hated them.
often what they would do is they would not pay taxes and when they're not paying taxes,
well then Herod isn't able to funnel money to Caesar and when Caesar is not getting his paycheck,
well, heads start rolling. And so that's why it's kind of a dangerous thing. You don't want to
make the constituency or your underlings or your servants
mad at you, you want to keep them happy.
But by killing one of their leaders
or killing one of their religious leaders,
it could cause an uproar,
it could cause all kinds of conflicts.
So he's kind of just afraid of the people.
And you know, the sad thing is in America,
our leaders have lost the fear of the people in many ways.
And it's because the people don't really have any commonality.
The people don't have common views.
The people don't have common heroes.
And as a result, it makes for a weak influence of our population.
You know, when the population is like-minded, has the same beliefs,
the same religion, and is kind of united as a front,
it actually holds the leadership very accountable.
You know, this church even, this church is very united.
I mean, we have the King James Bible.
We're united on salvation by faith.
We're united on soul winning.
We're united on a lot of doctrines.
We're united on standards.
We're united on purpose.
And so if I were to start doing something contrary
to what the vast majority believes,
boy, that would really upset the dynamic that would cause
a lot of uproar potentially and could cause the constituency or the church membership to revolt
or get mad or ask questions. Whereas think about a lot of churches today, there's not continuity
on what Bible they use, what salvation plan, what standards, and so they can allow leadership
to just get away with whatever they want.
And so, honestly, having accountability is a lot of times in proximity to the servants
all being in unison, having the same doctrine, having the same beliefs.
And this is why it's important for evil forces to divide and conquer.
They want countries to be weak.
How do they do that?
Well, they have to bring in multiple religions.
and demographics and just all kinds of different things
because without a united front,
well, now the leadership can kind of do whatever they want.
And so, you know, a nation divided or a house divided
cannot stand.
And really, when you don't have unity,
it causes a lot of issues, a lot of problems.
But at this time, obviously there's unity.
A lot of people are on John the Baptist's side.
And so that threatens Herod from doing what he wants to do.
He wants to kill him just because he's tired
of this guy preaching against him.
Isn't it funny that somebody just gets up and just reads the Bible and then what's the reaction?
I want to kill you.
I mean, he didn't do anything to him.
John the Baptist can't do anything to him.
He just simply said what you're doing is wrong and Herod wants to kill him.
And unfortunately that is the reaction of people today.
You just tell them that they're doing something wrong or sinning and they want to kill you.
They want to hurt you because they just feel guilty about their sin
and they don't want anybody telling anybody else that they're bad.
So, let's just put them to death.
It's kind of funny, it's like, I'm sorry,
I want to go in a rant for a second.
But I went on this online spaces,
and I was talking to all these people,
and they were like super pro Hitler.
And it's weird, it's out there, okay?
There are people out there that,
in fact, one of the people in this group said
that Hitler is the greatest Christian to ever live, okay?
And they say like, tell me one thing that Hitler did wrong.
I'm just thinking like, well, I got a lot,
but I just said, well, how about Eva Braun,
this lady he wasn't married to
that he had a relationship with?
Isn't that like, and they're just like,
Well, but that's your opinion on morality or no, that's God's opinion on morality
Okay, and look that's the least of Hitler's problems
But but what's just so funny is as soon as you say something like this
It's like oh well we got to get rid of this guy because he's criticizing our hero
He's criticizing our leader or something like that
And so they just want to attack you and hurt you and call you all kinds of names and it's just like hey
All I did is point out a fact
Hey, it's not awful for thee to have thy brother's wife and you know now they want to kill you, right?
Now it says in verse 6
But when Herod's birthday was kept the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod
Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever. She would ask
This is also a really bad idea
Don't just give carte blanche promises like this.
Don't just say like, hey, whatever you want, it's yours.
This is a very bad principle.
Keep your finger, go to Ecclesiastes chapter number five,
go to Ecclesiastes chapter five.
The Bible tells us that whenever we make
some kind of a promise or oath, we have to keep it.
And so we should be very careful that when we utter anything,
that we know exactly what we're saying
and what we're getting ourselves into.
This is what the world likes to do to you today,
is they love to give you the terms and conditions
and just snow you with all this information
so you just say yes and you don't even know what you signed.
I mean, who in here actually reads the terms and conditions
of everything they've ever signed?
Okay, we don't have any liars all right good, but I'm just saying like we don't have time for this do we plus
You know at the end of the day a lot of times these contracts don't even matter anyways because most people even honor their word
So we just kind of feel obligated to sign these things
One of the worst is if you buy a house and you get a loan,
you will sign paperwork for about an hour straight.
I mean, and you don't even know what you're signing.
It's all kinds of crazy documents.
Documents like you're not a terrorist
and you're not funneling money for the cartels
and you're not doing all kinds of crazy things
and you just kind of feel like you're signing your life away.
But in general obviously we all kind of just go with that
But in general we should be careful what we sign and what we say and what we do because we're going to be
Snared with the contracts that we enter into the Bible says in Ecclesiastus chapter 5 verse 2 be not rash
With thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God for God is in heaven and now upon earth
Therefore let thy words be few
For a dream coming through the multitude of business, and a fool's voice is known by
multitude of words.
When thou vows to vow unto God, defer not to pay it.
For you have no pleasure in fools.
Pay that which thou hast vowed.
Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow.
and not pay. So for not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin, neither say thou before the angel
that it was an error, wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thy hands."
So God is just basically saying when you say you're going to do something you should keep
your word. It used to be that in times past if someone promised something and there was like a
contract. It was something that people would actually honor and do.
But today people are constantly breaking their word,
breaking their vows, going back on what they said.
And the Bible is saying God is just not going to bless you as a person
when you're constantly going back on your oaths,
constantly going back on your vows, constantly breaking promises.
You know, when we make a vow, when we make a promise, we need to keep that.
And what's the most important vow? It's marriage.
The Bible says that, hey, when you make a vow,
especially before God, you better keep it.
And boy, when you stand there and say,
till death do us part, somebody better die.
I'm not giving you an incentive, okay?
I'm not giving you some kind of a recommendation,
but I'm telling you, you know what?
It should be that way, and it's serious.
It's serious and we live in a very wicked world
We live in a world where people commit grievous sin where people are really bad or people make a lot of big mistakes
But you know marriage is a beautiful thing because marriage pictures you saying I will not in this no matter what
And isn't it nice, I mean, isn't that the contract that Jesus made with us when we put our faith in Him?
Isn't it when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, He gave you eternal life and He says,
I'll never leave thee, nor forsake thee?
Doesn't He say that He's sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise and that we're not supposed to grieve the Holy Spirit?
But guess what? You're sealed under the day of redemption. And of course in marriage, we shouldn't be trying to grieve one another.
We shouldn't be trying to hurt one another, but you know what? Inevitably there will be pain, there will be suffering, there will be
detriment in marriage, and what you're supposed to say is,
you know what, I chose to love you
no matter how bad you are.
And of course we would want to be good spouses,
we want our spouse to be good,
but you know what, isn't that a beautiful picture of love?
When you say I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee.
And isn't that the beautiful picture of the gospel, how Jesus Christ says that unto us?
And isn't in a symbol, the church, the bride of Christ in a symbol?
And isn't it nice that the picture of the husband, Christ is saying, I'll never leave
thee nor forsake thee?
That is what a husband is supposed to do unto his bride, is to say, hey, I'll never leave
thee nor forsake thee, I'm going to cherish you, I'm going to love you, and till death
do his part.
And what to God, we would have a lot of marriages in our church where it's still death to us part.
And I see unfortunately divorce is an ugly thing. I hate it. God hates it. The Bible says that God hate it putting away.
And when Jesus was even asked about this question, he said, what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.
You know, divorce even in times past used to just be illegal.
Plenty of Christian countries wouldn't even allow divorce period. There's no divorce allowed and it's crazy
How the entire world could agree on that and today fundamental Baptist can't even agree on that
I mean, you have Roman Catholics saying we won't divorce because of the Bible.
The Roman Catholics that call their priest father, the Roman Catholics that think that
they're literally eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus Christ, Roman Catholics
that read the verses that say, hey, don't sound a trumpet for your alms and then they
sounded trumpet for their alms, Roman Catholics that literally put ash on their forehead when
Wash your face.
I mean, the same Roman Catholics are the ones that said,
hey, divorce is off the table.
And then you have fundamental Baptist today
that'll actually give excuses for divorce.
Isn't that sad?
Isn't it sad that the unsaved Catholics
of hundreds and hundreds of years could get this right
and fundamental Baptist and many Christians
can't get it right?
Why? Because they go with the world.
They go with what the world has to say.
You know, we should be better than that.
Go back, if you would.
Hey, keep that vow.
If you make a vow for marriage, keep it, period.
You say like, hey, Pastor Shelley,
what about this scenario?
I will never, ever, ever, ever tell someone the divorce.
I never have and I never will.
Before I was a pastor, I never told anybody that
and I saw some ugly stuff.
I even had people that were really close to me
that were wanting to get divorced
and I told them don't do it.
And you know, I've even seen low spots in marriages.
I've seen where both parties say,
we don't love each other anymore.
We're not interested in each other anymore.
And then time healed that wound
and they ended up getting past it
and they now love each other again.
They're having a great marriage.
So, you know, even though you might have a low spot
or you might have difficult things going on,
you know what, just stay in the fight.
Just fight the good fight and keep that vow.
And God will bless you when you keep the vow.
Some people think like, no, no, God will bless me more
if I get divorced and start over or try again
or find the right person.
No, no, no, you already had the right person.
You vowed.
That's the right person.
Just love them, be good to them, stay with them.
Don't then go get your brother's wife, Herod.
Don't try to get some.
I mean, this woman is wicked as hell.
this Herodias woman?
I mean, think about what we already read.
She's allowing her daughter to dance before all these men.
That's not a woman of value.
That's not a woman of character.
That's not a woman that loves her own daughter.
And she's not even allowing her daughter
to do this for her own benefit.
She's using her daughter to harm the man of God.
She's a selfish, wicked woman
who only cares about positions of authority.
Now, it says in verse eight,
and she, being before instructed of her mother,
said, give me here John Baptist's head in a charger.
I love this verse just because it's not just John the Baptist,
it's just John Baptist.
He just dropped the the.
He just became Foley Baptist in this verse, all right?
He's just, I mean, it's just his last name.
Just, what's your name?
Baptist, John Baptist, you know?
But see how wicked this woman is?
She she kind of like had already dreamed this up
Who knows if she planted this idea and even Herod's head saying like hey if you're dog
If my daughter danced before you should probably just promise her whatever she wants
I mean who knows maybe not but she kind of already had this plan concocted
She knew that this might be a chance that could happen where hey you're gonna go dance. He's probably gonna offer you something
And, in my mind, I'm thinking she probably said something to Herod, because it's not
going to be normal that he's going to say, hey, who do you want to cut off, whose head
do you want to cut off?
It's probably, she says like, hey, if you really loved her or you really liked this,
you'd probably just say, I'll give you anything.
And of course, just then kind of having this idea planted in his head, this is my speculation.
She's telling his daughter, hey, when he says,
whatever you want, this is what you're going to ask for.
You're going to ask for John Baptist's head on a platter.
Now isn't that what you think every teenage daughter wants?
Don't you think like every teenage young woman just
wants some preacher's head on a platter?
I mean, hey, you're promising, hey, whatever you want.
You want a new car.
You want, I mean, a new chariot.
You want a new chariot, a pink chariot?
You want some new clothes, you want a nice house?
No, no, no, I want the preacher's head on a platter.
Isn't that bizarre?
But it actually makes sense why they would want this.
Why do they want this?
Because again, Herodias feels like her position is threatened.
She's afraid of losing her position of authority and she's probably told her daughter
Hey, if we don't get this guy, he might get us out of the King's Palace or out of
Herod's household and we won't be rich anymore and we won't have power anymore
And we won't have fame anymore
So in order to keep our fame in order to keep our position of authority
We got to kill this Baptist and you know what?
There are wicked women out there in positions of authority that if you mess with them
They'll put your head on a platter
There's women's there's women that are connected to all these mysterious deaths people like Hillary Clinton. I
Have no idea
But for some reason they're just all these friends of hers that keep committing suicide and have mysterious deaths
And you kind of wonder like what's going on?
It's because they're threatened their position of power and authority
Could be lost and so they take people out
And there's no new thing under the sun.
That's why in some cases, you know,
the Bible says that we should be wise
concerning that which is good
and simple concerning evil.
Sometimes having certain information
is not beneficial to you.
Some information will cost you your life.
You know, why did Jeffrey Epstein kill himself?
Well, he didn't.
So I mean, it was a hard question to answer.
He had too much information, didn't he?
Okay, and so sometimes information is not always the best thing and so we should be simple concerning that which is evil
But of course even when you do that, which is right still sometimes people want to take you down
Just because at the end of the day the ultimate God and judge of this world is the God of the Bible
Now here's something that you should learn a couple things we should learn
Number one is that if your mom asks you to do something wicked don't do it
You know we should always do what our parents tell us to say and do like we should always obey and honor our parents
But if your parent is saying hey, let's kill the preacher
It's wrong. If they say let's kill Pastor Shelley after the service. Don't do it
If they if they want to come after hey, they want to go after the things of God you just say no
And you know what we don't know much of what happened to them, but because we didn't really read much. I'm sure nothing good happened
I'm sure they're probably both burning in hell
and I'm sure they regret, you know, this decision.
You know, she should have asked,
hey, can I hear what John the Baptist has to say?
I want to hear his message.
Because then maybe she could have gotten saved.
Maybe she just said, hey, well, you released John the Baptist.
You know, she's asked, hey, give it whatever you want.
If your mom asks you to do something wicked, don't do it.
Sometimes parents can be selfish.
Of course, this mother is very selfish.
She doesn't care about her daughter.
I mean your daughter, what did her daughter actually benefit from this? Nothing.
She just procured under herself all kinds of wrath and evil from God.
having done what her mother said.
And so, you know, we should be careful.
Sometimes our parents, especially if they're not godly,
if they don't love the Lord, they give us bad advice.
And then we have to make sure
that we're gonna do what the Bible says.
Even if our parents, we love them,
sometimes we have to say no to our parents.
Says in verse number nine,
and the king was very, was sorry,
nevertheless for the oath's sake.
And then with sat with him at meet,
he commanded it to be given her.
and he sent beheaded John in the prison.
Here's another thing that you should realize
that John is killed in some ways because of peer pressure.
Obviously, Herod now feels peer pressure
because of them which were at the table
and what he had said.
And you know, this is another thing
that you young people should be afraid of is peer pressure.
You shouldn't allow peer pressure
to cause you to make a bad decision.
Even if you say, hey guys, I'm gonna do whatever you want.
And they say, hey, do something stupid, don't do it.
You know we shouldn't hurt ourselves. We shouldn't harm ourselves. We shouldn't sin against God and
Unfortunately a lot of young people are being pressured by friends to do really bad things
Hurt themselves harm themselves to try drugs and of course
What this is what everyone will tell you is they'll say oh, it's not that bad
Drugs aren't that bad just try it. It's not a big deal. Oh, are you what are you a Christian?
Are you goody two shoes and they'll try to make fun of you?
But you know what?
It's it's never worth it drugs are never worth it
You know praise God. I never succumbed to drugs. I never even tried them and I don't want to try them
I'm not interested in it and everybody I know that's tried drugs. They regret it
and many of the people that have done drugs
are addicted to them.
It's destroyed their lives.
It's harmed them in so many ways.
Today's drugs, many times they're laced with poison
or something that's gonna harm them
or kill them right away.
And we wanna make sure that we're not putting ourselves
in positions where we're even gonna be peer pressured.
Don't hang up.
If you know there's some friends
that are gonna ask you to do stuff that's wrong,
don't do it.
When I was a kid, it was kind of a cool thing to go hang out at other people's house and spend the night at other people's house.
And I mean, I did this all the time. I stayed at all kinds of people's houses.
And many of my friends, their parents were not Christian, or they were just...
on paper Christian or something like that.
And so their parents had different rules,
they had different stuff.
And you put yourself in these environments,
you put yourself in these situations,
and there can be a lot of pressure
to go along with what your friends are offering
or what they're saying.
You know, they're gonna offer you drugs, alcohol,
or just to disobey your mom and dad.
If they're asking you to do something,
your mom and dad said, no, don't do it.
In fact, tell your mom and dad.
Say, hey, they're asking me to do this.
They're offering me to do this.
They're telling me to do things that I know you don't want me to do.
Watch things that I shouldn't watch.
Listen to things I shouldn't listen to.
Go to places I shouldn't go.
Hang out with people I shouldn't be hanging out with.
You know, don't allow peer pressure to cause you to sin.
Because it's real.
It's a real threat.
It's a real temptation.
Just remove yourself from the situation.
Call your parents.
You know, and I'm not innocent in this.
There's been many bad decisions I've made in my life
because of peer pressure specifically.
And so, you know, it's a real threat to every person,
whether you're Christian or not,
and you need to be careful which friends you have.
You don't want to be around friends
that are pressuring you to try drugs and alcohol.
You want to be around friends
that are pressuring you to go soul winning.
You want to be around friends
that are pressuring you to not...
Gossip to not lie to not steal to not do things that are wrong to have to to actually want to be
Interested in godly Christians to date not the bad boy or or the hoarse girl or something like that
You know we should stay away from those people and these temptations are real
We need to be very careful with the pressures that we allow it to be in our life and of course Herod just gives into
Whatever whatever the woman says whatever his friends say hey, I'm gonna do it. He wants to keep this oath
Let's kill John the Baptist
Now it says in verse number 11 and his head was brought in a charger and given to the damsel and she brought it to
Her mother and his disciples came and took up the body and buried it and went and told Jesus
So John the Baptist is killed now
It's kind of a crazy story because John the Baptist is the greatest man born among women and yet he dies at a young age
I mean he dies in the middle of his life at his prime. He's only about six months older than the Lord Jesus Christ
We know Jesus is about 30 years old. So
venture to say John the Baptist is probably somewhere around 30 years old
when he was killed and that's a major, major sacrifice to lose your life at such
a young age. But you know
not everybody's gonna be John the Baptist so you don't have to think like we're
all gonna be beheaded
but some people might have to actually give the ultimate sacrifice of dying
as a martyr for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what?
This is what some people would do is they would say,
oh, John the Baptist shouldn't have preached that.
And look, there are a lot of Christians,
they would say, oh, well, if John the Baptist
just wouldn't have preached against Herod,
he would still be alive now, or, hey,
if John the Baptist didn't bring up the Old Testament law,
or, oh, I don't think that verse applied to Herod,
I don't know why he brought it up.
You know what? Nuts to those people.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with preaching
the Word of God, period.
And let me tell you something I don't care what happens to people people are thrown in prison
that are serving God. I'm going to support them and I'm going to be behind them.
I'm not going to sit here and criticize them because people are typically never put the death for
something that just
everybody can get behind. They want to bring something up. It's a little bit controversial. They'll say, oh,
well, you should have done that gone there.
You know what? We should get behind the martyrs of the Lord Jesus Christ and the martyrs of God and we should get behind John
the Baptist and you know,
I get sick and tired of so many people criticizing me because
when I get persecuted they'll say like, oh well why did you preach that?
Why did you say that? Why did you have to do that?
Why do you have to read certain verses of the Bible? You know what? I'm gonna read
certain verses of the Bible and I'm gonna explain them.
And if you don't like the Word of God, if you don't like the Bible, that's your
problem, it's not my problem.
And at the end of the day, hey, yay in all that will live godly in Christ, Jesus
And, you know, most people are probably not going to be thrown in prison for being nice.
This Christian, this Christian was praying for people and we just put them in prison.
This Christian was just loving people and we put them in prison.
This Christian was just sharing the gospel and we put them in prison.
Usually, they try to find some other angle.
They try to say, hey, this guy is a malefactor.
This guy is starting an uproar.
This guy is causing a riot.
This guy is not paying taxes.
This guy wants to overthrow the government.
This guy is attacking Herod.
You know, they try to make it political
or they try to make it something that it's not
to try and demonize God's people
and to throw them in prison.
How about Joseph?
Oh, adultery.
But he didn't commit adultery.
In fact, he tried to not commit adultery.
He did the exact opposite and then he's thrown in prison.
So many times the martyrs of God, you know what, their accusation isn't going to be something that
you really can get behind, but what we can do is get behind the guy and get behind John the Baptist
and realize, hey, he's being lied about and falsely accused and being attacked and I'm still going to
support him. Just like, I mean, think about why would the apostle Paul say, at my first answer,
no man stood with me, but all men forsook me?
It probably wasn't that he was arrested and they were saying hey the apostle Paul was arrested for being too nice of a Christian or
For preaching the gospel
It was probably they're saying like this guy's trying to overthrow the government who's also an insurrectionist and people are like
Oh, you don't know the guy, you know, we don't want to be with Paul
And so it's probably something more like that
Why the apostle Paul's constantly thrown in prison or attacked and yet onesimus was not ashamed of his chain
Yet he often refreshed him and it was encouraging him.
And I give you these examples because who knows what's going to happen in the future?
God willing, the next four years will be a pretty great four years.
We'll be able to have a lot of free course, but things change quickly with COVID.
And who knows what the next birthing pain is going to be
when things are just going to change on a dime again
and people are going to be persecuted?
I mean, they're already trying to pass all kinds of legislation
for if you're, you know, against Israel or something like that.
And who knows when that tide could just turn on the dime
and people could be put in prison for saying things they don't actually believe.
Being a Nazi, even though you don't support them or something like that, right?
Who knows what could happen, but whenever the man of God is thrown in prison or killed, I'm gonna still support him
Now it says in verse number 14. This is kind of changing gears here
It says in Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude was moved with compassion toward them and he healed their sick
And when it was evening his disciples came to him saying this is a desert place and the time has now passed
Send the multitude away. They may go into the villages and buy themselves vitals now
One other thing, you know when Jesus had a disciple come unto him and he said hey
I'm gonna follow you, but let me first bury my dad, and he said let the dead bury their dead
When John the Baptist is killed, you know, we don't see
Jesus bearing the body or going to the funeral. He just immediately goes to works
And you might think of that as being calloused or something like that
But from the Lord Jesus Christ perspective, he has a work to do and he doesn't stop. He just keeps going
And I'm not saying that we shouldn't go to funerals.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't participate
in other activities.
But in some ways, when we have devastating
or bad things happen in our lives,
we need to figure out a way to just pick ourselves up
and move on and just keep doing the works
and just keep going.
And many of us are gonna suffer loss.
We're gonna suffer difficulty.
We're gonna suffer frustration.
But we need to be like Jesus and say,
yeah, that's awful, but I'm just gonna keep going.
And I'm just going to keep doing works.
And there's still enough, there's still people out there
I need to minister to.
And we could all just be sorry for ourselves and just constantly want people to minister to us.
But sometimes we have to just say, you know what, I'm capable of ministering to other people.
So I'm going to put my feelings on the back burner and I'm just going to minister.
I'm just going to keep ministering.
And you know what, when you minister to other people, it actually helps you anyways.
If you kind of just keep feeling sorry for yourself, this is what happens.
People stop feeling sorry for you and then you start feeling more depressed.
Because you're just like, why doesn't anybody care about me enough?
Or why isn't people loving me enough?
You stop worrying about your problem so much
and you start realizing the importance of just serving other people
and it just helps you mentally.
So, you know, even though, obviously, I'm sure Jesus Christ was very upset.
I'm sure it hurt his heart a lot to know that his friend John the Baptist was got his head cut off
I mean that's that's horrible, but you know what he's here to minister
And so he just gets back on the train
He just gets back on the track on the bike and he's ministering other people and he's healing other people and he has compassion on other people
And now they're in a desert place
The disciples are saying hey, we got to we got to get rid of these people because we can't feed them
And boy, you know, this recent Sunday we had to feed 272 people.
That was a task.
I can't imagine 5,000 men and women and children.
Like, I would just want to run away.
I'm just like, I don't know, I don't know what we're going to do.
I mean, that is a serious, serious task and some serious food.
It says in verse 16, but Jesus said to them,
Boy, you know, and you know, this is the worst thing the worst thing is when you have to feed people last minute
Like it just it just really rubs me the wrong way when someone's just like didn't plan and
They're just kind of like all right now figure out a plan for 5,000 people to eat real quick or just like I
Don't know like what do you what do we do? I mean
And effectively, you know what Jesus is asking them to do
is something that's impossible.
You're in a desert, you have 5,000 people, feed them.
You're like, I have nothing.
Like, what do you mean?
Like, this doesn't even make sense.
Verse 17, and they say in them,
we have here but five loaves and two fishes.
He said, bring them hither to me.
And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass and he took the five loaves and the two fishes and looking up to heaven
He blessed and break and gave the loaves to his disciples and his disciples to the multitude
And they did all eat and were filled and they took up of the fragments that remained 12 baskets full
and they that had eaten were about 5,000 men
beside women and children.
Now, there's a lot of great things we can learn from this.
One thing I'd like to point out is notice that the men were there
with their wives and their children.
That's why we have a family integrated service.
I mean, you know, before, like, the 1900s,
there's no such thing as Sunday school.
I mean, you think out in the middle of just the desert,
they're like, all right, now let's take all the kids to Sunday school.
No, they're just all there for church services when they went to the synagogue when they're going all these way
I mean obviously the families are coming together. They're with each other
Of course, that's what we do for church and you know, we're very unique
Most churches do not have all the children and especially the babies and the toddlers in the sanctuary with them.
And sometimes that can make it difficult because for us, when we're looking for properties, we're looking for a building,
we kind of need a larger sanctuary than our church size compared to other church sizes.
A church similar to our size may not need a very big sanctuary because most of their kids or somewhere else are in another area.
but us wanting to have everybody together,
we need like a bigger sanctuary.
And so it's a logistical difference.
And with Jesus Christ here, you know,
you have all these people.
Think about how loud of a preacher Jesus had to be
when you're outside preaching to 5,000 people.
Also think about how good those children must have been
to have heard.
All right, so we need both of those, right?
We need a loud preacher and we need kids
that are willing to sit down
and listen to the word of God being preached
and not being a distraction.
And of course, I would venture to believe
that a church like ours is much better
than most other churches at that.
You know, a lot of people just want to basically drop
their kids off to run around, scream, eat cookies
and crackers and juice.
And you know, our kids are sitting in the chair
and hearing long sermons.
I mean,
Very long sermons, sometimes, okay?
And I try to be dynamic,
I try to incorporate them occasionally,
but you know, at the end of the day,
I'm not gonna sit here and try to just have
a watered-down version of what I'm saying for the kids.
I've had people, they say like,
hey, why don't you just have like someone else
teach the kids the same thing you're teaching?
I'm like, that's not very effective,
why don't they just hear me preach it?
And, you know, I often, I pretty much ask my kids most of the time like, hey, what was a sermon about?
What did I say? Was there any verses?
And they a lot of times can tell me a lot of things that were in the sermon, a lot of the points that were being made.
And so I think if my kids can get it, everybody's kids can get it.
And they pick up a lot more than what you realize.
I remember being five years old and in church, like the big boy church and liking it.
Liking the preacher, liking what was being said.
I can't really remember before that so I can't really compare anything but I'm saying my
earliest memories have been of being in that church and I liked it more than the other
church because the other church was kind of lame and weak and weird you know I didn't I didn't like
all the gimmicks and all the cheap stuff because even as a kid you can kind of tell things are
like cringe and once you become a teenager it becomes real cringe
Okay, you know sometimes you just want the real thing you want something authentic and don't let people criticize
Family-integrated service and act like oh, you're doing the children to disservice by not having bozo the clown up here
entertaining the children what's funny that those kids then go to a non-denominational church where they need a literal bozo to
entertain them, huh, or they just aren't they aren't entertained enough at church
So then they just don't go and they just watch movies because this isn't entertainment
This is preaching. This is the Word of God.
It should be different.
This isn't a TV show.
This is us expounding the Word of God.
Another thing that we can learn from this passage
and what was happening is a miracle was performed
and Jesus Christ, you know, he doesn't really hesitate.
He just prays to God, doles out the food
and the miracles performed.
Sometimes we just have confidence in the Lord
that he's gonna take care of us
even when we can't see how it's gonna work.
I mean, there's no way to see how this is gonna work.
This doesn't even make sense.
And I also like the faith of the disciples because you handed him five loaves and two fishes
and he prayed and he's like, all right, hand it out.
Wouldn't a lot of people just say like, no, this doesn't make sense.
No, that's embarrassing.
No, I don't see how that's going to work.
But what did they do? They just did it.
And it worked. And you know what? Sometimes God asks us to just do things and we're thinking like,
Doesn't make sense. I don't see how that's gonna work
But we just do it and you know what all of a sudden they have 12 baskets full and you're just like wow
God really blessed me. You know, how about tithing?
What tithing doesn't even make sense
It's like give more money to the Lord and somehow you'll bless you with more
You're thinking like that literally doesn't make sense because it doesn't it can't make sense on paper
But I guarantee people that tithe and give offerings to the church
Somehow they have 12 baskets over and they're thinking like how did that happen?
There's been many times in my life, countless times in my life where I've helped people,
blessed people, done things for church, done whatever, and then just God blessed me somewhere
out of nowhere.
And it's just thinking like, wow, I didn't expect that.
And there's been many times where I didn't get an immediate blessing or something, but
you know what?
It just feels good to do what's right and trust in the Lord.
And when you trust in the Lord, He'll take care of all your needs no matter what.
I try to really dwell on this passage because it's interesting that he gets five loaves.
and two fish, and then they have 12 baskets.
I have no idea, I can't say for sure what this is,
this is meaning, but this is a thought that popped in my head,
is maybe these things could represent something,
because they hand out all this food,
and it satisfies the congregation.
And of course, Jesus is doling it out.
Well, five in the Bible can represent what we know as the Pentateuch,
which would be the first five books of the Bible, which is the law.
And then I thought of the fish that could possibly represent the Old and the New Testament.
And what I was thinking about is when Jesus Christ is blessing them,
hey, if you just give people the law and the Old and New Testament,
that's enough to satisfy them.
I mean, the only thing we really need is the Word of God,
and the Word of God can sustain everyone.
It can sustain the 5,000 and the women and the children.
All you need is the Word of God.
We live by the Word of God.
The twelve then could even represent maybe the twelve disciples and how they are full and then they go out and they
Creates the gospel and they go into all the world and they are using that same word of God
They got filled with the Holy Spirit and they're going out
They're filled with the word of God and then they're going out and doing these great works
And if you want to do a great work for God, you know what you need to fill yourself with loaves and fishes
You need to fill yourself with the word of God
The greatest preachers are people that are meditating on the Bible.
The greatest Christians are the ones that are letting the Bible satisfy them
and that they're full of the Word of God. And so we shouldn't look to
the world, how do I become a great preacher? Do I need to go to a college?
Do I need to go to university? Do I need to read some commentary?
No, you just need to read the five Old Testament books
and the Old Testament, the New Testament. You just need the loaves and the fishes and you'll be good.
In fact, you'll have so much more than you can even handle when you go out there.
That's just one way of looking at it.
I'm sure there's probably other ways of looking at this, but the word of God is sufficient
to feed the crowd.
And here's another thing.
How about we just put it in the context of church when you show up at church?
You know what you only need this
We only need this and this will satisfy the men the women the children this this will explain every problem
You could ever have it'll it'll it'll be every solution you could ever need
It'll tell you every thought, it's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,
is what the Bible says.
It's a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
I mean, it's literally everything you could possibly need.
But many churches today, they're getting away from this.
They're trying to think of other books, other philosophies, other ideas, other gimmicks,
movies and all kinds of stuff to try and satisfy the congregation.
No, the congregation can be satisfied with this.
That's right.
So we don't need to get away from the Word of God or the Bible.
We just need to trust in the Bible.
In verse 22, the Bible then says,
in straightway Jesus constrained his disciples
to get into a ship and to go before him
under the other side while he sent the multitudes away.
And when he had sent the multitudes away,
he went up into a mountain apart to pray.
And when the evening was come, he was there alone.
Now, another thing we could notice is that Jesus
often separates himself from prayer.
I think in the Christian life, we need to have a prayer life
and we need to separate ourselves often and pray to God.
Prayer is done corporately.
There's nothing wrong with corporate prayer or public prayer.
Obviously, we pray for our meals with our family.
We pray at church together as a congregation.
There can be other times, you know, prayer for funerals
and prayer for weddings and things.
But we also need to just have a time where we just get away.
And we just privately pray to God.
And we have our own personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everyone in here should pray.
And if you're four years old, you should pray.
You know, at night, maybe that's your time in bed to just pray to God
and ask Him for all the things that you want and you need and pray for other people.
And we don't do it every night, but when we do have a family devotion, I often will ask
my kids and say, hey, what do you want to pray for?
And I'm trying to help them to think about how to pray for other people and what to think
about.
And you know, we should do that.
We should teach our children how to pray.
We should encourage our children to pray on their own.
You don't have to pray with your parents.
You can pray wherever you are, whenever you're alone.
And you know what, you kiddos, when you wake up in the morning, you should pray.
You should pray and you know what the Bible says pray without ceasing there's never a bad time to pray
We often see the Lord Jesus Christ also praying at night
Praying you know in the wee hours of the night early morning
You know and that's an easier time to pray because a lot of people are asleep
Uh, maybe you're kind of more alone at that time. So, you know, maybe on your lunch break
At at night when you're in bed
When you wake up early, you know, these are great opportunities to separate yourself and to pray to God and
This is something that we should be doing as Christians. Now, of course you say well, no one will see me, right?
Why would you do that because you actually believe
You actually have faith in the Lord and you actually believe that prayer works.
And you know what, I prayed a lot in my life and God has answered so many of my prayers
and I know that it works.
I know that prayer works and I believe in prayer
and I pray to God every day, multiple times a day
and I always want it to be that way.
And I feel bad when I forget to pray or I don't feel like I've been praying enough
and we should be constantly in prayer as a church.
The Bible also says in verse 24, it says,
But the ship was now in the midst of the sea,
Tossed with the waves for the wind was contrary,
And in the fourth watch of the night,
Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.
And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea,
They were troubled saying it as a spirit,
And they cried out for fear.
But straightway, Jesus spake unto them,
Saying, Be of good cheer.
it is I be not afraid."
And Peter answered him and said,
Lord, if it be thou bid me come under thee on the water.
And he said, come.
And when Peter was come down out of the ship,
he walked on the water to go to Jesus.
But when he saw the wind boisterous,
he was afraid and beginning to sink.
He cried, saying, Lord, save me.
And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him
and said on him, Oh thou of little faith,
wherefore didest thou doubt?
When they were coming to the ship, the wind ceased.
Then they that were in the ship came and worshiped him saying of a truth thou art the Son of God
That's a really interesting portion of Matthew 14
I want to point out some things about the story and then kind of look at it in another context
But you know when Jesus Christ is here. He's walking on the sea
We have that famous idea of Jesus walking on water and of course somebody want to explain this away is not a miracle
But this is obviously a miracle
It's stormy seas, he's walking on the water.
But Peter says, hey, Lord, if you want,
I'll walk on the water, bid me, I'll come.
And then Peter gets out of the boat, he walks on water.
I think a couple of things we could see is,
number one, Jesus, while he is special,
and while Jesus is the Son of God,
and while never man spake like this man spake,
and while he was given the Spirit without measure,
so that's kind of unique,
he was fully human, I believe.
He didn't do things that other humans couldn't do but what separates him from us often is that he had full faith and he had full spirit.
But when we're fully in the spirit and have full faith, we too can do the things that Jesus had done where he was walking on water and doing a lot of these different things.
Now of course, I'm not saying walk on water. Okay, don't hear what I'm saying. Wrong.
What I'm saying is that I believe that we can do the things that what Jesus was doing generally speaking and by faith
We can accomplish the same kind of works and so we shouldn't doubt our
Capabilities and say oh well Jesus could do this, but we can't do that. No, I think that we should he is our example
Maybe I would give the exception of course of like he forgave sin. We can't forgive sin
We don't have that that opportunity
There is going to be maybe a few minor exceptions like that
But just generally speaking what he did and what he said is things that we should be doing and we should be following in his footsteps
now
This this portion of scripture a lot of a lot of the Bible has kind of a double meaning
And this kind of has a in times prophetic symbolism in this passage of scripture.
And if you think about it, what happens is initially Jesus sets himself apart and then sends his disciples on.
If you think about this from a big picture, that's what Jesus has done. Jesus has gone up to heaven.
And now he's commissioned his disciples and commissioned us
to go out into all the world and preach the gospel
and do the works.
So Jesus is not with us physically,
even though he's with us spiritually
and he's supporting us from heaven.
So we kind of have this picture.
Now, they're out on the sea.
Eventually what happens is trouble comes.
Storms come and they are in what we would call
tribulation essentially.
Now, I believe that this has just always been the case since the moment that Jesus went
up into the clouds until now that there has been stormy seas and that Christians have
gone through tribulation.
But there is coming a great tribulation that the Bible describes and it's going to be the greatest tribulation that Christians have ever faced.
Now that's kind of incredible because Christians have faced extreme tribulation throughout the ages.
The Roman Empire specifically was martyring Christians by the thousands, feeding them the lions, killing them for sport.
Christianity has been outlawed in many ways.
for having believed that salvation was by faith,
for having translated the Word of God into English,
for having given the Bible to people,
homeschooled families were murdered
and burned at the stake by the Catholic Church,
for having taught their children the Lord's Prayer.
So, of course, on an individual level,
there's been many Christians that have faced
the ultimate price of martyrdom
and sacrifice for the cause of Christ.
Yet, from a corporate perspective, the Bible is saying there's going to come a time when
the sheer number, the volume of Christians experiencing this type of tribulation will
have never happened before.
There is coming a great tribulation where more Christians will be martyred at that time
than has ever happened ever before.
And that's why it's called the Great Tribulation.
This is kind of what's being symbolized here as the disciples going in this boat and there's this great tribulation happening
Because while many are being killed not everybody's being killed, right?
Disciples are out there doing the work, but there's this great fear. There's this great threat of death
impending doom as it were and think about it when the Antichrist comes the Bible says that he's gonna tell everybody
They have to receive a mark in their hand or their forehead and if you don't do so or worship the beast you're gonna be killed
Well, Christians aren't going to do that, and as a result, there's going to be a great
tribulation.
Many are going to be killed.
Many are going to be beheaded.
Go if you would to Revelation chapter number 20, go to Revelation chapter 20 if you would.
The Bible tells us that there's a lot of saints that are going to be beheaded for not
having worshiped the Antichrist.
and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them,
and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded
for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God,
and which had not worshiped the beast, neither as image,
neither had received his mark upon their foreheads,
or in their hands, and they lived and reigned
with Christ a thousand years.
So the Bible's telling us there are Christians,
there are saints that didn't get the mark,
that didn't worship the image,
and they were beheaded as a result of rejecting the Antichrist and not worshiping the Antichrist specifically.
And so there's going to be this impending doom, impending threat on Christians at this specific time.
Now, the Bible says in the fourth watch, Jesus came under them.
the night is divided into four watches.
They are three hour segments and there's four of them.
So we generally divide the day as night and day
being two 12 hour periods.
So if you take the night period as a 12 hour period,
you have the fourth watch is essentially the last three hours.
So it's categorized as 3 a.m. to 6 a.m.
That would be the fourth watch
because basically 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
the night time, 6 a.m. then back to 6 p.m. is the daytime.
So in the fourth watch, Jesus comes. That could be just symbolic of the fact that it's like,
you know, it's kind of the darkest part or it's the last part or it's impending doom-seeming,
but it's also right before the light comes, isn't it? It's kind of that last moment of darkness
and then the light comes.
Well, I want to go back to Matthew, but go to Matthew 24 if you would go to Matthew chapter number 24
So if we kind of get our picture Jesus is not with them
There's this great tribulation
But then Jesus comes in the fourth watch and he says be not afraid and he's walking on water
this is really interesting and
He tells Peter or Peter wants to come out and walk on the water to him
Now
Let's read we're going to read a little bit of this let's read it verse number 29 immediately after the tribulation of those days
So the sun sun be darken and the moon shall not give her light and the star shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven shall
Be shaken and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven
And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory
And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from the one end of
Heaven to the other
So the Bible tells us when Jesus Christ comes back,
it's going to be after the tribulation.
There's going to be the sun darken,
the moon's not going to give its light,
and he's going to come in clouds,
and then the angels are going to gather his four,
from the four winds, all of the elect,
all the sage, and bring them unto Jesus.
And the Bible paints this picture
in 1 Thessalonians chapter number four
as being gathered together with him in the clouds.
Let's just go there.
1 Thessalonians chapter number four.
And let's read a couple of different passages there, too.
I want to come back to Matthew, but
1 Thessalonians 4 is kind of like the most famous rapture passage in the Bible,
often used in funerals to comfort people,
knowing that they'll be reunited with their loved ones one day.
But it also tells us that Jesus Christ, when he returns,
Notice it says in verse number 16,
for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel
and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,
and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
So the Bible tells us that when Jesus Christ comes,
there's going to be that same shout, that same trumpet.
He's coming with clouds, Matthew 24 clouds.
First of all, it's going to be these four clouds.
He gathers his elect from the four winds,
and they're gathered where?
Two Jesus Christ in the clouds.
Now those that are already dead, they're coming with him.
All the saints that have died in the Old Testament,
everybody that's already died even in the New Testament,
they're coming with Jesus, but those that are alive
and remain, those that have never died,
are gonna be what we know as raptured,
which means caught up.
That's what that word means.
And that, as far as if you look at the underlying Greek word,
harpazo, it means caught up.
And then what happens is they're all together in the clouds.
Think about this, we can't really be in clouds
unless we're in an airplane.
You can be in the clouds in the airplane,
but you can't walk on clouds.
But think about it.
Isn't it interesting that Jesus is walking on water
and then what happens?
Peter's coming out and walking on water with Jesus
in the same way that we'll be walking on water
in the clouds with Jesus at the rapture.
And so at this time of great tribulation and turbulence,
Jesus comes and has this miracle
where he's walking on water and then,
hey, the apostle Peter is coming out there with him.
But notice that Peter was beginning to sink.
If you go back to Matthew 24, go to Matthew 24.
And what did Jesus say, oh thou faithless?
He was saying, oh you have little faith.
He's saying, hey, the problem with the reason why you weren't walking on the water is because
you didn't have enough faith.
Now Matthew 24, the Bible also says in verse 13, but he that shall endure unto the end,
Some people use this verse to teach work salvation
and they're just lying heretics.
This context is not about going to heaven.
It's about enduring the tribulation period.
And it's saying, if you endure the tribulation period,
you'll be saved what physically?
You're going to be part of the rapture.
So who's going to be raptured?
Those that have the greatest faith and those that endured with faith just like Peter.
Who's going to be the ones that get to walk on the water?
The people that have the faith in the same way.
I believe the people that are going to be raptured are those that had faith and weren't unbelieving.
Those that have the great faith and those that were enduring,
those hardships are the ones that are going to be raptured and be with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Just like Peter was there in a special unique way walking on the water.
Now you say how many people are going to make it?
Well, it's kind of sad numbers because think about it, it's 1 out of 12.
So I don't know.
Is that representative of how many people are going to be saved?
I have no idea.
But just based on that example, it may be that 1 out of 12 Christians is going to make
it to the rapture and that 11, well, they're the souls that got their heads beheaded.
I don't know.
That's just a thought.
You can think whatever.
You can have a happier thought.
Now, also think about this, it says that they worshiped him, right, all those that were in the ship.
Go back to Matthew 14 where we were. It's a really interesting story. Jesus goes away, the disciples are out, there's great tribulation, Jesus shows up on the water, they're kind of saved, and then all of the tribulation just goes away instantly.
Because once you're raptured, man, you're out.
There's no more tribulation, there's no more turbulence.
You've been delivered, you've been saved, you've been rescued,
just like Jesus got on the boat.
This is a great picture of the end times.
Also notice in verse number 33,
then they that were in the ship came and worshiped them,
saying, of a truth, thou art the Son of God.
Well, let's go to Revelation chapter number eight now.
Go to Revelation chapter number eight.
If you understand the book of Revelation, chapter number six, you have all of these different
seals that are being broken, and you have all these different crazy things that are happening.
And kind of at the end of chapter number six, the Bible tells us that Jesus has come.
It says, like, on verse 16,
fallen us and hide us from the face of them
that sit on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,
for the great day of his wrath has come
and who shall be able to stand.
And then you have the 144,000 who are being marked.
Now,
I wanna see which verse I want.
Actually, I wanna go to chapter seven
and I wanna start in verse number nine.
So you have this picture, Jesus comes in the clouds.
and he raptures his saved.
Then you have in the book of Revelation,
the 144,000 are sealed.
But then look at verse 9,
After this I be held in low great multitude,
which no man could number of all nations,
and kindreds, and people, and tongues,
stood before the throne, and before the Lamb,
clothe the white robes, and palms in their hands,
and cried a loud voice saying,
Salvation to our God,
which sinned upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
And all the angels stood round about the throne
and about the elders and the four beasts
and fell before the throne on their faces
and worshiped God saying, amen, blessing and glory
and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power
and might be unto our God forever and ever, amen.
And one of the elders answered saying unto me,
what are these which are a raid in white robes
and whence came they?
Meaning where did they come from?
And I said unto him, Sir thou knowest.
And he said to me, These are they which came out of great
tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb.
So notice the Bible is saying, when Jesus Christ raptures the
saved, then immediately after you have all nations and all
tongues, all the people coming and they're worshiping the Lamb.
And where do they come from?
great tribulation. So of course, you know, the Bible does teach very clearly in the
end times that we will go through a seven-year period. That's the end. The
first half is a tribulation period. Then there's a short period that's called the
great tribulation. After the tribulation period of the great tribulation, you have
the rapture. Then you have a wrath portion.
And so some people will mistakenly call the entire seven years a tribulation period.
They'll say, oh, it's the seven-year tribulation period.
But tribulation is to the saved.
All the saved gets sucked out.
at the rapture.
So there's no more tribulation, there's wrath period, okay?
Where God just pours out locusts from hell
and just fire and just wormwood
and just all kinds of just horrible,
evil punishments on the earth
and that's his wrath being poured out.
But the Christians are not appointed under wrath.
We're only appointed under tribulation and persecution.
So we're sucked out of that.
Just like Noah is delivered,
just like Lot is delivered
and just like the disciples are here
just kind of warped to the other side.
when they're going through this great storm.
And of course, when we go through storms of life,
we need to have faith in God.
Now, I've kind of completed the chapter.
Let's go back and read the last few verses.
But it's kind of an interesting
end times picture that we have here
in this story of him walking on water.
A lot of cool symbolism that we can see
is parallels to the future.
But the Bible also says in verse 34,
and when they were gone over,
they came into the land of Gnesserit.
And when the men of that place had knowledge of him,
they sent out into all the country round about
and brought him unto him,
all that were diseased and brought him.
They might only touch them of his garment
as many as touched were made perfectly whole.
Here's another thing, once you get raptured,
eventually we're gonna be made perfectly whole too, right?
We're gonna get that new body,
we're gonna rule and reign with Christ,
and so we're made perfectly whole in that moment.
So you have this great picture.
Another thing is you notice that when you
When they these people just touch Jesus they are made perfect little meaning like once you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
You're saved
And it's easy think about it. All you have to do is just touch his garment. Is that hard?
Now, it might be hard just because of the multitude,
but at the end of the day, you just touched him, saved.
Just like you just believed, saved.
And immediately they touched, they're completely whole.
Just like as soon as you believe on Jesus Christ,
all your sins are forgiven, they're all lost away.
You've been made perfect in Christ,
and you can never lose your salvation.
I want to go to one more place, go to 2 Corinthians 1,
and we'll finish.
I think that this chapter, though,
Even though I focused in on some verses about being the end times,
it's almost like the entire chapter teaches the exact same story.
Just think about it. How do we start this chapter?
John the Baptist gets his head cut off.
What's going to happen at the beginning of the tribulation,
at Great Tribulation, saints are going to be getting their heads cut off.
And so, and here's a good thing to think about.
John the Baptist is the greatest.
Do not be discouraged if the greatest Christians alive gets their heads chopped off
and the great tribulation, you keep serving God.
Okay?
Because I have no idea what's going to happen.
I pray to God that I will get rapture too, but I don't know.
It may be that those that are causing the biggest ruckus
and preaching against the authorities might get their heads chopped off.
But you know what? You keep serving God. You keep being faithful.
You keep being steadfast. Then what happens in the second portion
is the Word of God sustains the disciples.
They're without, they're hungry, and then God performs miracles
to sustain them.
Physically and I believe spiritually and I believe you know it during that great tribulation period God is able to perform miracles to sustain us
Physically and spiritually and the only thing we need is the word of God
What about Alex Jones, you know survival kit nope you need this
God can multiply loaves and fishes for you.
Instead of worrying about storable food,
you should get this in your heart and your mind.
This should be what's gonna sustain you in the end times.
Then we see, of course, the story of the disciples
being delivered from their great tribulation
where we have that great rapture event,
and then at the end we have them being made complete,
which is that resurrection, you get your new body.
So it's like the whole chapter teaches this,
and then you have a micro version of it.
also within the chapter and it's kind of incredible how God can put so many layers
in the exact same story. But second Corinthians chapter number one I wanted to read a little bit
here just because it kind of goes with the theme that we've been talking about of tribulation.
And you know the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians chapter number three that were appointed
unto these afflictions and tribulation. It'd be weird to think like the pre-trib doctrine
Like how they'll say like oh, we're not going to suffer tribulation, and I'm thinking like we already are
Like what do you mean? We're not going to suffer tribulation like Christians have always suffered tribulation
Of course, there's coming a great tribulation that'll be a little bit more intense, but we've always suffered tribulation
I don't really see how that makes sense plus. There's no verse in the Bible that teaches that whatsoever
2nd Corinthians chapter 1 is telling us about tribulation, it says in verse 3,
blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies,
and the God of all comfort, who comforted us in all our tribulation,
that we may be able to comfort them
which are in any trouble. By the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
So this is dense language, but this is what he's saying.
When you go through tribulation and you allow the Bible to help you get through that,
Then you can then come alongside other Christians when they go through tribulation and comfort them with the Bible
Yeah, and so that's why it's you know, sometimes God will put you through difficult things
So that you can learn how to trust him and be comforted by him and then you can be empathetic for other people
If you've lost somebody that's close to you a child of
Spouse some mother or father or anybody and you had to use the Bible to comfort you
Then come alongside other people when they lose their loved ones and help comfort them
when you lose a job, when you lose your health,
when you lose money,
when you, you know, just bad things that happen to us.
You know, when you have protestors
or you have people lying about you
or you have, you know, all kinds of evil happening,
maybe just physical assaults, all kinds of,
you know, comfort yourself with the word of God
and then help comfort other people.
You know, I've been lied about so many times,
it's a lot easier for me to comfort people
that I've been lied about.
Because again, and it was funny like I'm I went on a cruise mission strip
and I was I was hanging out with my friend pastor Stephen Anderson and
We were just sharing a lot of stories with each other
We've never shared just a lot of more personal stories than we normally share and and I was kind of just sharing them some of the lies
That have been told about me things. They're just kind of personal things. I don't want to share
But I was kind of telling him and he was just saying like look
If if I hadn't been lied about severely, he's like, I wouldn't even believe you
Like your stories don't even seem believable. He said but you know, I know that you're telling truth
I know you're you know, those are believable because it's happened to me
And it's like sometimes you guys have these severe lies and weird things happen to you
So you can kind of empathize with other people and and actually help other people in difficult
Situations and you know, sometimes you have people just turn on you for no reason
And then it helps you to empathize with other people that have people turn on them for no reason.
That's what it's bringing up.
It says, verse 5,
"...whereas the sufferings of Christ have bounden us, so are consolation also boundeth by Christ.
And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation,
which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings, which we also suffer."
or whether we be comforted,
it is for your consolation and salvation.
And our hope of you is steadfast,
knowing that as your partakers of the sufferings,
so shall ye be also of the consolation.
He's saying, hey, I know you guys are suffering
in an attribulation right now.
But just as I was comforted by God eventually, I know you guys will be comforted by God
Eventually and you know what God is not just gonna drag us through the ringer and causes to go through all kinds of tribulation
Persecution to never bring comfort. He will bring comfort. He will bring consolation. He will get you through the hard spots
Sometimes it's very difficult to trust him. Sometimes it's difficult to think how is this going to work out?
But what I've seen is people that are steadfast
End up getting comforted
People that are steadfast end up receiving the consolation, so just trust the Lord even when we go through difficult things
even when things don't make sense and you know when we're going through those storms
Let us not be faithless
But let us believe and let us allow the God of all comfort to comfort us when we go through tribulations and difficulties
Not only for our own benefit
But for the benefit of others
And, if you have been comforted by God at any point in your life, allow that opportunity
and that experience to be used to empathize with other people and to comfort other people
and to help other people as they go through their struggles.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us so much comfort when we go through tribulations
and difficulties.
Thank you for never leaving us and never forsaking us.
Thank you for keeping your oath and your promise unto us that we have believed.
Thank you for giving us eternal salvation.
I pray that as we go through difficulties and tribulations in the future that will be
reminded that you also will bring with them consolation and comforts.
And I pray that as we go through these experiences that you'll give us a better understanding
of how to comfort others and to be a blessing in other people.
I pray that when we go through difficulty we would take the opportunity to just move
on so that we could help other people and minister to other people and that we could
no matter what the obstacles set before us.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, in closing, let's go to song number 46.
Song number 46.
My savior, first of all.
Song number 46.
lost us well in time. When the bright and glorious morning I shall see. I shall go, my redeemer, when I reach the other side, then his smile will be the first to welcome me. I shall go, when I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall go, when and redeemed by his side I shall stand. I
I shall call him by the print of the nails in his hand.
Oh, the soul-grilling rapture when I cue his blessed face,
and the luster of his kindly beating eye.
Now my full heart will praise him for his mercy, love, and grace.
Everything will be a mention in the sky.
I shall go in, I shall go in, Every deed by his side I shall stand.
I shall go in, I shall go in, By the print of the nails in his hands.
To the sweet bells I've read, and then we'll sing my welcome home.
But I want to be my Savior first of all.
I shall know, and I shall know.
Every deed by His side I shall stand.
I shall know.
through the city and a home of spotless white he will be me when no tears will ever fall
in the glad song of ages I shall mingle with the light but I long to be my savior first of all
I shall go
I shall go!