Nothing's angel
Thank you everybody for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church a little loud there
Thank you all for coming if you go ahead and find your seats we will get the service started
For our first song tonight, we're gonna start in song number 328 I want that mountain 328
traffic out there. People still piling in. Number 328. I want that mountain. Let's sing it out under the Lord.
Every verse I know you can sing louder than that.
Let's take it from the second.
There was a charge of losing this who said I wouldn't go.
And that this boy the one who set me free.
I'll trudge from out the wilderness.
I'll win this now I know.
I want that mountain it belongs to me.
I want that mountain, I want that mountain, the mountain that my Lord has given me.
328, I want that mountain on the third.
One faithless tribe, upon the breast of Abraham's monkey-hide,
to me.
I want that mountain.
Where the milk and money flow.
Where the grins of Eskopro.
I want that mountain.
Get ready now to make it for you, see.
I come from out of the wilderness.
I know I'm going to win.
I want that mountain.
It belongs to me.
I want that mountain.
Where the milk and honey flow.
Where the winds of ice flow.
I want that mountain.
Good job everybody. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father we
thank you for everyone that's gathered here today. We thank you for steadfast Baptist Church. We
thank you for Pastor Shelley. Lord God we ask that you fill in with your Holy Spirit so we
can preach an edifying sermon unto us so we can walk out better Christians in the way we came in
for your honor and glory. Since Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right next up we have song number 392.
One of my favorites, A Soul Winner for Jesus, song 392.
Song 392, A Soul Winner for Jesus, I want to be a soul winner for Jesus every day.
for Jesus every day. He does so much for me. I want to wake the lost and believe this everywhere.
Because He loves me so, a soul.
He says, calls for me to lay my burdens down.
I want to hear him say, sir, as you gather many sheep,
we see a starry crown, a soul.
so much for me.
Great singing.
Amen, thanks for coming to Sevaz Baptist Church.
If you didn't get a bulletin or if you'd like one,
just lift up your hand real quick when a rush is coming by.
We're on Jude 1 verse 10 for our Bible memory verse of the week.
Service and soul winning times there, our church stats.
We have done a really good job so far,
but let's keep the hard work up.
Maybe we can get to three thousand for the half year. That would be a great number to get to and then also on the right
We have a list of expecting ladies
The Shreveport so many marathon this Saturday
This is an itinerary if you want to
Care a van with us. We're gonna be meeting here at the building at six and leaving
Pretty much right at that time. So pretty much promptly at that time
But obviously if it's kind of out of your way, there's no point necessarily meeting here
We'll take the church van for some people and then carpool with whatever is left over
So if you'd like to you can
We're gonna be meeting
They're listed at that park
Kings Highway Park and so if you want to just wherever you're gonna come from just meet us there
We'll try to get organized and send out around 10 a.m. And then
They'll be so winning for a couple hours
we'll come back to the same location for lunch and then we'll go so winning and then we'll head back around
four or so. So, if you'd like to participate, it's about a three-hour drive, so that's how you
can see we're leaving around six, should get there around nine a.m. And so, depending on exactly
where you are in Dallas, Fort Worth area, that could be a little bit different, but that's just
about from the church, it's about a three-hour drive. Also,
Other upcoming events, July 4th weekend is the Springdale, Arkansas,
Soaring Marathon, Brother Sam Foley is leading for us.
If you're interested, you can go talk to him.
Teen Summer Bowling Night, July 29th.
Also, Semiannual Business Meetings, July 13th.
Soaring Marathon, Lancaster, Texas, July 19th.
Teen Summer Event in August 9th is the Venture Park.
the FBBF conference August 27th through the 31st
and we'll have preaching every night.
A lot of activities, we are gonna have
some family activities, we'll have some men's activities,
we're gonna have a cookout.
We are planning a singles event for those 18 and above
and then we have lots of soul winning.
and of course preaching every single night
and so we have all kinds of different things
that are gonna be happening.
So I'm really excited about.
The conference will have some cool,
we're working on some cool merch.
And I use the word merch just as a colloquialism.
We're not selling anything,
but it is gonna be some cool stuff.
So we're working on maybe some shirts and some other stuff
and we're excited about that as well.
So I'm really excited about our conference.
I have no idea how many people are coming.
That would be nice if I could know.
But we're trying to make a plan
of how to maybe accommodate some extra people.
I was gonna try and have a quick short meeting
some of our cleaning team, our music team, and ushers and stuff, just in our fellowship
room immediately after the service, just to talk about a few things and just some schedule
ideas.
If you can if you're part of one of those groups if you could just see me right after the service
and we'll talk about that in the fellowship room and then also our missions trip to Mexico September 8th through the 12th
The Bahamas mission trips October 6th through the 11th on the back is our prayer list
And before I get there, I'm going to go to a couple other, we have a couple other handouts.
We had the congratulations to the Carlson's on the birth of Patricia Ruth.
She was born on Wednesday, July 18th. Six pounds, 14 ounces, 18 and three quarter inches long.
And then also, more recently today, congratulations to the weathers on the birth of Hannah Ruth.
So it looks like Ruth is a real popular middle name. And she was eight pounds.
eight and a half ounces, 19 and a quarter inches long, so congratulations to both of them.
I think we have some meal train options in our chat group if you'd like to be a blessing out of
them. Also on our prayer list, continue to pray for the Carlson's, we're praying for the Miller's mom.
Friends mom and then specifically brother Scott's parents also to pray for Miss Olivia if you'd pray for the Garcia's
For brother Tony's health. We've been praying for brother Brad for his upcoming father's surgery
And he had mentioned to me that the surgery went well, so that's that's good
But you continue to pray for his recovery also pray for his sister's health and him personally been praying for brother
Diego's friend Miss Sheila. We've been praying for Miss Cindy's friend Angela if you continue to pray for brother
Jared's co-worker Josh
Also, the Foley's pray for their dad pray for brother Perez his son Elijah
Brother Phillips wife's Miss Karina who was recently hospitalized. He'd pray for brother Gabe
His mother
His friend miss Agnes also has some health issues
Also, if you'd pray for the urbanics for their grandmother who was in the ICU
If you could pray for brother Billy his co-worker who's having some stomach pains and then others so the brother Goodwin stomach pains and then
Brother Ili's dad had some kidney stones and a lot of pain man. That is just
Kidney stones just make me feel uneasy just thinking about it. So but that's a real that's a real pain right there
So that's pretty much all I had as far as listed in our bulletin
We'll just go ahead and say a quick word of prayer for our church family
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for Steadfast Baptist Church and thank you so much for all these ladies who are expecting I pray that you
Please bless them with their pregnancies. Thank you for those who are recently born
I pray that you would just help the recovery for their mom and just allow their children to grow and develop and for everything to
Go smoothly. I pray that you would help our church family that's struggling with various illness that they can be
Healthy and they can get back in a church
I pray that you would just bless those that are friends and family that are struggling with these
and serious illnesses, and...
these, some of these life-threatening problems, I pray, if possible, that you could just give
them health, give them recovery. I pray that you'd help give them patience. Anybody that
needs to hear the gospel, I pray that you'd give us boldness and courage to give them the gospel.
I pray that you'd also give us favor, that you'd bless our evangelists in the Philippines and
that you'd bless the upcoming events, our Shreveport Marathon. I pray that you keep us safe as we go,
that you'd help us to see many people saved. I pray that you'd also bless our upcoming conferences
And it's in your son's name we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.
That's all I have as far as announcements.
We'll go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 11.
So it's in our special hymns and Psalms binder, Psalm 11.
All right, Psalm, chapter 11.
On the first.
Our nation's been destroyed, but what can the righteous do?
The Lord is in his gold, he's at war.
His Lord is going to defend his eyes, be old.
His eyelids dry, the children of men.
The Lord drives the righteous like the wicked.
This shall be the portion of their cup.
For the righteous Lord,
Love with righteousness,
He's a countenance,
Doth behold,
Doth behold the upright.
As the offering plates are being passed around would you please turn your bibles to Matthew chapter number 26 Matthew chapter number 26
Matthew chapter number 26 the Bible reads and it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these
sayings he said into his disciples you know that after two days is the feast of the Passover and
the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified then assembled together the chief priests and the
scribes and the elders of the people unto the palace of the high priest who is called Caiaphas
and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him but they said not on the
Now, when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto him a woman having
an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head as he sat at me. But when
his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, to what purpose is this waste? For this ointment
might have been sold for much and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them,
for ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always.
For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.
Barely I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world,
there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her."
Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went unto the chief priests and said unto them,
What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?
And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
And from that time he saw opportunity to betray him.
Now, the first day of the Feast of Unloved Bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying
unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover?
And he said, Go into the city to such a man and say unto him, The Master sayeth, My time
is at hand, I will keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples.
And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them, and they made ready the Passover.
Now when the even was come he sat down with the twelve and as they did eat he said verily
I say unto you that one of you shall betray me and they were exceeding sorrowful and began every one of them to say unto
Him Lord is it I and he answered and said he that dip of his hand with me in the dish the same shall betray me the son of
Man goeth as it is written of him but warned to the man by whom the son of man is betrayed
It had been bet good for that man if he had not been born then Judas which betrayed him answered and said
Master is it I he said unto him thou has said and as they were eating Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave
It to the disciples and said take eat. This is my body and he took the cup and gave thanks and drank of them
Drink it gave it to them saying drinky all of it
For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine,
until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom.
And when they had sung in him, they went out into the Mount of Olives.
Then saith Jesus unto them,
All ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written,
I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.
But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him,
fairly I say unto thee, that this night before the cock crow thou shalt deny me
thrice. Peter said unto him, though I should die with thee, yet will I not
deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples, then come with Jesus with them
unto a place called Gethsemane.
And say unto the disciples, See ye here, while I go, and pray yonder.
And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Sebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
Then sayeth he unto them, My soul is exceeding with sorrowful.
even unto death, tear ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face,
and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I
will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith
unto Peter. What could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into
temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time,
and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, that I
be done, and he came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy, and he left
them and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.
Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest.
Behold the hours at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Rise, let us be going, behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.
A great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people.
Now he that betrayed him, gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, the same
is he.
Hold him fast and fortwith he came to Jesus and said hail master and kissed him and Jesus said unto him friend
Wherefore art thou come then came they and laid hands on Jesus and took him and behold one of them
Which were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck a servant of the high priest and smote off his ear
Then said Jesus unto him put up again thy sword into this place
For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my father and he shall present
presently give me more than twelve legions of angels, but how then shall the scriptures be
fulfilled that it must be? In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against
the thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you, teaching in the temple, and
ye laid no hold on me. But all this was done that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled,
then all the disciples forsook him and fled, and they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away
where the scribes and the elders were assembled, but Peter followed him afar off unto the high
priest's palace and went in and sat with the servants to see the end. Now the chief priests
and elders and all the councils sought false witness against Jesus to put him to death,
but found none, yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two
false witnesses and said, this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it
in three days. And the high priest arose and said unto him, answer is thou nothing? What is it which
But Jesus held his peace, and the High Priest answered and said unto him,
I adjure thee by the living God that thou tellest whether thou be the Christ the Son of God.
Jesus hath unto him, thou hath said, nevertheless, I say unto you,
hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.
Then the High Priest rent his clothes saying, he hath spoken blasphemy, what further need have we of witnesses?
Behold now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye?
They answered and said he is guilty of death.
then did they spit in his face and buffeted him, and others smote him with the palms of their
hands, saying, prophesy unto us, thou Christ, who is he that smote thee. Now Peter sat without in
the palace, and a damsel came unto him, saying, thou also was with Jesus of Galilee. But he denied
before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest. And when he was gone out into the porch,
another maid saw him, and said unto them, that were with, that were there.
This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth and again he denied with an oath
I do not know the man and after a while came unto him they that stood by and said to Peter
Surely thou also art one of them for thy speech which berate thee
Then began he to curse and to swear saying I know not the man and immediately the cock crew and Peter remembered the word of Jesus
Which said unto him before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice and he went out and wet bitterly
Let us pray heavenly father. Thank you for the chapter of the Bible. Thank you for this church
Thank you for pastor. I pray that you fill him with your Holy Spirit to preach and does your word
Help us to understand it and apply it make applicable changes to our lives praise in Jesus name. Amen
Matthew 26 is a big chapter, a lot of verses, 75 verses here that we can go through and
so I'm not necessarily going to do a deep dive on every single verse, but just kind
of trying to get the essence of this particular chapter.
The Bible says in verse one, it says,
And it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these sayings.
He said under disciples, you know that after two days is the feast of the Passover and
to be crucified. Now, the Bible gives us a timeline about this passion week that we would
describe, the Passover week that we kind of kind of understand. And two days here is the feast of
the Passover. This is kind of an interesting concept because if you look down at verse 18, it'll also say
It says, And He said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The master say,
If my time is at hand, I will keep the Passover at thy house with thy disciples.
Now this is like the same day.
So it could be confusing on the surface where you're saying like how is it two days, but
then it's like the same day.
Because there's a difference between the Passover and the quote feast of the Passover.
which is a multiple-day event. It's like an eight-day event, and then the feast of the Passover does
not happen on the first day of this feast or this particular Passover event. And again, the words
can get confusing pretty quickly, but you kind of understand this seven days of Unleavened Bread.
and then you have a preparation day.
That's why it's eight days.
So you have basically the preparation day
and then you have the seven day of unleavened bread.
The feast of the Passover is not eaten on the preparation day, obviously,
because you're preparing to eat that feast.
So there's one idea of why it's a little bit confusing.
Another thing that's important to understand is that
a Jewish understanding of a day is slightly different
than a Roman understanding of the day.
And so sometimes the calendars can get a little bit confusing
based on the timing.
But you know, the Jewish calendar makes sense
as far as how they calculate a day
because they basically go from sun down to sun up
is how they track days.
We as Romans just arbitrarily assign a new day
in the middle of the night for no reason.
So it's kind of weird.
But if you think about the way they track the day,
it essentially starts at night and it starts at 6 p.m.
And we're just using that as a relative term as to when the sun would go down.
Obviously, we understand there's fluctuations in when the sun actually goes down,
but assuming that it's coming, it's setting at 6 p.m.
Then it's from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. would be that first part of the day, which is the night,
and the latter part of the day is the daytime, where you have those last 12 hours.
And so you would understand a day is as soon as the sun goes down,
that's the start of the next day, and then as soon as the sun comes up, that's the midpoint.
And then as the sun goes down, that's the conclusion of a day.
We are six hours behind them.
So for some reason, we just decided arbitrarily instead of setting it at six
p.m., we set the day at 12.
So we're like six hours behind them when the day actually gets set.
So what day is this that we're actually talking about?
Well, what we're talking about, this is Wednesday.
This is Wednesday in the week.
After two days is the feast.
What does that mean?
After Wednesday day and after Thursday day,
it's gonna turn into 6 p.m. on Thursday,
which would actually be their Friday,
and they're gonna have their feast on that particular day.
And so that's what it's referring to,
is how they're gonna have this meal on
What we would think of is still Thursday night, but it's really Friday for them,
and it's just that the Jewish calendar idea that kind of confuses that.
When it talks about the Passover though, they're going to have the last supper at 6 p.m. that day.
and someone's house and that's going to be the commencement essentially of the
Passover event because they're starting that preparation day. So it's just kind
of like some people celebrate Christmas and it's like you're celebrating
Christmas but some people don't even celebrate on the day or we talk about
Christmas Eve.
And it's like, well, it's technically not even the 25th of December.
It's the night before, but it just kind of like all becomes Christmas.
It's kind of like this big event in the same way as like Passover,
is this like multiple day event.
And the feast is specifically on the 14th day of the month, a bib.
It's going to be at even because that's the beginning of that day.
And, you know, a lot of these things make sense in the Bible because
if you kind of think about the symbolism of it, a day starts dark and then it ends light.
That's to symbolize how the gospel is,
that we send and then we get saved.
And how at first man's sin brings in darkness,
but then the gospel light brings in salvation and restoration.
So it makes sense that we first start with the darkness
and then we move to the light,
just like everything's supposed to be symbolic
of the gospel message.
And so that's why that exists.
Some people get confused and think like,
why isn't it day first?
Well, because you know what?
We didn't get saved and then die and go to hell.
We're on our way to hell and we send and then we get saved.
And so you have that darkness first,
but then you have the light.
Just like creation itself.
Creation itself, everything started in darkness
and then came the light.
Just like the day starts in darkness, then ends in light.
And anybody that teaches something
other than this is a weirdo, okay?
I've heard somebody has some like bizarre mix up of this.
And that guy's a weirdo and nobody cares about him.
So, you know, if they start saying weird stuff,
you know, just walk away.
But that was a lot for these first two verses.
I'm not going to really do a deep dive beyond that.
I just kind of wanted to at least set that up
so you have some kind of idea.
It says in verse three,
then assembled together the chief priests and the scribes
and the elders and the people
under the palace of the high priest who was called Caiaphas
and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety
and kill him.
Notice that they take them by subtlety.
The enemy always works subtly.
They have to disguise what they're actually doing.
Verse 5, but they said,
Not on the feast day,
lest there be an uproar among the people.
So notice, they don't want him to be killed on the feast day because the people will be extremely upset.
They'll be mad about it because they're supposed to be commencing this important festival, this important ceremony,
which of course pictures the Lord Jesus Christ, but they can't do it on the feast day, which means they have a timetable.
They have to get this done before 6 p.m. on Thursday.
And think about it, this is Wednesday, most likely morning.
So they have, I mean the time is ticking,
they have less than 48 hours here,
probably virtually only about 24 hours,
considering the fact they're still gonna have to prepare
for the Passover and other things they have to get done.
So they're like, we gotta get this done now.
Like we can't wait, we can't haste.
So they're doing this speedily.
And you'll kind of notice that the Passover itself
is done kind of speedily,
that they have to just get this lamb
and roast it with fire and get it all ready to eat.
on that same day. They have to get it done really quick. They have to kill it and get it all prepped.
And I believe that's kind of picture in foreshadow how they had to like quickly throw this plan
together to crucify the Lord Jesus Christ and to betray him and to kill him and do all these
things because they got to get it done for this particular feast. Now it says in verse number
There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment imported on his head as he sat at meat
But when his disciples saw it they had indignation saying to what purpose is this waste?
For this ointment might have been sold for much given to the poor.
When Jesus understood it, He said unto them,
Why trouble ye the woman?
For she hath wrought a good work upon me.
For ye have the poor always with you,
but me ye have not always.
For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body,
she did it for my burial.
Verily I say unto you,
Wheresoever
This gospel shall be preached in the whole world.
There shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her."
So this woman does this great task and
Of course, it's anointing Jesus Christ's body for burial,
which is important because the Bible says that his body did not see corruption.
It's going to be in the grave for three days.
And so he's been anointed here with special oil and special ointment
so as to preserve his body and preserve his flesh
as he's going to go into that burial phase.
And it's very important.
Now, in this particular Gospel,
it's mentioning that she did this on his head.
It's interesting because there's another story where a woman does something similar, but it's not
It's not the exact same. So I believe there's actually two different
Situations where he has been anointed
This particular story is mentioned also in Mark
So go view it to mark chapter 14 and we'll see how it kind of is the exact same the exact same time as far as
where we are chronologically in the sequence of events here in this passion
week as well as the the events mentioned are the same as well.
So this will be on Wednesday.
Look at Mark 14, verse 1.
After two days was the feast of the Passover and of unleavened bread,
and the chief priests and the scribes saw it,
they might take him by craft and put him to death.
Notice that two days again, right?
So the exact same parallel that we had in Matthew about it's going to be two days.
It says in verse 2,
but they said not on the feast day,
lest there be an uproar with the people.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Same thing that we're reading.
Verse 3,
And being in Bethany,
in the house of Simon the leper,
As he sat at meat, there came a woman having alabaster box of ointment of spiked, and are very precious, and he'd break the box and poured it.
Notice this again on his head, and there were some that had indignation within themselves and said,
Why was this waste of the ointment made?
For it might have been sold for more than 300 pence and had been given to the poor, and they murmured against her.
Jesus said, Let her alone, why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on me.
for ye have not the poor with ye always.
And whensoever ye will, ye may do good to them,
do them good, but me ye have not always.
She hath done what she could.
She hath come before hand to anoint my body to the bearing.
Verily I say unto you,
whereas over this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world,
this also that she hath done shall be spoken of
for a memorial of her it says and then it says in Judas is scary at one of the twelve when of the chief priest of
Betrayal I'm under them
That's the same as it mentions in Matthew so you have the exact same event now
There's another story go to John
Chapter number 12 for a moment go to John chapter number 12 and
Look at verse one
John chapter 12 verse 1 the Bible says then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany where Lazarus was
Which had been dead whom he raised from the dead there?
They made him a supper and Martha served but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him then took Mary a
Pound of ointment of spikynard very costly and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet
with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.
Then sayeth one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him.
Why was not this ointment sold for 300 pence and given to the poor?
This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief
and had the bag and bear what was put therein.
Then said Jesus, let her alone against the day of my bearing, hath she kept this.
For the poor always ye have with you, but me ye have not always.
So, here we have what seems like almost the exact same story.
And it's hard for me, you know, having read this many times to think like,
is this really different or not.
But there's a couple of elements that I believe actually make this story different.
Number one is the timeline, and that's kind of the most important aspect here.
Notice in verse one again, six days before the Passover, it came to Bethany, okay?
That's much different than the two days that's going to be about to the feast day. This is actually
Saturday and the next day the next day following is going to be that Palm Sunday
When the Lord Jesus Christ comes in his triumphal entry
Then you have all the preaching he does on Monday and Tuesday the fig tree being
Cursed then withering completely away the next day and then on Wednesday is essentially where we're at in the story in
Matthew chapter number 26 which parallels with
Mark chapter number 14, and so I believe these are two different scenarios, and why I think that
that's even important, because you can say like, why is that even important? Well, it's kind of
interesting how Judas brings up the exact same thing in both stories. He's like, hey, why wasn't
this sold for 300 pence? And Jesus kind of corrects him and rebukes him.
And it says in verse number 10,
but the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death
and such on in further...
Again, they want to kill Lazarus and Jesus,
and we see that Judas...
This is kind of my
explanation of this and this is just a little bit me retreating reading between the lines is it's like Judas
Sees that he's not gonna get any financial money out of Jesus kind of like he's not getting money right now
He wishes that he had gotten the 300 pence and he kind of rebukes Jesus. Why?
Because he doesn't want you know money to be given to the poor. He doesn't want money to be wasted on Jesus
He wants that money
And this event happens.
What happens in Judas' mind?
He's like, you know what?
We need to stop doing this.
We need to stop anointing Jesus.
We need to stop giving him these things.
We need to make sure that everybody has the right mindset here
and that we're actually selling this to the poor
just so he can steal the money, right?
But then think about this.
He planted this seed so that the next time they wouldn't do it.
But then just a few days later, the exact same thing happens again and he doesn't get the money.
And so I think you can see the wheels turning in his head like,
I'm not going to get money out of this deal.
I was, I planted that seed, it failed, it didn't work.
Because even though I suggested this and even though I rebuked them,
Jesus kind of corrected me and that seed didn't work.
And so he now has to figure out another way to get paid.
Because if you go back to Matthew, look what it says.
in verse number 14, Matthew 26.
Then one of the 12 called Judas Iscariot went under the chief priests and said to them,
What will you give me and I will deliver him unto you?
So it's like, the first time this happens on Saturday,
he just kind of corrects them.
And I think, you know, when you read the parallel passages, it wasn't in...
John, where I was thinking, but it says that Judas went and kind of talks with the Pharisees
and he's like consulting and then later he eventually, he's like, now he's just like
ready to basically betray him, which it kind of, you're kind of trying to understand where
is Judas coming from?
Judas just wants money.
He's just trying to extract wealth.
He just saw 300 pence wasted in his mind and, and, and he's like, hey, well, maybe I can,
you know, finagle this, maybe I can figure out a way to get it the next time around.
And again, he's not getting paid.
So now he's like, he's done with it.
He's like, I'm gonna figure out a way to get paid
on this deal and he goes and he consults
with the chief priests and the Pharisees.
Now, go back to Mark chapter 11,
go back to Mark chapter number 11.
And just to give you kind of an idea
of what's happening here because
I'm kind of a visual person as well.
about these stories, like why what I'm saying can be true,
is just because they were in Bethany and both stories
doesn't mean that it's the same story either.
But we have a few different elements.
Number one, six days versus two days
kind of indicates a different timeline.
Number two, you have one woman named Mary
that specifically anoints him
and it's an unnamed woman and the other.
Then you have another element that in both Mark and in Matthew it's saying he was anointed on the head
Whereas in the Gospel of John it was anointed on the feet
So it seems like these are different stories
But one thing you kind of learn about this passion week is that Jesus's habit was they were kind of hanging out and staying somewhere between
Bethany and Beth page every single night.
They're kind of like actually going back and forth.
So that's why even though they're in the same location,
it's not necessarily the same timeline.
I want to show you that.
Look at Mark chapter 11 verse one.
And when they came night to Jerusalem under Bethpage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives,
he senteth forth two of his disciples.
So they're near Bethany and Bethpage here when they're going and entering in.
Skip down to verse 11, though, and Jesus entered in Jerusalem and into the temple.
And when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the even tide has come, he
went out unto Bethany with the twelve.
So if you actually kind of notice what's happening is it's like they showed up at Bethany six days
prior and then every day they're kind of taking their journey into Jerusalem but then in the
evening tide they're returning back unto Bethany. So just to kind of give you an idea I just kind
of drew a little a little kind of crude map here just to kind of give you some kind of an idea but
Temple Mount what we see today in Jerusalem. I believe that's exactly where the temple was and
so does every historian and every
Archaeologist and the Bible basically confirms this
Every, you know, everybody has a brain in their head can basically just see this now
There's some people that think there's this like tiny little sliver here, and I'll kind of draw it first
It's not even all the way over. It's literally like just kind of like
This is like the city of David, and I'm not saying that my scale is perfect, but I'm gonna say that it's pretty dang close
Okay, this is the city of David. Some people would say like that the temple was here and it's like bro
This doesn't even match like proportionally let alone all of this area
They've dug up and they found little tiny houses and little tiny buildings and all kinds of stuff
You can't really have a temple on top of everybody's house
They've already dug it all up and they already found everything else
But some people have put a magical temple here that doesn't exist. Okay?
We ignore those people just like the whole world is you know
They put out a movie and release it and nobody cares. Nobody's watching it. All right?
But you know the temple mount which virtually everyone agrees with this is where the temple was if you kind of understand the geography
This is what's called the the Kidron Valley
So this is a a really low place and this is actually a huge ridge
So the east wall of the temple was actually right up against a ridge which makes for you know an advantage
militarily just you know geography. It's also a high point
Right here like just right here in the dead center somewhere is what we would know as like that the Mount Mariah
That that peak of Mount Mariah where we see
Abraham offering sacrifice unto his son Isaac or not offering unto but offering his son Isaac on the altar and
This is where God was basically saying hey
You know, this is where I'm going to basically take my son.
It makes sense from a symbolic perspective.
But additionally, the threshing floor of Orn on the Jebusite
was supposed to be where they built the temple.
This seems like a very likely, probable place
where that could have been as well.
But this is a peak of Mount Moriah.
And the Bible does explicitly say
that the temple was built on Mount Moriah.
So, if you just take what the Bible says,
there's the Bible on Mount Moriah,
this is Mount Moriah, that's where it was, okay?
So, this is a huge mountain.
There's another mountain that's right here.
This is the Mount of Olives, okay?
And if you understand anything about a mountain,
obviously it has a peak and then it flows down.
So, this is kind of like the peak
and it's just kind of like flowing down.
Well, because there's this huge...
you know, Kidron Valley in the way,
the path that people walk to get to the temple
kind of goes this way.
So if you're coming from Bethany and Bethpage or whatever,
there's kind of just this roadway that walks.
And notice that this is the Garden of Gethsemane,
which is not a long journey from that east gate
where you would enter into the Temple Mount.
And then somewhere, again,
I don't know exactly where it doesn't matter,
but somewhere in this region,
Bethpage and Bethany is what the Bible's constantly bringing up.
somewhere where Mary and them lived,
somewhere where Lazarus had died,
and this is kind of their journey.
Now to walk from this point,
which is kind of like,
it's probably the furthest point even possible,
is about an hour and a half walk
to get all the way to the Temple Mount.
So it takes about an hour and a half
to basically just walk from this little journey,
and that just kind of gives you an idea.
So you kind of get the idea that,
hey, they have this festival.
Obviously, when you have people coming from all over,
Israel, let alone the world, to come under this feast, they can't all stay here.
You know, they can't all literally live here, so a lot of people are just, you know,
staying within some kind of a one-hour, two-hour walking radius of the temple,
and they just walk to the feast every single day. That's just part of their life journey.
So Jesus and them, they're coming back out here.
So you'll notice again, six days before they're here,
They come into the temple. You'll notice in Mark chapter 11 that they're going back and they're coming back. So again Saturday
He's anointed his feet and then Wednesday when he goes back out they anoint his head and again
I think that that's kind of important because it kind of gives us an idea of what's going on with
Judas and how Judas is really financially motivated and driven to betray the Lord Jesus Christ and we see
But after getting rejected the second time, that's when he really turns on him.
Now, we don't really need this map probably for any more of the sermon, so I'm just going
to move it out of the way.
What I've kind of also noticed, and this is just an anecdote, I can't prove it, but
They really are not spiritually driven or have any kind of purpose, they have a financial motive.
What they kind of do is they just kind of go around everybody and they flatter them
so that they can get a little bit of money from that person.
And then as soon as they get, they take advantage of the person, they just move on to the next person.
And then once they run out of people, then they just leave the church and trash it.
And I'll tell you, it is a common pattern.
And I've even seen, like, some of the people that hate us the most, they did that.
They came in here and they just took five grand, ten grand, whatever, from each sucker that they could.
And then once they basically had burned every single bridge, then they leave, and then they say, oh, your church is a coal.
And it's like, oh, are we a cult?
Or is it just no one wants to give you any more money
because you're a freeloading loser
who doesn't actually work hard?
And just like Judas, who didn't have really good motives,
who just kinda snuck in there
and just only is financially motivated,
is actually just an evil devil.
And you know, don't believe flattering, lying, railing devils, because often they want to hide or cover up their real reason for what they're actually doing.
Just like, oh, Jesus, why are we feeding the poor?
Do you not care about the poor?
It's not that Judas cares about the poor.
And look, there'll be people that'll come,
oh, they'll say all kinds of things like,
oh, well, I just care about Jesus
and I'm not following a man and blah, blah, blah.
But it's really just they're on drugs
or they're stealing money
or they're committing adultery
or all of the above
or they're doing something extremely wicked
and they're just lying through their teeth.
I think that this church had somebody
lie through their teeth about saying, man,
you,
I'm just not getting a paycheck and I'm not getting money.
You guys need to give more cash.
Not that he actually cared about spiritual things,
but was with hookers and prostitutes and gambling
and needed more money.
So you have to be careful what people are really like
and what their real motivations are
because let me tell you something.
Judices are motivated by money
and they're driven by money.
And look, when someone comes to you
and is just telling you everything you wanna hear,
And then it ends with a, can I get a thousand bucks from you?
Can I get five thousand bucks from you?
That should just, every red flag should just go up in your head.
And look, I'm not trying to be like, let's be jaded and let's not help people.
I've helped people, I'm going to continue to help people.
You know, most of the time I help people that didn't seek for it,
that aren't like coming up to me and like trying to be chummy and trying to like be like,
hey buddy, can I get, you know, some money or whatever from you?
I like to try and just beat them to the punch and just help people that I feel like,
hey, this person's a hard-working person, this is a good person, this person comes to our church.
You know, they seem like someone that's on the right track,
and I'd like to just help this person and be a blessing to this person.
Not the guy that's lazy, not the guy that can't keep a job,
not the guy that doesn't want to work at all.
You know, that's not the guy that I want to help.
And you know what, giving him money doesn't help him anyways.
And you know what, Judas didn't need money, Judas needed salvation.
And at the end of the day, you know, it's not about money.
The things of God is not about money.
Jesus didn't care about money.
That's why he gave the money bag to Judas.
It's like, Judas, like, think about it.
Jesus knows that he's a devil from the beginning
and he literally gave the money bag to Judas.
Like, you'd think like, wouldn't be the one guy,
you'd be like, let's not give him the money.
But, you know, it's probably Judas was eager.
to get the money back.
If you think about the context of the passages
that we were reading, because it's like he's a thief
and he wants access to that money.
As you know, be careful of the guy
that takes the money back home
and there was no count, Adam Fanon.
You know, be careful of the guy
that's just in it for money and it's all about money.
You know, we should be leery of the people that are eager.
You know, someone's like, man, I want to be the money counter at the church,
or I want to take the money somewhere, you know, it's all about money to them.
You know, covetousness is actually a sin that could get you thrown out of church,
is what the Bible says, and so we need to be careful that we're not covetous
and we're not in it for money and we don't care about money.
Money is just not the thing, because what's the opposite?
It's someone taking 300 pence of ointment and just spending it all on Jesus.
And you know what I like about this, this is a woman who spends a great deal of money on the Gospel if you think about it.
What is she, she's spending it on her, his burial for his what? Resurrection.
So it's for his death, burial and resurrection that this woman's spending 300 pence of money.
And you know what, how many women today in the world are trying to spend their money on the Gospel?
How many women today are spending their money on trying to get people saved?
How many women today are spending their money on the things of God and on the church of God and trying to get people saved?
No, how many women today are spending their money on just beauty and
just fashion and products and
merchandise and just all the things of this world and they don't even give a rip about the gospel.
You know what? Jesus said, hey, this woman is super important.
In fact, we're going to make a big deal about her for the rest of eternity.
You know, wherever this gospel is, we're going to be reminded of this woman
that gave a great deal of money to the things of God,
to the house of God, to actually getting people saved,
to the gospel message, and you know what?
What an incredible woman who will be willing to sacrifice for God.
In such a great way, I mean, she could have gone out and bought all kinds of garments.
She could have gone out and bought all kinds of makeup.
She could have gone out and bought an extra purse, the matching purse, and the matching shoes, and the high heels,
and all the facials, and all the massages, and all the different things that women like, nails.
And again, vanity, all the haircuts, and the nails, and whatever.
And you'll notice that most women...
services out there are designed to essentially deteriorate in about two weeks.
Ever notice that?
I mean, what are the things that women love?
Flowers, oh, that's gone in two weeks.
Nails, that grew out in two weeks.
Hair, that grew out in two weeks.
Makeup, that's gone in about three hours.
And it's like, I wonder why all these industries are built on something that is so fleeting and so temporary,
so that you'll buy it again.
So you just be a sucker to just basically be on the hook and subscribe to essentially just this trap in fact
The subscriptions in our society are out of control. I'm sorry. This has nothing to do with Matthew 26
But I'm just I'm just on one for a second. You know
Who's heard of this where you can subscribe to a mystery box?
where you don't even know what's in it.
Like, yeah, I want to see the hands.
The mystery box subscription.
You can just sign up and they just give you a box.
You don't even know what's in it.
And it's like, talk about just throwing money away.
It's just like, you just want to buy.
It's like, I want to be surprised with something.
You know, I just want someone to buy me a gift.
It's just like, subscriptions are just running
our country, running our society.
You know, why don't you subscribe to the gospel?
Why don't you subscribe to soul winning why don't you subscribe to actually spending some money on the things of God
Instead of just subscribing to all this vanity. I mean the Bible couldn't be clear that beauty is vain
That beauty is going to fade, that all the things of this world, they don't even matter at all.
Why don't you be the woman who actually served Jesus Christ?
She's the one that's remembered.
No one remembers the beauty.
It's all gone.
It's all vanity.
It has no meaning.
Eventually, we all get old and wrinkly.
And I don't care how much plastic surgery you get, Joyce Meyer.
You still look like the Joker.
You still look weird.
I've never seen some 80-year-old woman and thought like, she looks 20.
But you know what, I don't wanna, if an 80 year old woman looked 20, that would be weird.
I want an 80 year old woman to look 80, it doesn't really matter.
And I'll tell you this, the more natural you look, you just always look the better.
The more stuff you do to yourself, it usually just makes it worse.
You know it just it's kind of a fool's errand in many cases
And it's just anything and everything that people do to try and make themselves different usually fails
like these guys who have their legs sawn in half and
Let their bones grow back together so they can be taller. It's like talk about fail
And then they just look like they're walking on stilts
and they can't even move.
And I'm just like, bro, just because you're a little taller,
she's not interested when you're walking like a weird giraffe,
baby giraffe that just fell out of the womb or something.
You know, you're like, I'm 5'11 and three quarters now.
You know, she's like, bye.
You know, everything that people are constantly trying to do
to like make themselves, you know, look better
and be cooler, whatever.
It's almost always a fail.
If you want to be the best version of yourself, eat healthy and work out.
I mean, that's about the best you can do.
And honestly, most people need that anyways, okay?
It's like they're spending all this money on putting lipstick on the pig,
and it's just like, hey, just trim up, Piggy.
You know, it's like, don't worry so much about the lipstick.
That didn't really go that far anyways, okay?
Sorry, this was a temporary commercial break.
Let's go back to Matthew 26.
But again, you know, Judas is financially driven,
and he betrays Lord Jesus Christ.
This woman doesn't care about money, she gives it all for Jesus.
And again, that is the one that really matters, isn't it?
That's the one that gets all the honor and glory is the woman that gave all this money to the things of God.
It says in verse 14, then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot,
went on the chief priest and said to them,
What will you give me and I will deliver him unto you?
And they coveted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
This is in Zechariah.
I'm going to cover this in chapter 27 in great detail,
but it says in verse 16,
and from that time, you sought opportunity to betray him.
So he's trying to figure out how he's going to figure it,
how he's going to get him.
Verse 17,
Now the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
the disciples came to Jesus saying unto him,
Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover?
So again, the first day,
it actually hasn't happened yet.
in a technical sense, it's just gonna happen this day.
So it's like, it's Wednesday,
sometime in the day, could be the mid-morning,
mid-afternoon, but at 6 p.m. that same day,
we're gonna have that piece of unlimited bread.
So sometimes the author, it seems like he's talking
in a Roman context, sometimes he's talking
about a Jewish context as far as how we understand the day.
This is obviously a Roman understanding.
That day, in the Roman calendar,
is gonna be the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Just like if it was the 24th of December at 10 a.m.,
you would say, today is Christmas Eve.
Even though it's not Christmas Eve yet,
because Christmas Eve is the evening,
it's that day is when it's gonna happen.
So that day, they're gonna have the Last Supper,
and so he's basically just saying,
hey, this is the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
and so this is when we're gonna have this.
Event okay, and that event is the last supper that we see them have it says we're well that we prepare for the to eat the Passover again
The Passover words a tricky word. This is not the feast of the Passover. This is not the Passover lamb
This is the Passover event. So he's just saying hey, where are we gonna eat this just like if it would be like December 24th
And someone said, where are we going to eat Christmas, dinner?
And it's like, we're not eating 25th, we're eating on the 24th,
but we're just calling it Christmas because it's basically that timeline, right?
So it's just when people use these words in a broad sense versus a specific sense.
So they're going to eat. Jesus did not eat the Passover lamb this year.
He did not eat it this year.
He was the Passover lamb this year.
He was eaten as the Passover, in a sense, spiritually speaking.
And so this is not...
That's why he's saying,
my body is this bread that you're going to eat,
and we're going to perform that communion sacrifice.
He was eating that last supper meal.
Of course, there's no leaven.
There's no mention of eating lamb.
There's no mention of them even getting a lamb,
preparing it, and killing it.
They would have to do all this stuff right then.
And then why would it be the day of preparation
if they've already eaten it?
You know, some people get confused and all this stuff.
Once you get the right timeline, everything makes perfect sense.
When you kind of have a Friday or a Wednesday view, it starts getting a little weird.
Now, it says in verse 19,
And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them,
and they made ready the Passover.
Now, when the even was come, he sat down with 12.
So again, when the even was come, they swapped into,
this is the 13th day, this would be the last supper.
They've now entered in the day of preparation.
They're not supposed to have any leaven in their household.
The Bible says you're supposed to have all the leaven
even the day before out of the households.
You're supposed to get rid of all the leaven,
and they're supposed to prepare that sacrifice,
that Passover lamb.
It says,
And again, you know, what is the symbolism here?
Why would you get the leaven out?
It's just like when we have the Lord's Supper,
we're supposed to get the leaven out of church
before we have the Lord's Supper.
Like get the first Corinthians five people out
and you know, get whatever issues we have out
and be cleansed and be purified
and ready to perform the Lord's Supper
because this is a serious event
that we wanna sanctify ourselves,
set ourselves apart and take this bread
and this cup with soberness.
It says,
Now, when even it was come, he sat down with the twelve, and as they did eat, he said,
Verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me.
And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say in them, Lord, is it I?
And he answered and said, He that dipeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
Now, if he had said that, I'd be like, I'm not even going to dip my bread in the oil at this point, you know?
Or like, you're going and he kind of moves, you're like, you know, you don't want to go.
But I mean, that's kind of crazy, you know?
But for some reason, they just didn't see it.
And I think it's just to go to so.
Sometimes it's going to be a Judas.
Sometimes it's going to be a bad friend.
Sometimes it's going to be someone that you just didn't see.
And, you know, I would be a hypocrite if I didn't say
that I haven't been fooled because I have.
It's been people that I thought like, hey, this is a good guy.
And then like in hindsight, you're just like, how did I not see it?
I mean, you're just kind of like, wow, there was actually a lot of flags there.
Actually, there was a lot of issues there.
And I just don't, I was like, I was blinded almost.
Or I was just kind of ignorant or just not seeing it or whatever.
And if the disciples, I mean, this is Peter.
This is John.
This is James.
This is Andrew.
If they got tricked, how much more should we think like I could be tricked to?
And so we should be careful and realize, hey, we could all be tricked, we could all be duped.
But no harm, no foul, anyways.
It was supposed to happen.
Don't beat yourself up over it.
Obviously God puts tears amongst the wheat.
Sometimes there's going to be Judas Iscariots and that's just life.
We don't have to necessarily obsess about it,
but at the same time, we should realize you can't ever trust anybody in this room
with things you don't want to lose.
You know, just don't do it.
He says in verse 24,
the son of man goeth as is written of him,
but woe unto that man by whom the son of man is betrayed.
It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
Of course, Judas Iscariot is gonna be
in the lowest parts of hell.
He was a devil from the beginning.
He never believed.
I've been in a Baptist church where they told me
that Judas was saved and we could be like him.
And then I like showed the guy these verses afterwards
and he was like, I think you're right.
And I'm like, yeah, so the entire lesson was just trash.
And it was kind of like, it was a crucial time
of my marriage because me and my wife were kind of like
up in the air about what kind of church we should go to,
what we believe, but like, we're going to church
and I'm just showing her and the guy how he's just wrong
every single time.
It kind of started to wear on her like,
hey, these people might be wrong.
You know, these people might.
And so you know what?
Guys, show your wives the Bible at home and, you know, be a student of the word so you can show your wife things that are not right.
If I said something wasn't right, correct, you know, your family at home.
The Bible says here, verse 25, then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said,
Master, is it I? And he said to them, Thou hast said, and he's like, hey, you said it.
Verse 26 and as they were eating Jesus took bread and blessed and break it and gave to his disciples and said take eat
This is my body and he took of the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them all or gave it to them saying drink
E all of it for this is my blood of the new testament
Which is shed for many for their mission of sins, but I say unto you
I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom
A couple of things to note, number one, that the blood was shed, notice this,
for the remission of sins.
Our sins were paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.
In Revelation chapter number one, if you want, you can go there.
I'm going to flip there really quick and flip back.
Revelation chapter one verse five also confirms this.
It says,
unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins
in his own blood.
And the reality is that if our sins
have already been washed in Jesus' blood,
why would I have to then repent of those sins?
To be saved because I've already been washed by his blood and to say that you have to repent of your sins is to deny
The blood of Jesus Christ is to deny the remission of sins that's been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ
It's not your works that saves you
It's his blood washing and covering you that saves you and again
That's an important element of the entire Passover is they're supposed to put the blood on the door post
And that's what caused the death angel to go over that night
Did you notice that Moses didn't say under the children of Israel make sure to repent
your sins tonight so the death angel doesn't get you?
Make sure you're not sinning too much tonight or the death angel will get you.
In fact, he didn't say that at all.
In fact, we don't know what they did that night.
There could have been someone living with their girlfriend,
but if they had the blood on the door,
the death angel passed over.
Because it wasn't repenting of their sins,
it wasn't getting right,
it wasn't surrendering their life,
it wasn't turning over a new leaf,
it wasn't getting baptized.
You know, they got baptized a few days later
when they walked through the Red Sea.
Baptisms after salvation.
All it was was the blood on the doorposts
and that's what saved them.
Just like the blood of Jesus Christ is the only thing that saves us.
Then someone will accuse me and say, oh, you're saying sin.
No, I'm not saying sin.
I'm saying salvation is a free gift and it was paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.
His blood was shed for the remission of sins.
When we have the Lord's Supper, that doesn't save us.
It's a symbol of the fact that we're already saved.
The Catholic Church will tell you, no, you have to literally drink his blood again.
to get saved and have the Eucharist again, which is blasphemous,
because his blood was shed only once,
not every single Sunday in some Roman Catholic church,
which is a pagan synagogue of the devil,
which is an evil satanic false religion,
and most of the priests are pedophiles.
Not only are there pedophiles, they're child molesters.
Because a pedophile is one that desires it.
A child molester is one that does it.
And frankly speaking, I would say all of them are pedophiles,
but most of them are child molesters,
because they've probably already done it.
Why do you think they have all the altar boys and all their little ministries?
You know what? Don't send your kids to the Catholic Church.
Don't go to the Catholic Church. Don't visit the Catholic Church. Don't go to some Catholic camp.
Don't allow your kids to hang out with some priest that's wearing a dress.
You know what? That just it seems so contrary to nature, but people are doing it today.
Stay as far away from the Catholic Church as possible. And of course they deny
the shed blood of Jesus Christ or their mission of sins,
they believe they have to do some catechism
and all this other junk to be saved.
But that's not true.
Another thing that's important to notice in verse 29,
he says, I drink henceforth,
I'm sorry, I will not drink henceforth
of the fruit of the wine.
The henceforth implies that he's done it.
So, I would say, yeah, I believe Jesus drank fruit juice,
which sometimes the Bible refers to as wine and other passages.
You know, the Bible doesn't say that Jesus drank wine.
It just doesn't say that.
It says that he drank of the fruit of the vine.
but it does not say, Jesus drank wine.
Now the Bible tells us that he was falsely accused
of being a wine-biber and a glutton,
which I think probably is safe to assume
he drank the fruit of the vine.
That's another indication because they said
that John came neither eating nor drinking,
and you say that he has a devil,
and when they talk about Jesus,
they say he's a wine-biber and a glutton.
So, you know, again, it's not true.
He's not a wine beaver in a glutton,
but you could assume that he probably at least tasted of wine.
He was going to some of the publican's houses,
some of the more fancy and rich people's houses.
I'm sure that they were offering not just a water beverage,
probably water mingled with fruit juice,
a fruit cocktail that we would normally
understand the day as welches.
Yeah, did they have welches back then?
No, but they had something probably better.
It was like organic welches, you know, that's what they had.
They had organic non-GMO welches, and so it was probably even better.
It was probably even less watered down than most fruit juices you have today,
because today most fruit juices, it's very little juice.
Some will even explicitly say no juice.
Some will say 100% juice, but it's like 0.5% juice.
You're like, how does that make sense?
How is it 100% juice, but then it's 0.5% juice?
It's saying like, we only used juice.
It was 100% of the juice that we used,
but it was still mostly water mixed in with 100% juice.
So it's like extremely misleading and false advertising.
If you actually go to the store today,
buy something that's not water. It is only juice. It only came from the fruit
of a grape or something. It's extremely expensive. It'll be like $10, $20 for a
tiny little jar of it because most juice is just water mixed in with a little bit
of some kind of a fruit cocktail whether it be strawberries, grapes, whatever. The
fruit of the vine. It being a vine leads us to believe it's probably grape.
by nature, most likely.
So it's again, Jesus had some kind of a fruit beverage.
He didn't only drink water,
but he did not drink alcohol.
The Bible does not teach that Jesus drank alcohol.
It teaches that drinking alcohol is a sin.
The Bible says to be sober.
And some people say, oh, Jesus drank alcohol.
Liar.
And again, there's no, they'll be like,
oh, it says Jesus drank wine.
It doesn't even say that.
It says, the fruit of the vine.
If you take grapes and you squeeze them into a cup,
no one would say that's alcoholic.
And this was so funny to me,
people say they didn't even invent juice
until like a few hundred years ago.
I'm like, okay, how did they even get alcohol?
How did you get alcohol?
Because in order to even make your little wine that you believe in,
you had to squeeze the grapes into juice.
But you're telling me that they didn't even invent it?
How is that even humanly possible? In order to even get the alcohol you had to first squeeze the juice out and then allow it to ferment
But no one ever decided to drink it before it fermented, right?
No one in the history of the world for literally
6,000 years no one thought hey, let's try this before it ferments
Is that what you're really telling me?
Like this is the logic of people they'll say like pants weren't invented
It's like pants, alcohol was existence, but no juice.
It's like, man, they're building the pyramids,
but they didn't think of juice or pants, right?
It's a bunch of men wearing skirts, looking at juice,
thinking like, I don't know what that is, but don't try it.
Wait until it ferments.
You know what I mean?
No one had that idea, radical concepts.
It's nuts to believe what some of these people believe.
Look, you go to seminary, you go to a lot of churches,
and they will teach you this stuff.
They will teach you all kinds of weird, bizarre, nonsense,
because when you don't believe the Bible,
you say stupid things.
You just say really dumb, stupid things.
That's a lot on this.
I'm gonna keep going.
Verse 30, and when they had sung in hymn,
they went out into the mataholics.
I love this because it's proof that Jesus sang hymns,
not just the Psalms.
Some people might even, like there is an extreme mindset
out there that says, I don't even wanna sing hymns.
Like it has to be straight text, straight Psalm.
The Bible says that they sang hymns.
And it says, speaking yourselves in Psalms,
hymns and spiritual songs.
I like hymns, and I like psalms, and I like spiritual songs.
I can like it all.
Verse 31, then saith Jesus unto them,
All ye shall be offended because of me this night,
for it is written I will smite the shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad."
Here's a really important point is that leadership
is just more important than we realize.
I mean, these are great guys, strong in the faith.
They've been with Jesus for three and a half years,
approximately, that's what we all assume.
And yet, as soon as Jesus is out of the picture, they just all are scattered.
They're all just like not doing the right thing.
Everything just crumbles immediately.
And you have to realize that leadership is important.
You know, as a husband, as the man of the house, your example is important.
Because if you get knocked out, many times, everything just crumbles underneath you.
Look at the black community.
Fatherless homes is a disaster.
is a disaster, and we see the devastating consequences all over this country and all over this planet.
And let me tell you something, we need leaders today.
When you don't have a good leader in any position, everything just falls apart.
Everything is just a complete train wreck, whether that be in the house, whether that
be in the church, whether that be at the workplace, whether that be in a state, a country, military.
It doesn't matter when there's not a strong leader, everything just fails.
There's no such thing as a successful democracy, it's trash, it's lies, it's not true.
Democracy is a failure, okay?
You need leadership, you need strong leaders.
That's why virtually every successful company has what?
A CEO, the chief executive officer.
You know, he's the chief.
He's the chief because he's the one in charge.
There's not this council of women guarding the hen house.
There's not this council of women that are going to set up some of successful business or some successful model
and you know you see churches today set up where it's deacon run a
Board of Elders all these groups of people or really just the deacons wives in many cases and you know what it's a failure
It's a train wreck. It's a disaster. We need leaders and you know what this church is not run by committee
This church is not a democracy, this church doesn't have multiple chiefs, it has one.
And that's the King James Bible.
And then underneath that, humanly speaking, it's me.
We are a hierarchy.
Jesus, the head, obviously you could say even above him is the father,
you have the father, you have the son, which is the word of God,
and then you have the pastor, the head pastor.
You know what, we're not going to get a council of pastors.
So long as I'm here, you're never going to have a council of pastors.
We're not going to have a board of deacons.
We're not going to have all these different groups or whatever.
And you know what?
If you want a successful church, you're going to have a leader
and you're going to give him the power and authority to do his job.
And as soon as you smite the shepherd, boy, everything's a disaster.
Even the men of David understood this.
They said, hey, you're better than 10,000 of the soldiers, because if they get you,
it's just kind of all over.
And you'll see it throughout all the texts.
Whenever you get the leader, it's just all over.
That's why leaders are really important, and we need to be strong leaders for our family,
for our church, for our household.
You know, soul-winning captains, that's an important leadership position.
The song-leading captain, that's an important position.
I think some people don't understand that they are important and there's going to be people
following you and if you end up crumbling or falling away, you're going to cause a lot of people
under you to crumble, fall away. You know, we need strong leaders and we need the leaders to
do what's right. Look what it says in verse 32. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into
Peter answered and said in him though all men shall be offended because of the yet. Well, I never be offended. I
Think Peter's sincere here. I don't think this is flattery
I think in his mind he genuinely believes he will go to death with Jesus
And that's confirmed by the fact that he literally pulls out a sword and even smites one of the Roman soldiers
But then when he sees that Jesus is telling him we're not gonna fight. That's when he kind of backs down
That's when he seems like he's not really on board and and I think you know partly probably Peter thought
Hey, we can win, we can fight them in battle, we can win,
but when he sees Jesus isn't gonna fight,
he's kinda like, oh man, so that death thing's like real, huh?
And then, you know, fear sets in, and look.
We can all act tough, and talk tough, and whatever,
and I'm never gonna do this.
But boy, I'll tell ya, people say these things all the time,
and then they totally fail.
They totally change.
People you thought that were just steadfast, unmovable,
just crumble like nothing.
Just a deck of cards, just a house of cards.
You know, people say, I'm never gonna leave you,
I'm with you, I'm your bestie.
You know, how many people just say this in marriage?
I mean, 50% of America is proclaiming
till death do his part, and then they're walking away.
How many people today are just, I'll do this,
I'm forever, yeah me, yeah, and then they just fail.
Because it's a lot easier to say it than it is to do it.
And I think we should all say, hey,
even if I think that I'm that person, I may not be.
And I have to, I need to take heed unto myself
and be careful.
Keep your finger, go to Galatians chapter 6 for just a second, go to Galatians chapter 6.
Don't ever get this attitude where you know for sure, I just know for sure I won't quit,
or I won't give up, or I won't be bad, or I won't make a mistake.
No, no, no, we should always have some room to say, I need to improve still,
or I need to get better, or I need to be strengthened,
or hey, you know, I need to be careful of the words and the vowels and the hosts that I make
because people constantly break their word, go back.
They're a coward, they're fearful, they change.
I've seen people, I mean they're just like a fierce lion.
And then a few years later you look at this person and you're like, you're the cowardly lion.
You're just a completely different person.
I don't even know who you are because we can all drift and that's why you have to be careful.
It's like, why go to church on Wednesday night so you don't turn into the cowardly lion?
Once you start letting a little bit of compromise, a little bit of leaven get in there, boy
you can start being drugged somewhere you never thought you would be.
What does it say in Galatians 6-1,
Brethren, if a man be overtaken and in a fault, you with your spiritual restore such in one in the spirit of meekness,
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Hey, when someone goes astray, don't think like, well, I wouldn't.
No, and the spirit of meekness restored this person thinking like we could even be that
way.
We could go this way.
We could get soft.
We could get offended.
We could get backslidden.
We could forsake people.
We could end up falling short.
We need to be careful and we need people.
We need church.
We need the Bible.
We need to constantly be growing and staying in the right movement, in a sense, so as we
Let away with the air of the wicked.
Go back to this chapter.
There's so many good things to point out.
It says in verse 36,
Then come with Jesus with them under a place called Gethsemane and say them his disciples sit you here while I go and pray yonder
And he took with him Peter and two and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be sorrowful and very heavy
Then say at the end of them my soul is exceeding sorrowful even in the death tarry here and watch with me
And he went a little further and fell on his face and prayed saying oh my father if it be possible
Let this cup pass for me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt so we see here Jesus
Expressing a desire for him not to have to go through this
but being willing.
This is what you would call actual submission.
When you don't really want to,
but you're willing to do it anyways.
And, you know, in a marriage,
submission is not doing what your husband wants.
It's doing what you don't want to do
and just agreeing when you don't agree.
Like, you think like, oh, submitting is,
I like this idea, I'm going to do it.
No, no, submitting is, I don't like this idea,
I don't want to do it,
but I'm going to do it anyways.
And I'm going to go through it to the end.
You know, Jesus is an example for all of us, you know, men at your job, men when you have
to be doing something God asks you to, but also for women, you know, your authorities,
when the Bible tells you to do something, you just do it anyways, when your husband
tells you to do something, you just do it anyways.
We all have authority over us.
We all have leadership.
We all have things God wants us to do, and we're just supposed to do it.
And we're supposed to have Jesus' attitude of whatever cup God gives us to drink, we
just decide to drink it.
You know my dad offered me a drink of barley green and I didn't want it
So then he just gave the powder straight in my mouth, you know
And so sometimes and it would been better if I had just submitted because by not submitting it was forced
And I choked it down if I had submitted it would have gone down smoother
Okay, so sometimes you have to understand hey when God wants you to do something you just do it
Because if you don't Joan in the whale
Remember Lot's wife.
There's a lot of different examples of like hey, when you don't want to get something done,
but God wants you to get it done, you just do it.
And it's way better when you agree.
It's way worse when he has to make you do it.
The Bible tells us in Hebrews about Jesus that he learned obedience.
And this can be, this is the story in Hebrews 5
of where we see Jesus learning obedience,
where he's finally happened to do something that he didn't really want to do
and he has to become obedient.
It says in verse number 40,
And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, what could
ye not watch with me one hour?
Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation, the Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh
is weak.
And that's the reality.
Why can Peter say, I'm going to die with you, and then not?
Because the Spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.
And we should not undermine, I'm sorry, we should not underestimate how weak our flesh
is.
Our flesh is extremely weak, very lazy, very selfish, very carnal, very prone to sin.
The sin that just so easily beset us is what the Bible says and the temptations are strong.
That's why we need daily Bible reading.
That's why we need church.
And look, when you're struggling in your life, just get back on the Bible reading horse.
Get back on the church horse.
That are biblical or spiritual every day and try to see if you can get back on the right track
You know when you're struggling mentally when you're frustrated where you're at
Maybe you're struggling in other areas of your life. You know, we have to subdue the flesh. We have to crucify the flesh daily
first number I think 40 now
No, I'm sorry skip down it's
Verse number 42,
When he went away again the second time and prayed,
saying, Oh, my father, if this cup may not pass away for me,
except I drink it, I will be done.
And he came and found them sleep again,
for their eyes were heavy, and he left them
and went away again and prayed the third time,
saying the same words.
Notice Jesus prayed three times the exact same prayer.
That's what I think is our example.
We pray without ceasing.
A lot of times you may pray the exact same prayer.
You don't have to necessarily, in my opinion,
do it for just like hours and hours and hours,
but it's more like a repetitive thing, right?
I pray maybe in the morning, I pray maybe at lunch, I pray in the evening,
and a lot of times it can be the same type of prayers,
but you're just kind of doing it repeatedly.
Jesus did, even for things that didn't come to pass.
Verse 45,
While yet spake, Lord Judas, one of the twelve, came and with him a great multitude of swords and staves from the chief priests and elders of the people.
Now, he that betrayed him gave them a sign saying,
Whomsoever I shall kiss, the same as he, hold them fast.
And fourthly, he came to Jesus and said, Hail, Master, and kissed him.
And Jesus said to him, Friend, wherefore art thou come?
And they then came, they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him.
So notice, Jesus is betrayed with a kiss.
The Bible says, Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
We can't evaluate someone's motives always by what they say.
We have to evaluate their actions.
And if we look at his actions, he deserted them
and brought a bunch of Romans and essentially betrayed him.
But he gave me a kiss.
And again, that's what all evil people, all bad people,
they'll try to act like they had a good motive
or I said something nice or they used flattery
to basically win people over.
But look at their actions.
It's like they're trashing people,
they're attacking people,
they're getting people out of church,
but I love you.
They don't love you.
They're just wanting to destroy you and attack you
and you have to look at the actions
because the actions are hateful.
The kiss seems loving, but the actions are hateful.
Therefore, he hates.
No, no, I love you.
No, you don't.
You hate me.
Oh, I'm your friend, even though I'm doing nothing friendly to you.
Well, then you're not really a friend.
You know, it doesn't matter.
You can call me your friend all day long, but if you're doing things that are not friendly,
then you're not a friend.
You can kiss me all day long, but at the end of the day, if you're attacking me and hating
me, then you hate me, okay?
If there's inconsistency, then the words are flattery.
And that's what you have to understand, the difference.
Don't allow the words to trick you.
Verse 51,
Then said Jesus unto him put up again thy sword into his place for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword
Think is thou that I cannot now pray to my father and he shall presently give me more than 12 legions of angels
But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be so again Jesus obviously some doing himself
He could ask for angels he could do all kinds of things
But he's just he's willing to die verse 55 in the same hour or in that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes
Are you come out as against the thief with swords and staves for to take me?
I sat daily with you, teaching in the temple, and you laid no hold on me.
But all this was done that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.
Then all the disciples noticed this, forsook him and fled.
Jesus was forsaken of all those disciples.
And they that laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas, the high priest,
where he describes the elders who were assembled.
But Peter followed him afar off under the high priest's palace
and went in and sat with the servants to seat in.
Now Peter and John kind of circle back and end up following Jesus again.
John gets led in, Peter's kind of standing without,
and then he's going to be confronted here at the end of this particular passage.
It says in verse 59,
Now the chief priests and elders and all the counsel sought false witnesses against Jesus
Yay, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none, at the last came two false
witnesses.
So it's saying all the false witnesses, they all failed.
And then it's just going to give us a sample of what two of the last ones were like.
But what does this mean that they found none?
Meaning that when they came, they didn't have anything of meaning to say.
This guy's evil!
Put him to death!
Okay, why?
He's bad!
He's a malefactor. He's evil. What did he do? He's bad
It's a cult
There are a bunch of cult leaders. They're narcissists
They're evil. They're railers. What did they oh they railed? What did they say? They railed
They said stuff and they're mean and they're a cult
Can't you see they're a cult?
Why can't you see this?
You know I feel like I'm taking crazy pills
It's like it's like they're just sitting here. They're bad. They're evil
Don't let emotion and yelling and screaming like, okay, what did they say? What did they do? What was the crime?
Where's the evidence? Where's the witnesses? They keep finding no legitimate witnesses.
And boy, I just see the same with people that attack good men of God that they just get all mad and angry.
This person's bad. This person's evil. They're so horrible. What did they do?
Just noise. It's just
Just meaningless
But there's many of them. No, this is not one. There's tons of people. There's tons of people. It's bad. He's so bad
He's all evil. What did he do?
Then they can't say anything. Can they? They don't really have any evidence. You're a railer. What did I say?
It's so funny that people always say like you're a railer, but it's like they can't tell you what they actually railed on or what was
False or where they said it. It's just like railer
And then it's like, they'll finally give you an answer
and be like, but isn't that true?
Yeah, but it was mean.
Well, Jesus had some mean things in Matthew 23,
but it didn't rail, did he?
He didn't do anything worthy of death either.
Many false witnesses, yet they found none.
Here's some examples of some of these exact words
that says one of them and said,
this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God
and build it in three days.
And the High Priest arose and said to him,
answers thou nothing?
What is it which these, witness against thee?
You know something like,
have you responded to this troll, Pastor Shelley?
No.
Well, what about this troll?
Nope.
Do you want to respond to this weird accusation?
Nope.
You don't have to respond to every single accusation,
every single weirdo, every single troll.
It's just like Jesus just said,
I'm not gonna answer that, that's stupid.
But Jesus held his peace in the high priest's hands and said to him I adjured you by the living God that they'll tell us whether
They'll be the Christ the son of God
Jesus sayeth on him thou I said nevertheless
I say unto you hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven and
parallel passages and mark
When they ask him art thou the son of the blessed he says I am so you understand he clearly said I'm the son of God
He explains aspects of who the son of God is the son of man is and he confirms it
And this is why they killed Jesus verse 65 then the high priest rent his clothes saying he has spoken
Blasphemy what further need have we have witnesses behold now he have heard his
Blasphemy what think he they answered and said he is guilty of death
Why was Jesus put to death for saying he was the Son of God?
Even when they had this plaque and it said King of the Jews
They said don't Sprite King of the Jews right that he said that he was the King of the Jews
And then it's so funny people like he never admitted that he was the King of the Jews or that he was the Son of God
Or it's like no he did
That's why they put him to death that was their entire reasoning for killing Jesus is because he said he's the Son of God
And look, this is why Jews hate Christians today because we believe that Jesus is the Son of God
It's nothing new under the Sun. What do they do verse 67?
Then did they spit in his face? Jews will spit when they say the name of Jesus and
Buffeted him and others smote him with the palms of their hands saying prophesy on us now Christ. Who is he that smoked the?
So again, why was Jesus put to death for claiming to be the Son of God?
But not only was he claiming it because he is the Son of God. That's why they killed him.
That's why they hated him. That's why he was destroyed.
He was condemned for saying he was the Son of God and people say, oh well, Jesus
you know wanted us to be saved, wanted us to believe he's the Son of God.
Why did he just come down and tell us? Because when he did you killed him.
Jesus could show up at the atheist door right now and say, I'm Jesus and he would try to kill him.
He would try to murder him because that's what's in the heart of evil man
We're saved by faith not by sight even when they had the sight even when they had the miracles even when they knew Lazarus had risen from the dead
They said kill him anyways
Kill Jesus kill the Son of God. This is the air. Let us kill him and seize on his inheritance
Yet they're gonna lose their their land for that
Verse 69 through 75 is Peter will end on this.
Now Peter sat without in the palace and a damsel came on him saying,
Thou also was with Jesus of Galilee.
But he denied before them all saying,
I know not what thou sayest.
And when he was gone out into the porch,
another made psalm and said unto him, that were there.
This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.
And again he denied with an oath.
I do not know the man.
And after a while came unto him, they that stood by and said to Peter,
Surely thou also art one of them, for thy speech b'rayeth thee.
B'rayeth means betray.
Then began he to curse and to swear.
Now this is not what Donald Trump just said about Israel, okay?
What is the cursing and the swearing?
Saying, I know not the man.
That's what he said.
He didn't use any four letter words that are not polite society, he just said, I don't
know the man.
Now, the assumption would be the curse was probably probably added something to this.
He probably said something like, you know, curse would be my day or curse would be my
family if I'm lying because I know not the man.
because that's why it's implying there was a curse.
The curse was that he was cursing himself in some way
if he was lying about it.
And people will do this when they're lying
because the Bible says, let your yea be yea,
your yea be nay.
Anything that comes more of this is of evil.
The Bible says, swear not at all.
And again, the swearing is not saying what Trump said, okay?
It's not explaining, let's go Brandon.
Swearing is making an oath or a promise.
And when someone is saying, I swear on the Bible,
I swear on my life, or as Tyler Baker famously said,
I swear on everything, why would you ever say that?
You're gonna swear on everything?
He's like, I swear on everything that I'm not lying.
That's when you know they're lying.
That's when you know they're evil that's when you know it's not legitimate look if someone's being honest
They just say yes, they just say no they leave it at that short simple
Confident answers when someone's not look they won't look at you. I swear on everything
You know that's deception you can tell they're probably lying. There's something coming of evil there
And we see him saying, I know not the man,
and immediately the cock crew,
and Peter remembered the word of Jesus,
which said in him before the cock crow,
thou shalt not be thrice, and he went out and wept bitterly.
Sorry, this is a long sermon, 75 verses.
I didn't want to do it twice, all right?
So we got through it.
But I want to go to two more places.
Go to John 21 for a second.
I think it's important that we went through all this
so that we can think about the message.
What is Matthew 26 telling us?
Well, I think a couple things that are connected here.
Number one is that we realize that the flesh is weak.
Even Jesus Christ himself was struggling with the decision of going to the cross and was
asking for this cup to be taken from him, that he would not have to partake in this.
We see the disciples were not willing to stay up late and pray with Jesus.
We see the disciples were not willing to stay with Jesus.
We see obviously just sinful man, unsaved man.
can't help himself but betray the Lord Jesus Christ
and turn him in for 30 pieces of silver.
We just see the failure of the flesh,
the weakness of the flesh.
We see Peter when confronted by a little girl.
Do you know Jesus?
And he says, I don't know the man.
And he's vehement about it, he's even swearing and cursing to add to the fact that he claims that he doesn't know the man.
And let me tell you something, you know, when you fail, you can drag other people down with you.
We see that as well. When the shepherd was smitten, we see all the sheep were scattered.
We don't have Jesus literally on the earth, but we have men, and you know what, it's important for men to stay strong.
and realize, hey, your flesh is weak, but we need to be strong.
We need to overcome that.
Why?
Well, look at what it says in verse 3.
Simon Peter saved unto them,
I go of fishing, they say unto him,
we also go with thee.
Peter failed,
and then he started dragging a whole bunch of people down with him.
You know, people just undervalue the importance of leadership and they undervalue their importance
in the Christian fight.
There are lots of people, if not all of us, in this room that if you got out of church,
you stopped serving God, you would not be by yourself, you would drag other people out
with you.
You would drag other people down with you.
And it's important for the example that you set, not only for yourself, but for others.
And we all have to realize our flesh is so weak, and when we give in and we backslide often,
we'll drag so many people down with us because of how weak our flesh is.
How much we want to give up? How much we want to be selfish? How much we want to stop doing this stuff?
And you know, when we're given difficult cups to bear that Jesus is going to give us,
we need to just go ahead and take it.
Just like Jesus had to take the difficult cup from the Father,
we have to take the difficult cups from God,
and we have to drink them.
And, you know, we have to deal with false witnesses,
many people that'll lie on us and slander us and rail on us.
But you know what? We just got to do it anyways.
Go to Hebrews chapter 12 and we'll finish.
We have to keep going.
And you know what? That's what we have to love about Jesus,
is that through all of the difficulty,
He was forsaken of all.
even his own flesh was having a weak moment there
not wanting to do this, yet he overcame,
yet he learned obedience, and even him
having to be lied about and railed upon
and spit upon and beaten, I mean,
all kinds of horrible things.
At any moment, he could have called for a legion of angels.
He could have tapped out.
But Jesus didn't tap out, Jesus endured the cross,
despising the shame, and the Bible tells us
that we're gonna have difficulty in this life,
and we just can't give up.
Look at Hebrews 12, 1.
Wherefore, seeing we also are compass about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us
lay aside every weight, and notice this, and the sin which diso easily beset us.
And let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of
that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself,
lest you be wearied and faint in your minds.
You have not yet resisted on the blood striving against sin.
He's saying, look, most of us haven't even gone through something extremely difficult
and look at the example that Jesus set for us.
When we get a little weary, when we get a little faint,
when we get a little fed up with life,
we need to realize what Jesus really went for us
and just overcome that flesh.
Look, your flesh is always going to want to quit.
Every day until you die, your flesh is going to want to quit.
Your flesh is going to say, let's not read the Bible today.
Let's be lazy today.
Let's take a break.
Let's give ourselves some extra time.
Let's just do something fun.
Let's just hit the dopamine button as much today as possible.
You know just and look that's what our society has turned into where I mean with with shorts and reels and
Tick-tock or whatever it is. It is a five second to thirty second dopamine hit where we're just sitting here
Just like hit hit hit, but it's more like this. It's like hit hit hit hit hit
And then it's like ice cream ice cream ice cream candy hit hit hit
Just like you're just basically just a drug addict
We're all just like many drug addicts because our flesh is never satisfied
Our flesh is weak and look I'm saying this because I'm in the same boat as everybody else
I'm not any different than you my flesh is just as
lazy and selfish and
Wants to do nothing and watch that dopamine hit just as much as you but you know what we have to just say hey I
Need to subdue the flesh
I need to read my Bible, I need to go to church,
maybe I need a really long sermon,
maybe I need to read 75 verses twice in the same night.
Maybe I do need a conference Wednesday and Thursday
and Friday and Saturday and twice on Sunday.
Maybe I just need that.
And if you're Spanish speaking three times on Sunday,
that's right.
Not saying y'all are more sinful, but y'all need it,
all right?
We just need more Jesus.
The Bible says in so much more as you see the day approaching.
You know, instead of saying like,
I wonder if Pastor Shelley's going to start getting down to 45-minute sermons,
maybe like, hey, maybe it's going to get longer.
I don't know that it will. I'm just saying, like, I'm not trying to scare you, but,
you know, at the end of the day, it's like, which direction should we be heading?
More or less, it's like, we need more.
We need more spiritual stuff. We need more Jesus Christ.
And we just keep going and bear our crosses.
I don't know what cup you have to bear.
I don't know what cross you have to bear, but we all have difficulty.
We all have problems.
We all have issues.
And, you know, I'll tell you, it's like Monday morning hits hard.
And it's like, man, I just have to do it again.
A lot of us are just going through a lot of issues because it's just life.
Some people are having a great year some people are going through one of the most difficult years
They've ever gone through because we all are in different stages of life different timelines
You know if you're going through a good time enjoy it, but if you're going through a difficult time
Please don't give up. Please don't faint. Please don't allow yourself to be drugged out because you're gonna you're gonna hurt other people
When you stop serving God when you stop doing the things of Christ
And you know even if you do get a little back sled or whatever
Getting back in you can sometimes bring more people in and encourage people to
You know, we shouldn't shame anybody that's back on track or back to serving God, you know, it's great.
I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you're back in the game. I'm glad you're back in action.
You know, Peter left for a little while, but we're not going to shame Peter.
Peter got back on and Peter was willing to die for Christ later.
He wasn't ready then, but now he is, when he was converted.
And, you know, all the disciples were kind of timid at one point, but then they later were willing to sacrifice.
So that God can help us to realize I'm not going to make that again.
I mean Peter made a pretty big mistake, but then he wasn't going to make it again.
And you know, some of us can make mistakes, can screw up, do something that was pretty awful,
but then say, you know what, I'm going to learn from this, I'm not going to do it again.
And we should give people the opportunity to have that grace to come back.
Peter ends up becoming the most influential leader.
The church is basically built on his back, and it's an unstoppable force.
The gates of hell did not prevail against it.
And of course, it's obviously Christ building through man, but we need men.
And we need men to build that church.
We need to be really strong.
And we need this to not just be a logo or on a t-shirt.
We need it to be in men's hearts.
Someone that's truly steadfast and says,
you know what, it doesn't matter what's gonna happen.
I'm gonna overcome that flesh.
And even if God wants me to drink some cup
that I don't wanna drink,
nevertheless, not my will, but how that I will be done.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for everything that you've given us.
I pray that we wouldn't get discouraged by the difficulties, by the judices, by the
false witnesses, by the challenges, by the betrayals, by the difficult tasks.
And even if people have to sacrifice everything, I pray that we would look at the example
of the woman who was willing to sell something or give something away and lose a bunch of
I pray that we could look at that example and see someone of great faith and we could
try our best to model our lives after that, someone that would be willing to give money
and time and effort and energy to the things of God, not to ourselves, not to selfish ambition.
Lord help us because all of our flesh is very weak.
I pray that you could help strengthen our spirits, that you could help strengthen our
any of us that are backslidden or going in the wrong direction,
I pray that you would help us to get back on the right track,
I pray that you would help our church to just continue to encourage
other people to get on the right track,
that we could do all this in honor and glory of your Son.
It's through His example and name we pray,
in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. For our last song,
we're going to go to another one of my favorites, number 375.
Three hundred and seventy-five work for the night is coming
So three seven five sing it out on the first
It's great.
Thank you.
Just a quick reminder, if you're one of our usher crew, cleaning crew, sound booth and musicians,
if you just see us in the fellowship hall right away and we'll just discuss a few things about
the FBBF. God bless you, you're dismissed.