Showered on black...
All right, good morning, everybody,
and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
We can go ahead and find our seats.
We will get started.
It's great to see everybody here.
We can go ahead and find our seats and grab a hymnal.
We'll start this morning in song number 364.
Song number 364.
Song number 364, let's all sing it out together on the first.
Standing on the promises of Christ, Mike.
we love you. We just thank you so much for this church. Thank you so much for
everything you do here. We just ask now that you fill this room with your spirit
and help us lift up our voices unto you Lord and it's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen. All right for our next song let's go to song number 101. Jesus never fails.
This may be a newer song. Song number 101. If it isn't sing it loudly. If it is
I'm sure you'll get it after the first verse.
Song number 101, Jesus Never Fails.
Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you did not already get a bulletin and you would like one,
just lift up your hand real quick.
One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
And on the front, we have our Bible memory passage.
We're still working on Matthew 28.
And on the inside, we have our service soul winning times.
We have our church stats down below.
Please continue to turn in any of your soul winning maps
and your stats to our group chats or our bin.
On the right, we have our expecting ladies list.
Please be in prayer for all of them.
Upcoming events, our Kids Choir practice
is starting today at 2 p.m.
And so if you would like to participate,
you can just stick around right after the soul winning
is sent out, then we'll be starting
our Kids Choir practice.
Evangelist Urbanic is gonna be preaching for us this Wednesday.
So please, please, if you can,
I encourage you to come out this Wednesday and support Avengers or Bannock and be here for that
service. He's going to be preaching and it'll be just a great time of fellowship and getting to see
them. He's traveling a lot farther than you to come to service, all right? So there you go. Also,
this Saturday, we're going to have a small town soul winning marathon. It's going to be an
I can't remember. I think it's, I think, are we getting, are we sending out at 11 or meeting at 11?
Sending out at 11. See, brother, if you, if you want the address of the park, they're gonna be
meeting at, but who's kind of planning on going out to the ASL thing next Saturday? Okay, so...
Yeah, I would say about you got 40 50 people at least so
He's gonna be preparing food and some some activities and stuff like that whether permitting
But they'll also have a lot of soul winning out there in that region. So that's kind of West Fort Worth area
It's a little bit west of the Fort Worth area if you would like to participate if you
Brother Abannock can put in our group chat just to address another details as well and then you can follow up with him
That's Sunday. And so it's not this Sunday. You almost made it. It's next Sunday. We're gonna have a barbecue bash. All right, so
Well, it's an advantage is Abannock is coming. We're gonna be celebrating him
And so we'll have a barbecue luncheon here on Sunday. You don't want to miss it
Also, our spring recital is going to be Saturday, March 22nd, most likely in the afternoon.
And then we're going to have, we have a sign-up sheet for tryouts for that.
I saw several people already signed up.
We'd love for you to participate if you would like to.
And of course, the entire church is invited to come and join us for the recital, even
if you don't have a student or anybody that's directly participating if you just want to
support it.
So I've been to a lot of recitals before steadfast and I hated them and
But the steadfast recitals are great. So I'm just being really blunt. All right, I
Went to a recitals like two hours and I have never gotten over it. So
But it's our our recitals are really actually
well performed and very
Engaging and I've really always enjoyed them. So if you'd like to participate you can come out our Mansfield soul winning marathon
It's gonna be April 19th. That is the day before Easter
We do already have Easter flyers made,
but we'll probably just wait just another week or two,
and then we can start handing them out.
So if you'd like to hand out a flyer invitation
for our Easter services, we have made some,
but we are gonna have a special marathon
the day before in Mansfield,
and that's really just kind of across the lake.
So there's Joel Pool Lake over here,
and then kind of on the other side is...
that south ground prairie and then man's filled area and so it's not too far from here
and we figure we go out and invite people for Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is April the 20th
and so we are looking forward to those services. Down below is our church reminders on the on the
back I have a note
We had a Spanish marathon yesterday and we had a couple dozen people come out for soul winning
and we ended up having 22 salvations for yesterday from just the Spanish soul winning.
So thank you to all of our soul winners to do that.
We also probably have some remnants of food.
So we'll probably just set out all the food
that we had left over from this morning
and from yesterday for anybody
that would like to have that this afternoon for soul winning.
So if you'd like to stick around, it's a free for all.
I don't know how much there is, I'm just saying.
So just eat it, I don't care.
Down below we have our prayer list.
Continue to pray for our church family.
And that's pretty much all I have.
like our normal little business cards for the church.
We have Spanish versions of those available.
So hopefully they're either set out,
but if they're not just asked,
but we have Spanish specific cards.
So if you'd like to have some of those, you can have them.
We're also working on ordering the pamphlets in Spanish too,
but just as an extra reminder,
we do have some new Spanish cards
that you can use for our soul wedding.
That's pretty much all I have.
We're gonna go ahead and sing our Psalm of the week.
15
All right, that was Psalm 15 Psalm chapter 15
turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 8. That's the book of Acts chapter number 8.
the Bible reads, and Saul was consenting unto his death, and at that time there was a great
persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad
throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. And devout men carried
Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the
Therefore, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.
Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them, and the people
with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the
miracles which he did.
For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with
them, and many taken with palsies and that were lame were healed.
But there was a certain man called Simon which before time in the same city used sorcery and
Bewitched the people of Samaria giving out that himself was some great one
To whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest saying this man is the great power of God
And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ,
they were baptized both men and women.
Then Simon himself believed also, and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip and wondered,
beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Now, when the apostles, which were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the word of God,
they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost.
For as yet, he was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.
And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given,
he offered them money, saying,
Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.
But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee,
because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
Thou hast neither part nor lot in this manner, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent, therefore, of this thy wickedness, and pray, God, if perhaps the thought of
thine heart may be forgiven thee.
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.
Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things
which ye have spoken come upon me.
the Lord returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
In the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south unto the way that
goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went, and behold,
a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority, under Candus, queen of the Ethiopians, who had
was returning, and sitting at his chariot, read Asaius the prophet.
Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot.
And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Asaius,
and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me?
and he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
The place of the scripture which he read was this.
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter
and like a lamb dumb before his shearer,
so opened he not his mouth.
In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away,
and who shall declare his generation?
For his life is taken from the earth.
And the eunuch answered Philip and said,
I pray thee of whom speak at the prophet this,
of himself or of some other man.
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus.
And as they went on their way,
they came under with certain water.
And the eunuch said, see, here is water.
What doth hinder me to be baptized?
And Philip said,
If thou believest, with all thine heart, thou mayest," and he answered and said,
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still,
and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip,
that the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at
Passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father in heaven, we thank you for this day and for our church.
I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit and give him boldness and clarity of mind
as he preaches your word to us.
Give us ears to hear the message this morning and apply it to our lives
and enable us, Lord God, to be doers of the word, not hearers only.
We love you and in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen.
The title of my morning sermon is
Problems with Bible College.
Now, I want to make a few things clear
before I start this sermon.
Is number one, I don't think that Bible College is a sin
or that it's necessarily something
that is just bad inherently.
But at the same time, I think that we can still look
at biblical principles and make our own conclusions.
And for our church,
You know, I want to make it clear where I kind of stand on the issue and what I see as the future for our church.
We have a lot of people in our church. We're a growing church. We have a lot of young people in our church.
And I feel like it's important to cast a vision for the young people and essentially give my opinion on what I think they should do for their future and for essentially their growth and what's the best decision.
I wouldn't say that even people that go to Bible college doing anything necessarily wrong,
I just think there's better alternatives. And so I want to essentially talk about the problems
I see with Bible college and what I think are a better solution to the education or future or
career for our youth. As a church, I can't say, I don't want to say things, you know, dogmatically,
I don't really see a vision where we'll ever have a Bible college or anything similar.
I don't believe that we'll ever have a Christian school or anything similar.
It does not matter how big we get.
I personally believe in homeschooling as a superior form of Christian education.
And I believe if someone wants to get a college education, it's best leaving that to colleges
and not necessarily having the church focus on such an idea.
all the businesses and institutions we have in this world.
I think some people have this attitude where they want church to become all these things
that are not church.
Like to become a supermarket, to become a social hangout, to become an education center,
to become friend zone, to become a playground, to become a cafeteria, to become all these
different things that it's not.
And then a lot of churches they almost emphasize or become all these things that it's not
Church is something that all these other places are not, right?
The restaurant is not a soul-winning center, right?
The restaurant is not a place for you to learn hard biblical preaching.
That's the church, right?
So church should be distinct, church should be separate.
We should focus on church activities and not trying to become our own little social environment
where we accommodate, you know, this is...
place for sleeping. We have a place where you, you know, hang out. We have our own dormitorium,
and we have our own education center. We have our own furniture making business. And it's like,
no, we're not going to be like that. We're not going to be the Amish. We're not going to create
some kind of community out of church. We want church to be church. And we want, hey, restaurants
can be restaurants, and we want education centers to be education centers. And it's sometimes good
Whereas I think some churches want to try and be a we do everything we're focused on all these things but then it distracts from the point of church.
And so I really want to make it clear
where I'm standing on some of these issues.
Additionally, I would say if someone went to Bible college
or has enrolled in Bible college,
I'm not trying to attack that person or go against them.
But again, I find there to be some problems
with Bible college philosophy,
and I don't want our church to go down that path.
Now, this morning sermon's also not just only
just to attack Bible college.
I want to provide a viable alternative.
I want to make it clear what I think young people should do.
So I don't want to just sit here and say what not to do.
I want to tell you what you should do as a replacement or in in lieu of going to Bible
college specifically. OK, now the word college is found in the Bible a couple times.
For sake of the sermon, I don't think it's really necessary to necessarily go to all those places.
But, you know, just to bring it up, a couple times it mentions a woman in college,
and they're like going and asking her about the Word of God.
It's usually in a very dark time in history.
It's when there's not a man of God there to ask,
so we go to the college and we find women there and we ask their opinion on the Bible.
Not really a big supporting verse on college.
You have another mention of a school in the book of Acts.
and it's basically the disciples run out of places to go preaching,
they get kicked out of the synagogue,
and then they're going to a school of tyrannous to dispute with people and argue with people.
But, you know, school and college really isn't mentioned that much in the Bible.
A college, by definition, is this an educational institution or establishment.
in particular one providing higher education
or specialized professional or vocational training.
So it's basically to learn something at a high level
or for specialized knowledge for a job.
And I think that's a good definition for college
and I think that would be the purpose of college.
I'm not against college.
In theory, if you're going to learn more about something
or you're going to get special knowledge for a job,
those are great.
Problem with most of our society
and a lot of times people go to college not for those goals and not for those
purposes and they're being taken advantage of by a system that's pushing
college on a lot of people. And in an effort to compete with this, churches
instead of providing an alternative has said let's just do our bizarro version
of college and we'll call it Bible college and I don't really like that.
Why? Because if the point of going to college is to get a job,
Which to me that if you're not going to college to get a job
You're probably going for the wrong reasons
There's almost no reason to go to college unless you're going for a specific job or a specific career that that education is needed
Okay, if that is not why you're going you should really question why you're going if
That's the point and then you create an institution called Bible College
Which what is the point of Bible College? It's to have a job in ministry
is to have a job in ministry.
Well, here's the thing.
I don't believe that jobs in ministry are for sale.
The ministry is not for sale.
The ministry is not for the highest bidder.
The ministry is not, do you want to pay $20,000
to become a pastor?
Do you want to pay $40,000 to be an evangelist?
That is not how the ministry works according to the Bible.
And we have a guy in the Bible trying to purchase a position in ministry.
And what does the Bible say? It was wicked.
Let's look at Acts chapter number 8 here. Let's look at verse number 14.
Now, when the apostles, which were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the Word of God,
they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come down, prayed for them,
that they might receive the Holy Ghost.
For as yet, he was fallen upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,
then laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.
And when Simon saw that through laying onto the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given,
he offered them money, saying,
He may receive the Holy Ghost, but Peter said in Him,
Thy money perish with Thee, because Thou hast thought
that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
The Bible rebukes the idea that you can buy your way into the ministry.
Now again, no one today can be an apostle.
To be an apostle, I believe the number one requirement
is you had to see the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, if you think you've seen the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, you can leave at any time.
Go join the Pentecostal Church, okay?
You have not seen Him.
And they always try to tell me what he looks like and it's the opposite of what the Bible says he looks like anyways, okay?
So number one we don't have apostles, but I don't think that this
passage is limited to at a time of apostles we can make application from this further down and
There are gifts in the ministry the Bible says that the Lang on of the hands of the Presbytery is a gift
So a pastor laying hands on someone
whether that be an evangelist, whether it be a deacon, or whether it be another pastor,
they're giving them a special gift of the Spirit, and they're passing their Spirit on to that
particular person. And you know what? That is not something that is for sale. That special gift
is not for sale. Just like the apostles giving out gifts of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament
I do not believe that there is an ordination certificate
that you should be able to purchase.
They are handed out at the discretion of other men of God
that have found you worthy, not because you paid for it,
not because you bought it.
And you know what? It's a shame today.
There's so many people getting married today
by an ordained minister,
and that ordained minister bought their ordination certificate online.
You know, there'd be a lot less faggot marriage
if you couldn't buy your own ordination certificate.
Because they would come to a real church
and say, hey, will you marry us?
And we'll say, you're not even allowed to be on the property.
Where you're standing is holy ground
and you're unholy, get away from us.
Okay, so faggot marriage couldn't even exist
if you didn't allow bozos to literally go online
to, I think it's like some Denver school.
There's like some Denver school or something
that everyone buys this online ordination certificate
for like $59 or something like that.
And they all become this licensed minister
because they'll just hand it out to anybody,
they'll pay them money.
And you know what, it's a joke, it's a fraud,
it's not legitimate.
And you say, well, that's not what Bible college is doing.
Yeah, you have to wait more time.
Right?
I mean, you just have to wait more time.
You know what?
The ministry is not a participation trophy either.
It's not like, hey, I just paid $10,000.
I went to the two-year program, the four-year program,
and they just gave me a license to preach,
and they gave me a donation certificate, and now I'm ordained.
That is what a lot of Bible colleges are doing today.
A lot of Bible colleges are, quote,
19, 20, 21, and 22-year-old men that are not married don't have kids,
and they're just licensed to preach.
Now they're just ordained minister because they showed up,
took a couple Bible college courses,
and now, okay, you're ordained minister.
I don't believe in that. That is not the biblical principle.
And so number one problem I have with Bible college
is that the ministry is just not for sale.
It's not for sale. It should never be for sale and whenever this guy tries to purchase it
What does the Apostle Peter say that's neither pot look at verse 21 that's neither part nor a lot in this matter
For thy heart is not right in the sight of God
Repent, therefore, of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine
heart may be forgiven thee.
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.
Then answered Simon and said, Pray ye the Lord for me that none of these things which
ye have spoken come upon me.
Now here's the reality is our society is not built by preachers that bought their way
You show me the great preacher of the day
that just simply went and just paid
for his ordination certificate.
I mean, if it was effective,
then we would see the results of it.
Wisdom is justified of our children.
If Bible college is really, really great,
then we would see the fruit of Bible college,
but show me the red hot fiery preachers,
show me the zealous soul winners,
show me the guys making a big difference in this world,
and I'll show you people that don't think
Bible college is what got them there.
Some of them may even gone to Bible college, but at the end of the day, they're not gonna say Bible college is the reason the way they are
They'll say it's despite Bible college in many cases despite Bible college because you know, it's not something that can be purchased go if you would to
John chapter 2 the Bible says in Proverbs 23 verse 23 by the truth and
Sell it not also wisdom instruction and understanding
I can understand that if a young man wants to be in the ministry,
has a desire to be a pastor and everyone around him is saying,
the only way you can do this is if you pay money,
then they will be willing to pay the money.
I can't even necessarily fault that guy.
If that's the only option he's given and he feels like he wants to serve God,
you know, we should be willing to buy the truth.
If I can only get the truth by buying it, I should be willing to buy it.
But you know what?
You should never sell it.
You know what we don't see the Lord Jesus Christ doing?
Going around signing up people to be a disciple
and they have to pay tuition.
You don't see Elijah going to Elisha and saying,
hey, can you get some student loans to pay for this?
You don't see Timothy going around
having to make payments to follow Paul.
No, no, no, you know what?
The ministry should not be something that ministers are selling.
It's not something that we say, hey, can you afford to be a pastor?
Can you afford to be an evangelist? Can you afford to be a deacon?
You know, the Bible talks about God choosing those who are rich in faith,
poor in this world that are rich in faith to do the great works of God.
You know what? There shouldn't be a limit on people entering the ministry
because they don't have enough money to enter the school.
And why in the world would I as a minister
Want to say like hey, I want to take advantage the next generation that wants to serve God and wants to be zealous
I want to take advantage of them. I want them to pay me
In order to become a pastor pay me to become an evangelist pay me to learn the Bible
You know what? How how are you applying this verse when it says to not sell the truth then and
There are many pastors many churches where they say hey, I want to learn about this topic. They say well go to Bible College
I'm not gonna preach on that
They won't preach on everything, you know, it's a shame churches should be preaching everything
Now I get it. There's a little bit of specialized
Practical knowledge that comes with pastoring that you're not going to preach a sermon on right?
I'm not going to get up here and explain to y'all the practicalities of a funeral
I'm not going to get up and preach a sermon on the practicalities of how to run a wedding.
I'm not going to get up here and just demonstrate for you how to baptize someone.
And we're going to all take turns and baptize each other or something, okay?
But you know, to be honest with you, it probably takes just a few hours or maybe a day or two
to explain some of those practicalities to someone that has a high aptitude.
It's not like you need four years of education to learn how to dunk someone underwater.
In fact, I would argue you don't even need it.
It's just a nice to have.
You could literally figure it out.
You want to know how many times Pastor Anderson sat me down
and explained to me how to have a funeral?
Zero.
You know, he did, he gave me a book.
He's like, this explains it, here, have fun.
You know how many times he explained to me
how to have a wedding?
Zero.
You know, he did explain to me how to be baptized.
We sat on the ground, OK, I crossed my arms,
and he just.
air baptize me, all right?
I wasn't in real water.
That was like my one time.
And then he's like, all right, here's four people, go.
It's intimidating, but you know what?
We made it work.
I was able to put someone underwater and pick them back up.
Okay, and if I hadn't done it,
they probably had figured out themselves, okay?
Praise God.
But at the end of the day, it's like,
I don't need four years to explain all that.
Yeah, I'm sure there's a little bit of practical knowledge, practical wisdom that could benefit
in the ministry, but just generally speaking, 99% of the information should be coming from
the pulpit.
Whereas I find that a lot of churches, they're going to preach about 10% of the Bible from
the pulpit, and they're like, hey, the other 5% I teach go to the Bible college.
And then they're still lacking in a lot of instruction in the Bible.
But I guarantee people that come to this church for four years,
if you come to this church four years and go to all three services
and you take notes of everything that's being said,
you will learn more than any of the Bible colleges that are being taught out there.
And not just because it's right, I'm just saying quantity of information.
Quantity of information. There is a lot, I mean, I preach long sermons.
You think the professors are long-winded.
Just come to Stavass Baptist Church, okay?
These are some long sessions.
I mean, you know, they call it,
Brother Ben called me and said,
this is a Pastor Shelley hour.
I was like, what's an hour and 15 minutes?
It's a Pastor Shelley hour, okay?
And hey, I'm preaching a lot of things.
I'm preaching all kinds of parts of the Bible.
We're going through all kinds of Bible studies.
You will learn a lot going to church and you should.
And not just the college grads, everybody.
Because I don't want there to be this facade, like,
well, I don't know as much as the Bible college students.
That's a joke.
Everybody should be on the same page.
Everybody has the same opportunities.
You have the same Bible.
We're not gonna sit here and pretend
like there's this special eclectic knowledge
that you learn by going to Bible college or something.
It's usually fake anyways.
And a lot of Bible colleges they'll just teach you a theological vocabulary to make it seem like you know more than everybody else when you really don't.
They use a specialized language to make it sound like they know things that you don't know, but it's fake.
It's not real. There is not this extra knowledge, secret wisdom that they really have. It's really a lot of just junk.
And I would take any of the young men that have been in our church for a while,
their knowledge over the young men in Bible calls today.
Matthew 10 verse 8, I'm just reading for you a verse.
It says, freely you ever see, freely give. How do you apply that?
Hey, we should be freely giving out
the wisdom of God, not saying, well, yeah, you get 10% of the Bible at church,
but if you want that other percentage, you gotta pay.
You gotta pay to learn or something.
No, no, no, I spend hours and hours and decades
of my life studying the Bible to just spoon feed it
to everyone, not just the people that are willing to pay.
Everyone, we put it online, we put it out there.
You know what, it's more important
that people just have the truth
than I make a buck off of it.
Then I make some money off of it my Bible Institute or something like that
No, you it's kind of embarrassing that people are studying the Bible to then make a prop like a minimal profit off of it
Hey, you want my sermon pay three bucks for the tape
You know, you have to have the password online.
You don't have to have any, in fact,
we have the opposite problem.
We're trying to give it to too many people
and they censor us, they ban us, you know?
They take it down.
I'm trying to give it out as much as I can
and they're like, no, stop, you know?
This is dangerous, this is dangerous information.
But the church is not supposed to be a place
where we're just making money.
Look at John chapter two, verse 16.
And said unto them that so doves,
take these things hence, make not my father's house
and house of merchandise.
This is just not a place where we're supposed to be selling a bunch of stuff.
Okay?
And I'm not going to try and throw stones at churches that sell anything in any context,
but like we try to be as far away from that as possible, and we as a church just don't
really sell anything.
I mean, I don't know of anything that we've ever sold.
I don't know of anything that we've ever made someone pay for.
You know, sometimes we reimburse people, you know,
because they helped, you know, acquire material for us,
but it wasn't something that we were expecting them
to pay for.
Obviously on missions trips, there are foreign missions
trips, we sometimes ask people to buy their own tickets
and stuff out of practicality.
But generally speaking, that's not,
I didn't make money on you buying a ticket for yourself.
The church isn't selling things.
If anything, we, I guarantee, are one of the most generous
churches in this area, period.
I was looking up, just because I was interested,
I was looking up other churches,
and I saw this like old IVB church
was having a men's conference.
And I was just looking at it.
The men's conference was not at a special resort.
It was not at a special, it was at their building
with just preachers coming.
You had to pay 50 bucks to go to it.
How many people in here have paid
to come to any conferences?
Here.
Yeah, not true, all right.
I know, somewhere else, somewhere else.
I know what you meant.
I mean, yeah, we would have luncheons
at the old IB church I went to.
You had to pay to eat the lunch.
And for some of us that have,
when you start having six, seven, eight kids,
those start things like nickel and dime you.
You know, I mean, it may not be that much to you
that have 0.17 children or something.
But those of us that have eight nine kids, you know five bucks a pop starts adding up
Then it's like oh, I paid $40 and then when it's not and it's not brisket like you go to some of these old
I'd be luncheons. It's not Texas brisket folks
It's like warmed over cafeteria food sometimes, and I'm thinking like I paid 40 bucks for this
You know that's kind of like it kind of starts, you know, it's kind of like
That's weird, but you just want to participate you want to be with the church
You want to be with them you got to pay for the tracks there are churches that make you buy the tracks
There are churches that make you pay for all this stuff and look
I'm not trying to throw a bunch of stones at these people because I get it
Because you know this is why they do that so you don't gripe and complain about everything being free for some reason
Sometimes people have a better attitude that they paid for it than if you give it to them for free.
It's weird. It's really, really weird.
But at the end of the day, I just want to be extra generous.
And I want our church to stay as far away from selling things.
But how much more education? How much more than...
I mean, the church is the pillar and ground of the truth.
But I'm supposed to say, hey, all of you young people, all of you 18, 19, 20-year-olds
that actually stuck with it and liked the Bible and actually want to do something with your life,
make sure to give me a bunch of money so that you can really learn.
so you can really get the information.
I think that's pathetic as a church.
I think as a church we should be willing to give you all that information for free
as much as humanly possible.
So point number one why I have a problem with Bible College
is that the ministry is just not for sale
and the ministry should not be for sale
and the people that are trying to sell it
are not the ones making a big movement in this world.
They're not the ones doing a lot of great work in this world, by and large.
There could be exceptions. Go to John chapter 7, go to John chapter 7.
And again, like, someone's going to bring up an exception.
They're going to think about what I'm saying right now, and they're like,
well, my Bible college doesn't sell tracks.
Okay. Well, my Bible college gives out scholarships every once in a while.
Okay. Well, if it doesn't apply to you, then guess what? It didn't apply to you.
But, by and large, a lot of what I'm saying is true for a lot of different schools and
a lot of different contexts.
I'm not just bringing up strawmen argument, I'm bringing up things that are really happening
at real Bible colleges.
Point one, they're selling the ministry, it is not for sale.
If you come here and you say, Pastor Shelley, I want to be a pastor, I'm going to give a
million dollars to the church.
In fact, they're probably at the bottom of the list now.
I'm skeptical of why I would even ordain you because why would you think that you could
What did Peter say when someone tried to buy it?
You're done.
You have no part.
You can't even participate now.
Do not think that giving money at this church
will give you special privilege.
It does not give you special privilege.
In fact, I'll be skeptical of you.
And look, sometimes people seem to want to buy
their way into this church.
They want to buy becoming a friend.
They want to buy being a good member.
They want to buy a position of authority.
And let me tell you something.
None of them are for sale.
Our soul winning tribe captains, not for sale.
Our music ministry, not for sale.
Being a piano player, not for sale.
Being a soul winning leader, not for sale.
You wanna be an evangelist, a deacon, a pastor, not for sale.
We're not gonna sell it, we're not interested in money,
we're interested in the truth,
and we're interested in people that wanna work hard.
And in fact, we'll try to help you.
You know, people that are willing to go into the ministry
and make those sacrifices,
Ask any of the guys that we've ordained to be evangelists or pastors or anything.
Ask them if the church paid for their moving expenses.
Ask if the church paid just over an abundance of their moving expenses,
just extra love offerings or extra bonuses or just extra checks.
Because you know what? I want to make it easy on these guys.
Ask them. Every single one will have to say yes.
Every single one of them will have to say,
yeah, they actually tried to make it pretty easy for me.
Because you know what, I don't want to make it hard.
I don't want to say like, hey,
you better have 20 grand or 50 grand to serve God.
You know what I want, a heart that loves God.
I want a heart that hates covetousness.
I want a heart that's not in it for the money.
I want someone that's willing to serve God.
And you know what, we'll fund it.
We want to invest in the people that actually want to serve God.
Whereas Bible College, it's putting a barrier to entry.
Do you have the money? Are your parents rich?
Can you finance these things?
And you know what? That's not the right way to serve God.
Number two problem I have with Bible College is the church
ends up watering down its preaching because of Bible College.
It waters it down.
Now, this is not a new thing.
water down and compromise people in church.
And you say, why are people watering down the preaching?
For fear, for fear.
Now look at John chapter seven verse 13.
How be it, no man spake openly of him
for fear of the Jews.
People were afraid to say things
in the Old Testament because of the Jews.
Look at John chapter nine verse 18.
John chapter nine verse 18.
John chapter 9 verse 18 the Bible says this but the Jews did not believe
concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called
the parents of him that had received his sight and they asked them saying is
this your son whom you say was born blind how then doth he now see this is
crazy this is so funny they're saying they're not saying hey your son that was
blind
The son you say was born blind.
They're trying to gaslight parents on their own child having been blind.
Did you catch that? That's a weird nuance.
The Jews are like, hey, you say he was born blind,
but was that really what happened? Yeah, we know our son was blind.
Okay, folks.
Like that's what the Jews do.
They try to gaslight you on your own reality
and your own history.
Like of course your son couldn't have been born blind.
You just say that.
You're just claiming that now.
Why? Because they're trying to get rid
of the miracles of Jesus, aren't they?
There was a man born blind, Jesus heals him,
and then the Jews are trying to twist the narrative so much
they're like, you just say he was born blind, don't you?
What do the parents have to respond?
His parents answered in verse 20.
His parents answered them and said,
we know that this is our son.
And that he was born blind like you can't you can't gaslight a son this narrative
We know this guy's their son and we know he was born blind
You know why because we had to change the diapers of a blind kid
Because we had to watch a blind kid
Look, you know how hard it is to watch kids. How about one that's blind?
That's, I mean, think about all the dangers,
all the pits they could fall in,
all the times they hurt themselves,
all the times they ran into things.
You're not gonna forget as a parent
if you raise the blind child.
It was a huge burden.
And they're like, look, we know this is our son,
we know he was born blind, okay?
Now, verse 21, but by what means he now seeeth,
we know not.
We're gonna open his eyes, we know not.
He is of age, ask him, he shall speak for himself.
These words speak his parents because they feared the Jews.
There's the thing they're willing to at least say it was his son and born blind,
but they were afraid to say it was because of Jesus.
They're afraid to admit that Jesus had healed them.
Why? Because they're afraid of the Jews again.
Okay, so they won't say this.
For the Jews had already agreed that if any man did confess that he was Christ,
he should be put out of the synagogue.
They don't want to lose their position.
They don't want to be kicked out of church,
so they're afraid of saying this fact.
Verse 23, therefore said his parents,
he's of age, ask him.
So they're basically putting their son in the tough spot,
hey, we're not brave enough
to speak this, you say it.
You be the one that's brave enough
to preach this doctrine.
John chapter 12 verse 42,
skip a few more pages,
John chapter 12 verse 42.
This is a theme in the New Testament
that people are afraid to say things because of the Jews.
John chapter 12 verse 42,
nevertheless, among the chief rulers
also many believed on him,
but because of the Pharisees,
they did not confess him,
lest they should be put out of the synagogue.
Let me tell you something, this is not a new doctrine.
Churches, pastors, and members are afraid to talk about Zionism because of fear of the Jews.
And let me tell you something. Bible colleges will not turn on Zionism because of fear of the Jews.
You want to know something? Bible colleges need something. It's called money.
And you know what? They're afraid of going against Zionism so they'll lose bank accounts.
Why bank accounts because there's a certain group of people that own banks?
Let me tell you they are Jews and let me tell you something show me a Bible call as a day that won't preach pro-zionism sermons
They're all Zionists
They're all watered down and compromised on that issue and they will not talk about it
In fact if anything they raise money for Israel and they raise money for the Jews and they have Israel flags all over their
Sanctuary and all over their building and look, you know
If you had a sanctuary deck decorated with all the different flags of the world because you want to go missionaries there
I'm not mad at you
If you have an Israel flag next to a Jamaica flag and a Mexico flag, I'm not mad at you.
But if you have a big, giant Israel flag on the stage next to a Texas flag or American flag,
that's blasphemous.
And that's weird, and it doesn't make sense, and it's a cult-like behavior, and it's for fear of the Jews.
You know, I love people that live in Israel. I want them to be saved.
We shouldn't hate a group of people just because they're born into a bad ideology or a bad religion.
The apostle Paul wanted Jews to be saved, but let me tell you something.
He wasn't afraid to tell people what Jews were like.
He wasn't afraid to preach the harsh realities of Jews.
And you know what? We have John, also not afraid.
He's calling them the synagogue of Satan.
How many churches, I mean, how many Bible colleges today are going to get up and explain what the synagogue of Satan is today?
Not only that, they're afraid to say that they know Jesus.
They can't talk about Him openly.
How many Bible colleges today listen to a new IP preacher and they can't tell anyone?
And let me tell you something.
The Bible colleges will not preach the truth on Sodomites today, because almost everybody
has a faggot in their family somewhere.
Some uncle, cousin, brother, sister, mother, both their dads or whatever.
They won't take a big stand on that.
They don't want protesters at their Bible college.
They don't want to lose the funding.
They don't want to lose the enrollment.
They won't preach what Leviticus 2013 means.
They won't preach what Romans one really means.
They won't preach on Jude.
They won't preach on 2 Peter chapter two.
Those go to 1 Corinthians chapter number six
in the Greek and try to tell you
that means homeless can be saved.
They'll ignore the all the clear verses on homos and try to go to an obscure passage not about them to try and preach this
Weird hypothetical that doesn't exist folks
They're not gonna preach the truth on the rapture. They're gonna be pro Zionist
They're not gonna tell you the the distinctions of the Trinity because they don't want to get people to riled up on the Trinity
They don't want to talk about church discipline.
They won't exercise church discipline.
If they catch kids in their Bible cards,
drinking, smoking, committing fornication,
they'll handle it privately,
and they won't kick anybody out
because they don't want to lose those enrollment dollars.
They're going to be weak on alcohol.
They're not going to get up
and say alcohol is a sin, period,
because people will leave the church.
People will leave a church if you get up and rip on alcohol.
That's why churches have to constantly say like,
I know it's not a sin.
And I know that, you know, people can drink, you know,
moderation.
Look, that's lies.
Drinking alcohol is a sin, it's poison.
Drinking alcohol is poison.
Why in the world would I get up and say
drinking poison's not a sin?
The thought of foolishness is sin.
Good night.
What an idiotic thought.
I love drinking alcohol.
You drunkard.
You know, if they won't get up and preach Proverbs 23
on a beverage that's never supposed to be looked at.
In fact, you go to a lot of Bible colleges,
they'll literally hand out the birth control too.
There are Bible colleges handing out birth control.
They're not going to preach the truth on birth control.
They're not going to preach the truth on divorce.
They're going to get up and tell you, yeah, divorce is fine.
Yes, it's, you know, sometimes there's exceptions
and we understand and there's all these different scenarios
and they basically make a case for divorce.
They're not going to talk about women wearing pants.
They will not bring up that issue.
It's too divisive and they'll lose people in their car.
They're going to be compromised on the issue.
They're not going to talk about racism.
They're not gonna talk about issues
with different communities.
They're not gonna say like,
hey, the black culture in America is hurting black people
because then it's offensive and now they're seen as racist
and they don't want that kind of heat.
They're not gonna take bold stands on any of these issues.
They would never defend anybody
on any kind of issue that has to do with race.
They would avoid it, they'll stay away from it.
In fact, they're probably closer to teaching CRT
than they are teaching what the Bible says in these issues.
They won't teach anything about the death penalty at all.
They will avoid the death penalty. They will avoid the applications of the death penalty
They won't tell you historically what the death penalty was like in America
They won't tell you that in 2003. It was illegal to be a fag in the state of Texas
They won't talk about any of these things and let me tell you something the new IFB is forbidden in all Bible colleges
You better not bring up their documentaries. You better not bring up their preachers. You don't bring up their their
Zeal for soul winning you can't talk about any of that stuff or you'll be thrown out
And I'm not just saying these things that's hyperbole.
I know people in my personal life that have told me
they were brought into the dean,
they were brought into the school counselor's office
and said, if you listen to what I've been preaching,
we're kicking you out of the school.
Yep.
Just listening.
All the haters couldn't go to Bible college
because they listen too much.
Go with the second Timothy chapter one,
go to the second Timothy chapter one.
Look, I'm not gonna go and start a Bible college
so that I just stop preaching all those things.
And you know why?
Because they're afraid of losing money.
They're afraid of the Jews.
They're afraid of losing their position.
They don't wanna take bold stands.
And you know what?
This church is never, I don't wanna make any decision.
I don't want to make any decision that ever stops me from preaching something in the Bible.
I don't want to get too big. I don't want to have too big of a nice of a building.
I don't want to be stretched out financially.
I don't want anything to stop me from saying,
you know what, if I say this, it's going to cause us problems
because I just want to say what the Bible says.
It's more important for me to get up and just say what the Bible says, period,
and let the chips fall where they may.
If that means our church grows, or shrinks, or has problems, or has issues, or has protesters,
I want to say what the Bible says.
And there's too many people today that won't say everything the Bible says.
And let me tell you, Bible College is a big reason.
It's a huge reason why a lot of those churches will not preach the things that I just mentioned.
And it's not even like they have to agree with me personally.
They just won't even touch the subject.
They won't even provide an alternative to these substances, they're too controversial and the Bible's too clear on them.
But let me tell you something, that is not the right attitude.
The right attitude does not be ashamed of anything in the Bible.
Second Timothy chapter 1 verse 7,
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
We should not be afraid of Jews today.
We should not be afraid of the synagogue of Satan today.
We should not be afraid of sodomites today.
We should not be afraid of losing money today.
We should not be afraid of protests.
We should not be afraid of persecution.
We should not be afraid of the devil.
We should not be afraid of other Christians.
We should not be afraid of being embarrassed.
We should not be afraid of losing family or friends or fame or fortune or any of it.
We should preach the truths of the Bible.
God has not given us a spirit of fear,
but of power and of love and of sound mind.
And we should preach with boldness today,
and let me tell you something,
Bible colleges are not preaching with boldness,
they're preaching with fear.
Pastors are getting in their pulpit
and they're afraid of their congregation.
They're afraid of other churches.
They're afraid of their friends.
They're afraid of the bankers.
They're afraid of politicians.
They're afraid to get up and just say something
and they don't know what they're talking about.
And so let me tell you something,
they get up and they preach water down,
lukewarm, basic sermons so as not to offend.
That's not this church.
It will never be this church as long as I'm the pastor as long as I'm the pastor. I will not water it down. I
Haven't watered it down
It's not even it's not about to start if we get a new building
That's bigger. I might go harder on just to be just be safe
I'm not gonna go softer and let me tell you some right now when we can barely fit in the building
It's not gonna get soft anytime soon
because I don't want soft people here.
And I don't want to try and like get a bunch of soft people
to feel like we need to move
to then just lose them anyways.
So if I can get you out, I'll try.
Second Timothy chapter two verse one,
thou therefore my son be strong.
in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
We're supposed to be strong as preachers.
We're supposed to be strong as Christians.
And let me tell you something,
preaching weak, compromised sermons
doesn't make you strong, it makes you weak.
Easily offended.
When you won't preach things that,
you know, piss people off every once in a while,
you know you do, you make them soft.
You make them soft. We need to challenge our congregation a little bit
We need to put a little of pressure on them
Sometimes you should feel a little uncomfortable in church because we want to make you a little stronger
Think about going to the gym if you never felt any pain or any discomfort when working out
You're not gonna make any gains
You make gains by actually working your muscles out to where they hurt they hurt a little bit or you get that
soreness the day after
Or when you get older, that second day soreness gets real.
Actually, it turns into three and four and five
day later, soreness.
He's just like, man, when you get older, thinking like,
what's wrong with me?
I mean, if I haven't worked out legs for a while
and I work out legs, it's like two weeks.
Man, I'm just telling you, it gets rough.
You start those stairs for soul-winning,
it actually becomes a challenge.
You're like, I'll take the lower apartments.
You can have the upper apartments because it's rough.
But you know what that's what would be the Christian life
We should actually feel a little bit of discomfort. We should feel a little pain
We should be challenged a little bit. We shouldn't just be going and just be like oh church is so comfortable. Oh
Oh, that sermon was just so nice. It's so pleasant. No, you should feel a little uncomfortable
No, I should hurt a little bit every once in a while. No, you should be challenged a little bit
Okay, that's the type of preaching that we want
That's kind of preaching going to get whether you like it or not go to Revelation chapter 2
So point one is this for a Bible cause I need to speed up for sake of time
Those are some important points. I'm just gonna kind of run through these next ones so I can get to some practical application here
But number one the ministry is not for sale
It is not for sale number two problem with Bible college is they water down the preaching
And we don't want to water down our preaching for any reason any decision. I make the waters down the preaching was a bad decision
Number three, Bible college distracts from soul winning.
Now in Revelation chapter two, this is an important point. Look at verse two,
I know thy works. Now he goes on a long description of the fact that church has
works,
but they've done something wrong. Verse four, nevertheless I have somewhat
against thee because thou hast left thy first work.
Let me tell you something, the Bible college is a lot of work.
It is real. I mean, you have to hire staff. You have to get all kinds of people to write curriculum
You have to be challenged like the amount of work that goes into Bible college and school is immense
tons and tons of work
But you know what if we're taking all that effort and energy to put into school. It's gonna go
It's got to come from somewhere
You only have so much energy for the day. You only have so much creative energy. You only have so much zeal
And if you're just putting so much work
into this institution, it's gotta come from somewhere.
And a lot of times what happens is it's taken
from the soul winning.
and it's taking some of the energy effort,
creativity, and money, and finances, and time,
and it's investing in the school to get the school done,
and so it's zapping some of the soul-winning energy,
time, focus, attention.
When you notice our bullets in,
what is the first thing?
Service times and soul-winning times.
We want to keep those as the first works,
as the preeminence, as what we don't want to take away
from those, we want to increase those.
And if you've come to Step Out of Baptist Church,
you've noticed our soul-winning times, we've gotten more.
It's grown when I was here at first. It's only like a couple days a week now. It's every day of the week
There's ladies times we're trying to do more. There's more regional times
There's more more missions trips than we've ever had more small-town soul winning events that we've ever had
We don't want to get less we want to get more and we're an increase that Bible colleges don't plus a lot of kids
They come from a church where they don't do soul winning they do visitation and they don't want to fend those kids
So they don't want to get up and rip on the importance of soul winning like soul winning if you want to do that
We have an option over here behind closed door 3, but don't don't pressure anybody
Don't make anybody feel uncomfortable.
And if you don't want to do it, no problem.
Or let's just have a visitation,
because we don't want to confront people on soul winning.
It's just not the biggest program.
They're distracted with other things.
Bible college will distract from soul winning.
They have too much of a mixed culture.
They're too focused on the school.
They're too worried about all the school activities.
And they're too worried trying to be like a real university
with programs, groups, and sports,
rather than emphasizing soul winning.
Look, our main program at church is soul winning.
Our main program is not Christian Academy.
It's not college.
It's not the college sports.
It's not the college hangout.
It's not all these things.
And whatever you give your time focused energy is going to become the most important thing.
For many churches, their most important thing is their college.
and showcasing their students off and getting them to graduate and their little
choir and all the other things. No, we want to focus our effort energy money
time to soul winning. When we have special announcements, what are they about?
a missions trip, that they went to Antigua,
where they went to St. Thomas, where they went to Nassau.
We have somebody come up here and talk about
the Philippines next week.
Avengers of Benedict.
What other churches do?
Here's our graduates.
Here's our kids in college.
Here's the choir.
Here's what they're doing at their sports activity.
Here's a banquet about the kids.
They're emphasizing the school, not soul winning.
And look.
If you go to a school, I would expect for them to emphasize the school.
But when you come to church, you know what we want to emphasize?
Soul winning!
That's what we're emphasizing.
That's what we're promoting.
That's what we want on the forefront.
Some institution has to put soul winning at the front.
You go to a restaurant, what are they making priority?
Food.
I mean, do you really want to go to a restaurant
and they're putting all their effort and energy into education?
Hey, we go to this restaurant. Well, we want to teach you some stuff
We put our chefs back there. They're actually learning how to educate
They're not learning how to cook. No, I want to go to restaurant where they're focused on making quality food
I want to go to a furniture store where they're focused on making furniture
I worked for a bank and they put all this money and effort and making software and I'm thinking like you're a bank
You're not a software company, you know, let's let the software companies make software
Let's let the banks worry about managing money.
Let's let the restaurant worry about making food.
Let's let colleges worry about education.
And let's let the church worry about soul winning.
About soul winning.
It is the primary thing.
Go over to Titus chapter two,
go to Titus chapter two, you're pretty close.
Fourth problem I have is it zaps the zeal of many youth.
Bible College zaps the zeal of many youth.
I've seen a lot of young men on fire, zealous,
and ready to make bold stands,
and then by the end of Bible College,
they're a different person.
You say, why?
How in the world could you take a red-hot
17- or 18-year-old man,
and then at 22, he's kind of weak and soft?
You want, let me explain it to you.
It's really simple.
He went to Bible College and had a bunch of women teach him.
He had a bunch of women professors?
You know what, you're not gonna have a bunch of women
produce a bunch of red-hot, fiery preachers,
especially not the women in Bible college.
You might have a mama bear, right?
You might have a Proverbs 31 woman teaching her son,
let me well at home, but let me tell you something,
it's not gonna be the women in Bible college,
those, cause they're trying to be like a man,
and they're a soft version of a man.
They're a weak version of a man.
You know what produces effeminate men?
Women teachers because they're soft because they're feminine because they're a woman.
I don't want to send my son to Bible college to learn how to be a God fearing, fiery preacher from a woman.
And you know why they have to have that? Because most men actually have a career and a job and are trying to make serious money.
So who do they need? They need people that they can use and pay a low wage that need to do on the side
That's usually women and so there's getting older women to come in some bitty to come in and just teach them how to be
Basically a watered-down weak soft guy and it's zapping the zeal. You know the Bible says in Galatians
They zealously affect you but not well
And of course that's about a different context, but you can be zealously affected not well
It's a good thing to be zealously affected,
always in a good thing.
But look at Titus 2, verse 14,
who gave himself for us that he might redeem us
from all iniquity and purifying himself
of peculiar people, zealous of good works.
I want the youth to stay zealous and red hot and fiery.
And let me tell you something,
it's not coming out of Bible college.
Their enrollment trumps all of their standards.
They're not gonna take bold stands.
They're not gonna go and let the school be threatened.
It's gonna be a safe space.
Let me tell you some colleges, even Bible colleges today,
are worried about having a safe space for the children.
Let me tell you something steadfast is not a safe space.
It's a dangerous place.
I mean, there's protestors.
You don't even know what's gonna be preached.
You have no idea, except for you know it's gonna be Bible.
But let me tell you something, the Bible scares people.
They get nervous when the preacher or the prophet
comes into town, cause he could say anything in that book.
And it's gnarly.
And let me tell you something, this isn't a safe space.
That's what actually produces strong men.
Not going to Planet Fitness.
Going to Strouds or whatever, right?
Yeah.
Going to a real gym where you actually have to grip,
you have to actually pick up the free weights.
It's not on a lever system where you can just click
a bunch of buttons and then just, it helps lift it.
There's a pull-up bar and there's nothing underneath
to hold you up.
You actually have to be able to do a pull-up
to even start doing the pull-ups.
And let me tell you something, when we talk about church,
this is a church where you have to come,
already having to have to do some pull-ups.
You pretty much already have to hate fags, even show up.
That's a pull-up, that's one pull-up, okay?
Second pull-up is you already are against Zionism.
And I'm just telling you, if you can't do one of those,
you won't even be able to start.
You'll show up and just kind of grab the bar
and just kind of hang in this, and then fall.
And they're like, I need to go to Planet Fitness Bible College.
Where we have, is there a counselor?
There is no counselor here.
I'm the counselor.
If you got offended by me, I'm the one to console you.
Sorry.
You're like, I don't like how Pastor Shelley preaches.
Who do I get to talk to?
Pastor Shelley!
Brother Tanner is not the person he complained to.
My wife's not the person he complained to.
In fact, honestly, if you ask my wife,
she'll be harsh with me.
When I hear the advice that she gives,
I'm thinking like, I was right, you know.
I was like, dang.
I'm like, did they ask another question after that?
No.
Yeah, I get it, all right.
Good act, chapter 17.
There's no soft guidance counselor here to try and help ease your little pains and your little woes and whatever
No, no, no go to Bible college
And you'll have some lady there to try and tell you why what the Bible said didn't really mean it and
Why you you're an exception to what the Bible said and why we you know
We might have we said that but we were just riling up the base
The preacher didn't really mean what he said. No, no, I really mean what I say
Obviously, I can exaggerate, and sometimes I can be a little over the top.
You know what the Bible exaggerates?
I mean, Paul said he's the chief of sinners.
That wasn't literal.
That was him using hyperbole, okay?
Some people get really nitpicky with preaching.
If you do that to the Bible, you're going to find a mistake,
because the Bible constantly uses hyperbole and exaggeration.
70 times 7, it's not literally 490 times folks, it's just an expression.
Jesus is constantly using expressions. It's where people just miss the whole point.
It's like, oh, what about if you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart?
What about the guy that doesn't have a mouth? It's an expression.
Quit trying to twist the Bible into something that wasn't real.
It's like, well, Pastor Shelley said 20 was really 18. It doesn't matter.
Okay, you're missing the whole point, and people just need a safe space today for weak minds.
Weak minds, and you know what, this is not this place.
Here's a fifth problem I have at Bible College, this is not legit careers.
Now, look at Acts 17 verse 21 for a second, and this is kind of a parenthetical statement.
But if you notice about the Athenians and the strangers, it says that they spent their time in nothing else
but either to tell or to hear some new thing. Let me tell you something.
Just because you're learning something at Bible College doesn't mean it's beneficial information.
Yeah, the Greeks love to just go and just chat all day. And look, a lot of colleges,
it's just you go around, you just chat. And you just chat with the professor, you just chat,
we're just learning stuff. You know, that doesn't mean it's beneficial to you.
You could just go to school and you can just learn about World War II.
That doesn't necessarily help you.
You could just go and learn Erasmian Greek.
It's not necessarily gonna help you.
You could learn all kinds of things.
You could learn about the historical context.
Let me tell you what it was like in the days of the Jews.
And you're like, I'm learning so much information.
It doesn't help you.
What was the point of college again?
Oh yeah, getting a job.
Not all information gets you a job.
Well, I learned this click language.
Well, great, but that doesn't help you get a job.
You know what? Just because you're learning stuff doesn't mean it's good.
There's an opportunity cost to your time and you need to be careful what information you're learning.
Is it good information?
The Bible says happy is the man that finds his wisdom.
I find that a lot of Bible colleges, there's kids that are spending four years to become a pastor,
but that's not a career they're necessarily even going to have and then they just wasted four years.
There are women going to Bible college to get a career and being a secretary.
I'm not like saying this as like a joke, it's real.
There is real Bible colleges where you can get
a four year degree and being a secretary.
Like is there like answering the phone 101?
You know, pick it up, hello.
I mean, here's how you write on a piece of paper, a note.
Here's how you type on a keyboard.
I mean, there's typing classes, okay?
I mean, what, I mean,
I'm just trying to be honest, like, how much formal education do you need to be a secretary?
And look, I'm not saying that
there isn't a little bit of benefit, but you really need to spend $10,000
going to a Bible college for four years. You really want to send your daughter to
school to learn to be a secretary?
And you know what? I just personally think we should eliminate
18 to 20-year-old secretaries at churches.
I mean, if you have a male pastorate,
probably the worst person to be his secretary
is a young, attractive, 20-year-old woman.
Like, if I were to say, like,
what is probably the most distracting person
to be a secretary?
How about a 20-year-old graduate from college?
Female.
Yeah, that's probably bad.
You know, in fact, most preachers would say,
like, if you get a woman secretary,
she should be your grandma.
And I'm thinking like, if you had to have a female,
that's probably the best option.
But you could have a male assistant.
You could have male assistant pastors, male deacons.
We see in the Bible, they didn't hire a bunch
of 18 year old girls to help in the church.
They hired men like Stephen.
And you know what?
You'll get a lot more work done
when you're working around men than women anyways, folks.
I'm just sorry.
Sorry to say it.
Why don't we just eliminate that position not a legit career?
Why would I want I'm not gonna send my daughter to school to learn to be a secretary
Are you kidding me? She can be my personal assistant. She'll learn way more. All right
For a second time, I'm not gonna go to this other verse, but number six it takes the money from our youth
You know what the last thing we need to do is make our youth have even less money
We live in such a debt society where they're behind the ball inflation's so high
What's like one of the worst things I could do is put them in debt or take all the money the little bit of money
They already have
You know what young people need is a some extra money. You know what makes money?
Money you want to know why rich people stay rich because it takes money to make money when you have money
It's easy to make money
It's just easy
You can literally just put if you just have like millions of dollars
You could just put it in the bank and get 5% interest on your money and do nothing and just make a couple hundred thousand dollars
You're doing nothing
Literally or you could just invest in stuff and you just make a bunch of money
The reason why people have money is because they have money
It's a sad reality. So if you want your children to have money or be well off financially
The worst thing you could do is say, oh, can I take the two nickels that you have?
Can I take the little $5,000 you have?
I mean, you worked for four years mowing lawns
when you were 14, 15, 16, 17.
Let me take all of that lunch money you had
just to sell you the ministry.
It doesn't make sense.
You know, the parents are not supposed to take the money from the kids.
The parents are supposed to lay it for the children.
The children are not supposed to lay it for the parents, but the parents for the children.
You know what?
I don't want my children to be in debt after they leave my household, or have to pay their
way to get a job.
You know, I'd like to help them.
And if you're spending money, if you're spending money for a career that is not a very clear
Do not do it. I do not believe in it. I think it's a bad move
I think that there are some programs that you might have to spend money for education to get a better career
And I'm not against that but it should be really clear and really specific and you better work really hard to get there fast
You know, there's there's certain trade schools
There's certain code camps and similar like activities and there are specialized careers like being a doctor or lawyer
That made sense to go to college in times past is pretty much you go to college to be a doctor or lawyer
You know why? Because when you graduate, you make millions of dollars.
So it can make sense to get a hundred thousand dollars in debt
if day one you're going to make half a million or a million dollars.
You know, it does not make sense to go two hundred thousand dollars in debt
because you went to an Ivy League school or Division I school
to go out and have a general studies degree
where you're going to have to go get a sales job.
or you're gonna go out to get some job
that you didn't even need the degree for in the first place.
Doesn't make sense, don't do it, okay?
Not worth it.
So I wanna provide some alternatives here.
Here's my alternatives for men.
Number one, instead of the ministry paying for the ministry,
the ministry not being for sale,
this is what young men should do.
And I'm talking about 17 to 22 or whatever the college age,
right?
What should you men do?
You should serve in your local church.
You should not worry about being a pastor until you're married with two kids.
I have people email me, will you train me to be a pastor? They're 17,
not married, of course not married, no kids. I'm like, no.
Get married and then have kids and then tell me if you're still interested in
pastoring.
Okay, don't even ask me about it because I'm not interested.
Read your Bible. When your pastor asks you to step up,
take every opportunity. Train from the best.
Train from the best.
Go find Elijah and follow him.
Go find Jesus and follow him.
Go find Paul and follow them.
That's what you should do
if you want to be in the ministry.
Come to church three times a week.
Take notes, work on sermons all the time.
Preach at church, go soul winning.
If you want more opportunities preaching,
preach in a nursing home, preach in a prison ministry,
preach in preaching class.
And hey, you say, I don't get that many opportunities.
Well, then when you do, it better be an awesome sermon
because you've had months to write it.
I mean, if you have three months to write
a five-minute sermon, shouldn't it be a pretty good sermon?
And let me tell you something.
When you've had three months and we haven't heard you speak
and you have a five-minute sermon
and it seems like you threw it together last minute
and didn't really try hard,
boy, am I gonna give you an extra opportunity?
No.
Let me tell you something.
When I showed up at church as a young man,
I had a sermon in hand.
I was ready to preach.
I didn't know the pastor would ever ask me to preach.
I just had a sermon ready.
I'm ready to go.
When I guess visit,
I have a sermon I could preach right then.
If I walk into a church and the pastor said,
hey, would you preach?
I'd say yes.
And I'd have a sermon in hand.
Not because I'm expecting that.
I don't expect it.
I expect to just sit down and shut up and learn.
But I'm ready.
And there's a prepared place for a prepared person.
I'm not even kidding one day. I went to church and
The pastor just literally at the end of his sermon just says John and the telly is gonna preach tonight. I was just like, okay
That's weird, but you know what? I had already written sermon. I
Was ready. I wasn't sitting here like, oh, no, what am I gonna do? I'm like, I'm ready to go
Let's go. Hey prepare yourself. Maybe an opportunity to open dress nice
dress like a man
Read books, memorize scripture,
learn a foreign language with the most soul winning
opportunities.
Here's the list of languages you should learn in order,
English.
You say like I already speak English,
well you better learn it too, okay.
Spanish, French, those are the order.
Why, because of the most soul winning opportunity.
If you want to learn Greek, Hebrew, or other major languages, that's great too.
But I'm just saying, from a priority perspective, that's what I would do.
You know, when it comes to Timothy and Paul, it says,
but you know the proof of him that as a son with a father, he has served me in the gospel.
You know, the picture of ministry is finding someone to just serve.
It's not going and paying to go to some institution where some lady's going to teach you the Bible.
Okay?
Number two, when it comes to watered-down preaching,
Instead of going to Bible college and getting water done preaching you should go to the best church in your area period
Not where the Bible college is where the best preaching is and you should listen to challenging preaching
And if you feel like it's inadequate you should move to the best church you can go to period
Go to just the best church period. Why not? We only have one life to live
Why would I mean people want to go to the best school?
People want to go to the best hospital to work at.
People want to go and train with the greatest athlete.
Why would we not say, hey, in Christianity,
go to the best church, go where the best preaching is.
Not just where the biggest school is, the best preaching.
Don't compromise on doctrine if you don't have to.
If you're in an area and it's the best church
and there's a little bit of compromise,
you just go, sit down, shut up and learn.
But if you don't have to compromise,
never compromise on doctrine.
Go to a church for the preaching.
Go to church for the preaching.
Don't go to church for the friends.
Don't go to church for the proximity to where you live.
Don't go to church for the music program.
Don't go to church because that's where your family goes.
Don't go to church because you're friends with the pastor.
Go to church for the preaching.
Go to church for the preaching period.
Here's number three.
Instead of going to Bible college to distract from soul winning, you should go to a church where you're challenged to do more soul winning than you already were doing.
Ask anybody that came here
if they were challenged to do more soul winning or less when they showed up.
If they felt like, hey, I feel like I'm doing too much
or if they're like, hey, I started doing more.
Go to Bible college. I guarantee many people go to Bible college and they start doing less soul winning than they were before
Like the soul winners that were plugged into churches
They'll go to Bible cause and they'll be busy with books studying girls, whatever and they'll do less soul winning
Go to a church to challenge you more soul winning
Number four instead of going to Bible cause where it zaps your seal go to a church where you're gonna be challenged
Where you're gonna you're gonna be around people that are actually more zealous than you
People that are fired up for the things of God and hang out with those people rub shoulders with them instead of going to Bible
College and not getting a legit career
Get a job. I mean just get a job and get experience and
Have a career-minded focus
Think of the job that you want and work at getting that job whether you can get it right now or not
Just think here's a job that I want
I wanna be a plumber, I wanna be an electrician,
I wanna be a programmer, I wanna be an accountant,
I wanna be a lawyer, I wanna be a doctor,
I wanna be whatever, whatever it is that you wanna be.
Just figure out, I wanna do this,
and then I'm gonna get there.
That's what you need to do.
You need to be career-minded as a young man.
If you're 17, figure out something you're gonna do
and do it.
Review applications for the requirements of that job.
Say, okay, I want to be what just figure out what it is general contractor
Electrician whatever go read about the job that you want. Just go find a job online find the job you want
Say hey, here's a senior
electrician
Master electrician. They're paying $150,000. I want this job and then look at requirements. It says ten years experience
This certification working here and then you say, okay, I'm gonna do everything on this checklist
It's now your checklist to get that job
Find a job you want right now
look at the requirements and get that job and
Whenever you get that job say I want a job higher than this go look at that job requirements get those requirements and do it
Hey, you say I want to be a business owner. Okay. Look at the requirements to be that business owner meet that checklist do that work as
A young man instead of just going to college aimlessly like I don't even know what I'm gonna do
I'm just taking this class on underwater basket weaving
I'm taking this class on Jewish philosophy.
I'm taking this class on what the historical context
was of Galatians.
Who cares?
You're just learning stuff in vain.
Network with people in the industry you're gonna work in.
You say, hey, I wanna be a contractor.
Find a contractor and go talk to them.
Find people in this church or people around or neighbors or friends or whatever that are successful in that industry and say
I want your job. How do I get it and network of those people talk to those people? You say it's all and who you know
Well, then go know them
Talk to companies you want to work for say hey, I'm 17. I saw this job of being a senior in your company
I want that job. Where do I start?
And many times they'll say, great,
we'll put you at this low level,
you work a couple years, we'll keep moving you up,
you successful, we'll put you in that job eventually.
Go find the job you want, go talk to those companies,
go talk to those people, and then whatever education
you need for that job, get it right now.
Don't waste money on this college stuff, it's a joke.
This is what they really want.
Now if there's a job that you have to have college,
then go to college.
But go to college, it's the best college,
it's gonna give you that education,
it's gonna make sense.
Number six, instead of going to Bible college,
it takes money from the youth,
invest your money in real estate, or in a new business.
Invest your money in real estate.
Look, you could be a young man
and already start buying properties, start buying things.
I mean, think about how much money people
are spending on college, $100, $200,000 on an education.
Think of you put $200,000 into real estate.
I mean, you could buy two or three properties,
especially if you were working on the side
as a plumber or an electrician,
you could be buying houses and fixing them up.
I saw a YouTube channel, this guy, him and his wife,
they just dedicated their life
to basically just buying a cheap garbage house,
fixing it up, and as soon as they fixed up,
sell it, put all their money in the next one.
Then fix that one up, move and sell it.
And then by the time they're like 30,
they have a million dollar property that's super nice.
Why because they went through that hard work and that dedication and they had a vision and they put that money and effort and energy
And to doing that kind of work
What if that guy just got a two hundred thousand dollar debt and now he's just working some fifty thousand dollar a year job
They're borrowing against their own future. It doesn't make sense
Take the money you have your parents give you you work for and invest it in yourself
Invest it in your future. You want to start a business invest it in that
instead of
I wanna make sure, oh, I'm on women already.
All right, here's my quick women rundown, all right?
For women, the ministry's not for sale.
You shouldn't even be in it anyways, okay?
You should just be a soul winner.
Don't get a secretary degree, go to conferences.
You know why girls go to Baba College to get married?
Just go to conferences.
Go to the conferences, always be at church, always be available, always be attractive.
Just be in public.
Be friendly.
If a guy comes to talk to you, talk to him.
Be clear to them.
If they are interested in you, just be clear if you're interested or not.
Don't play games.
It doesn't matter.
No one wants to play the game.
If you're not interested, say, hey, I'm just not interested, thanks.
I appreciate it.
If you're interested, be interested.
Okay, and you know as men when you confront young ladies make it clear what you want to do. Don't put the ball in their court
Don't say hey if you want to ever hang out with me. Let me know wrong. I
Am taking you to lunch at 12
Now maybe ask your father first before you know you don't get too aggressive, okay, but I'm just saying like have a plan
Don't just
You know, don't just throw up there.
If you kind of like me, will you let me know on Instagram?
Don't do that.
Just say, hey, what's your name?
I like you.
I would like to take you to lunch.
Could you go to lunch today?
No?
Next week?
No?
Do you have like eight backups?
I don't know.
It's just like, I'm free Monday.
What about Monday?
No, Tuesday?
No, Wednesday?
No, Thursday?
Yes, okay.
You just wore it down.
Hey, just don't take no for an answer be ready
Right, and if you're if you're a lady don't don't go to the Bible cause because you're getting the weak water done guys anyways, okay?
Don't go to church with his water done preaching
You know why because that's not the men you want to be around you want men that are tough
You want men that can handle you?
You want men that don't need a counselor because of the woman preacher or the woman professor
You want to be around men that are going to lead you want to be around men that are not intimidated easily
You want to be around men that see your value you want men that are going to take marriage serious
You want to go to church where they're saying never divorce period
You want to go to a church where the preacher is getting up and screaming you need to provide for your spouse
You need to go to a church where the the guys encouraging men to be strong and not weak and not soft
They're going to take marriage serious
and that are going to be challenged.
You want to go to a church like that
because you want someone to tell your husband what to do.
Not you.
You need the pastor to tell your husband what to do.
You need the word of God to tell your husband what to do.
And if you're going to these weak, soft,
watered down churches, you know what?
They have to tell their husbands what to do
because no one else will tell them what to do.
You should be appreciative of a guy getting up
and ripping on your husband every once in a while.
Go to that church. You don't want to go to a Bible college to distract some soul-winning ladies
You want to go to a church that increases soul-winning, you know, Philip the Evangelist had four daughters
Which did prophesy four virgins that prophesied the Bible says in Philippians Paul prays the women which labored at him in the gospel
Don't go to a church that zaps your zeal go to a church where your pressure to dress godly
Not where it's like well
Women pants stupid go to a church where you're encouraged to be a wife
Not a pastor's wife
Men if you go to talk to one of these girls and she says like I'm called to be a pastor's wife run away
You do not want one of those
You want a wife? You do not want a pastor's wife?
She will tell you what to do for the rest of your life
And the reason why you don't fight, you know why I do think there are couples that don't fight
You want to know the couples that don't fight the ones where the husband never tells his wife to do anything
That's the only way to not fight
There's only one way to not fight in marriage. It's because the husband never corrects his wife period
The wife is the one constantly correcting her husband
That is the only way to not fight and he's just holding it in and he's soft and weak and effeminate and not a good example
Don't go to the church where you're encouraged to be a career woman be encouraged to be a mother
I don't know, like one where it's an expecting lady's list, constantly.
Go to a church where you're not encouraged to be a busy body and a gossip,
like the pastor's wife.
Go to a church where you're encouraged to not gossip.
Go to a church where if you go try to gossip to the pastor's wife,
she'll give you a bad look.
Go to a church where the pastor's wife is a good example of a soul winner,
a mother, a wife, and serious.
And let me tell you something about my wife.
She is a soul winner.
She is an excellent mother, she is the best wife,
and let me tell you something, she is extremely serious.
She is sober, she is not playing games,
she doesn't like the women drama,
she doesn't like immaturity, she is not about that.
And let me tell you something, that's the type
of pastor's wife you want to see,
is one that's a soul winner.
a wife, a mother, and serious.
Not constantly trying to be a slander, busy body, online,
having her ministry, and trying to gently
lead all the ladies.
You don't want that.
You want her to be educated.
And look, my wife is extremely educated.
My wife is extremely smart.
She knows her Bible.
In fact, I had her take my pastor's test,
and she did better than I would say like 80%
of the men that take my test.
That's sad. You should beat my wife, okay?
But it's tough because she knows her Bible. You know what? She knows a lot of the Bible.
She's really smart and she's not involving herself in other people's lives.
You know, some people think that the pastor's wife should be like everyone's friend, but that's how you become a busybody in the gossip.
You'll notice my wife's not like trying to get into your life. She doesn't care. She's about, you know what she's about? Soul winning.
You know, she's about being my wife.
You know, she's about being a mother.
You know, she's about being serious.
She doesn't need to be galpallin' with everybody.
Don't expect to be friends with everybody
and with every lady.
Ladies need to be friends with their husbands, all right?
Make women focus on their family.
Isn't that what it says in Titus about the aged women
that they're supposed to love their husband?
And look, I'm not against women having friends,
but let me tell you something.
Friends is so far down on the list,
it should not be your top priority.
Top priorities, soul winning, wife, mother,
go to a church where that's emphasized.
Don't go to a Bible college where you're emphasized
to be a secretary, where you're emphasized
to be a women's pastor, or be a women's guidance counselor,
or the women's teacher, or the women's professor,
or the women's, no, no, no, be a wife and be a mother.
We need more wives and we need more mothers.
Have you seen how these single guys are in here?
Someone needs to be available for these guys.
And they need a lot of options, apparently.
Okay, man, we're low on options, okay folks?
You know, as a young woman,
instead of worrying about a career
and becoming a secretary,
become a soul winner,
want to be a wife,
want to be a mother,
be a help at home,
help with kids,
maybe babysit if it's the right opportunity,
read, date, when you date,
learn about the career the guy you're dating wants to have.
You say, well, what if he doesn't have a career?
Say, oh, you're interested in me. What job do you want to have? I don't know. Bye
I'm not joking. I am dead serious
Guys that don't know what they want to be don't figure it out in many cases
You want a guy that knows what he wants to do you want a guy that's ready to take care of you because for the rest of your life
You're on his dime
What do you want to do? I don't know that's a guy working at Subway
When he's 40 years old
You don't want to be with that guy
Learn about the career he wants to have. Oh, it's a career where he's gonna be traveling 90% of the time
Don't want that guy
It's a career where he's not gonna focus on church or family. You don't want that guy
It's a career where he's gonna surround himself around a lot of young women. You don't want that guy
Learn about the career of the guy that you're dating and if he doesn't have a good career by
Date men you want to follow
Date men you want to follow that they're a spiritual success the career-minded. They're family-minded
They want kids and they want you to have kids
Learn how to cook learn out of clean learn skills learn sewing learn gardening learn home improvement
There's a lot of things that you can do don't go to college and become a secretary
There's a lot of skills you can learn as a young woman
Go to Proverbs 5 and we'll finish.
Sorry, I went a little long on this, but look,
the youth is important, and I don't want to just get up here
and say, Bible call is bad, I want to tell you what's better.
And I'm going to tell you this,
church is going to stay church here.
We're church first, and second, third, fourth, and fifth.
All right?
We're not interested in becoming a school.
I'm not interested in babysitting your kids.
I'm not interested in taking your youth's money.
I'm not interested in trying to get everybody married.
That's the conference, okay, to show up at the conferences,
show up at the, look, you'd be surprised
how many times just a random, young single person
would just show up at church, and people miss out on it.
I can't even count how many times a young single lady
just shows up at church, and none of the single guys
talk to her.
I'm sitting here like someone's bringing her
to talk to me, and I'm like, I don't need to talk to her.
Where's the single guys at?
And they're all hiding over here talking about
Dungeons and Dragons or something.
They're gonna play later.
They're over here in their little mini chess club or something
They're over here talking like who would it be like if we talked to a girl
Don't be like that find out
Let's go talk to her and let me tell you something the Bible colleges actually prevents people from getting married younger a
Lot of people say we have to wait until we graduate to get married bad idea for some people
Not all some look if you're already super interested in your 17. Why wait four years to get married?
If you're 18 19 and you're serious, you know, I don't I want to I don't tell my kids like let's wait another four years
That's weird. I don't think it's a good idea
Just get married. What does the Bible say in Proverbs 5 verse 16?
Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the white of thy youth
Me and my wife got married like virtually the week or something after we graduated college
Because we were waiting we were waiting for college
Let me tell you something. I wish we got married sooner
We had started dating seriously when we're 17 and waited till we're 21. I think we should got married at 18
if I met the criteria that was on here.
Now, if I wasn't focused on a job or career
and I wasn't ready, then yeah, I need to wait
to get to those points.
I need to get the approval of her father.
And look, I asked both her mother and father
for her hand in marriage, and they said yes.
I bought her a really expensive engagement ring.
Men?
Hey, we actually planned our wedding.
We actually paid for a wedding we actually went on a honeymoon. You know what? I hate and I'm just gonna be honest with you
I'm just this is my personal opinion. This is what I hate when single guys come up to me and say hey
We get we're getting married and I say oh congratulations. When did you propose why didn't?
Where's the ring I don't know can you throw me a free wedding in a week?
I'm thinking that's real special
That's real special and look I'm not against throwing free weddings. We don't need to waste $20,000 on a wedding
Unless you have it, if you have it, go for it.
I don't care.
But I'm just saying like, make it a little,
I mean, you're getting married to this woman for life, right?
Let's put a little bit of effort and energy into it.
Let's actually make it seem like you really want to do it.
You know, when you're actually asking
their parents permission and you're actually buying
a nice engagement ring and you actually proposed
and made a serious public profession of love,
your banner over her was love.
and you're preparing to invest in this relationship,
it shows a lot.
And let me tell you something,
people that are a lot into getting married
will probably put a lot into their marriage.
People that just fly by night.
And look, the young ladies that we're raising
are our high value ladies.
They deserve better than that.
And we need to take marriage seriously
and we need to make it great again.
Not just America, marriage, all right?
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm just, I'm not into Bible college.
I think there's a lot of problems.
I'm into us being a red-hot, fiery church.
So, again, if you're in Bible college,
you can quit and join Steadfast whenever you want.
And if it's not Steadfast, go to a better church.
Go to the best church that you can possibly go to.
If you're trying to become a pastor by paying for it,
stop and get a real job.
Don't think that you, because let me tell you something,
being a pastor is a real job.
But buying a pastor, it is not a real job.
That is not legit.
You should be called into the ministry,
not purchase your way into the ministry.
And you know, this church is not gonna focus on school.
It's gonna focus on soul winning.
That's our S that we're focused on soul winning,
soul winning, soul winning.
Let's go to prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our youth.
I pray that as a church, we wouldn't zap their zeal.
I pray as a church, we wouldn't take their money.
I pray as a church we wouldn't hold back information and knowledge from them.
I pray as a church that we wouldn't try to put them down a bad career path.
I pray as a church we wouldn't set them up for failure.
I pray as a church we wouldn't encourage them to get birth control.
I pray as a church we wouldn't try to water them down and take away their energy and take away their zeal.
I pray that you would help us as a church
to allow the youth to expend their energy
into marriage and to careers and to a successful life.
I pray that young people out there
that are hearing this sermon or hearing this message,
that they would start making wise decisions
for their future.
I pray that you would help our church
to not compromise on the truth in any way.
And I pray that you would help us
to set a good example for the youth
Please help us as we encourage these youths and Jesus name. We pray amen
All right in closing let's go to song number
327
Song number
327
Higher ground