Amen, all right, well we are in 1 Corinthians chapter 16
and you probably thought I was gonna have
a one-off sermon tonight, but I'm just gonna stick
with our Bible study and I know that we are close
to finishing the book, but I'm actually gonna preach
one more sermon out of this chapter.
There's just too much good stuff in here.
And like, are we in a hurry?
Like, I mean, is the rapture gonna happen at any moment?
Like, I don't know.
So, but anyway, so this is the first part,
or part A of 1 Corinthians chapter 16.
I don't wanna go down deep, too deep,
stay down too long, and then come up dry.
So, you know, there's people that'll preach, you know,
these scholarly types that will just preach, you know, now.
What does now mean?
And then they go back to the Greek and it's like,
okay, you've gone, you've divided that a little too much.
But the word of God's powerful and it has a lot
of great verses in it and I just think
that this is a fantastic chapter.
And so I have four points tonight.
My sermon, but I'm still gonna try
to get you out here at a reasonable hour.
But the title of the sermon tonight is
Open Doors Bring Many Adversaries.
Open doors bring many adversaries.
Let's look at verse number one in 1 Corinthians chapter 16.
It says, now concerning the collection for the saints,
as I have given order to the churches of Galatia,
even so do ye.
Upon the first day of the week,
let every one of you lay by him in store,
as God hath prospered him,
that there be no gatherings when I come.
And the first point of the sermon is
giving out of your prosperity.
God's prospered our church with a lot of,
I mean, as far as I know, every man in this church
has a job and they're able to support their family.
And God's really allowed our church
to have a prosperous church and, you know, it's a blessing.
You know, you wanna talk about Thanksgiving,
we should be thankful.
You know, a lot of times we get negative
and stuck in the mud about things
and, oh, this trial's going on, this case is going on,
America's doing this, now what's the next worst thing
that we have to deal with in our society?
And all that stuff is vexing, but at the same time,
just remember to be thankful for what you have,
because it could be a lot worse, couldn't it?
Now it says, as concerning the collection of the saints,
so what Paul's talking about,
he's talking about an actual special offering.
Now, we believe at this church that the 10th is the Lord's.
You give back a 10th of what God's already given you,
and I kind of preached about that a little bit
on Sunday night, but this specific topic right here
is talking about gathering for the saints.
See, that says the collection for the saints.
As I have given order to the churches of Galatia,
oh, Galatia, excuse me, even so do ye.
So Paul's basically saying, hey,
if you're gonna make a collection,
let's do it on the first day of the week.
What day of the week is that?
Sunday.
And I believe that the Bible teaches very clearly
that you give tithes and offerings.
Tithes is something, the 10th that you give back to the Lord.
Offerings are freewill offerings.
They're offerings that you give
out of your heart to the Lord.
And also, when you're talking about giving alms,
and I'll talk about that more here in just a little bit,
but alms is basically giving money or food to the poor.
But in this case here, we do tithes and offerings
at this church, we give everybody an opportunity
to give at each service.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
There's people that are like,
wow, you should have like a chest in the back of the room.
It basically kind of boils down
to how your church does things.
If we did put a chest over there,
and you could just throw your envelopes in a chest
with a lock on it or whatever,
I'd have no problem with that
because that's been done in the Bible before.
But everything's supposed to be done decently and in order.
It's not like you're throwing paper airplane dollar bills
up here, and we have collection plates
to put the collection in.
But sometimes we give to people that are less fortunate.
And at the church in Jerusalem,
I believe the church he's talking about here,
is hurting, their saints are hurting.
And not everybody is as prosperous as others.
There's great persecution that happened in Jerusalem.
And so, I'm sure that the Jews are probably
keeping the people down there.
Because that's where everything kind of kicked off from.
But there were still people and saints in Jerusalem,
and apparently they went through some hard times.
And Paul's collecting something from,
it sounds like he's collecting things from Galatia also.
And I believe that this is part of a biblical story
that happens when Paul actually goes to Jerusalem
and gets captured.
I believe that this is part of that story.
And if it's not, then it's a different collection
that he did, okay?
But we do know that he did take a collection to Jerusalem
for the poor saints, and that's when he got arrested.
So, but anyway, it says upon the first day of the week,
so let every one of you lay by him in store
as God hath prospered him.
So God has prospered each one in this room
on different levels.
So you should be thankful for the fact
that God has prospered you.
And sometimes people need help.
And so I don't think there's anything wrong
with giving to other churches to help.
Like we've had other churches that have had needs,
or people in other churches have had needs,
and we do some kind of collection for them.
We have people in our church that have needs.
And people do, they give out of the kindness of their heart,
and I think that's great.
I think our church is great in doing those types of things.
And I appreciate that.
And you know who else appreciates it?
God appreciates it.
And so basically Paul's saying
that there's no gatherings when I come.
And obviously Paul's an apostle,
so he has a different job than,
he's over all these different churches as an apostle
where he's guiding them and helping them and directing them.
And he doesn't want there to be apparently gatherings
of these collections when he's there.
So he wants it to be done basically before he gets there.
But anyway, so Paul is speaking about this collection,
and it's a free will offering.
So you're not commanded to give more than 10%.
I know there's pastors out there that'll go,
you gotta give, dig deep, give everything,
let's do a whole paycheck offering Sunday.
And obviously there's nothing wrong
with challenging God's people to give and things like that.
But some people are like, well,
in the New Testament it's like 20%.
It's like, you can't prove that from the Bible.
That's not what the Bible says.
But as God's people,
there's obviously there's verses in the Bible
that talk about us helping each other,
helping people when they're destitute
and need something above and beyond
what the church is normally able to give.
So people, out of the kindness of their heart,
can give a free will offering.
But that should also be done decently and in order to.
And beware of grifters.
What's a grifter?
It's someone that comes and tries to make everybody feel bad
that they're poor or whatever,
and they just sit there and just suck people dry.
And they're basically just shysters or hucksters
that want to make people feel bad for them
so they'll give them the money.
People call.
They've stopped doing it as much,
but I still get calls all the time.
And I'm willing to help people.
But if they're just sitting there,
you used to have the Yellow Pages
where you can call through all the churches
and ask them for help and someone would find help there.
But nowadays you have the internet,
so they just have to go and Google that or something.
Whatever churches.
And then people will call and they'll just go through
and call every church and see which church
is gonna help them.
But my policy is this.
If you don't show up for church, I'm not gonna help you.
So that's just my policy because there's a lot of people
that they're just bums.
They're just people that just want to take advantage
of other people's kindness.
I'd rather help somebody that actually is poor
in our church that's struggling than somebody I don't know.
They don't care about the things of God.
They don't care about the Bible.
They don't care about God's people.
All they care about is where they're gonna get
their next 40-ouncer or where they're gonna get
their next hit of heroin.
And I'm not down with that.
I'm not gonna just give money to people.
We'll help people with groceries.
We have helped people with medicine.
We've helped people with all types of different situations.
But if they're just, and then some people,
they come and they'll only come to church
so they can ask for money.
So they kind of know how to work the system.
But eventually, I'm gonna cut that person off.
Because, you know, if someone, you know,
the Bible says if man doesn't work, neither should he eat.
So if God's word says that, then why would I just continue
to just keep funding someone that won't refuse the labor?
I won't do it.
And so when these people call me, I'm like,
hey, you know, what church did you go to?
Oh, I didn't go to any church.
Okay, well, you know, if you show up for church,
I'll help you.
But you gotta show up for church, and you know what?
They never do.
They never do, because they don't want to actually
have to get their carcass up out of their bed
or wherever they're at and come here
and sit through a service.
You know, I'm just not gonna help people like that.
And that's, you know, people think that they're going
to heaven because of all the charity work that they do.
And they like to blast a trumpet when they give the,
you know, have you ever seen those videos like on Facebook
where there's pastors that'll be like,
oh, I just gave this homeless guy, you know,
$500 or whatever it is.
And they're just like, you know, just showing
how great and gracious they are.
That's the equivalent to blowing a trumpet,
as the Bible talks about.
So, but if you can help somebody,
and I believe we should help the people
in our own church first.
Or other churches, you know, that we know or whatever.
But I think that you should have some discernment
about who you're giving money to,
because there's people on every single freeway entrance.
I see them all the time, the same people.
I don't know if they have to fight for that corner
or how that works.
But they walk and they pace back and forth,
and they give you a sad face,
and put a little sign that says,
anything helps, God bless.
Some of them are a little more brazen,
they're like, need food, need weed, need alcohol.
I'm just like, I would never give that person money.
You know, why lie, I just want a beer or something.
You know, they'll put that kind of stuff on their signs,
and that's just like a 100% guarantee
that I'm not gonna give them any money.
So, but when I was a newly saved Christian,
I used to fall for that stuff.
And you know why they do it?
Because they're looking for the sucker Christian
that's gonna come and supply their drugs for them.
And I would rather help somebody
that actually is looking for real help, or needs real help.
Look at Proverbs chapter three, verse 27.
Proverbs chapter three, verse number 27.
But you know, if God's prospered you,
you should be willing to help people in their time of need.
And you know, if you're just sitting on a lump of cash,
like Scrooge McDuck, and you're diving through it,
and you're swimming through it, or you're just,
you know, you got all kinds of extra money,
and you never wanna help anybody else,
I mean, you can do what you want, but like,
and it's just, I don't think it's a very Christian attitude
to have, to just hoard money.
It's like, you can't take it with you.
You know?
And God's gonna give you more in heaven
for the money that you give away here on earth
than any kind of bank system, any kind of interest,
anything like that.
God's gonna help you, and he's gonna pay you back.
If you just give money to someone,
and you're trying to help,
and your desires to help that person,
then you know what, God's gonna pay you back, openly.
And so you don't have to go and go,
guess what I'm giving away?
You know, 10% of my money, ooh.
You know, you don't, people do that stuff, though.
And it's just, it sickens me.
It sickens me because it's just, you know,
they wanna show their works to other people.
But look at Proverbs 3, verse 27, it says,
withhold not good from them to whom it is due,
when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
So if you could do some good for somebody,
and you have the power in your hand to do that thing,
say not unto thy neighbor, go and come again,
and tomorrow I will give, when thou hast it by thee.
If you have it, you don't go, well, come back tomorrow.
If you have it, help that person.
And it's talking about your neighbor.
That could be anybody.
It doesn't have to be a saved person, or whatever.
If you can help somebody, maybe you're a mechanic
and their car's broken down.
A lot of people are helpful in doing,
you know, it doesn't have to be money.
You know, your time is worth money.
Your time is precious, but if you take some of your time
to help somebody in need, that's a good thing.
And God is very pleased with that.
Turn to James chapter two, verse 15.
James chapter two, verse 15.
Or turn your scrolling, whatever mechanical item
you have in your hand, your app, turning your app to,
anyway, James chapter two, verse 15 says,
if a brother or sister be naked or destitute of daily food,
so who's it talking about, a brother or a sister?
Now, I believe this is talking about
a brother or sister in Christ.
And it says they be naked or destitute of daily food.
They don't have enough to make the ends meet.
And one of you say unto them,
depart in peace, be ye warm and filled.
Notwithstanding, you give them not those things
which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?
How are you helping them?
How are you helping that person that's destitute
when you just say, be ye warmed and filled,
depart in peace, and you have the ability
to help that person, it doesn't profit anything.
It's not good, it's not right.
Now, look at Galatians 6, 10.
Galatians chapter six, verse number 10.
I do have a lot of verses about giving.
And I'm not talking about tithing necessarily,
I'm just talking about helping other people
with your own prosperity.
So, Galatians 6, 10 says, as we have therefore opportunity,
let us do good unto all men.
So, what is the Bible saying?
Do good unto all men.
If we have an opportunity, let's do that.
Especially, though, especially unto them
who are of the household of faith.
So, what is God saying here?
He's saying that the people we should help the most
are the people that are saved, the household of faith.
There's all kinds of charities you can,
that people give to outside of the church.
There's Habitat for Humanity, there's, you know,
and I would say the Salvation Army
is like a parachurch ministry.
It's not a real church, okay?
It's a parachurch ministry,
and they don't even have the right gospel.
So, I won't give a dime to them either.
I think the most good we can do
is through our local church.
That's what I personally believe.
I don't give to outside charities like that.
But, because I know that at this church,
that money's gonna be used to fulfill the Great Commission
and preach the gospel and help people
that actually need help, you know,
that are saved, that are the household of faith.
Now, turn to Proverbs 19, verse 17.
Proverbs 19, verse 17.
Kinda made mention of this verse a little bit earlier,
but Proverbs 19, 17 says,
he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.
So, how does God look at it?
When you pity the poor,
when you help somebody that can't help themselves,
when you help someone that's destitute,
they need food, they need clothing,
they need something, they need their car fixed,
or whatever it is,
God looks at it like you're lending it to him.
And it says, and that which he hath given,
he will pay him again.
So, God looks at it like,
when you have pity on the poor, you're giving it to God.
And then God will pay him again.
He's gonna pay you back.
He's gonna make sure,
and you know, do you think God always pays his debts?
Absolutely.
You know, we might forget to pay a bill,
or you know, you borrowed money from somebody,
you forgot you didn't pay him back, or whatever,
but God never does that.
God always pays people back,
and he always pays more generously,
a lot of the times, than what you gave.
So, when God looks at you and he sees you giving to people,
then he's pleased with that.
And he looks at it like he's, you know,
you just borrowed money from,
you just borrowed money to God.
You just lent that money to God,
and he's gonna pay you back.
So, and then, let's go back to our verse,
and our chapter, 1 Corinthians 16,
and look at verse three.
You're always gonna wanna keep your finger here
on the Bible studies, amen?
You'll put your finger or ribbon or bookmark
in 1 Corinthians 16.
And you know what?
We do have a great and generous church,
and I'm very happy, you know,
when I see that there's a need, people need it.
And those people are anonymous a lot of the time.
You know, and that's good.
I think that's how we should be.
So, if you're gonna give something,
you shouldn't, you know,
I remember there was a lady at our church
that we went to a couple churches ago,
many, many moons ago.
She would always talk about how much she gave.
And she was a good giver, apparently.
But she was like one of those people that like,
well, I gave for this, and I gave for that,
and it's like, this money should be used for that.
And it's like, that's not how you should look at it.
When you give to the Lord,
you've given your money to the Lord,
and that should be the end of it.
You don't dictate what God does with the money.
You don't dictate what the church does with the money.
That's not your responsibility.
Your responsibility is just to give back
to what God already gave you,
and then he's gonna bless you for that.
So, but when you're starting nitpicking everything
and having all these, you know,
I give all this and I give that,
you know, she bragged about giving
a big substantial amount of money one time,
and how it wasn't used how she thought it should be used.
That's not your responsibility.
That's out of your wheelhouse.
That's not your job.
And so we don't have designations through donations.
It's just the general fund.
Everything goes into a general fund here.
We don't have where you can give to J. Verna McGee's
on the radio show, or whatever it might be.
I'm not gonna get, I'm not gonna send money.
You know, if you wanna give money to that,
you do that on your own.
But you're not gonna have the local church,
you know, dictate what the local church
is gonna spend the money of the church on.
That's not how it works.
So 1 Corinthians 16 verse three it says,
and when I come, whomsoever you shall approve
by your letters, then will I send
to bring your liberality onto Jerusalem.
And if it be meet that I go also,
they shall go with me.
So Paul is talking about these approval by letters.
Now, I'm gonna talk about that
when we get into our 2 Corinthians series,
but there's these things called letters,
and I don't know if a lot of people realize
that people used to write letters to each other
back in the day.
Now you just send emails and electronic text messages
or whatever.
Very rarely do you see people write letters if they do.
I mean, that's cool, I know that people do write letters,
but most of the time the communication is just like that.
You can send an email, you can send a text,
and get the job done.
But back then, they didn't have that kind of stuff,
and so Paul is saying, hey, whoever you approve,
I'll send them to bring your liberality where?
Or does it say Jerusalem?
So I think I was on the right track
when I said that Paul was taking this
to the saints at Jerusalem.
Turn to Romans chapter 15, verse 25.
Romans chapter 15, verse 25.
Now, I believe that, like I said,
that this is the same,
maybe it could be a different time period,
but maybe they were poor for a long time, I don't know,
but I tend to think that this is the same time period.
I could be wrong, though.
So I'm not being dogmatic about it,
but Romans chapter 15, verse 25 says,
but now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints,
for it hath pleased them of Macedonia and of Achaia
to make a certain contribution for the poor saints
which are at Jerusalem.
So this is along the same lines,
exactly what we're talking about in 1 Corinthians 16.
It hath pleased them verily, and their debtors they are.
For if the Gentiles have been made partakers
of the spiritual things,
their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things.
Now, here Paul is actually,
he's talking about this contribution.
He's basically saying that it's their duty to do that stuff.
Now, is it a commandment?
It's not a commandment.
But Paul's just basically saying,
hey, if you've been dealt the spiritual things,
there's nothing wrong with you
putting up some money, you cheapskates,
and help these people out.
Because that's how people can get,
the love of money is the root of all evil, the Bible says.
And so if you're hanging on to that money,
and obviously I'm not saying
be irresponsible with your money,
I'm just saying that if you can help people, help them.
And the Apostle Paul's basically saying they're debtors.
Because the salvation came from the Jews, didn't it?
And when Paul came out
and started going to all these different Gentile locations,
they're being blessed by,
because the gospel came out of Jerusalem, didn't it?
And they're supposed to go from Jerusalem to Judea,
the uttermost parts of the earth, right?
So he's saying they're debtors, basically.
Now, I think he's being,
it's not a commandment to help.
But if you want to talk about the good works,
it's a good work to help people when they don't have,
when they're poor and needy and downtrodden.
Turn to Acts chapter 24, verse 17.
And it kind of continues on.
And this is the story where Paul is being brought before,
he's basically being brought to court
and being accused of being a seditionist
and a pestilent fellow and all that stuff.
And actually he's just going
and trying to get people's souls saved.
But he gets dragged through the court system, doesn't he?
In several chapters here,
Paul is basically just addressing all these court systems.
And that's, there's nothing new under the sun, right?
That's kind of what happens today, too.
If someone wants to take down the work of God,
they'll just falsely accuse them
and drag them before the court system.
I don't know, I think I heard about something like that
just recently, but anyway.
Look at verse 17, it says,
"'Now after many years I came to bring alms
"'to my nation and offerings.'"
So alms are, again, what?
They're money or food given to the poor.
"'And so he came to bring alms to my nation and offerings.'"
So, not tithes, but offerings.
"'So giving to help the saints is a blessing
"'and the Lord will make sure to pay you back.'"
So, and then one more verse on this.
Let's turn to Matthew chapter six.
One more set of scriptures here.
This kind of goes back to the point I was talking about
where you don't do things to be seen of men.
If you're going to help somebody
because you want somebody to notice
how much of a good giver you are, you've already failed.
You've already failed.
Because that should not be our attitude,
well, I'm going to help them so everybody goes,
oh wow, look at how spiritual they are.
You know, that's a wrong attitude to have.
You do it because you want to help out of your heart.
Look at Matthew six, verse one.
It says, "'Teak heed that you do not your alms before men
"'to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward
"'of your Father which is in heaven.
"'Therefore, when thou doest thine alms,
"'do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do
"'in the synagogues and in the streets.'"
So what's Jesus saying?
If you sound a trumpet, and basically another way
of saying that is if you're just going
and you're trying to show how great of a giver you are,
how helpful you are to other people,
then you're a hypocrite.
That's what it's saying, right?
You sound a trumpet.
You're showing everybody how great you are.
It says, "'That they may have glory of men.
"'Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward.'"
Congratulations, everybody thinks you're really cool
and you're a great giver.
Thank you so much.
But you know what God thinks of you?
He thinks you're a hypocrite,
and he says you already have your reward.
So if that's the purpose, if that's the reason
why you do things for people,
if that's the reason why you serve God,
if that's the reason why you go soul-wanting
so you can hold up how many people you got saved
at the end of the soul-wanting,
that's a wrong attitude to have, isn't it?
And it's a Pharisaical attitude.
A lot of people wanna call us Pharisees,
but really, the real Pharisees are the ones
that brag about how much they do,
about how much they get done.
Look what it says in verse three.
"'But when thou doest alms,
"'let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth,
"'that thine alms may be in secret,
"'and thy father which seeth in secret himself
"'shall reward thee openly.'"
So God's gonna reward you openly
for the things you do in secret.
Now, let me just,
when you're going and you're trying to help somebody here,
obviously, it can't be necessarily ultra-secret
in some situations.
So if we say, hey, if you could give
to so-and-so that's having problems here,
and we've done that kind of stuff before,
and people secretly do that.
But you're not gonna lose reward
because you told the pastor about it or whatever.
But if you're just standing in front of the church,
here ye, here ye, I have given $10,000 to a missionary.
Everybody, you know, praise me.
You already have your reward.
Obviously, nobody's done that before,
but it'd be weird, right?
For someone to have that kind of attitude,
and that just goes for anything you do
for the service of God.
If anything you do for God's service
is so you can pat yourself on the back
and other people will pat you on the back too,
then you got a wrong attitude.
And you're looking at things, you know,
as an immature baby Christian.
And maybe you're just vain.
Maybe, you know, that's what you care about,
what people think so much that you just want them
to think you're spiritual.
You know what's most important
is that God thinks you're spiritual.
Doesn't matter what other people in the church think
about that situation.
You could give and help people out,
and nobody else ever knows about it,
but you know who knows about it?
God knows about it.
And he's gonna reward you openly.
He's gonna pay you back.
Number two tonight, make plans with the correct mindset.
Make plans with the correct mindset.
Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verse five.
1 Corinthians 16 five.
The Bible says, now I will come unto you
when I shall pass through Macedonia,
for I do pass through Macedonia,
and it may be that I will abide.
See how he says it may be that I will abide?
Yea, and winter with you that you may bring me
on my journey whithersoever I go.
For I will not see you now by the way,
but I trust to tarry awhile with you.
What does it say there?
If the Lord permit.
When we make plans, we gotta understand that
plans can be broken.
We've seen that happen a lot.
You know, our Acts 20-20 vision
didn't really go so well, did it?
We had the Acts 20-20 vision,
but God decided to curse the United States
and the whole world with coronavirus.
You know, you might look at it like someone else
let the genie out of the bottle,
but you know, God allows these things to happen.
And maybe he's just punishing people
and punishing the world for their iniquity.
So, there's another way to look at it,
cause nothing, evil doesn't happen without God doing it.
That's what the Bible says.
And evil, I'm not talking about like hee hee,
you know with the little mustache or whatever,
I'm talking about evil just means harm.
So if harm happens, it didn't happen without God say so.
So, our attitude should be if the Lord permit,
when we say I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna do that,
have the mindset that you know,
it's not gonna happen
because you just say it's gonna happen.
You better just be mindful of the fact
that it might not happen
because God might not allow it to happen.
Now, if you wanna go to a certain country
and be a missionary or if you wanna do this or that,
just keep in mind that God might have a different plan.
So turn to James chapter four verse 13.
James chapter four verse 13,
we oughta have the right mindset
when it comes to making plans,
because God might have a different plan.
Or the devil might have a different plan.
He might have a plan to try to thwart you no matter what
and he doesn't want that to happen.
You know, sometimes doors are open,
sometimes they get closed.
You just, we just kinda,
we kinda go through our life a little bit blind.
You know, but, and people are like,
you just have blind faith.
Well, it's not complete, sometimes you do.
Sometimes you have to fly blind like that.
But it's like, if you have faith in the Lord,
he's gonna bring you through.
He's gonna direct your steps, he's gonna light your path.
You know, when that talks about, you know,
the God lighting your path.
You know, you think about going out in the woods
where it's really dark and you don't know which way to go.
Well, God will guide and direct our steps,
he'll guide and direct our paths
if we're following him in faith.
Now, look at James 4, 13, it says,
go to now ye that say today or tomorrow
we will go into such a city and continue there a year
and buy and sell and get gain.
Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow,
for what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time
and then vanishes away.
We don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.
So we can say, hey, I'll see you tomorrow at such and such.
But in reality, we don't know if we're gonna make it.
You know, we tell people we're out soul winning,
we're like, hey, you know, you could die today.
You could die tomorrow.
You can die walking your doggy.
You don't know what's gonna happen.
Have you seen the way people drive in this town?
I mean, good night.
After coronavirus, I think the driving's gotten worse.
I think everybody took their glasses off
or I don't know what's going on.
But people drive nutty.
It's even worse in Portland.
But we don't know.
We could be walking across the street.
Yeah, you're legally, it says walk.
You're in the crosswalk and some, you know,
crazy driver can come and just run you over
and there's nothing you can do about it.
It happened in Wisconsin just what, was it a day or two ago
where the guy just drove through a parade
and killed a whole bunch of people?
I mean, you just don't know what's gonna happen in a day.
So we shouldn't be, we should have the mindset
that we should, we're gonna do things
if God allows that to happen, right?
For what is your life?
It's even a vapor.
Look at verse 15.
For that you ought to say, if the Lord will,
we shall live and do this or that.
But now you rejoice in your boastings.
All such rejoicing is evil.
So rejoicing and boastings that you're gonna do this,
you're gonna do that.
The Bible actually explains, you know,
I think that it's very clear that we should have
the mindset that if God allows it,
if it's in God's will to do that.
So just be careful about making plans
because you might get disappointed.
You know, God might decide that it's time, you know,
we don't know why God does the things he does sometimes.
Your car breaks down here, it's like,
I really wanted to go on that soul-winning trip.
Well, maybe a deer was gonna jump out in front of your car
on that trip and God just saved your life
and you don't realize it.
But you're all upset because you didn't make the trip.
So we just gotta realize that God, you know,
God does protect us and he does watch out for us.
So sometimes, you know, he has to stop us
from our own selves.
You know, people move away.
I've seen this happen a lot of times
and I know I've brought it up a lot.
But when people move away and they're like,
I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go to this church,
I'm gonna help this church start up their soul-winning plan
and, you know, there's not a great church in the area
but I'll find one.
I'll change the pastor, I'll change his mind,
I'll change it into a soul-winning church
and all this other stuff.
You're not gonna change that church, rookie.
That pastor probably knows more of the Bible than you do
and he's still wrong about stuff.
So if you think you're gonna go clear across the country
and go someplace where there's no good church
and you're already going to a good church,
that's always a failed plan, every single time.
And if you do something just for money in your mind,
then it's always a bad decision, you know.
Money can factor into your decisions
but if you leave a church
because you just wanna make more money
and there's no good church to go to,
that's a failed plan every single time.
I'm just gonna mark it right here, 100% bad idea, okay.
Now turn to Luke chapter 12, verse 15,
Luke chapter 12, verse 15.
Like this isn't very much of a Thanksgiving sermon,
Pastor Thompson.
Well, you know, some people esteem all days alike
and some people don't.
You don't have to celebrate holidays, okay.
And it's not Thursday anyway, so I like Thanksgiving.
I like gathering around with my family and friends.
I don't have a problem with that.
But, you know, it's up to the individual.
So anyway, Luke chapter 12, verse 15.
This is a guy that just says, I'm gonna do this.
He's boasting about what he's gonna do here on out.
Look at what it says, Luke chapter 12, verse 15.
And he said unto them, take heed
and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth
not in the abundance of things which he possesseth.
So your life isn't about what you have.
Don't be a covetous person.
Covetous means you're just always wanting something
that somebody else has or desiring things
that don't belong to you.
And it says in verse 16, and he spake a parable unto them,
saying, the ground of a certain rich man
brought forth plentifully.
And he thought within himself, saying, what shall I do?
Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits.
And he said, this will I do.
I will pull down my barns and build greater.
And there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
So he's prospering, but instead of thinking about,
you know, hey, maybe I should give some of this to the Lord.
Maybe I should help somebody else
that doesn't have barns filled with all this plenty.
And this is what he says, in verse 19.
And I will say to my soul, soul,
that's a weird thing to say, but anyway,
I'll say to my soul, soul,
that has much goods laid up for many years.
Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
He's basically like, I'm gonna retire.
I'm gonna build new barns.
I'm gonna retire off of what I already have.
I'm just gonna kind of live my life and coast it out.
But God said unto him, thou fool,
this night thy soul shall be required of thee.
Then who shall those things be which thou hast provided?
You can work and have this big retirement in place,
and the market can drop out of your 401k like that,
and everything's gone.
You can have, you know, all this increase,
and then God can just zap it away from you just like that.
Any, you know, anything can happen,
and your big plan or wherever you work for 30 years,
your retirement, all that stuff can be gone.
So we shouldn't boast ourselves in the things
that we can do in the future or in short term
when we don't really know what's gonna happen.
You know, God said, this guy was ready to build.
He's ready to do a building project and build
and greater and bigger and have more storage
for all this stuff, but God, you know,
what he didn't realize is that God's gonna
take his life from him.
So we have to have the right mindset
when we're making plans for ourselves.
So I will go up to your house for Thanksgiving this week,
Lord willing.
That's kind of how our attitude should be,
and remember that it's, you know, in Luke 12, 21 it says,
so is he that lieth up treasure for himself
and is not rich toward God.
So we gotta understand that, you know,
God is watching what we do.
He knows our hearts.
Our hearts are desperately wicked,
and so sometimes we get these little things
in our minds and our heart that aren't right
with God's will, and just know that God's will
is always gonna overpower what you have going on in your life.
Number three tonight.
Look at 1 Corinthians 16, verse eight.
1 Corinthians 16, verse eight.
1 Corinthians 16, verse number eight.
Point number three tonight is when great doors are open,
we should walk through them.
When great doors are open, we should walk through them.
Look at verse number eight, it says,
but I will tarry at Ephesus and tell Pentecost,
for a great door and effectual is opened unto me,
and there are many adversaries.
So point number three is that when great doors are open,
we should walk through them.
See, Paul, he's, you know, he's realizing
that, you know, he's gonna go on this trip,
but, and a great door is opened unto him,
and it's effectual, it's something good, you know,
and when we have great doors open for us,
we should be willing to walk through them.
If God is, you know, saying, well, hey,
I can provide this for you or that for you,
we see that a door's open, and now I'm talking,
basically, about ministry and things of the Lord.
And I'm not talking about your great opportunity
to get a scratch-off ticket
because you might win the lottery, okay?
I'm talking about spiritual things,
and, you know, when God opens a door,
we should walk through it instead of just saying,
nah, I don't really wanna deal with that door right now,
but when God opens a door, we should walk through it,
but don't open a door that you kicked in yourself.
You just want, you know, and I'll bring that situation
back up where people move and don't have a good place
to go to church.
I'm like, well, I'll just go to the Methodist church
in the town, and I'm sure that'll be fine.
No, it's not gonna be fine.
If you're already in a spiritual church
where you're doing well, you know, and you move away,
and you just think that, you know,
this is an open door for me, you know,
if the door's shut on you and you keep trying
to walk through the door, you're like,
knock, knock, knock, and then it gets closed on you,
and you're like, knock again.
You know, but sometimes we, as people, you know,
we just, we try to walk through doors
we shouldn't walk through, like moving to a place
with no church, that's a stupid door to try to walk through.
Like, I really wanna go to such and such place.
It's like, well, you know, every place has its detriments.
You know, Florida, eh, you know, there's a reason
why it says Florida man does this, or man in Florida,
you know, there's dogs, there's gators, there's, you know,
snakes, I mean, pythons and reptiles have taken over Florida
and then you gotta deal with the hillbillies on top of it.
So, Florida's just like one of my last check marks
that I would wanna be, it's in the bottom of the 50 states
that I would want to live in.
I've been there before, I've seen the weather,
I mean, it was September, and it's like 80 something degrees
of full humidity, I'm like, why am I doing this?
You know, what's wrong with me?
I'm at Gatorland sweating buckets of water.
You know, you take a shower, you come out,
and if you don't have the air conditioner cranked up,
you're just gonna start sweating instantly.
It's like, what was the point of taking that shower?
So, the point is, is that people start thinking
the grass is always greener on the other side.
Like, I really wanna go here, and I'm not saying
don't move or never do this, I'm just saying
that you gotta think about things all the way through.
You know, people get what they call pipe dreams,
and they just start thinking about things
that they wanna do, and they don't think about
the ramifications of the decision they're about to make
on their family and everything else.
They just kick doors open and try to walk through them.
But, when you're talking about, you know,
in the ministry, things that are opened up to you,
well, there's lots of different ministries
you can do at this church, but the main one
is going soul winning, right?
And so, God has opened up a door to us here,
and he's opened up a door where we've started other churches
and he's been really gracious to us.
The last year, God's opened a lot of doors for us.
We started a church in the UK in February.
Who thought that was gonna be possible?
But, it is, it's happened.
They've had 873 salvations this year.
So, that's a great door to walk through, you know?
And I was already like, I already got so much going on.
Like, I don't feel like I can handle anymore,
but like, here we are.
You know, we're almost a year into it.
They've had 873 salvations and 22 baptisms,
23 baptisms, they're doing great over there.
But, here's the other thing.
We were poised to start a church in Seattle,
and all hell broke loose on that.
So, you know, that's what I'm saying.
So, the plans you make don't always come to pass.
Like, I thought for sure it's the time
to start a church in Seattle also,
and you know, I know that that church will be big.
I know if we start a church there tomorrow,
it's gonna be big, but we still have to send someone,
have someone to send there.
And so, you don't wanna kick the door open
before it's ready to open.
Now, my plan is that someday to go and start a church there,
but right now, I believe the door's closed for us there,
and instead of starting another church,
we end up losing one.
So, we lost our church in Hawaii.
It's no longer running, and you know,
we tried to jump start it and do some compressions on it,
and it just, it didn't work out.
And it really broke my heart,
because I really do have a heart for the people of Hawaii.
And I really do wanna see a church get started there.
You know, but coronavirus happened.
You know, bad leadership happened.
And so, you know, just a lot of bad stuff.
So, the thing is, like, great doors can open up,
but when you do great things,
when you open these great doors,
then, you know, bad things come with that, too.
Many adversaries.
And so, the more you do,
the more you go through these open doors,
the more you're trying to do for the Lord,
the devil's gonna try to stop you.
The devil's gonna try to stop this church any way he can.
And so, we've seen that definitely be attempted this year,
and obviously, you know, things are going well right now.
Things are going good.
Our church is growing.
We're having more people baptized.
We've had almost 500 people saved this year.
So, our church is doing great.
We've had 52 baptisms.
And so, you know, as a whole.
So, our church is doing good.
God has blessed us.
We should be thankful for those things.
We should be thankful for the fact
that God's opened up doors for us.
You know, I was able to work full-time for the church
for a whole year, almost, now,
and I've gotten to do a lot of extra work
that I wouldn't have been able to do had I been working.
We went on two great missions trips to Yakima.
We had 155 salvations on the first trip this year in May,
and two baptisms.
So, you know, we happened to just happen upon,
you know, just happened to find the most, you know,
receptive place in Washington to go salt-wanting.
Like, even going on our second trip, we had 33 people.
It was a shorter, smaller trip,
and it was kind of at the last minute,
but we still had 23 people saved.
We only went for a few days.
You know, the devil tried to stop us
with a horrific stomach virus.
It was bad.
Like, I think everybody pretty much got it
that went on that trip.
I don't know what Brother Shawn's suburban smelled like
on the way home, but like,
I'm sure it couldn't have been great.
Was it bad, Brother Shawn?
I was just thinking, you know, oh man, that'd be rough.
I mean, it's a couple hours back from there, I don't know.
But God's blessed us.
He's blessed us.
He's opened doors for us,
and we should be thankful for those things.
And, you know, have we had some hiccups along the way?
Absolutely, we have.
But like, I just think about all the places
I've gone this year, and you're like,
well, you were gone too much.
Yeah, maybe I was.
But what are we doing?
What was my point?
Just so I could see all these different places?
No, it's preaching, and soul-winning, and missions trips,
and preaching at churches that we've planted.
And I say we because we're all part of the same team.
But we can't all go on every trip.
And so I'm like your emissary sometimes
to go to these different places,
and that's my job as the pastor
to do the work of an evangelist.
And so when I see doors that are open,
then I'm gonna go through them.
You know, and people might criticize me for those things,
and that's okay.
And have I failed along the way?
Absolutely.
But it's better to fail than it is to never have tried.
You never do anything if you never try anything, right?
So if you fail sometimes, that's just part of life.
Everybody fails, everybody makes mistakes.
But I don't regret anything.
I mean, actually, hindsight, I do regret
ordaining a couple people that I ordained.
But other than that, I mean, obviously,
I'm not always gonna make every single right decision.
I'm not God.
I just rely on God to lead me.
So we went to the UK on a trip that,
we had 88 salvations, we had 22 baptisms.
I mean, that was a great trip.
We set an attendance record there.
That church is bursting at the seams.
They don't even have enough room to seat everybody.
We're like frantically trying to find a building.
It's been hard, but they're busting at the seams right now.
God's doing great work.
Brother Ian's gonna be traveling to Geneva, Switzerland,
and doing a preaching event there.
So now we're branching off into Europe.
Who would've ever thought that was gonna happen?
Europe?
Good night, Europe is like Heathenville, godless.
But you know, there's always another generation
that can come up, and God's gonna reach that generation.
There are people, there's a remnant every place.
Every nation in the world will find people
that are saved or want to have biblical preaching.
So one of the goals for our church this year
was to get a new building, and we got that.
And they all worked really hard.
It's a team effort.
And Pastor Mendez, I was really glad
that he said that he liked the building and everything.
But, and he said, you know, you guys did a great job.
That's true, you guys did do a great job.
And I appreciate that, but I can't do all this myself.
We have to all do it together.
And so when I walk through an open door,
walk with me, help me, be at my side, pray for me.
Because I'm not perfect,
and I don't always make the right decision.
But, you know,
when I got to go to England,
I got to ordain a better evangelist.
You know, an evangelist that actually wants to work.
That's what I love about Brother Ian.
Not only is he funny, not only does he have
a British accent when he preaches, I like that too.
But he's a hard worker.
Like, I could see that instantly when I got there.
He's a hard worker, he drives like 50 minutes
to church every Sunday.
And, you know, that traffic over in England's pretty rough.
But he's done a great job.
Our church up in Canada is growing.
We're at, you know, reaching almost 35 people now.
Which I know that's kind of a slow grow, but it's Canada.
I mean, what are you gonna do?
It's Canada.
So, you know, but our church there has expanded
their church space and their salvations
and baptisms have increased.
They have a lot of young people going there.
People are getting married.
We have a lot to be thankful for.
This church has a lot to be thankful for.
And we should have the right attitude
when it comes to being thankful.
Be thankful for the church you have.
You have a great church.
And so, like I said, we're closing on 500 salvations.
I'm hoping we can get it done.
But even if we don't, we had a great year.
We planted a church that almost has 1,000 salvations.
We have a church up north and we have a church in Spokane
that's doing great things for God.
And they survived a church split.
I mean, literally there was almost 50 people going there
and now there's 25.
Would you call that a split?
I'd call it a split.
And that church got split by, you know, just bad people.
Bad evangelists.
Didn't care about the people.
Didn't really care.
And, you know, he's probably watching this sermon right now.
You know, hitting unlike.
His flying monkey trolls are all over the page.
But you can't really see the dislikes anymore.
So you can't really tell.
So I don't really care.
His troll accounts are gonna get on there.
Or their troll accounts.
So these people, we have people that stalk our every step.
They're watching every move we make
because they work for the devil.
You know, I don't know the reason
why they would be doing that.
You know, every church I've ever gone to,
if I didn't like it or I didn't like the people,
I just moved on and that's it.
I don't need to stalk every sermon they preach.
Guess what?
The last church I went to before I went here,
I don't, I've ever once in a while
I'll chime in and listen to those sermons
just because I just want to see how they're doing.
But I'm not watching every single sermon.
And then like commenting and making fake accounts
and all this other stuff is weird.
But that's the kind of stuff that happens
when you walk through an open door,
expect many adversaries.
Which brings me to point number four,
which is the more doors that open,
the more adversaries we get.
The more doors we open, the more adversaries we get.
Look at verse number nine.
First Corinthians 16, it says,
for a great door and effectual is open unto me
and there are many adversaries.
Did Paul have many adversaries?
He did, he was going around starting churches everywhere
and people are grabbing him, dragging him out of the city,
stoning him, leaving him for dead,
beating him, throwing him in prison,
all manner of evil against Paul.
What was his crime?
Starting churches, preaching the Bible,
trying to help people,
taking money for the poor saints at Jerusalem.
He's arrested when he goes there
for going into the temple or falsely accusing him.
Like just all the same stuff that happened back then,
like I said, there's nothing new under the sun.
The same stuff that happened then
is the same stuff that's gonna happen now.
And if we walk through an open door,
there's gonna be adversaries.
When we walk through that door,
they're gonna walk in with us
and you're gonna pick up the worst kind of people.
You know, I just, people,
to explain that to someone that doesn't go to church
or to explain that to someone that doesn't go to a church
that doesn't have anything going on in it,
it's hard to explain that.
People don't understand.
But when you're in the thick of it,
when you're in the battle, when you're in the fight,
which is where we should be, amen, as Christians,
you know, Jesus called us to be soldiers.
He called us to fight.
We're in a battle against the devil
and against his minions and we can't see them.
We fly blind.
We don't know what they're gonna do next,
but guarantee they're gonna do something.
They're gonna do something.
They're gonna devise more evil ways to try to attack us.
They're gonna try to pull out all the stops.
They're gonna try to take us through lawsuits.
They're gonna try to say, you can't say that.
That's hate speech.
Where's the hate speech laws in the United States?
We don't have them.
Now I know in Canada they do.
In other countries, if you say some of the stuff I say
from this pulpit, you'd be arrested and thrown in jail for.
That just shows you how wicked this world is
and how much they hate God and how much they hate his word.
Why would they be mad over something
that's being preached out of the Bible?
Because they hate God.
They don't love the Lord.
They're not one of his people.
And so obviously there's people that are just unsaved
in general and they don't really know what's going on,
but there are people that actually work for the devil.
They literally work for the devil.
They're not gonna say, guess what, I work for the devil.
They're not gonna do that.
They're gonna attack and they're gonna prove
that they're one of those people by what they do.
By their fruits, you'll know them.
You'll know them by their fruits.
What is their fruits?
Well, you know, attacking, hating the people of God,
you know, being accused of being in a cult.
What do they accuse Paul of in chapter 24,
of Acts chapter 24?
A leader, a ringleader of the sect, right?
The sect is basically saying that they're a cult.
He's the leader of a cult.
What do they say today?
Pastor Thomas is the leader of a cult.
This is a cult, you guys.
You know, because I called you right before the services
said you better be at church or else.
You lose your salvation
and you have to give me all your money.
I mean, that's what cults do.
Cults brainwash people or brain defile them
and make them think that they can't leave
and all this other stuff.
That's not what our church does.
Sometimes we say, hey, you need to leave.
We want you to leave, bye.
But then they don't leave.
They're like the, you know, crazy ex-stalker girlfriend
that won't leave you alone.
It's like, hey, I really don't like you, just leave.
They're like, no, I will watch every sermon.
I will stalk every comment.
I will go through, like, you know,
when they make these like fake accounts and stuff,
it takes time.
I'm sure it takes time.
You know, more time than I ever have.
I mean, I just don't have time and I don't want to.
I'm Aaron Thompson on YouTube.
I'm sure Foundation Baptist Church on YouTube.
I don't have like all these fake stalker accounts.
You know, if you have that much time on your hands,
you need to work harder.
But they want to work hard on bringing people down.
They want to be an adversary.
You know, when you're an adversary of God's people,
when you're an adversary of a church, you got problems.
And you probably work for the devil,
whether you know it or not.
When God opens a great door, like he has for our church,
we'll have adversaries.
And we've seen that this last year.
You know, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna be full time now.
I'm gonna just, woo, everything's gonna be great.
We're gonna get all this done.
We have got a lot done.
But there's been a lot of adversaries too, hasn't there?
You know, the adversaries have ramped it up.
Now they're not like easy people to pick off
where it's like, oh, hey, that person's a wolf.
You can tell because they're talking about the flat earth
or they're talking about this or they're talking about,
they're talking about the Nephilim.
You know, and I'm not saying people are talking about
that believe the Nephilim are wolves.
I'm just saying that people will tell you,
they want to tell you what they believe.
And so just be aware of that.
When someone starts telling you something really weird
or crazy in the Bible, that they want to tell you
their weird doctrine.
So listen to them.
Instead of you talking, let them listen to them.
But still, even as good as we can be at detecting
bad people, you're never gonna detect them all.
Some of them are just so slick
that you can't detect them all, like Judas.
You know, Judas, they were like,
who's the one that's gonna betray you, master?
And they're like, is it I?
Like they think it's them before they think it's,
you know, actually Judas.
That's how slick he was.
That's how much they respected him.
And even, Jesus even told John,
he says, it's him that dipeth his sop in the cup.
You know, that's the one, and then he does it,
and then he still doesn't know who it is.
People thought it was anybody else but Judas.
Because these people that are adversaries are very slick.
Now, I ordained some guys that became our enemies.
And at first I was like, I don't know,
maybe they're just, you know,
maybe they just wanna go to another church or whatever.
But really what it came down to is
they wanted to destroy our church.
And then, how did they prove that even further?
It's not just they wanted to attack me,
then they moved on to attacking another church,
and another pastor.
And the things that they've done are very serious.
The things that they're trying to do
are really wicked and against the law.
And like, I'm not gonna go into the details about it,
but, I mean, you don't know.
People that have been with us from the beginning
turned against us.
That's pretty weird, that's pretty scary,
and it's the last person I expected.
Really, truly was, it really hurt me, as a matter of fact.
You know, because it hurts, you feel hurt
because of how stupid you feel when it happens,
but you also hurt because, you know, you love that person.
You put time and invested time in that person.
There's lots of people, there's people
who have left our church that, you know,
we've done a lot of things for,
and then they just spit in our face?
Like, you're just not good enough?
It's like, it's really strange,
but there's many adversaries, and we went through it.
We've gone through a lot of hard times this year,
but, you know, our heads held up high,
and we're still walking through those doors, amen.
And God's not done with our church.
You know, we got more open doors
that we're gonna hit through,
and I'm excited about the future.
I'm excited about the future of our church.
Our church is growing, and it's gonna continue to grow,
and God's gonna do great things.
You know what, and when there's an open door,
we're gonna walk through it.
You know, if there's more adversaries, so what?
The apostle Paul had nobody left to stand beside him
but the Lord, and he still kept going.
That's an example for us to see.
The Lord Jesus Christ was stocked at every place he went.
Every place he went, the Pharisees were there accusing him.
The Sadducees were there accusing him,
asking him questions, trying to trap him in his words.
I don't have to deal with that every time I preach.
I'm really glad.
But Jesus did, every time he preached,
someone had to say something.
How annoying would that be?
And he's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
He could've just said die,
and their heads would've popped or whatever.
He could've said just, you know,
because when the Lord speaks, things happen.
Whatever he comes out of his mouth comes to pass.
Die.
You know, they're just gonna die.
But he didn't do that, did he?
So I plan to go forward, and I'm thankful for this church.
I'm thankful for everybody that's here that stuck with us.
Turn to Philippians chapter 127.
Philippians chapter 127.
I only have a couple more things and we'll be done.
We can tell when these people are who they are.
Like when they start attacking, like seriously,
when they do the stalk or ex-girlfriend thing,
then you know that they got a problem right away.
They continue to stalk, continue to unlike.
You know, you'll see like every sermon I preach,
they haven't even listened to it.
It just came out, and there's already an unlike on it.
It's like, you didn't even listen to it.
But you just hate me, you hate our church.
So every time, you're subscribed to our channel obviously
because you see the video pop up, and you see the unlike.
So it's like, why are you subscribed to my channel
if you don't like me?
If you hate our church that much,
why do you subscribe to our channel?
Because you're a stalker ex-girlfriend, that's why.
You're a stalker troll.
And you're acting like a stalker.
You know, and that's what stalkers do.
But that's what people do to the people of God.
They stalk their every step.
David talked about it in the Psalms.
Have you ever read the Psalms?
It's filled with basically workers of iniquity
always trying to come after him.
And how he's asking God to destroy them,
or help him in his time of need,
and praising the Lord when it happens.
So, Philippians 1, 27 says,
Only let your conversation be,
as it becometh the gospel of Christ,
that whether I come and see you,
or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs,
that ye stand fast in one spirit,
with one mind striving together
for the faith of the gospel.
That's what we need to be like.
We need to be one team with one spirit
striving together for the faith of the gospel.
That's what our church is here, that's our mission.
And obviously to commit, you know,
to continue the great commission,
to get people saved, baptize them,
and teach them the Bible.
That's like the great commission, teach them.
You know, baptize, save them.
And that's our job.
Look at verse 28 says,
And in nothing terrified by your adversaries,
which is to them an evident token of perdition,
but to you of salvation and that of God.
So, when our adversaries, what do they do?
They're like terror cell people.
Remember like when 9-11, I don't know,
some of you guys are too young to know this,
but they had this thing where like,
when the towers were attacked,
they had these terror cells.
They were people that just kind of fit in society,
they act like they're the normal family or whatever,
but then when it's time for them to enact,
then they pop up and blow something up,
or create havoc and do terrorism or whatever.
Isn't that what it's talking about right here?
And nothing terrified by your adversaries,
they want to terrify you.
That's what adversaries do, they want to terrify you,
they want to tear your church down,
they want to destroy the church,
they want to make you afraid to come to church.
They're adversaries, they want to hurt us,
they want to do anything they can to hurt us,
but it says, and nothing terrified by your adversary,
we should not be terrified by them.
But it's an evident token of their perdition,
it's an evident token,
a token is like something that represents something else.
So when we see that they're trying to terrify you,
we see that they're an adversary,
then we know that they're this terror cell,
we get people, we've had people that have started,
come to our church or moved to our church,
or started with us in the beginning,
and then it's like, they're enacted,
and then they do all kinds of terrorism,
they try to blow the church up, not literally.
But literally, that faithful word,
or not faithful word, but First Works Baptist Church,
last January, almost a year ago,
these people actually literally blew the church up.
Where's the national outcry for that?
When's the last time a church has been blown up in America?
They always talk about the ones
in the civil rights movement,
that's the last time I think a church
has actually been blown up.
And then you get one blown up in California,
and it barely even makes the news?
The FBI just can't find who did it?
No, no, no, they just don't wanna find them.
They don't wanna help,
they just wanna allow us to be terrorized,
and it's really, they can find anybody.
The FBI can find you, if they have cameras,
they have cameras all over the place, they can find them.
They can zoom into their license plate,
don't tell me that they can't do that, they can.
Even Jump Kick Man was discovered who he was.
Jump Kick Man from the Kyle Rittenhouse trial,
that's what his nickname is, but they found out who he was,
and who knows how long they actually knew his real name,
but they didn't want him to testify,
so they just kinda kept it secret or whatever.
But now it's out that they know who he is,
so you can't hide, people are gonna find out who you are.
So when his church got blown up,
there was people that were protesting
and saying that they were gonna do all these things,
and they're adversaries, they're, you know,
they were actually jihadists or whatever,
sodomite jihadists, you know, they wanna talk about us
being, you know, Islam and all this other stuff,
and Taliban, you know, they call us Taliban members,
Taliban Christians or whatever,
but I've never blown anybody up, I've never shot anybody,
I've never gotten into a fight with anybody
when it comes to that thing, but I'll tell you what,
there's a lot of people that have come
and wanted to fight us, and wanted to hurt us,
so we gotta be on the lookout for the workers of iniquity,
the sons of Belial, the children of the devil,
enemies of the gospel, enemies of God,
Judas Iscariots, wolves in sheep's clothing,
but you know what, what we really need to focus on
is what God has opened up for us.
Now obviously we gotta pay close attention to other things,
but like, you're never gonna,
we're never gonna find them all.
They're gonna slither out from the rock,
they're gonna say everything that they need to say
to be part of this church,
and then they're gonna tear a cell out,
and all of a sudden we're gonna realize
that they're a bad guy.
How do we know?
Because of the things that they do,
the wicked things that they do.
Last verse I'll have you turn to is Psalm chapter 14,
verse number four, Psalm chapter 14, verse number four.
The Bible says, have all the workers of iniquity
no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and call not upon the name of the Lord?
So, I know there's a controversy going on right now
about the calling upon the name of the Lord,
but it's not a controversy to me.
The Bible says, whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved.
It's not controversial to me.
And if you're going around teaching
that you don't have to do that,
then I'm suspect of you immediately.
I think it's a very strange thing to say,
and the Bible says, the workers of iniquity,
they don't call upon the name of the Lord.
Now what is calling upon the name of the Lord?
Initially, when you get saved,
you call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.
I'll grant you this, that not every time
you call upon the name of the Lord
is it a salvation prayer.
You get saved one time, and then when you're calling
upon the name of the Lord, it's for your needs,
and wants, and to praise the Lord,
and be thankful to him for the things
that he provides for us.
But for someone to say that you don't have to call
upon the name of the Lord to be saved,
that's just false doctrine.
If you believe, you're gonna call upon him.
If you believe, you're gonna ask.
I'm gonna preach a whole sermon about it next Sunday,
but we need to, when you believe,
there's nothing wrong with asking, that's not works.
This is what they'll say, they'll say it's works salvation
to ask God for something.
So if I bake you a plate of cookies,
and I give everybody in the church something,
you come in late, and you know that there was cookies
for everybody in the church,
and you walked up to me and said,
hey Pastor Thompson, can I have one of those cookies?
Is that working for the cookie?
You're asking me for it?
You already knew that I gave it to everybody freely,
and you asked for those cookies, and I gave it to you.
How's that works?
You believe that there's cookies.
You know that they were there.
You didn't have any work in those cookies.
Those cookies somebody else worked for.
In salvation, Christ did all the work for us on the cross.
Christ is the one that paid for your salvation.
He offers you the salvation for free,
so if you ask for it, now all of a sudden that's works.
God has provided salvation for the whole world.
He loved the whole world so much
that he gave his only begotten son.
So if he loves the whole world,
and everybody else has an offer to be saved,
does that mean everybody's saved automatically?
No, because you have to do something.
You have to believe, and so if you believe,
you're gonna ask for that salvation, right?
You're gonna call upon the name of the Lord.
These workers of iniquity, these people
that sneak into our churches and stalk us,
and all this crazy stuff, they come up
with all these concoctions to try to bring our church down.
They don't call upon the name of the Lord.
Because you know why?
They're not saved, they're workers of iniquity.
You do a study on the workers of iniquity,
every single time it's a bad, unsaved,
false prophet person, a person that works for the devil.
That's what a son of Belial is.
Belial is the devil.
But for someone to say, if someone says at the door,
hey, I've never asked Jesus to save me.
I believe in Jesus, I just never asked Him to save me.
You know, there isn't a time when I actually
called upon Him to save me.
Then I would just say that person's not saved.
They're like, well, how do you know that?
Well, because they said that they didn't ask for salvation.
When you want something that's a gift, you ask for it.
If you want to receive it, you're gonna ask.
It's just part, I mean, if you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, you're gonna ask Him to save you.
Does it make sense that you wouldn't ask Him to save you,
but then you're gonna pray to Him for the rest of your life?
You're gonna call upon Him for other things,
but you're not gonna call upon Him for salvation?
That doesn't make sense.
Oh, no, I didn't pray, I didn't ask God to save me.
Well, then I would say you're probably not saved.
So, and if you're teaching that garbage,
then you have a real serious doctrinal issue.
And if it's out of pride, then it's out of pride.
But you're trying to tell other people
they don't have to do that.
That's wicked, it's wrong, it's false doctrine.
So I'll talk about that more next week.
But just in closing, I just want to say
how thankful I am to you as a church family.
I appreciate everything you guys do.
You guys are great.
Just up and down the line.
I mean, if anybody needs anything, you're there to help them.
You're here tonight on a Tuesday night, freezing.
I'm cold, I'm gonna turn off the heater.
But anyway, you're just afraid of offending me,
turn the heater back on.
But I really do appreciate you guys.
I appreciate how faithful you guys are
and all the great works that you do for the Lord.
And just keep on doing it, don't fall out.
Let's go through those open doors,
and when the adversaries come,
just realize what they are.
Because they're gonna find more ways
to deceive and do all these things,
and they'll try to drag you out with them.
They always do.
They always, oh, you're my friend.
And then they really aren't.
So, and that's not every time, but I'm just saying.
That's the modus operandi or whatever.
So anyway, let's be thankful for everything
that God gives us, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord,
so much for this great church
and for all the things that you do for us, Lord,
for taking care of us, giving us food and raiment, Lord,
and providing jobs, and just, Lord,
for all the wonderful mothers that we have in this church
that take good care of their kids,
for all the children here that we're blessed
to have around us, Lord, we're just thankful.
We're thankful for this building.
We're thankful for everything that you provide for us,
and Lord, we just wanna say that tonight.
And just pray that you would just continue
to bless our church into the new year and beyond.
And just pray that you'd help us to see the open doors
and walk through them as according to your will.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.