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. . . . . . . . . . . . Good, how are you? Awesome. All right, so if everybody could go ahead and find their seats. Go ahead and take your seats. It's good to see everybody this morning. It's kind of cool out there this morning, huh? It's nice. I'm not ready for that heat yet. I like to stay cool just for a little bit. But go ahead and grab your hymnals. We're going to open to our first song, song number 20. Song number 20, When I See the Blood, song number 20. Get situated. All right, we'll start there on the first. Christ our Redeemer died on the cross. Died for the sinner, paid all his due. All who receive him need never fear. Yes, he will pass, will pass over you. When I see the blood. When I see the blood. When I see the blood. I will pass, I will pass over you. Chiefest of sinners, Jesus can save. As he has promised, so will he do. O sinner, hear him, trust in his word. Then he will pass, will pass over you. When I see the blood. When I see the blood. When I see the blood. I will pass, I will pass over you. Judgment is coming, all will be there. Who have rejected, who have refused? O sinner, hasten, let Jesus in. Then God will pass, will pass over you. When I see the blood. When I see the blood. When I see the blood. I will pass, I will pass over you. O what compassion, O boundless love. Jesus hath power, Jesus is true. All who believe are safe from the storm. O he will pass, will pass over you. When I see the blood. When I see the blood. When I see the blood. I will pass, I will pass over you. Alright, Brother Scotty, you want to pray for us this morning? Amen. Alright, go ahead and turn to your next songs for this morning. We'll go to song number 44. Song number 44 will work till Jesus comes. Song number 44. Song number 44. Start there on the first. O land of rest for the eyesight, when will the moment come? When I shall lay my armor by and dwell. In peace at home. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes. And we'll be gathered home. To Jesus Christ I fled for rest. He bade me cease to roam. And lean for succor on his breast. Till he conduct me home. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes. And we'll be gathered home. I sought at once my Savior's side. No more my steps shall roam. With him I'll break death's chilling tide. And reach my heavenly home. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes. We'll work till Jesus comes. And we'll be gathered home. Alright. Good morning. Go ahead and take out your bulletins for this morning. If you do not have a bulletin, brother Eli will pass them out. Just go ahead and raise your hand. Alright so if you open your bulletin at the top left we have our service times. And on Sunday morning we have a service at 1030 AM. And also a Sunday evening service at 630 PM. We also have a midweek service at Thursday at 7 o'clock PM. And that will be a Bible study. A midweek Bible study. And then for our soul winning times we have a soul winning time on Sunday at 2 PM. In between the services. And then Thursday at 515 PM. So with those soul winning times just make sure to show up to the church. 10-15 minutes early. Give us time to kind of organize ourselves. Pray. And then we'll go ahead and head out there at that specific time. Below that we have our totals. So as far as for 2019 we have 137 salvations and 6 baptisms. And then last year in 2018 we had 369 salvations. And 20 total baptisms. So we're doing good. Hopefully we can just keep increasing those numbers exponentially. That would be awesome. And then below this we have our church picnic that's coming up. And we do have the details for that. It will be in Benwood Park. That is 12700 Kimberly Lane, Houston, Texas, 77824. And that's going to be happening on April 6th. So April 6th from 1130 AM to 330 PM. The church is going to provide all the food. Hamburgers, hot dogs, I think we might have some carne asada. Keep throwing that out there. But really looking forward to that. It's going to be a good day. Hopefully the Lord will bless us with some good weather. And then below that we have our mega marathon listed. Pure Words Baptist Church is going to be participating in the mega marathon led by Faithful Word Baptist Church. It's happening April 20th. And we are going to meet at Panera Bread. And that's at 3151 West Holcomb Boulevard in Houston, Texas. So we're going to meet there at 9 AM for breakfast. The church is going to provide all the breakfast. And then we're going to go out soul winning. We're going to come back, meet for lunch. And then we're going to go out soul winning for another couple of hours after that. So that's going to be a great day. Again, hopefully we could just get a lot more people saved than last year. Last year we had over 3,000 people get saved. This, that's amazing. And then this year, I forget how many more events we have going on than last year. But we've got a considerable more events going on. So it's going to be bigger and better this year. And then next we do have the movie premiere of Beyond Jordan happening. We do have a movie theater picked out. It's going down April 17th. And that's going to be at Paraland Premier 6 movie theater. 5050 Broadway Street, Paraland, Texas. So again, the church is going to provide all the snacks free of charge. Bring your friends, bring your family. It will be a good night at the movie theaters. Again, I haven't been to the movie theaters in forever so I'm really excited for it. So we'll actually get to figure out what this documentary is all about. It's kind of a mystery as far as right now. But again, we also have our men's preaching night. The next one is going down Friday, April 5th. We'll be going over Chapter 7 of the teaching on preaching. Come with a ten minute sermon prepared and no spectators. And make sure to wear a button up shirt with a tie. Also, you have to be a soul winner. Be an active soul winner in order to partake in preaching this ten minute sermon. But if you are a soul winner, feel free to come and we'll kind of hone our skills. Iron sharpens iron on our preaching. And then we have our guest preaching schedule. So today we're honored and blessed to have Brother Chris Segura again from Faithful Word Baptist Church. And then next week, next weekend, April 7th, we have Pastor Jonathan Shelley. And then on April 21st, which is after the soul winning mega marathon, which is Easter Sunday, we have Brother Jeff Utzler coming down to preach for us both services. And then below this we just have just an overview of the events that we have coming up we just talked about. The church picnic, Beyond Jordan, mega marathon. And then one thing I didn't, a couple of things I didn't mention is May 4th, we have the college station soul winning marathon, not mega marathon, soul winning marathon. That's going down April, or May 4th. And we're going to be meeting at a Panera Bread up there. Really excited about that. College station is very receptive. And then we have a new event listed on November 8th and 9th. We have the McAllen soul winning marathon. So if you're learning Spanish, it'll be a good opportunity for you to practice your Spanish. I think it's like 50-50, half people speak Spanish, half people speak English. So it'll be a good time there. But that is the announcements for this morning. Brother Eli, go ahead and come lead our next song for us. Alright, turn your hymnals to song number 56. Song number 56, When We All Get To Heaven. Sing it out there on the first. Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing his mercy and his grace. In the mansions bright and blessed, he'll prepare for us a place When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory While we walk the pilgrim pathway, clouds will overspread the sky But when traveling days are over, not a shadow, not a sigh When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory Let us then be true and faithful, trusting, serving every day Just one glimpse of him in glory will the toils of life repay When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory on the last Onward to the prize before us, soon his beauty will behold Soon the pearly gates will open, we shall tread the streets of gold When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory Proverbs chapter number 6 Proverbs 6, the Bible reads My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou strict in thy hand with the stranger Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself when thou art come into the hand of thy friend Go, humble thyself, and make sure of thy friend Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler Go to the anthill, slugger, consider her ways, and be wise Which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provided her meat in the summer And gathers her food in the harvest How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep So shall thy poverty come as one that travels, and thy want as an armed man A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet He teaches with his fingers, frowardness is in his heart He deviseth mischief continually, he soweth discord Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly, suddenly shall he be broken without remedy These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood And heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren My son, keep my father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck When thou goest, it shall lead thee, when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee For the commandment is the lamb, and the law is life And reproves of instruction are the way of life To keep thee from the evil woman from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman Lest not after her beauty in thine heart, neither her let her take thee with her eyelids For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread And the adulteress will hunt for the precious life Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbor's wife, whosoever touches her, shall not be innocent Men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold He shall give all the substance of his house But whoso commiteth adultery with the woman lacketh understanding He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul A wound and dishonor shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away For jealousy is the rage of a man Therefore will he not spare in the day of vengeance He will not regard any ransom Neither will he rest, content Though thou giveth many gifts Let's have a quick word of prayer Dear God, thank you for today, Lord I just pray that for all of us here that you... Amen. All right, Proverbs chapter number six. I want to start out once again by thanking every single one of you guys for being here. I know a lot of people that are guest preachers say that, but it's because we really appreciate you guys showing up, especially in the situation that you're in. And just a reminder once again that, hey, it is a big thing to show up to church. A lot of people are forsaking it, and it's very tough to sometimes give up your day off, and it's very tempting. You're just going to kind of like watch it on the internet or whatever the case, but it's a big thing to God for you guys to show up, and he will bless you and continue to keep coming, and it is what it is. God sees it from heaven, and he'll take care of you guys. So when it comes to Proverbs chapter number six, the verse that I want to focus on is right there in verse number 16. It says this, These six things does the Lord hate. Yea, seven are abomination unto him, a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that divides in wicked imaginations, feet that be swift and running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and him that soweth discord among brethren. Just this section right here, we can see clearly, clearly that God hates lying. There's no bones about it. It makes it very clear the Lord hates it. It's an abomination unto him, a lying tongue, and witnesses that speak lies. So it's not something hard to figure out. Does God hate lying? It's clear right here that he does. It makes him sick. It's an abomination. He doesn't want anything to do with it. You know, but if you've got your Bibles, go to Exodus 18. Go to Exodus 18. And more evidence that God just hates it, Proverbs 12 22, I'll just read, Lying lips are abomination to the Lord. What is an abomination unto the Lord again? Lying lips, similar to Proverbs 6. Ephesians 4 tells us in the New Testament, Wherefore put away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. And Exodus 18 kind of reminds me of Ephesians 4. Exodus 18 is when Moses meets back with his father-in-law, and we'll pick it up right there, and it says, And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening, and Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did to the people. He said, What is this thing that I'll do it to the people? Why say it is thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto evening? And Moses said unto his father-in-law, Because the people come unto me to inquire of God. When they have it mattered, they come unto me, and I judge between one and another. And I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws. And Moses' father-in-law said unto him, The thing that I'll do is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and this people that is with thee, for this thing is too heavy for thee. Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken now unto my voice. I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee. Be thou for the people to Godward, that thou mayest bring the cause unto God, and thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt show them the way wherein they must walk and the work that they must do. Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place us over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, rulers of tens, and let them judge the people at all seasons. And it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge. So shall it be easier for thyself, and it shall bear the burden with thee. Go to Proverbs 26, please, go to Proverbs 26. So what do we see over here in Exodus? We see Moses' father-in-law giving him advice, saying, look, you're judging everyone. You're gonna wear away. Hey, you need to get some help. I recommend when you get somebody to help you, when you get men to help you out, in order to judge the people that can handle the smallest matters and the big matters they bring to you, and you help them and you tell them what God wants them to do. But if you're gonna pick men, you need to pick men that fear God. And you're gonna need to pick men that are men of truth, hating covetousness. And that's great advice when it comes to being a leader. Try to be a man of truth. Try to keep lies far away from you. And I'm pretty sure if you have children you're probably gonna start teaching them little by little. And one of the first things you're gonna teach them is not a good thing to lie to mom, it's not a good thing to lie to dad. And that's something that we should all be teaching our children, because that's what the tendency is for children, especially when they get into trouble, they tend to just lie. You don't have to teach them that, they just tend to do it. It's just in our nature, it's just what happens. But here we see that God is telling Moses, you know, through his father-in-law, that, hey, you need to just pick men, men of truth. We already saw that God says that lying lips are an abomination unto him. He hates those that speak lies. And if we continue to see what the Bible teaches about lying, it's clear that God does not like it. It makes him sick. He wants us to stay far from it. But I will say this, kind of my disclaimer in a way. There are examples where people have lied in the Bible and not only did God not punish them, God actually rewarded them. But what was the reasoning behind it? If you're in Exodus, I'm sorry, I'll read from Exodus 119 really quickly. One clear example is the Hebrew midwives. Here's what happened. It says, and the midwives sent out the Pharaoh when Pharaoh ordered that the midwives should kill every man child. It says, and the midwives sent out the Pharaoh because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women, for they are lovely and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty and it came to pass because the midwives feared God that he made them houses. So the story goes that Pharaoh, he ends up not knowing who really the children of Israel are, that he doesn't know the Lord, he ends up making this stupid law because he was afraid that the children of Israel were going to outgrow the Egyptians and take over and join their enemies. And so he made this law, he basically made it to where he wanted the midwives to kill every man child but they didn't do it. And when he ended up confronting them, they lied to him. They said, well, look, the Hebrew women, they're just delivering before we even get there. And he said that, you know, why did you have done this? And they lied to pretty much save themselves, to save their hide, quote, unquote. But God didn't get upset with them. In fact, God rewarded them by, like it says right there, that God, because they feared him, they said he made them houses. Another good example where people lied and instead of being punished by God, they seem to be rewarded by God. Another key example is Rahab the harlot. In Rahab the harlot's story in Joshua 2, 3, I'll just read it really quickly, where the king of Jericho sent out to Rahab saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, for they are entered into thy house. For they be come to search out all the country and the woman took the two men and hid them and said, There came men unto me, but it was not what they were. And it came to pass about the time I shed under the gate, when it was dark and the man went out, whether the man went out or whatnot, pursue them quickly, for he shall overtake them. So she lied to these men saying, I don't know where they went. These guys took off. Hurry up, go after them, you'll catch them. So she lied to us to kind of save her hide, but she was also lying to save them as well. The Hebrew midwives did the same thing. They feared God more than Pharaoh and so they didn't obey his commandment with which to shed innocent blood. And that's one of the things that it says in Proverbs that the Lord hates, those that shed innocent blood. So what we have seen here is that they're kind of like, there's kind of like as you can say a disclaimer or when it comes to lying, there's kind of this one thing that you can say, you can kind of like just look at and say, Look, there might be a time when it's okay to lie. And that's where you have to kind of decide yourself, what is the motive behind me saying the things that I'm saying? What is the motive behind me saying things that aren't true? Is it to deceive, is it to hurt, or is it to save life? And I don't know where you stand right now, but I believe that it's okay to save life, even if you have to lie. For example, what happened about three or four years ago when I ended up going to South Africa, it was pretty hot. Our pastor had been banned and it seemed like they were keeping an eye out and they gave us a list of people that are not allowed to go that were also banned. We had about 30 church members, even Pastor Anderson's wife got banned, other people got banned. They had nothing to do really with Pastor Anderson in a way. You know, but he told me, Look, I'm going to send you under the radar because I want you to meet up with a pastor down there that wants you to help him to teach his people how to go soul winning. So what I want you to do is just go in there and if for some reason they end up stopping you, questioning you, saying whatever the case, and they're basically trying to figure out whether you belong to our church or not, he said five doctors tell him that you belong to Verity Baptist. He said, Look, don't tell him you belong to me because he's like, I don't know how you feel, but in that situation I think it's okay for you to say what you have to say in order to keep yourself from being punished by wicked doers. So he said tell him you're from Verity Baptist, tell him you're pastor, Pastor Roger Jimenez, which obviously at the time he wasn't really on the radar, but now he is, you know, for obvious reasons. When you're a strong man of God, let's just face it, you're going to be on these wicked ruler's radar, bottom line. You're going to be on Satan's radar and he's going to come after you, bottom line. He's going to use his minions, he's going to use his devils to basically stop the work of God so when he sees great men of God, you're going to be on Satan's radar, bottom line. You know, but at the time he told me, Look, you tell them that you're from this church and you deny that you even know me. You tell them he's your pastor, that's where you're coming from, you're coming here on a missionary trip, you're going to meet up with pastors such and such and you're here just to give the gospel and they let you go, they let you go. But, praise the Lord, that didn't even come to be. I just kind of went there and the only thing they really asked me was if I was a hunter for some reason. I get there and I don't know if it was just a vest that I was wearing that had all my equipment because I don't like carrying things in my pocket, but I just got to the, I guess you can call him the border patrol guy and all he asked me was, Are you a hunter? I said, No. You know, I'm here on a missionary trip. He said, Okay, boom, he stamped something and he let me in. You know, that's as easy as it went. You know, but of course we all believe that doing the right thing is very important. God will bless us if we do the right thing. We want our children to do the right thing and one of the things we start out teaching our children or you should start teaching your children is that it's not okay to be deceitful. It's not okay to lie, to hurt or whatever the case may be or to get ahead in life. You need to be a man of truth like it says in the Bible. You know, but when it comes to lies, I think one area that Christians kind of tend to not realize is an area that actually falls underline is the area of making excuses, of making excuses and I'm about to read a letter that was sent to us by a Christian, somebody who supposedly had been going to church since who knows how long, but it seemed like they'd been going for a while and this is what they end up emailing me and I'm going to read and normally don't read people's emails and I'm not going to say who it was in case they're watching, you know, because the whole thing ended bad. They got upset after I told them the truth, but I want to read it and then you guys tell me what this guy's issue is. You guys tell me how he basically sees things versus what the Bible clearly says we should and should not do. So he starts out the email by saying this, Dear Pastor Anderson, I've been following you for a while, for a while. Now who here would disagree with me that for a while it's probably more than at least a month? You know what I'm saying? At least a month. I would say a while to me sounds like maybe a year, at least a year, at least a year. So he says I've been following you for a while ever since I watched the March on the Zion and we did that years ago. So I don't know when he saw this, but he says for a while. So he says this, I just watched the bid on World War I and World War II. Pastors just preached on those wars, how they were unjust wars, and was compelled to finally reach out to you. The discontent and disperse. I don't even know what that means, but he just continues to say this. People of faith seem to be scattered about this nation. I'm like, duh. But anyways, communities are not communities, but just areas of homes where people live, largely in depression, fear, confusion, etc. I'm like, alright. Most are godless. It's very sad and alarming. It feels to a limited extent, at least, orchestrated, like Christianity has become an enemy of the state, or at least the liberal one which we seem to live under. And he just says, truth. So his first segment is the discontent and disperse. I'm not really sure what he means by that. I think he's discontent himself. And then he says, truth. Well, I account for my own errors, mistakes, and failures, which is good. We should take ownership when we make mistakes. But we shouldn't blame anybody. We should say, hey, I messed up, I messed up. Bottom line. So I like that. Then he says, I feel like my pursuit of truth and the ability I have to shine light on the truth, he says, has led me into a very sad, almost erased existence. I'm at the mercy of my wife, who is stubbornly godless. Now it seems like he's coming up with excuses. So when I saw that, I'm thinking, hmm, I wonder how this is going to go. So then we continue. He says this. Only she has income. She owns the home. We both have college degrees. But it's as if I never had a chance. Basically, she's in technology. I have a tech degree. And I'm essentially a writer. In other words, she's not a writer. So I stay home with our son. She's a good woman, mostly. Brings them all the bacon and loves our child. But she could have used God and Jesus in her life. It seems all I have left to cherish are my son, and the word of truth. So I'm thinking, man, the Bible, this guy loves the Bible. You know, the word of truth. Says I love my wife, but she does not respect my faith or my political views. Well, honestly, I don't think she really respects you, period. I am a prolific and talented writer and researcher. I want to give something, be something, add value, and also earn my own living. Well, that's what the Bible says you should be doing. The Portland area has no use for me. That's what he says. For years I've tried, to no avail, to get a job in a wide range of fields. I'm just unyielding, however imperfect, in terms of honor and truth. And sadly, that makes for little success in Portland, if any at all. How do you like it so far? Doesn't it sound like a guy that's full of excuses? But he's spitting them out like nothing. Or is it just me? So we continue. I've actually given up trying to make a living here in Oregon. Gee, I wonder why your wife doesn't respect you. I wouldn't either if I was married to a quitter. Then he says home. So now he has a new section called home. Maybe I should try to come home to Phoenix. I guess I lived there or lived back in Phoenix. I lived there for a few years in my early 20s when I was homesick then. A job situation, an elderly, extremely faithful Baptist grandmother in some apprehension to buy a home in Phoenix. I moved back to Oregon. Since I've been back in Oregon, life has only been rough for me. Yeah, I can tell you why. Because when you're not doing things God's way, He kind of removes love, joy, peace, patience from you. Now obviously I had a moment when I worked, my wife worked, you know, and that's just kind of how they taught us in the old Baptist church. Even my old pastor's wife worked, but she worked at this Christian school. It seemed like my assistant pastor's wife, she worked and she worked at the Christian school. It seemed like they never said, hey, the man should be the one that provides, the woman should be the keeper at home. That was not taught in my old church. So my wife worked her job, I worked my job. My mom was lucky enough to be able to babysit our one child, but that was just in the beginning. Now we have eight. So imagine what would have happened if we would have kept doing that. It wouldn't have been good. You know, so I understand when someone doesn't understand better, et cetera, et cetera. But this guy says, I've been listening to Pastor Anderson for a while, for a while, and he's saying, this is what's going on, this is what's going on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, so I'm just listening in. I mean, he's emailing us, we're not emailing him. So he says, maybe I should try this, try that. He says, since I've been back and over again, life has only been rough for me. I am 41 now. I was born in Phoenix Baptist Hospital and grew up in Phoenix. I have some distant family there, but nobody I could ask for help, and certainly nobody connected to you or the church. That's kind of fishy right there. Nobody you can ask for help? Okay. I don't want a handout. I don't want a free lunch, free ride, whatever. I am a highly intellectual, creative problem solver. Funny how you can't figure out how to get a job. But that's what the guy says. I am a highly intellectual, creative problem solver. I'm like, all right. I have life experience, professional experience. This is the funny part. The best tools I have are not answers, but the right questions. Yeah, that'll really get you far in life. I hired this guy to be a blessing to me, and he keeps asking me questions every five minutes. Is that really what you want? Doesn't the Bible say, be you ready to give an answer? An answer, not be you ready to ask the right questions. Those people are pretty annoying. You know who I'm talking about. You probably work with them. They ask questions just for the sake of asking questions. Well, what about this? What about that? It's like, look, go out there and figure it out. If you can't figure it out, do what Jethro's father-in-law said. Go up to the next thing in command. Don't go to Moses. Go to the next one up, and then continue to go up. It's all figuring, OK, this is what's happening. Pastor Anderson obviously has everything that he's trying to handle. We are kind of like the man of truth that he has chosen to answer emails and help people out. And if there's a really tough question, then we'll get Pastor to be like, look, this guy emailed this question, and I don't really know what to do. But this is not one of those cases. Especially when he's struggling with his marriage, he's having a hard time figuring out what he sold to the press. And it's really interesting, because I've been listening to Pastor Anderson for a while now. But a little bit over a month ago, I posted like six different videos. One, two, three, four, five, six. If you go to Pastor Anderson's channel, go ahead and just Google how to be a good husband. I don't know if any of you guys have seen those. And that was less, less than two months ago. About six weeks ago is when I posted those. Why? Because it helps people to be a good husband. And number one, provider. Number two, protector, I believe. Not in that order. Number three, et cetera, et cetera. It's all there. But he's making it seem like that's all foreign, because he's emailing us saying, hey, this is my situation. He said, well, we already put on our website how to fix this stuff. And it's not going to be easy, because your wife obviously doesn't respect you. You've got to earn that respect back. How do you earn that respect back? By showing yourself a man. How do you show yourself a man? By obviously getting a job and being the provider, the protector, not the one that cleans the diapers all day long. And then if she comes home to a messy house, she's going to let you have it. It's just the way it is. And don't even ask her to wash the dishes. It's your job now. But he switched the role. It's backwards. So I'm like, man, I feel bad. And honestly, I didn't feel bad when I read this email. I'm like, man, I feel bad for you. You know, man, that's pretty depressing. I mean, I don't want anything bad to happen to you. But then I could figure out kind of what his problem is. And check this out. What I want is a symbiotic situation in life where I give value, where the job I perform is fairly paid. And ideally, but not necessarily, where people around me share similar views and faith. And I recognize that we can only find personal balance and peace on our own. No pastor can tell me what matters to me. Only I can. And that's why I'm reaching out. Obviously, I'm running out of ideas. Obviously, I'm unhappy, feeling unwelcome in Oregon. And let me backtrack a little bit. You could tell that this person is very selfish because for him to say that Oregon has nothing for me, I have nothing up for Oregon, is like, hold up. You know about Pastor Anderson. You know the big thing that we're doing these couple of months that are coming up. You know the deal with Pay for Wear Baptist Church. You know why our movement is so big. And what is that? It's sowing it. How can you say, I have nothing here in Oregon? No, their soul's in Oregon. You have neighbors, they have neighbors, their neighbors' neighbors have neighbors. You know, the reason why you're so selfish is because you're concentrating too much on yourself and you don't care about those people that are on their way to hell. But look at this guy. At 41, this made me laugh. Because already his email, I mean, how many of you guys are kind of like thinking this guy's arrogant or is it just me? Man, this guy's puffed up. He's like, man, what's up with this guy? You almost kind of laugh on the inside but feel sorry on the outside. So here's what he says. At 41, with more wisdom than years, with more wisdom than years, I don't need a pep talk or a there, there. I need to thrive. I really do have a lot to give. I don't expect a lot in return. I'm seeking balance and truth in my daily life. If you have a person or place to refer me to, I'd be very grateful. However, I recognize that you aren't advertising yourself as a guru or savior. You have a large family and church who are planning to keep you busy and owe nothing to me. Ideally, I like a decent, humble living in Arizona, somewhere my skills are valued and needed. I trust few people. Do you happen to have a referral for me? My son is an amazing individual. And I'm thinking, man, how old is he? 19 months. He's a bit of a flatterer, even though it's his son. 19 months and he needs his father to have independent success and support for him. I don't feel it is wise to continue to depend solely on his mother for both our well-being. So you don't have to fail. I'll tell you straight up. It is wrong for you to let her just run the show. It's not how it works. And even if she is better and makes more money, it's never going to be something that God approves because you're the one as a man that's supposed to be the leader, not being led. And even Paul made it very clear that it's not good for a woman to have authority over a man. And that's what's going on in this situation. And he says, sorry if this is blindsided and sorry if it weighs down an already heavy plate you seem to have served. I will not begrudge you if I don't hear back from you. If there is some guidance for you that leads me to greener pastures, always greener on the other side, right? I promise to not let you down on my way or after I get there. And if you're there in Proverbs 26, 12, this is the guy that this verse reminds me of. And he claims to be a Christian. He claims to be a born again child of God. He claims to be somebody who's seeking the truth. He claims to be somebody that has a good way of I guess identifying the truth. So I'm thinking okay. But Proverbs 26, 12, if you're there, see is thou a man wise in his own conceit. There is more hope of a fool than of him. And for you to say that I have more wisdom than years, for you to say that my biggest tool is not having answers but the right questions is somebody who's conceited. Somebody who says right here in his own conceit he is just not a wise guy at all. And I will never recommend him to anybody I know. I will never hire this guy if I own the business until he changed the way he thinks. Because he basically is saying look, no one wants to hire me because I'm too good. No one wants to hire me because I've got morals and I've got this and I've got that, et cetera, et cetera. And I've given up on looking for work. That's kind of funny because the Bible says that God should apply all your need. So how can you say that hey, this market is bad, et cetera, et cetera. God can make jobs out of thin air if he wanted to. So the only thing this is showing me is that you're not walking with God because the Bible says no good thing when he withholds them to walk uprightly. And working is a good thing. A job is a good thing. Nobody's going to argue that at all if they read the Bible, even just Genesis. It starts out by saying they need to work. It's good for you to work. I'm going to curse the ground because now you need to work. It's a fact. Six days without labor. And it is what it is. We know the situations where the mom and the dad, they have to work because they didn't know better. But the goal should be to have the mom stay at home, run the house, you know, like the vice president, and let the husband take care of the bills. And that's the plan that God has where the mom is at home homeschooling the kids, teaching the kids, helping them out because that's what she needs to do. That's her primary goal in life is to be a stay-at-home mom. So if it's not happening now, hey, that was my goal when I finally figured it out through listening to Pastor Anderson that I should be bringing in all the bacon and my wife should be at home like my vice president taking care of business and us talking to each other. Hey, the ground was cursed for men's sake, but women are supposed to stay at home and raise the children. Why did they want to have a job and come and do both when, hey, it's our curse to go work? But it's sort of our brow. Men are supposed to take care of business. But look, I honestly believe my wife spends more time working during the day than I do. Even if I kick in 12, 13 hours, hey, my job is from sun to sundown, but her job is all around 24-7. When the babies are sick, screaming in the morning, I don't get up, she gets up. So I can sleep and I can go work and be fully effective. You know, so it is what it is. Just because you're a stay-at-home mom doesn't mean you're not working. And that should be the greatest job for you to strive for me. Why would you want to do anything else? You know, you're raising the kids, and I have many relatives that they have to work, and they come back saying, man, I missed out on my children. I missed out watching them grow up. They're all of a sudden gone. I don't know. Life ain't fair. I wish I would have done what you guys are doing. I don't think my wife's ever going to regret not being able to be home with the kids because she's at home with the kids. You know, so when they're gone, at least she has all those memories that will help her out. You know, but this man clearly is doing things wrong, and this is what I think this guy's problem is. It says, to thou a man wise in his own conceit, there's more hope of a fool than of him. The slothful man says, there's a line in the way. It's my wife's fault. She's very ungodly. You know, she doesn't respect me. There's a line in the way, a line in the streets. What do we see? A guy making excuses. Bottom line, that's what it is. And what's the main reason behind it? Slothfulness. This guy came from a job. Because you're slothful, you really don't want to work. It's funny how if your wife were to lose her job and, you know, came down to the bottom line, you'd probably find a job. Because you want to keep your house, you want to keep your livelihood. And it makes it very clear. As the door turns upon the hinges, so does the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hides his hand in his bosom. It grieves him to bring it again to his mouth. The slothful is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. And so when I wrote back to this guy, I told him, look, this is the bottom line. She doesn't respect you because you're not taking leadership. You need to take back, you know, the leadership role. And I ended up telling him, look, this is what you should start doing. And I told him, yeah, I know it's hard to believe, but you're the one supposed to be doing all this stuff. Well, he got very upset and emailed me back saying, this is just a bunch of rubbish. You know, it's a bunch of rubbish. You're wrong, you're a fool. You're probably, what did he say that I was? He said that I was jealous of him or something like that. He literally wrote back saying, you're just an insecure, blah, blah, blah, you know, this is why I've given up on church. Another reason you've given up on church is because your wife won't let you go to church. That's just face it. As long as she pays the bills. And also because you're bitter, and also because you're backslidden. That's why you give up on church. Not because brothers and girls told you that, hey, what you're saying is wrong. You're wrong in this area, you're wrong in this area. You know what, you need to take the lead. And he gets upset and he writes me back and he says, you're an idiot, this and that, blah, blah, blah. And I just tell him, look, man, you're not fooling anybody but yourself. Have a good one. And then he emails back saying, you're the idiot. You're the one that's fool. Oh, man, it was bad. But either way, I tried to help the guy out. I honestly did. I tried. You know, because that's what I needed to hear, the cold truth. Not like, hey, I'm so smart I can't get a job. You know, it's not like that. It doesn't work like that. You know, but go to 1 Samuel 13, please. And I just tried to free this guy. I tried to free this guy by giving him the truth because in John 18, 31, I'll just read. It says, then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on me. If you continue my word, then are you my disciples indeed and you should know the truth and the truth shall make you free. I was trying to free this guy from the fact that he doesn't realize that he's just in bondage, you know, through excuses, through lies. So the title of my sermon is simply this, excuses, lies in disguise, excuses, lies in disguise. Even by definition, even by the dictionary. You don't even need the Bible. You can figure out that excuses are nothing more than lies when you really define them. And here's what I mean by that. The definition of excuse is simply this. A reason put forward to conceal, see how you're being deceitful? To conceal the real reason for inaction. Oh man, my wife is, he's like, oh, I'll take free responsibility by my wife, by my wife. You know, by my wife this, by my wife that, et cetera, et cetera. No, the real reason is you're just a slugger. The real reason is you're backslidden. The real reason is you don't want to do what's right because it's hard. It's hard to step up to your wife and be like, look, I know you're not saved, but hey, this is what I believe. You know, what you believe is wrong for X, Y, Z reasons. Let me tell you what the Bible really says. You need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved by that. But when you obviously have a bad testimony, they're not going to be able to listen to you that easy because they don't respect you. You know, but when it comes to just the definition of lie, it's similar to the definition of excuse. Here's the definition of a lie. A false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive. Sound familiar? Let me read the excuse definition. A reason put forward to conceal, to conceal the real reason for inaction. So if you have your Bibles right there in 1 Samuel 13, I think the best example to kind of show, hey, God does not want us to be like this individual is the story of Saul where he ends up giving up the sacrifice when he does the sacrifice before Samuel. So what I have is just three points just to kind of remind us on just, you know, what excuses would do to us. Number one, if you're a person of excuses and I've been guilty of excuses, I've come up with excuses before and I literally believe that what I was saying was the truth. And I'll give you an example later on of what happened to me. You know, that kind of changed me and it was for the best. You know, but one thing about excuses is that they were anger people around you. They were anger people around you. And if you're in 1 Samuel 13, I just want to read really quickly and it says, this is when they were about to fight the Philistines and Saul, King Saul, was backslidden at this point. He's not right with God. He's starting to fear the Philistines and then he takes off. And then he takes things into his own hands and he ends up sacrificing. He was not allowed to sacrifice. You know, Samuel was the one who was supposed to sacrifice. And it says this, and some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead as for Saul. He was there in Gilgal and all the people following him trembling and he tell you seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed, but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him and Saul said, bring hither burnt offering to me. So now he's taking the initiative, right? Yeah, good initiative, bad judgment. And he says, bring me the burnt offering and the peace offering. So he's trying to get God on their side by sacrificing unto the Lord so the Lord can help him beat the Philistines. And he offered the burnt offering and it came to pass that as soon as he offered, you know, as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him. So of course Samuel shows up and he probably sees the smoke from the sacrifices and he sees that something's going on and so he approaches Samuel, approaches Saul and Saul says, and Samuel said, what has the hell done? Because Samuel was supposed to, you know, provide the sacrifice. He was supposed to offer to the Lord the peace offering, the sacrifices. It was his job. Nobody was allowed to do that except for him. But Saul thought, hey, I need to do this quick. And Saul said, because of Saul and what did he start to do? That the people were scattered from me and that thou camest not within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash. So what does he do? Come up with an excuse. This is why I did it because of the people. No, the reason he did it is because you were scared. Because you were afraid. Instead of saying, look Samuel, I was scared. You know what, I just wanted to get it started. I'm gonna sacrifice. I still wouldn't have made it right. But you know that he's doing what the excuse definition says. He's giving a reason forward but he's really conceding the real reason for his actions that he was afraid. He was scared. Who cares if the people are afraid? If the leader is strong, he doesn't do stuff like this. If the leader has faith, he won't do this. He won't cross that line. He'll stay steadfast. You know, he won't move. He'll do what's right because God wants him to do what's right. And what does Samuel say? Okay, I understand. Well, if the people, all right, your heart was in the right place, it makes sense to me. No. Samuel said to Saul, says, Thou has done foolishly, foolishly. Thou has not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee, for now with the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever, but now thy kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought him a man after his own art and the Lord had commanded him to be captain over his people because thou has not kept that which the Lord commanded. So it didn't go well for him. So here he's blaming the people, coming up with this excuse, straight up lies to Samuel why he really did what he did. You know, but this is what happens when you become a person of excuses. It doesn't help you out at all. In fact, it makes things worse. And when I wrote this guy who ended up emailing us, I tried to explain to him, look, this is what the truth is, and I know it hurts, but when I was 19 years old, I thought I was the man. I was in the Marine Corps. I was physically fit. I thought I knew my job. I could shoot. I could run. I could do pull-ups. I could do whatever. I thought I was the man. And then we got a brand-new platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Jimmy Jakes. Who's ever seen that movie with the Wayan brother? What is that movie called where he's a drill instructor? What's that? Major Payne. Who's ever seen that movie? I saw it a long time ago. This guy was like Major Payne, literally. He sounded like him. He looked like him. He had to go-tooth everything. Staff Sergeant Jimmy Jakes, he was also a recon guy. He had his scuba badge. He had his air-porn badge. He was literally like this guy, and he sounded like him, too. And my name, obviously, his brother's a girl. He called me, I said, girl! I said, girl, come in here! You know? And one day, he just stopped me, so I was just literally just picking up trash around the building. He's like, I said, girl, come here! He's like, what's the four parts to the patrol order? What's the four parts to the patrol order? I'm like, what in the world? And I'm like, I don't know, Staff Sergeant. He's like, you don't know? This is level one stuff, so girl, you don't know this stuff? What's wrong with you? Who's your platoon, you know, who's your team leader? And I'm like, Corporal Leal, get him over here right now! You know, and then he ended up bringing out my corporal, and he's like, yes, Staff Sergeant. You know, I said, girl, he doesn't know the four parts to the patrol. He doesn't know that. That's level one stuff. That's level one stuff. He's like, I need you to fix him right now. Fix him, go teach it to him, and it was totally my fault. 100% my fault. We're patrolling, it's nighttime, and there was this other guy, Lance Corporal Sherlock, who needed it just to kind of check his map, so I gave it to him, and also thought I'd make sure I asked him for it, but you know what? When it was time to just get up and move, I knew I should've just asked him for it, but I assumed he would just have it with him. So as soon as we got up, we moved, and then ended up borrowing another compass, and I continued my patrol. He continued with his patrol, but then later on, after we were done with the training exercise, what had happened, we were doing gear check, it was issued out to me, I was responsible for it, and then sure enough, I had to tell my staff sergeant that, A, I had lost it. So I go up to him and say, look, I'm missing my compass. You're missing your compass? What do you mean you're missing your compass? He's like, that's on set, Marine. I said, well, Lance Corporal Sherlock, I gave it to him. So I started shifting the blame. I gave it to him, and I told him to make sure he gave it back to me, and it was nighttime I gave it to him, and then sure enough, they called us to start moving. I got up, started moving, and he didn't give it back to me. He's like, what? He's like, that's wrong. What are you talking about? He's like, you sound like a loser. You know, what do you mean? What do you mean it's his fault? That's your fault. You should've asked him to give it back to you. He said, well, I thought he would have it. He's like, no, you're responsible for it. You signed for it. It was your compass. You're the one that's supposed to bring it back. They issued it to you. You bring it back. I was like, what, what, what? He's like, you know what? This is just an excuse. But the reality was it was my fault because I even thought when I got up, maybe I should grab him but we moved out so quick, we got lazy. But he chewed me out bad. And then he started cussing me out. Then he called my, my, my team, my sergeant actually this time. And he starts yelling at me, screaming at me, calling me a loser. And he's like, I'll never promote you as long as you have this mentality of blaming others for your mistakes. You made that mistake. It was your compass. You lost it. Your fault. I haven't seen you take ownership at all. And he's just like yelled at me really bad and humiliated, embarrassed me. And then he started questioning me again, asking me simple stuff that I should've known. And I should've known a whole lot more. And I thought I knew what I was doing, but it turned out based on what he taught me that I was not really trained well, but it wasn't even something that he blamed others. He said, you need to take it upon yourself to work hard, learn your job, figure things out, et cetera, et cetera. And you know what? He ended up putting the compass right on the desk. He had it the whole time. He already knew that I had lost it. It was another platoon sergeant that found it as they were patrolling right behind us and they gave it to him. And he knew, but he was trying to see if I would step up and put it on the desk and he's like, go give it, you know, go thanks, that's what he said. He found it, et cetera, et cetera. But he wasn't happy. You know, so every time he saw me, he would say, hey, loser, hey, loser, hey, loser. It's like he forgot my rag. You know, every single time, hey, loser, come here, hey, loser this. But you know what? That helped me. That sharp rebuke helped me. From that moment on, I say, you know what? He's right. I can't believe I don't know this stuff. Blah, blah, blah. I didn't. I took it to heart. I didn't want to be a loser in his eyes. I started to study, ask people questions, learn the job. I kept asking a lot of questions to where my team leader couldn't answer. And most of the time, they ended up asking the staff sergeant, he would give us the answer on how to do things better. And I ended up just becoming a lot better Marine. And because of that, I decided to take those skills and just continue along with my life. Instead of waiting on people, I decided to just take the initiative, which I already knew I should have been doing, and just learn things better. And that's what I started with me as far as, hey, this is how I need to be for the rest of my life. And that's what I started to do. And if he had never chewed me out, and if I could thank him right now, I would. Even though he gave me a really bad chewing out, and he humiliated me like crazy, and I felt like I was so little, like he just stopped me and ended my career, and that helped me more than anything anybody has ever done. Sound familiar? That's what the Bible says. A wise man, if you rebuke him, is going to love you later on. And sure enough, I was wise enough to listen and try to perfect myself. And later on, about two years later, he did end up promoting me, which was a shock to me, but it ended up promoting me because he saw that I had made a change and became better and better. I didn't go after him. I just kind of walked away sad and kind of depressed in a way, but I said, you know what? I'm going to do something about it. And that's how we need to be. We need to just grow and not make excuses because at the end of the day, we could tell our children all day long, son, you shouldn't lie. Son, you should be a good person. So coming up with excuses left and right when you mess up, guess what they're going to end up doing? They're going to follow your lead because yeah, we can catch the easy ones, you know, the easy lies when you're flat out and you know you're being deceptive. You can kind of hold back on that, you know, but at the end of the day, excuses are also lies as well. And that's not going to help you, period. And that's what we need to be careful is being people that come up with excuses, being known as men of excuses. No, we should be known as men of truth. And you know what? If obviously you have done it in the past where it seems like every time you mess up or something you just kind of want to get out of it, we need to just trust in the Lord. You know, we need to trust in the Lord and just take ownership, do what's right, and then God will bless you in the long term. He always will. You know, no matter how ugly it is in the beginning, He'll bless your choice to follow Him by faith and do what's right and that's take ownership of what you've done and not be like Saul and not be like Saul where you're like, oh, it's because of the people or like Aaron, oh, because of the people. God didn't buy it. You know, He's like, what are you talking about? You made the people sin. No, the people, the people. He said, no, you made the people sin. Don't blame the people. You, you, Aaron, you, you messed it up. That's just what we need to be careful of is becoming people of excuses. So not only will excuses cause people to be angry around you, excuses will also cause God to be angry at you and that's worse. If you got your Bible, go to Exodus chapter 3. Go to Exodus chapter 3. You know, so I was just trying to help this guy with the email. I mean, he's just like excuse after excuse after excuse. He was more wise in his own conceit. You know, that's how I saw it and I'm like, man, I don't know what to do. But he's like, but hey, you know, I even emailed him saying, look, I can help you but I don't think you'll like what I'm gonna say. You know, but if you're ready to continue, let me know. He goes back saying, hey, I can handle it. I can take it. I can, I can, you know, do what you, what you told me to do, what you guide me to do and then I emailed him back saying, look, I will never hire you. I will never recommend you. You know, it's like, look, your problem is that you know, I was hoping that God would email saying, all right, you're right. You know, I should work on that. Nope. He came back with a vengeance. I figured. I don't know if he was British. This is a bunch of rubbish, bunch of rubbish, you know. I said, you can call it what you want but the truth is the truth, man. You're full of pride. You think you're better than you are and what the heck is this? I got more wisdom than years. I'm 41, more wisdom than years and you barely even know the Bible. No, the Bible is wisdom. If I were to point to somebody that has more wisdom than years and I'm not the only one that took a lot of hours, thousands of hours in the Bible over and over again reading it 40, 50, 60 times and still reading it so he doesn't forget what he's done. That's hard work. Reading the Bible just once is hard work. He put in the work but this guy, he can't even figure out the basics. That you're full of excuses that you're considering your own mind and that you should be the one in charge. Why are you emailing us wondering what to do? I already put up videos on what to do. So he's either lying to me that he's been listening to Pastor Adams for a while, you know, or the guy does listen but he doesn't listen. He doesn't have ears to hear. That's just what I see. But if you're in Exodus chapter 3, yeah, we got on Samuel. Now let's get on Moses really quickly and I'm sure you won't mind because he's probably in heaven like, yeah, you know, learn from my mistakes. But Moses, when I think about, man, who in the Bible was a man of excuse? For some reason, Moses was number one but I want to talk about Samuel first because Samuel made or Saul made Samuel mad but you know what? This is, this is Moses making God mad. So if you're right there, you know, we'll quickly read it and it says, Now Moses kept the flock to Jehoi's father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame out of fire, out of the midst of the bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed and Moses said, I will not turn aside and see this great sight where the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, who called? God. That must have been awesome. God called unto him because it was so scary because the letter says that he was afraid. And God called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw nigh, draw nigh, naught nigh, hither, put up thy shoes from off thy feet for the place where on thou standest his holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, And to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perissites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come unto me, and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now therefore and I will send thee, thee, unto Pharaoh of Egypt. Before he murdered that man, he wasn't happy with what he saw. That's why he murdered the Egyptians because he was hurting one of his brothers. And now God has come to him, tell him, Look, I'm going to use you to deliver them. That's a crazy mission. He's like, I'm going to use you to deliver them. I'm going to be with you. I'm going to defeat these people. But what ends up happening? He doesn't want anything to do with it. And he says, Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come unto me. But I don't think this has to do with humility when he says, I shouldn't go. Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, he's talking about God, Certainly I will be with thee. He said, Look, I'm going to be with you. And this shall be a token unto you that I have sent thee when I was brought forth to people out of Egypt. You shall serve God upon this mountain. Said, Look, I'm going to be with you. You're going to take the people out of Egypt. I'm going to be with you on this mountain. You shall say unto them, That God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say unto me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto them, I am that I am. And he said, That should I say unto the children of Israel, I am, hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, That should I say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say unto them, I am the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. Appear unto me, saying, I have surely visited you and have seen that which is done to you in Egypt, and I have said, I will come to you, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perissites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey, and it shall hearken to thy voice, and thou shalt come. Thou and the elders of Israel unto the King of Egypt, and he shall say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews have met with us. The Lord God of the Hebrews will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand, and I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all my wonders what I should do in the midst thereof, and after that he will, will let you go, and I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall come to pass that when you go, you shall not go out empty, but every woman shall bow over her neighbor, and I have heard there's sojourns in her house, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, raiment, and you shall put them out upon your sons, and upon your daughters, and you shall spoil the Egyptians. So what do we see? God's saying, we will take you out, we will defeat them, and not only that, you guys are going to come out prosperous. You guys are going to come out with a lot of stuff, you guys are going to spoil the Egyptians, so I don't know, but if God's telling you, look, you're going to win, you're going to win big, hey, I need you to go, it will pretty much be, well, okay, let's go, but is that what happens? No. Look at number four, Exodus chapter four, the reason we read all the three is so you can see all the wonderful promises, even though you can't keep up with everything I just said, all the wonderful promises that God gave Moses in chapter three, but look at chapter four, and Moses said, I'm ready, let's go, let's do this, thank you, will you by my side, I can do all things, he doesn't say that, but behold, they will not believe me, like you're not believing God, right? He's accusing people of something that he's doing, they're not going to believe me, just because you don't believe God doesn't mean they're not going to believe God, but we know that a lot of them did not believe, but not all of them, not all of them, but here right now, his heart is deceiving him, God's just told him what I'm going to do, what's going to happen, and what ends up happening? He says, they will not believe me, no heart cannot tell my voice, but they will say, the Lord will not appear unto thee, how does he know that? He doesn't, what's going on? Well the Bible says, the heart is deceiving above all things, and desperately wicked, so who's really talking to him? That's not really Moses, it's hard deceiving him, and instead of telling God, God, all right, that's awesome, but bottom line, help me, because I'm afraid, help me, because I'm fearful, help me, because I don't know if I can do it, instead of doing that, like Solomon did, he didn't do this, you know, instead of doing that, he's just coming up with what? Excuses, excuses, and God can see right through it, and is God happy with it? No way, we're about to find out, and it says that Moses answered and said, behold, they will not believe me, no heart cannot tell my voice, for they will say, the Lord had not appeared unto thee, and the Lord said unto him, what is that that is in thy hand? And he said, a rod, and he said, cast it on the ground, and he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent, that must have been incredible to see, here's a stick, throw it on the ground, all of a sudden there's a snake, he probably ran back, because I know I would, I wouldn't even think about grabbing that thing, I would have just ran back, just like it says right there, and Moses fled from before it, and the Lord said unto Moses, pull forth thy hand, and take it by the tail, and he put it forth, and cut it, and it became a rod in his hand, they may believe, that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has appeared unto thee, but is that enough? The snake, no, later on he makes him, you know, put his hand into his bosom, take it out, take it back in, take it out, it becomes flesh again, and that's still not enough, he's still afraid, how do we know? Because it says right there, in verse number 14, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, it's not Aaron the Levite thy brother, I know that he can speak well, but why was his anger, anger, why was he so upset? Because of what he said, he says, oh my Lord, verse 13, I prayed it by the hand of him who thou wilt send, he's like send somebody else, so God wasn't happy with him at all, because he was making an excuse, after excuse, I can't do it, Lord, I don't know, this and that, but how do we know that it was an excuse? He says, Lord, I am a samurai lips, I can't speak well, I can't do this, I can't do that, I can't speak well, hey, these people aren't going to listen to me, he's coming up with excuse after excuse, but we know that he can speak well, because Acts 7 dimes him out, Stephen, when he's filled with the Holy Spirit, says this about Moses, and Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds, and if you read the story of Exodus, him and Aaron are talking to Pharaoh, boldly, let my people go, thou sayeth the Lord, so that wasn't the problem, the excuse was that, hey, they're not going to listen to me, God just told you they would, the excuse is, I can't speak well, God dimes you out in Acts 7, he dimes you out in Acts 7, and says you are mighty in words and in deeds, so what was the real reason? The reason was, he was afraid, and it says that God was angry with him, he was upset with him, and guess what? When we make excuses, God is not happy with us either, he's upset, and we should tell our children, look, excuses are lies, bottom line, bottom line, if you're telling me a story, to cover what really happened, that's an excuse, that's a lie, if you're telling me the reason, meaning you're telling me why things happened, and that's exactly why it happened, then that's just a reason, you're just telling me what happened, by becoming somebody who always comes up with excuses, hey, I remember being Mr. Excuses as a little child, I would lie to my parents, hey, because of this, because of that, because of my brother, because of these guys, or whatever, I can't do X, Y, and Z, and it was just an excuse, but you know what, I'm glad I got that butt chewing when I was 19 years old, where hey, that's when I learned hard, that excuses don't help you at all, they hurt you, they hurt you, and it angers people, when you just come up with excuses, and recently I had to practice what I preached, because I ended up messing up something at church, and it was for somebody who told me to do something, and I basically did it, but I didn't follow up on it, and something just got, something just went bad, you know, and they approached me saying, hey, did I not tell you to do this, didn't I tell you to do this, this, and this, and this, and instead of saying, well, you know, I'd say you did tell me to do that, you know what, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I apologize, you did say to do that, I didn't do it, you know, I messed that up, my fault, et cetera, et cetera, and I didn't really know what had happened, but later when I looked into it, no matter what, I knew it was my fault, but when I looked into it, then I figured out what had happened, a lot of people were saying, that was really not your fault, I'm like, no, it is my fault, it is my fault, because somebody gave me some stuff to put away, and I put it away, but what happened was, I even thought about it at the moment that I put it away, when I put this stuff away, I figured nobody's gonna touch it because it's in this office, nobody comes in this office, and so I was thinking, maybe I should tag it, and put a little tag on it, so that way people don't mess with it, and know who it belongs to, and guess what, I didn't do that, I just assumed nobody's gonna mess with this stuff, but sure enough, other people put stuff in there, behind my back, behind my back, that I didn't even know, and later on, when they were taking the stuff out, they took the stuff that I was in charge of, they ended up taking it out with them as well, and then they basically got lost, and instead of me saying, well, no, no, no, this is what happened, people put stuff in there, and actually took it away, no, I told that person to their face, look, bottom line, it's my fault, I'm at fault, I'll pay for it, they're like, no, I don't want you to pay for it, you know, that's not what I want, so when I got lost, I was willing to do whatever it took to make up for it, I said, look, I'll pay for every little thing that was taken, he's like, yeah, because it was brand new stuff, and I told you to put it there, I didn't want people to touch it, and you told me that it wouldn't get touched and mess with, I'm like, yes, I did tell you that, it didn't work out, but I promise you, that's not gonna happen again, because I just figured out what I can do next time, and that's just tag it, every single time, so when people give me stuff, I quickly put a piece of paper, hey, this is what it belongs to, don't mess with it, et cetera, and I'm like, no excuses, my fault, even though the person that did that, he's like, no man, this is my fault, you should pay for it, no man, this is 100% my fault, here's why, because I could have tagged it, and I didn't, the moment I didn't, that's the moment I failed, I should have put a tag, and you never would have took it accidentally, you would have realized who it belongs to, and you would have left it there, so it's my fault, 100%, so that's what basically happened, but when it comes to excuses as well, number one, it makes people angry, number two, it's gonna make God angry, and last but not least, I got seven minutes to go over those points, I'm almost done, here's what we got, excuses will get you nowhere in life, nowhere in life, go to number 13 if you can, and this is something big, you may think they're helping you get out of trouble, but they put you in more trouble, and I think the most famous story is the story of the spies, not the two that were good, but the others that were bad, they came up with excuses, oh, there are giants in the land, oh, they're going to destroy us, they were just trying to save their hides, but the difference between them and the midwives is that they weren't really doing it for the right reasons, they were doing it just because they were just afraid, and midwives were like, hey, we don't fear, we don't fear Pharaoh, we fear God, these people did not fear God, they feared the Philistines over God, which is why they didn't want to go in the land, and that was the key difference, let's quickly read it, and I'll start in verse 17, Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, get you up, you know, towards the south, towards the mountains, I'll just skip a few, just kind of get to where I want to get, and it says that they returned from searching the land after 40 days, and they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, I'm going to be in verse 27 in a second, and to all the congregation of the throne of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh, and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land, verse 27, and they told him and said, we came out to the land, where they'll send us us, and surely it flowed with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it, nevertheless the people, the people be strong that dwell in the land, even though God told them, look, you're going to defeat these people, similar to how God was talking to Moses, saying, hey, you're going to be victorious over Pharaoh, you will win, but I don't think so, because, you know, I don't think they're going to believe me. He said, look, go and do it, you're going to lead them. Oh, but I can't speak well. We know that that was a lie. Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very grave over, we saw the throne of Anak there, and the Amalekites dwell in the land of the south, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, the Canaanites, managers mentioned in all these names, dwell by the sea, by the coast of Jordan, but Caleb though, and Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, let us go at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. Now he's speaking the truth, but the man that went up with him said, we be not able to go against the people, for they are stronger than we, and they brought up an evil report of the land, which they had searched onto the throne of Israel, saying, the land through which we have gone to search, it is the land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof, and look at this, and all the people that we saw in it, are men of great stature, great stature, and there were, and there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which came of the giants, and we were in our old sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight, so what do we see? We see Caleb saying, hey, we can do this, let's go, let's get this done, we can defeat them, he's full of faith, he's following the Lord, the Bible says he wholly followed the Lord, what happened to the people? Making excuses, they're too big, too many of them, the parasites, the Amorites, all these guys, we can't defeat these people, even though God told them, you're going to defeat them, you're going to go into the land and flow with milk and honey, oh, they believe that part, when they saw it, it does flow with milk and honey, but hey, there's people that are so big, that they're like giants, and all that, we're like grasshoppers in their sights, and guess what happened? God was not happy with that, the real reason was like, hey Moses, we're scared to death, these people are big, hey, can you like feed our faith to do something? No, they're coming with excuses, they're too strong, no, you're too scared, that's just the bottom line, that's the real reason, your excuse is that you're saying, hey, they're too big, you're concealing the fact that you're too scared, that's what's really going on, and you don't believe either, that's why they couldn't enter the land, because of their unbelief, that's why they couldn't go in, so what was the real reason? They just didn't believe, they didn't believe, but they didn't say that, hey, we're just faithless, no, because these are saying, hey, they're too strong, they didn't say you're faithless, hey, why didn't you go in, why didn't you do X, Y, and Z? Because, you know, it's impossible, no, you just don't have faith, because that's the easier way to answer it, but I quickly read Numbers 14, I'll go towards the end, and it says simply this, it says surely this in verse 23, surely they shall not see the land, which I swore out to their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoke me see it by my servant Caleb, who didn't make excuses, because he had another spirit with him, and wholly followed me fully, him will I bring it to the land we're into, he went, and the sea shall possess it. So what ended up happening? Their excuses got them nowhere, they stayed in the wilderness for 40 years until they were all dead. So you may be thinking, oh man, you know what, I'll just say X, Y, and Z to get myself out of trouble, it's not gonna get you anywhere. Your boss is not gonna promote you, you're gonna get a bad reputation, and in reality, if you always miss their excuses, nobody wants to hire you. Nobody wants to hire this guy who emailed us saying, hey, it's Portland, you know, unemployment is plagued in Portland. I've tried for many years, but because I have so much honor, hey, that doesn't help you out here in Portland. Hey, in Portland, there's no, nothing good for me in Portland. Portland, you know, there's no reason for me to be in Portland. It almost seems like he wanted me to say, yeah, move down to Phoenix, leave your wife, leave your kids, you know, get a job down here, and then bring your kid over. It's almost like he wanted us to help him sin. That's kind of the message that I got. Okay, your wife is godless, supposedly, you know, she's a good woman, most of the time, so it seems like he's now blaming his wife for his unhappiness, et cetera, et cetera, when he's the real matter. Yeah, she may be a factor, but the main factor is the man. That's what's really the main factor. But until he admits that what he's coming up with are excuses, he has no hope, zero hope whatsoever. But let us be careful because we can all become like this guy. Like I said, I'm preaching this message because, hey, if this guy supposedly is saved, supposedly is a Christian, obviously he's baxllian, obviously doesn't know the Bible like he thinks he does, you know, he's not full of years of wisdom, you know, not even close, you know, because it doesn't take a genius to figure out that, hey, this is how God wants, you know, things going on, especially if you're listening to Pastor Anderson, especially if you just posted sermons on how to be a good husband, I just posted them six weeks ago and you're claiming that you've been listening to Pastor Anderson for a while, hey, six weeks is not a while, you know, but he's trying to be flattery, you know, it's just unbelievable. You know, but I'll finish it up with this, Deuteronomy 28, it says this, and the officers, you know, shall speak further unto the people, this is kind of like their rules for going to war, saying the officers shall speak further unto the people and they shall say, one man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted, let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart. So what were they saying, look, if we're going to go to war, just flat out say, look, if you're afraid, leave, if you don't want to fight, go. Why? Because you're going to poison the flock, just like those spies messed it all up, they were the ones that poisoned, you know, all the people to believe that they couldn't do it, and this happens a lot, it happens a lot, but when there's one person like Caleb saying, hey, we can do it, we can do it, that's usually not enough, but if you got maybe two, three, maybe a seven out of the 12 or whatever would have came back with a good report, probably would have been a different story, they probably would have been in the promised land, you know, but we need to be careful not to be that guy to come up with excuses because we can affect everybody else and then they'll start believing your excuses. You know, oh, we shouldn't go to apartments, we're going to get arrested, we're going to end up going to jail, we're going to end up losing everything, we're going to end up losing our lives, you know? Hey, that's true, but let's just face it, it's just an excuse, the real reason you don't want to go to apartments is because you're scared, you're terrified, you have no faith, that's why, that's the main reason, and we have people that got arrested, you know, they end up getting arrested, but they fought it, and one of them got all their charges dropped, every single one of them, they just dropped them, and they're playing games with the other one, but now they know that they got some issues because they switched the judge and they switched the prosecutor and they're like, oh, we got to switch it all of a sudden because they know they're scared, they know what they did was wrong, at least channeled little by little, but through their pride they don't want to admit that what we did was wrong, so two out of the four soul winners, it seems like they're probably going to just drop it all, one they already did, you know, they charged them with a misdemeanor for refusing to obey and that got dropped because the officer didn't have the right to tell them to stop or tell them to do whatever, but then the other one, obviously, they're just messing with her because they want her to sign a piece of paper because once they sign something, they try to give them like the least amount of punishment, look, if you just sign this, you'll be off the hook, et cetera, et cetera, you know, it's not like you committed a really big crime, so long as you don't do anything stupid in the next six months, this will go away, she's like, no, I'm innocent, you know, I'm not going to sign anything, keep your stupid paper, I'm not going to make a deal with the devil because the moment you sign, you basically give them permission to do it again and they know that's what's going on, you know, but other people are like, whoa, let's be careful not to go back, you know, the day they were arrested, the next day it's like, hey, let's go hit another one, let's go hit another apartment complex, you know, they showed up for soul winning, what's next, more apartments, let's go, you know, and we'll fight this to the teeth, but that's the thing, we don't want to be that one individual that can destroy much, like it says in Ecclesiastes 9.18, wisdom is better than weapons of war, but once sin is destroyed, much, much good, much good, and so let's just remember that, hey, we can end up being like this, hey, we can end up being like this Christian if we backslide and we stop forgetting what the Bible really teaches, we can start making excuses for our failures while we're miserable, you know, the reason you're miserable, and look, happiness is great if you have it, but don't rely on it, the best thing to have is motivation, to have a vision, to put those affections that you have, put them on things above, none of the things below, that's going to keep you, you know, going longer than relying on happiness, because guess what, happiness can disappear just like that, but when you realize, hey, you know what, it's not about me, it's about God, it's not about me, it's about others, it's not about me, you know, Mr. Such and Such, it's about Portland, you know, if you're a true Christian and you know our movement, our movement's about so many, you know, God has you in Portland to go knock doors, and I email him, look, you have neighbors, your neighbors have neighbors, what do you mean Portland has no use for you? What are you talking about? He's like, are you emailing the right guy? You know, it's like, I don't know if he understands who we are, but that's the thing we need to be careful, is also trying to get to our kids and tell them, look, kids, it's bad to lie, but yeah, we're full of excuses, which are lies, they're just lies in disguise, and the kids will figure that out sooner or later. It's like, oh, so that's really what my dad wanted to do, X, Y, and Z, so let's just remember that, hey, lies, lies, lies, excuses are just lies in disguise, you know, they're just trick, you know, they're very sneaky, and let's just be careful, because number one, hey, when you give excuses, especially to your boss or your parents or your wives or whoever, they can see that it's an excuse, they can see you're just lying to them, and they're not gonna be happy, they're gonna get upset, and not only that, God's gonna get upset, and not only that, you're not gonna prosper, it's not gonna help you at all, you know, it's not gonna get you anywhere to just come up with excuses, just confess what you did, say, hey, this is what I did, this is what happened, it is what it is, and you know what, it'll go better for you every single time. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for all that you've done, Lord, thank you for helping me out, thank you for, Lord, helping me to preach this truth, and Father, I've been guilty of this, I've been guilty of this probably since I was a kid, you know, just coming up with excuses, because it's a lot easier to just come up with an excuse to try to save yourself, but it never helped. Every single time I look back, Lord, it just never helped, and help us not to be people of excuses, help us to be people of truth, men of truth, women of truth, and to try to do things the right way, try to do things according to your will, and Father, I thank you once again for all that you've done, I ask you to bless these people there, God, and not just bless them, Father, but also use them, use them in a mighty way, you know, not just today, but all their lives. Father, they're here for a reason, they're here to serve you, they're not just at any church, they're at a church that believes in, so many that believes in just doing what's right and sacrificing for you, and Father, I just ask you to do all this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. All right, turn to your final song, song number 110. Song number 110, All the Way My Savior Leads Me. Sing it out there on the first, if you know it. All the way my Savior leads me What have I to ask me, sign Can I doubt His tender mercy Who through life has been my guide Heavenly peace, divinest comfort Thereby faith in Him to dwell For I know whatever befall me Jesus doeth all things well For I know whatever befall me Jesus doeth all things well All the way my Savior leads me Cheers each winding path I tread Gives me grace for every trial Feeds me with the living bread Through my weary steps may falter And my soul a thirst may be Gushing from the rock before me Lo, a spring of joy I see Gushing from the rock before me Lo, a spring of joy I see All the way my Savior leads me O the fullness of His love Perfect rest for me is promised In my Father's house above When my spirit clothed immortal Wings its flight to realms of day This my song through endless ages Jesus led me all the way This my song through endless ages Jesus led me all the way Amen. You're all dismissed.