(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, well it's great to be here tonight. It's always an honor to get to preach. I really appreciate Pastor Thompson and the hospitality his family has always shown. And I'll say this, Pastor Thompson has really reached out to me as a friend over the years, and I think you guys all know that about your pastor. He's very friendly. There's a reason why this church is growing so well. They're doing a great job. I want you to turn to Joshua 3 real quickly, and I'm going to confess my faults one to another before we get started. I never pay attention to bulletin announcements. And it's like people at church always ask me, you know, what's going on? When's this happening? I was like, I have no idea. And it's like, I guess I should. I do work for the church, but I never pay attention to bulletin announcements. So I guess I'll probably get to me once I start making announcements here in a few months. But before we get into the sermon, I want to point your attention to Joshua 3.7. I was looking at this verse when we were on the plane today. I was reading the book of Joshua. And I want you to notice what it says in Joshua chapter 3, verse 7, Joshua 3.7. This doesn't have to do with the sermon, but the Bible says in Joshua 3.7, and the Lord puts it on to Joshua, this day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. You know, Joshua throughout the Bible did a lot of great things. Before the book of Joshua, you would look at him and say, man, he's one of the most mighty men on the entire planet. I mean, he was such a great guy, but you know, the whole time Joshua stayed humble as he was just following his leader, and eventually God lifted him up to providence. He says, this day will I magnify thee in the sight. And you know, it just kind of makes me think of your pastor, you know. This church plant's been going on, was going on for about two years, and you guys always stayed humble the entire time. And you know, now you guys have a great opportunity with this church plant in Vancouver, British Columbia. And honestly, I didn't know about it, but right when I heard it, you know, I sent him a text message. I said, man, that's great. That's awesome, because I know that God's leading your church in that direction. And I just kind of think, I was just thinking of him in this verse, because you know, this day I'm magnifying thee. It's like you were humble for a couple years. You just served. You worked hard. You labored. You helped build this place. And God's magnifying you to a place of prominence. It's a good reminder for all of us in this room to always stay humble, because you know, one thing that kills so many great Christians along the way is their pride. And sometimes the most talented people are the people that fall, because of the fact they can easily get lifted up full of pride. And we need to make sure we always just, you know, nip that in the bud immediately, because that's going to make anybody fall. It doesn't matter who you are. So turn back to Proverbs 11, Proverbs 11. And in Proverbs 11, in the chapter we read, the Bible says in the first verse, a false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. A false balance is abomination to the Lord. And the name of the sermon is, a false balance is abomination. You see, the Bible speaks about having a proper balance on things. You know, sometimes we can swing the pendulum a little bit too far in one direction. You know, some of the examples before we get into the sermon, and obviously we've got two sides of heretics here, but you've got the Calvinists, and you talk to an Armenian, and they say, oh, so you're a Calvinist, because you believe in eternal security. And it's like, well, that's way too far in the other direction of that pendulum. You know, it's like both sides, you've got unsaved people. Both sides, you've got unsaved people that are false prophets. It's like, no, I'm not a Calvinist, but I'm not an Armenian. You see, the proper balance is kind of in between there. It's neither one of those, because neither one believes in eternal security. I don't care what John MacArthur told you. He doesn't believe in eternal security. No Calvinist believes in eternal security. That would be an improper balance to swing so far and say, well, I'm against Calvinism, so I'm an Armenian. No, we're not Armenians either. You know, we believe in the Bible, what it says about eternal security, that it's a free gift, and neither one of those sides believes that. Another example, kind of a silly example, is, you know, being maybe anti-hospital or anti-medication. Now, I don't know everybody in this room. People have different opinions, so this can be a touchy subject. I'm really not a hospital guy, you know. I don't like going to the doctors. I pretty much have to be at the point of death before, you know, my wife's able to drag me to the doctors. And, you know, I understand a lot of us are into, you know, organic food and natural cures and stuff like that, but, you know, if you break your leg, you know, I don't care how much apple cider vinegar you drink. It's not going to heal the broken leg, you know. So yeah, you know, I'm not for hospitals, but, you know, the proper balance would not be all the way over there where I'm just going to die. You know, like Jehovah's Witnesses where it's like we'll never get a blood transfusion even if we're basically at the point of death. You know, eventually it reaches a point where it's a little bit too far in that direction. You know, one example in my own life was when I first got saved, one thing I understood very clearly from day one was that if you do not believe in eternal security, you are not saved. And it's like we need to preach that very clearly because these independent Baptists seem to think that Pentecostals and Protestants and these people are saved, and it's like they're not. They have a different gospel because they don't believe it's a free gift. They don't believe it lasts forever. It's not what the Bible teaches. But, you know, in my zeal to defend once saved, always saved, I distinctly remember trying to give my dad the gospel. And, you know, he had problems with eternal security, and I said, you know, Dad, it doesn't matter what you do if you get saved. I was like, even if you became Jeffrey Dahmer. I literally said even if you became a serial killer or a pedo, I was like, you could never lose your salvation for any reason. Now here's the thing. I mean, that was like 14 years ago. I didn't know much about the Bible, never heard about the reprobate doctrine, but that's way too far on one side to defend once saved, always saved. And honestly, that's an example for us when we go soul winning, you know, don't swing that pendulum that far where it's crazy to the people. You know, they need to understand that there's judgment in this life for their sins if they're going to disobey the commandments of God, but that's way too far in that direction. And one thing I've noticed within our movement and us as a group of people, because we believe in extremes and we believe in an extreme God who has extreme rules, sometimes on important topics we swing too far in the other direction. So we're going to look at five points tonight, but honestly, some of these points are pretty important ones where a lot of people go way too far in one direction because they're very passionate to defend one thing. We're very passionate about what we believe, and sometimes we can be so passionate that we fly over to the other side and it's like, whoa, that's way out in left field as well. So the first place I want you to turn to is Romans chapter 10, Romans chapter 10. And so we're basically looking at having the proper balance, not overemphasizing something and not underemphasizing something. And the first issue, which is a big one, is this issue of calling on the name of the Lord. Now this is a big issue where there's major extremes that are off on both sides and the truths in the middle. An example of overemphasizing the prayer, let's start with that. In Romans 10, 13, the Bible says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, plain as day. But you know, some people go to such extremes with this way past the point of what the Bible talks about. You know, unsaved people all the time will tell you they know they're saved because they prayed a prayer, not because they believe it's a free gift, not because they think it's only in Jesus, not because it's eternal security, but when they were six years old, they prayed a prayer. Is that not true? You hear that at the door all the time. And you've got to fight them and get them to realize they're lost, but they're so confident in a prayer they prayed, even though they don't even believe the basics about salvation. But we see in the next verse, verse 14, how then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? You see, people can pray every single day for the rest of their lives. It's not going to get them to heaven. If they don't understand what the gospel is, if they don't believe the right gospel, they will die and go to hell. It doesn't matter how many times they ask Jesus to save them. If they don't understand the basics of salvation, they will die and go to hell. And what one big problem with overemphasizing the prayer is it puts an under emphasis on belief, and it leads to very shallow gospel presentations. I could literally stand up here for an hour and tell you stories from the old IFB of just ridiculous, ridiculousness with this prayer and this overemphasis. And I'm just going to give you one. I give examples and sermons sometimes, but I was working at a junior church in West Virginia. And when I kind of started, before I really got the opportunity to preach every week, I was also kind of helping, and the pastor was kind of giving me time, looking to see how I did. And so I had the responsibility to try to lead the kids to the Lord afterwards. Now here's the thing about this. Kids accept the Bible truth, but most six-year-olds, it takes a little bit of time for them to get saved. If you've worked on a bus route, you can get them to pray over and over again, but it takes them a little time to actually believe it a lot of times. Usually they don't just get it from day one. In the IFB, they pray with them, and they say, well, let's just forget about it. They're saved, and they get mad at you for trying to give them the gospel. But usually, kids, it takes them a little bit of time. And so it was after the service, you know, I was responsible for the guys, and this lady at the church, she was responsible for the ladies. And it was in kind of a small room, so we're both there talking. So it's kind of distracting, because I'm going through the gospel, and she's going through, I don't want to call it the gospel. I don't know what I call it, this one, two, three, pray after me. But you know, I'm talking to two kids, and she's talking to like three girls. It was like after a couple minutes, all of a sudden she was done, and the next group comes in. And it was literally after 10 minutes, she was done, and had gotten eight people saved, supposedly. And I'm still on those same two kids, and you know, the pastor asked for the results afterwards. I was like, I didn't get either one of them saved. And she says, well, I got eight people saved. And it's just like this ridiculousness, because these are the same people we reach through door to door soul winning that don't want to listen, because they prayed a prayer when they were six years old, and they didn't even understand. Turns out this lady wasn't even saved herself. She became a heretic when she left the church. But this one, two, three, pray after me is a joke. And it originates from having way too much of an emphasis on a prayer. Because when you pick up this book, where is the emphasis? It's on belief. Over and over and over and over, it says, believe, believe, believe. So when we preach the gospel, what do we emphasize? We emphasize the belief. Even when I'm done preaching the gospel, I will ask people, I say, you meant that prayer, didn't you? And they'll say, well, yes, I meant that prayer. And I said, well, so if you're to die today, do you know for sure you're going to heaven? And they'll say, well, yeah, I know. And I say, well, how do you know that? And they'll say, because I believe. Now if they tell me because I prayed, to me that's a bit of a red flag. Because the emphasis I put during the entire conversation is believe. And if we end that conversation and they're trusting in a prayer, they're not going to get saved. They have to understand the right gospel. They must believe it's a free gift, it lasts forever, and it's only in Jesus Christ. And you know, it's not a prayer, it's the belief. And here's the thing, when you just think about this logically. And I know examples aren't perfect, Brother Remy just preached on this just a little bit ago. But you know, if a guy is drowning, and he really believes he's going to die, and there's someone there that he believes is going to save him, what is his natural reaction? He's going to call out to be saved. It's just common sense. And the truth is, the Bible teaches that, but if somebody really believes, they're going to call. So we don't put the emphasis on the prayer, because the key is getting them to believe the right thing. And if they believe, they're going to pray. Now turn to John chapter 3, John 3. And honestly, this is an issue that really gets to me, it makes me mad, because I've been at old IFB for a long time. You know, even before this movement existed, the person who led me to the Lord was an independent fundamental Baptist, you know, as always is the story. But you know, I've seen this in action, I have so many stories, and I don't want to just go on all these rabbit trails, because there's a lot to cover tonight. But it makes me mad, this shallow gospel presentation. You know, we need to make sure we don't let it creep into churches, because even on soul winning events, you know, we have these conferences, and some people are preaching the gospel. I don't know if they just are ignorant, or if it's just a game to them, or they're trying to one-up other people. But it's just like, you know, there's certain maps that if you come back and say you got five saved, I'm just like, that was like a miracle then, because most people go there and they get none saved. It doesn't matter if it was John the Baptist preaching, it doesn't matter if it was Paul the Apostle or Jesus Christ, because if somebody doesn't want to hear, they will not get saved. You know, Paul the Apostle was not able to get King Agrippa saved, was he? And neither would we have been able as well, because there's certain people, they have their free will to accept or reject. And if you're always the one who comes back with the most saved, you're doing a bad job. And it's one thing if you in your personal life are just really motivated and zealous, and you are a Paul the Apostle, there's people in our movement that are super zealous, amen for that. But if we go out tomorrow, and this is like the 10th straight week where you got three people saved, there's something wrong in your gospel presentation. And I've seen this over and over again, and what frustrates me is people do a bad job and people start thinking, man, I want to learn from so and so. They always get somebody saved. It's like, to me, that's a big red flag, because I've seen it over and over and over again. The bottom line is this, that the key is belief, and we need to get rid of this shallow gospel presentation. Look in John chapter three, verse four. It says Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Does Nicodemus understand the gospel in John 3.4? No, he doesn't. It's very likely he would have prayed. I mean, isn't it in John 4 where the woman wants to pray, but she doesn't yet understand? I mean, honestly, we see that in conversations all the time. Most people that are willing to listen to you, they'd probably be willing to pray, even if you didn't give many verses, to be honest. That's the truth. I mean, I certainly know that's over in the Philippines. It's just a cultural thing. Everybody's going to pray if you ask them to. Doesn't mean that they believe it. John 3.4, he does not get it yet. He probably would have prayed because he came up to Jesus and looked at Jesus as being a teacher. He probably would have prayed at that moment. Look at verse 9. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Does he understand the gospel yet? No, he doesn't. And you know what you see sometimes people do at the door? They'll go to a verse like Revelation 21.8, and the person does not believe they're on their way to hell. I mean, one misconception is this, that people need to understand they're a sinner. Most people already know they're a sinner, but it doesn't mean they believe that they deserve hell. See, that's a little bit of a difference there. It's not just believing you're a sinner. I mean, I knew that from, I mean, good night. I mean, all of us, we know we're sinners. Unless you, there's these radicals out there that just want to say they've never sinned. That's a very rare, rare situation. I know Jesse Morel, the street preacher, I guess he believes in sinless perfection, but that's a really rarity when someone thinks they're actually perfect. But they have to understand they're on their way to hell because if they don't think they need a savior, they can't be saved. It's just common sense. And I promise you, Nicodemus probably would have prayed, but at this point, he does not believe. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 1 Corinthians 2. When you sit back and think about soul winning, it's honestly remarkable what we're able to achieve in a 15, 20-minute conversation. And I understand gospel presentations have different lengths. I would never feel comfortable having a gospel presentation in less than 10 minutes. Now if there's a rare situation where someone's super busy, I get that, where you might have to skip some and quickly rush through it. But usually I walk away saying, I hope they got it. Because honestly, you know, there's a lot to cover in a short amount of time. And you cannot cover that in five minutes. It is impossible. You need to spend real time, and it depends on the person, but in a good situation for me, it takes me upwards of 15 minutes if everything just lines up. Because you know, we knock doors and most people don't want to hear. So if somebody's willing to listen to us, spend a few extra minutes. I'd rather give them a couple extra verses than just find out one day, wow, you know what, he ended up going to hell because he didn't quite get eternal security. He needed to give him one more. Wouldn't that be frustrating? And honestly, you know, with the old IFP, all these people they're praying with, they're going to find out, man, none of those people that I prayed with even got saved. If I had just been willing to slow down and explain it. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, this is the reason why it's so hard for people to get it. It says in verse 14, But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. They don't understand the Bible. They cannot get saved on their own. It is impossible for an unbeliever to get saved unless somebody preaches the Gospel. The Bible's very clear on that. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judge of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we, talking about saved people, have the mind of Christ. We are able to instruct the unsaved people. An unsaved person can't get saved on their own. And you have to understand that even though it's so clear to us, before you're saved, this doesn't make any sense at all. I mean it's hard for me to even think back to before I was 18 years old. But it's just like afterwards you're like, man, am I like the biggest idiot in the world? Because this is so simple. Of course that's why Jesus died. It's like, man, but you know, you can't get saved on your own. You need a person who's saved to preach the Gospel. And so here's the thing with these unsaved people. They're not going to get it on their own. And if you overemphasize the prayer, you're going to find out one day that even though you got all the glory here on earth by having the big results, turns out you're the worst soul winner here in church. And I've seen it over and over again. The people that get the most people saved are usually the worst soul winners. And oftentimes they end up being heretics. But honestly it's something about pride, wanting to be lifted up. And honestly it makes soul winning a competition and it turns it into a circus. Praise the Lord for big soul winning results. But the times I walk back from soul winning and it's like, man, I got three people saved. That is a rare thing. Most of the time I come back, honestly in Sacramento, most of the time I come back with zero saved. Does that make me a failure? No, it just means that people didn't want to listen. If nobody wants to hear the Gospel, what are you going to do? You're not going to be able to do anything. But you know, people have shallow presentations and they get all emotional with it and it's just like, you know, preachers getting people to come down to the altar. Now turn back to Romans 10. And so I hate this overemphasis on the prayer. It makes me mad. It's always made me mad. But you know, you can be so mad at the overemphasis on the prayer that you can go to another extreme with a prayer. And that's like not even praying at all, for example. And there's a lot of problems here with an underemphasis on the prayer. One thing is this, the Bible just talks about calling on the name of the Lord a lot. And so are you just going to explain away every single verse in the Bible? I mean there's so many examples of calling on the name of the Lord. You can't just explain away everything. Romans 10, 9 through 10. I know we know these verses. Let's see them again. Romans 10, 9 through 10, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou from the dead thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. We see two elements there. We see the fact that you believe in your heart and as a result of that you're going to confess with your mouth. You're going to call on God to save you. I want you to go back to verse 8 because usually we focus on verses 9 and 10 and verse 13. I think verse 8 is the best verse to really kind of just, it's the nail in the coffin here with this. Verse 8, but what sayeth it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach. So what's the word of faith that Paul the Apostle preached? He mentioned it being in your heart. He mentioned it being in your mouth. That is the word of faith that Paul the Apostle preached which shows it's not works to call on the name of the Lord. That's the word of faith which we preach and see that's the word of faith that I'm going to preach. That's the word of faith we should all preach and so you can be so against the overemphasis on the prayer and say well it's just by believing, just by believing that you go way on the other side and just forsake the prayer altogether, but the prayer is mentioned here and the way Paul the Apostle preached the gospel was he said it's in thy mouth and in thy heart. There's two elements there. Now obviously we preach the gospel, like I said you don't emphasize the prayer the whole time because the emphasis is on believing, but it is not a work to ask Jesus to save you and if you really believe in your heart, the natural reaction is you're going to ask him to save you like you see in John chapter 4 throughout the Bible. It just makes sense. I'll be honest, when I was led to the Lord, I don't even remember if the person who gave me the gospel told me that I should pray. It just kind of came naturally and you might say well why do we even do it at all? If it's going to come, why do you even do it at all? Here's the thing. A lot of people we preach the gospel to, you get towards the end and they have not made their decision yet whether they're going to believe on Jesus Christ or not. They still need a little push. I mean you walk away and you're going to have a lot of people that could have gotten saved but they needed a few extra verses. Sometimes you're preaching the gospel and you get to the end and you're explaining it to them and then you try to get to that prayer part. Even if you're a thorough soul winner, this happens to you sometimes where all of a sudden they just kind of hesitate and you know what that means? It means they do not believe. If someone is unwilling to pray, it means they do not believe because the Bible says if you believe, then you're going to confess but see here's the thing. The confession is a great sign for us as the soul winner that says hey, they got it. Now it's not a guarantee 2 plus 2 equals 4 because there's false converts. We all have them. It's going to happen but that is a good safeguard for us. The Bible talks about it and it's great for us as the soul winner because it shows us do they really believe this in their heart and honestly 90 whatever percent of the time you don't have to try to push them to pray. It's just automatic because they believe it and if you're someone who always has to try to motivate people to pray because they don't want to, you're doing a bad job soul winning because if you're thorough, they're just going to do it automatically. That's just the way it works and you know also it would make the gospel presentation very awkward at the end. I mean can you imagine you're giving the gospel and you say well do you believe it's eternal life and they say yeah and you say well amen, all right and then you just kind of walk away. I mean it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. You know in Mark chapter 16, you know the NIV in these versions want to take out the last 12 verses of the Bible and it's kind of interesting there's 678 verses in the book of Mark. If you take out 12, that gets you to 666. They want you to take out verses 9 through 20. What's interesting about that is if you take out those verses, the book kind of just ends and you're like what in the world? That ending doesn't make any sense whatsoever. See what they actually do, believe it or not, they don't just want to remove words. A lot of these Bibles and footnotes they say well this is what actually should be said in those verses. They remove and they have to add because it gets you at a ridiculous ending if you just take out the last 12 verses of Mark 16. You see God's a very logical God. Things are going to end at the right time. You see books of the Bible, they end at the right time and if you take out the calling on the name of the Lord, it's going to be a pretty awkward ending for you. You know it's a good recap to see that they got it and it helps them nail down the moment hey this is when I got saved. Now obviously we don't negate the fact that we have to be very thorough and make sure that they actually believe it but if they believe it, you should close and preach the same way that Paul the Apostle did and according to the Bible, he preached that it's in your mouth and in your heart. Now turn to Exodus chapter 3 and honestly there's saved people that get mixed up on this because they're so zealous to say that salvation is just by faith and it's just by believing and it's not of works that they just kind of use man's logic and they go in the other direction but you know there's plenty of verses that say asking does not negate it from being a gift and I'm not going off on this tangent tonight too much but you know honestly you see it sometimes in our movement and that needs to be smashed because it's going to make soul winning a circus and it's going to destroy it and it's not biblical, it's not right and the Bible is very clear that it's in your mouth and it's in your heart. So there's two extremes here. One is that people are obsessed with the prayer. You know this Bob Gray sort of soul winning where you kind of wonder I mean are these people even save themselves if they think salvation is just a prayer? It really makes you wonder when they have these three minute gospel presentations but you have the other side where you just completely negate the prayer altogether. Both sides are wrong. In Exodus chapter 3 the next thing I want to look at is the call to preach, the call to preach. There's two different extremes and both extremes are a little bit too far. In Exodus chapter 3 let's look at verse 1. It says, Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his 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 of fire out of the midst of a bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside of thee, God called on him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not neither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where on thou standest is holy ground. Drop down to verse number 10. Come now therefore and I will send thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt. Is there really any question that God specifically chose Moses for this job? I mean, honestly, we could go to just about any story in the Old Testament where specific people are chosen for specific tasks. We're not Calvinists, but you know, God does have a plan for our lives and says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. He has a direction he wants us to go, and if we're following after his will, it's going to lead us that way. We have our free will to reject it. I believe everybody in this room, God wants you to be a part of this church. I believe that. But he's not forcing you to. We have the free will, but at the same time, God's still directing you. Do you understand what I'm saying? And one of the issues in this topic is, I think, terminology, because I think a lot of people kind of believe the same thing on this, but kind of the terminologies can get things off a little bit, and I'll explain why I mention this here in a second, but turn to Exodus chapter 4. Exodus 4. And it says in verse 10, Exodus 4, verse 10, And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth, or who maketh the dumb or deaf or the seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. And he said, O my Lord, send I pray thee by the hand of whom thou wilt send. But isn't it obvious, Moses, God wants to send you. Is it not obvious? God is specifically choosing Moses. Moses is the right guy for the job. It's very obvious. Now people would look at this, and they could easily have an overemphasis on having this call to do certain things. An overemphasis, kind of Calvinistic, or these weird experiences. We've heard the Pentecostal or overly emotional experiences in IFB churches. You know, a pastor preaches a sermon, he has the altar call, and 252 young men surrendered to preach that day. Those stories are ridiculous, and they make you mad. Now turn to Hebrews chapter 1, Hebrews 1, and you hear a lot of crazy stories like this. People have these really emotional, ridiculous stories, and they're just a joke. I mean, Jack Scob, I can't remember how the story went, but I think he saw like a light in something like that, and it's just like, what in the world? Is it really a shock that you turned out to be a weirder? They have these crazy stories, and it's like, I have a desire to preach. I want to be a pastor, but you know, I've never seen, you know, lights up in heaven. You know? I've never believed in aliens. I've never seen anything like that. I've never had these Pentecostal experiences, and this burning in the bosom or something like that, like these false cults. Hebrews 1 verses 1 and 2 says, God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past, unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. And so in the past, God spake by different manners. But you know, if you were to tell Pastor Thompson, you know what, I believe, you know, I'm called to preach. I want to be a preacher. You know, I was just outside, and I saw my bush was on fire, and God started talking to me out of the bush. It would be like, all right, you know, there's a church, you know, Pentecostal church just, you know, a quarter mile down the road you might want to go to. You would say that's ridiculous, right? Because in the past, God spake that way. You see that in the Old Testament over and over again. God would actually literally speak to them, but we have the sign of the prophet Jonas today. We have the Bible that shows us what happened, that Jesus died, he rose again. We don't have these emotional, charismatic experiences. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 3, 1 Timothy 3. Another problem with the overemphasis on the call to preach is this, that people can be pastors even if they're disqualified. You see, somebody who will be divorced, and they say, well, you know what, I'm called to preach. And some people will ordain them, even though the Bible specifically says that they should not be a pastor. See, the Bible has specific rules, and you might have had an emotional experience. You might have a feeling. You might have a desire that does not trump the Word of God. See, the Word of God makes it very clear in 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 1. This is a true saying. If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, Bill McGregor. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach. Now some of these things, you can kind of make judgment calls, but some things are very clear. And it's very clear that it's a man who becomes a pastor and a man who is married. Not a man who's divorced, not someone who's been married three times in the past, not a Peter Rockman, but someone who is married, he has a wife, and also has kids. That's what the Bible teaches. And so somebody can be disqualified, but they say, well, you know, I got the call to preach. You know, God wants me to be a preacher. I have this desire. And people will actually ordain them. It's a joke. You see it out there. And it's bad in the U.S. It's worse in some other countries, where they'll just kind of put their hands on you and say, wow, if you got the call to preach, let's do it right now, brother. And they'll just ordain them, and there's someone who's not ready at all. You know, it makes it into a joke, but you know, the Bible talks about specific qualifications to being a pastor, and those qualifications are in there for a reason. And you know, honestly, you know, being a father, and I've only been a father for eight months, but you know, you learn a lot. And I'm sure a lot of you could teach me a lot of things, because I'm not claiming to be an expert up here. You know, I'm still trying to learn myself, and honestly, that's great training ground for being a pastor one day. You learn through trial and error, and it's good you don't do that when you're out there starting a church, and people are actually counting on you. And so there's this overemphasis where disqualified people could be ordained. That could be a problem with this overemphasis on the call to preach. Or you could have people with very little experience. You know, Pastor Jimenez, some of his qualifications are the fact that you have to have read through the Bible ten times. Now I don't think that's that extreme. It's really not that much. You know, if you've been saved for five years, and you read it through two times cover to cover per year, which is not that much, for the average person that's 30 minutes of Bible reading a day, in five years you've met those ten times. There's other qualifications as well, but what I'm saying is this. You know, people put such an emphasis on the call to preach that they'll just bypass, you know, rules, guidelines, and things that are very important. You have all these emotional experiences. And look, we don't want to get churches started that end up failing. And you know, we've had churches from our movement, not just from heretics, but people that just weren't ready, and the churches ended up failing. And honestly, you end up having an egg on your face. It's a bit embarrassing. And we need to make sure we do things God's way, we do things right, and we don't put this overemphasis on the call to preach. But you know, honestly, you could put an underemphasis as well on the call to preach. We're mad about this side, where people go way overboard, but let me help illustrate this before I kind of talk about this. I don't believe that it's everybody's role in life to be a pastor. You know, a friend of mine asked me this one time, he said, do you think that every man should have a goal and a desire to want to be a preacher? And I told him no. And the reason why I'm talking about this is because I feel like some people could be in a church and feel like they're lesser of a Christian because of the fact they're not willing to go, but so-and-so's willing to go. Well, maybe God wants you to do it, but not you. I mean, you look through the Bible, there's certain people given certain roles and certain tasks. There's two elements to this. God guides our step, and we have the free will whether or not we want to follow. I believe that God wants me to be a pastor. That's my opinion, and I have the desire to be the pastor. There's multiple elements. We make that decision. I believe that God wants Pastor Thompson to be a pastor, but I don't believe he wants everybody in this room to be a pastor. That doesn't mean that you're less of a Christian, though. Obviously, we can't just have, you know, a hundred churches in Vancouver with one member. I mean, you wouldn't be all that successful, would you? You know, obviously God wants more people to be pastors, and a lot of people that God wants aren't doing the job. Like, he had to kind of push Moses, but at the same time, there's certain people that God doesn't want to be pastors. He has a different role. Honestly, we don't know how God's going to give us rewards one day. There are people at Verity Baptist Church that are just as devoted as I am, and they're never going to be pastors. They don't have a desire, but honestly, their whole life is wrapped up around the church and just serving the church and loving the church and loving God's people. They could end up with more rewards than me one day. I don't know. And you know what? It's just not their role. That's not what God's designed for them to be a pastor. It doesn't make them less of a Christian. And so it's just like, because sometimes you hear people say, well, you know, I chose to answer the call. And it's like, it makes it sound like, well, all these other guys just chose not to. Well, maybe God just didn't want them to be a pastor. You know? You need to be careful about not going, because throughout the Bible, you look at it. And you know, you could throw away the Old Testament if you want, but every prophet in the Old Testament, it's very clear God made it evident, hey, I want you, you know, for this job. Certain people are given certain roles. But in the New Testament, with John the Baptist, the 12 apostles, Paul, God's the one who made those choices. He didn't want every single person. And so, you know, I do believe, I would say, yeah, I'm called to preach, whatever that means, because like I said, this is a terminology thing. People mean different things depending on who you ask. And so we hear this thing called to preach, and it's just like we think of like these crazy IFBs and these Pentecostals, and we shy away. But you know, we need to have the proper balance on things. Because what I believe is this, that God has a plan for our lives, and we have the free will whether or not we follow it. For some of us, that plan is not to be a pastor. For some of us, it is to be a pastor, and we have that choice to follow. But I just know that, you know, sometimes people go overboard on this. And I feel like, you know, there's certain people in churches that feel like they're lesser of a Christian or made to feel that way because they're not answering the call to preach. Well, maybe God doesn't want to be a pastor. Because certain people, God does. Certain people, He doesn't. And the reason why it's important, pastor or men has preached on this recently. But you know what? It's tough to be a pastor. I'm not a pastor. I've never led a church, but you know, you talk to any of them, they say it's tough. And it's just like if you're thinking, you know, when you're a pastor, well, you know, maybe this is not what God, you know, wants from me, you might just quit. You need to realize that, you know what, God has chosen me for this. He's worked with me for years. This is my responsibility and if I quit, I'm letting God down. And I've felt like that in my life before where you have the tendency to want to quit and I feel like, you know what, if I don't go all the way through with this, then I'm letting God down. Because I believe God's plan for my life is to go to the Philippines and start a church. I know Pastor Thompson, I believe his plan, God's plan for him is to be a pastor here. And obviously you see the fruit of this, you see the great results. So we need to have the proper balance on these things. Now turn to 2 Samuel chapter 21, 2 Samuel 21. So the first thing we looked at was this issue of calling on the name of the Lord. Then we looked on this, the call to preach. And like I said, that's kind of more of a terminology thing, depending on what people know about that. But the third thing is trusting our government. You know, you can definitely go overboard with trusting our government, but we're going to see in a little bit, you can also go way on the other side and be kind of like a lunatic, you know, way overboard. We're going to talk about that here in a second. But let's look at 2 Samuel chapter 21. Let's first talk about trusting our government too much. Because honestly, as IFBs, as soul winners, that's what we see a lot of times. That's what we fight against, that people are just these Fox News Christians. They believe everything you see. And we'll see in 2 Samuel 21 an example where Fox News would be all about this, but it says in verse 1, Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. And David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, It is for Saul and for his bloody house because he slew the Gibeonites. Now if you were looking at verse 1, what would you think that God's opinion is of just shedding innocent blood? You think it would make God pretty angry, right? That you reap what you sow, you shed innocent blood, and it's going to come back around to you. You know, I wish our government would figure that out. Because the truth is our country is the one that's shedding the most blood around the world. There's no question about that. We're shedding blood all over the place. And I'm not going to go on with the whole story for the sake of time, but you go to Nahum 3.1. You don't have to turn there, but it says, Woe to the bloody city. And what I'd like to say to America is woe to the bloody country. Woe to the country with blood on their hands. And it's like we look at these countries, and yes, they have false religions, but it's like it's not like we brought, you know, being a Baptist and being a Christian over to these foreign countries. We didn't help them in one bit. We shed innocent blood, and we think that they're lesser of humans for some reason. But see, God is against shedding innocent blood, and it will come back around to America. It's kind of funny that we look down on all these other countries, and it's like we shed, you know, 3,000 innocent babies plus a day. It's like that's more than one million in a year. More than one million. Three thousand a day times 365 is more than one million. It's almost absurd. It's hard to even fathom how many that is. That's per state, that's like 60 babies, more than 60 per day per state. I mean, it's insane to think that because, you know, obviously people don't go, usually don't go around bragging about getting abortions. Obviously there are some whacko liberals out there, but it's like it's hard for you to even imagine. It's like, is that statistic even correct? I mean, it's crazy to think about that, that there's that much innocent bloodshed, not to mention all the wars where we're going there and just killing all these people. And as Christians, as believers, we see these Fox News Christians and we say, man, you have way too much trust in our government and what the news says. And it's like, how can you believe in what, you know, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. These guys are off the air now. Bill O'Reilly got kicked out for being like a pervert or something, I think. I don't even know the names that are out there anymore, but it's just like, how can you trust these guys? It's like, just sit back and think about this. From a biblical standpoint as a Christian, you see that and you say, wow, God is against shedding innocent blood. And we're not going to go there for sake of time, but another thing is torture. And it's like being full of shedding innocent blood and believing in torturing people. Those are things the Republican party stands for. They believe in it. They support that. And you can go to the Bible on both those things and see that God is against those things. And as Christians, we always go to the word of God. And you know, the Bible says it also gets you in a pattern if you have too much faith in the government to just believe everything you hear. And most people believe everything they hear. People out door to door, they'll say, well, I just can't believe that because my pastor said something different. And it's like, I've shown you like 50 verses from the Bible, I've shown you a dozen verses and you don't know any verses to support why you have to repent of your sins, but you still believe it. Because that's what you were taught. People just mindlessly believe. And having too much trust in your government, you're not going to be like the Bereans who search the scriptures daily. But you know, you can go way overboard in being against the government that you can think everything they say is wrong. You can start believing some pretty crazy conspiracy theories. I like that the shirt that Pastor Thompson was wearing today, Upon the Circle of the Earth. I think it's a good shirt. And you know, here's the thing, people are way against the government, they think they lied about everything. They say, well, I guess the Earth's flat, you know, because it's like, obviously everything they taught us is wrong. And they start believing these crazy conspiracy theories. Well, the Bible says it is he that sits upon the circle of the Earth. And I'm not going to be up here giving you a math lesson here today. But if you have basic understanding of math, you're going to know that that teaches that the Earth is spherical. It's round. It's not flat. But it's like, wait a minute, but the government says it's round, so it must be flat. It's like, well, that's way too far in the other direction. You know, the government's not wrong on every single thing that they teach. You know, it's for the lizard people. Talk about crazy conspiracy theories. And people believe this stuff. It's like, these aren't small things. Obviously the flat Earth is just like exploding like a rocket because all these athletes and rappers believe in it. But it's just like people believe in like lizard people. They believe like politicians are secretly lizards. And it's like, are you insane? Because they just don't believe the government so much, they go way too far in the other direction. And so it's important to have a proper balance on things. Look at things logically. See what the Bible says, not go way overboard. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4, 2 Timothy 4. And obviously that's kind of a silly example compared to the others. Obviously the first thing they'll call on the name of the Lord, that's a real issue because it will always rise up in our movement where someone new will come up and say, well, it sounds like works to me. Yeah, I've heard it plenty of times and it's going to come again. That fight's going to keep coming up, keep coming up because we're going so far against the repentance of sins and the work of salvation, we go way too far in the other direction. 2 Timothy chapter 4, let's look at verses 2 and 3. It says, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. Boy, doctrine is important. We need to preach the word. We need churches that will preach hard about sin, preach real doctrinal sermons so people don't get led away by the Jehovah's Witness, the Mormons, the oneness Baptist and all these people. We need doctrinal sermons. We need the truth to be fired from the pulpit. The word of God is so important. And sometimes from the world's perspective, they have an under emphasis on topics. Most churches, they don't emphasize these things enough because doctrine is vital. Doctrine is extremely important. You look at some of the core topics, salvation, that is a core topic. It's like I don't care if I agree with you on every single thing else in the Bible. If we have a different view on salvation, we're not friends. It's like that's a big topic or you can look at the King James Bible. That's a live or die topic. It's like how can we really have fellowship with someone who believes in the NIV. Other things, we believe in hard preaching and it's hard to fellowship with these churches that don't believe in hard preaching or that don't go soul winning. Those things are kind of the core things, kind of the vital things. And it's impossible to fellowship with these people if they don't believe in that. And you say, why don't you still love the old IFP? Because they don't preach hard and they don't go soul winning. They don't do it anymore. I would not have moved away from West Virginia if I really felt like my church preached hard. But I did not feel like I got the preaching I needed. I didn't feel like they were zealous enough for going soul winning. And honestly, they become wishy washy on salvation now. All these IFP pastors a few years ago, I would have told you, yeah, I know they're really off, but I know that they're saved. And it's like now I honestly don't know about a lot of these big name guys because it's like they don't seem to think the repentance thing matters at all. And that is a fight. It will always be a fight. And they don't put enough emphasis on these topics. They let just anybody come to their churches and they don't really care what they believe. They never preach doctrinally because they want to get money coming in. So they never preach against any sin, they never preach against anything. Kind of some of the secondary topics would be this, Zionism, post-Trib, the reprobate doctrine. These are big topics. They're not as big as the other ones I mentioned. But these are big topics. Obviously, salvation is more important. But honestly, when people are Zionists and pre-Trib and they don't believe in the reprobate doctrine, it's really hard to have fellowship with them as well, you know, as churches. Now, it's one thing for someone to come to this church and grow and learn. It takes us all some time. But if you have churches that are pro-Zionism and pre-Trib, don't believe in the reprobate doctrine, it tells me they don't really believe in this book. It tells me they're not making this—it doesn't mean they're not saved, but it tells me they're not making their decisions based on this book, but they're reading commentaries from Martin Luther and John Wesley and all the other heretics, John Darby, all these guys. They're not basing it on this book. So we look at these churches and say, man, they really underemphasize these topics. But, you know, we can also overemphasize some of these topics as well. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 1 Corinthians 1, and an example of this is with apologetics ministries. Apologetics ministries are a joke. That's the truth. And I'll tell you what, as a new believer, I don't know who here knows who Walter Martin is, but when I first got saved, I wanted to learn about all the cults. I read the kingdom of the cults, I read these things, I studied up on Mormonism and all these topics. And, you know, naturally, it's just like you want to learn about all these apologetics because, like, I want to reach this evolutionist. I want to reach this Mormon, this Jehovah's Witnesses. Those things don't work, though. They're a joke. And you've got to put a question mark upon these ministries that overemphasize one topic. It'd be like a church that always preaches on one topic all the time. That's not a proper balance. Because all the topics I mentioned are important. Every single one of them. And the one I want to kind of call out here, because Ken Ham recently sent us a book. He's kind of like second to Ken Hovind with being the most famous creation, you know, young earth evangelist. And he recently sent us a book in the mail. Pastor Michael Johnson just preached against him. I heard, like, about 10 minutes at the sermon, and I was like, man, we just got that book in the mail as well. I guess he's sending it out. Did you get that book? You're going to get it. It's going to come. You know, he sent a book about, like, how to reach, you know, I can't remember the name of it. Basically, how to reach the world, basically. And the whole point of the book, and he said this for, like, 20 years, because I've watched his seminar before a long time ago when I was first saved, but he basically says we can't reach people with the gospel because they're being taught evolution. In today's world, it's different. You cannot reach people with the gospel because they're being brainwashed by the school systems. So instead, we need these young earth creation ministries to lay the foundation, and then we can preach the gospel to them. Anyone who knows Ken Ham knows this has been his big issue for a long time. And I wish I could find the video clip, but I've heard him talk about 1 Corinthians 1. Let's look at it here. It says in verse 18, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. Isn't that true that what we preach is foolishness to the unsaved world? They don't get it. They're like, why are you preaching this? What's the point? They do not understand. Verse 19, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Have not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Notice what it says in verse 22, and this was like his big verse that he focused on. For the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. Now the Jews require a sign. What did Jesus say about the sign they were going to be given? He said the sign of the prophet Jonah, right? He basically said, you're not getting a sign. He basically said, you know, my resurrection is it for you. You either believe that or you don't. That was their sign. But he really focused on this verse and he says, see, the Greeks seek after wisdom. They don't believe the Bible. We have to reach them with science. We have to reach them with this young earth creationism. And look at what it says in verse 23. But we preach Christ crucified onto the Jews' stumbling block and onto the Greeks' foolishness. Yes, the Jews want a sign. The Greeks seek after wisdom, but you know what we preach? We preach that Jesus Christ buried and he rose again and you believe that you're going to go to heaven. If you don't believe that, you're going to go to hell. That's what we preach. We don't have these apologetics ministries. And honestly, Ken Ham is not saved. And I've known that for a long time. He's a huge Charles Spurgeon fan, lordship, salvation, really leans Calvinistic and stuff like that. But it's just like for you to see a verse like this in the Bible and say, well, see right there, we need creation ministries. It's like it's the opposite. It's like, you don't understand the Bible, do you? I mean, he can look at that and say, well, see, the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. And sometimes it kind of blows your mind and you're like, how do they not get it? The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. That's the only answer for them. And it's like he's either just blind to the Bible or he's a lying devil doing it intentionally. But we don't set a foundation of creation. You know what we do at the door? We preach the gospel. And I'll tell you what, it's phenomenal how powerful the word of God is, because in 15, 20 minutes, you can see people get saved. Every single week, several days this week, your church has gotten people saved. And it wasn't by getting them to sit through a six hour creation seminar. That's ridiculous. That's a joke. And honestly, when I first got saved, I was in college. So the creation ministries were kind of really important to me. And I really was interested in them because evolution is a big topic you hear about around school. And honestly, I spend time at doors just debating people on evolution. I've done it for it. I spent over an hour at the door before smashing a biology major. He was getting his, I can't remember if it was his master's or his doctorate. And he knew nothing about the topic of evolution. He's like, wow. It's like, what are the schools even teaching you? He didn't even know how to defend what he believed. But you know, it was a waste of time because nobody got saved. And I remember distinctly one time, I talked to this person on the street. And I talked to him for literally over an hour. And like 90% of it was on, you know, creation and evolution because I watched all these seminars and stuff. I ran into the same guy like a year later because he was really kind of debating after I talked to him whether or not evolution was true. But instead of that, I just focused on the Bible. And it still took a while. It took about 40 minutes. But you know, he ended up getting saved. This was a guy who was an atheist before and it's like the creation evolution stuff, it didn't work. Because it's the Word of God that has power. I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And here's the thing, once you're saved, all of a sudden just show them Genesis 1 and guess what? They automatically believe. Oh, wow. The Bible teaches it's 6,000 years old. Because if they're not going to believe the Bible, they won't get saved anyway. We reach them with the Word of God. And you know, these apologetics ministries, and I'm just singling out Ken Ham, but I don't care what the topic is. When you look at these apologetics ministries that focus on one issue, they always end up being heretics. I mean, why do people like Peter Ruckman? Because man, he's good in the King James Bible, right? What about everything else he believes? It's like when they focus so much on one, and it's funny because we're accused of that. Our movement is accused of overly focusing on certain issues. It's like, we've done documentaries on just about everything. And the rest are coming. It's like, we're going to leave no stone unturned. It's like, we're going to talk about everything. We're going to talk about the pulpit. Everything's preached. We don't avoid anything. We don't have a hobby horse. We preach on it all, because all the Bible's good. We love all the Bible. We preach it all. And these apologetics ministries, they are a joke. And so you can overemphasize topics. And not only that, not just with doctrine, but you know, there's a lot of things about just our personal characteristics in this book, about how to be a good person, how to be patient, how to be kind, how to be long suffering. Those things are in the Bible as well. And so we don't want to just overemphasize only certain doctrines or doctrine all the time. It's all good. It's all great. It all needs to be preached. Turn to Philippians chapter one, Philippians one. And like I said at the beginning, I believe this is something we kind of fall into because we're very passionate about certain things. I what I hate the most of false doctrines is Calvinism. I hate Calvinism. And when your tendency to really hate something, you can go way overboard in the other direction and just have a whole ministry devoted to smashing Calvinism and making James White look like a fool. Reality, he makes himself like a fool without any help at all. I mean, I mean, he believes the same thing all the other Calvinists did, but he's the one who was stupid enough to say that, you know, yes, you know, pedophilia is something that God chose to happen. It's like, well, all the Calvinists believe that they have to, but you're actually the one stupid enough to actually say it, Mr. Genius. And it's like, yeah, you know, I hate Calvinism, but am I going to make my whole ministry about just only preaching about Calvinism? Now, these people in the Philippines that started a fight with me, the Bible Baptist, they are Calvinists. It's like, so I guess that is a fight that I'm going to really be hammering. But you know, the whole Bible is good. It all needs to be preached. We can't just focus on one issue. We can't just focus on the sodomites. Look, there's a lot in the Bible besides the sodomites. And honestly, those are the sermons I usually tend to skip because it's like, you know, I've heard that sermon. And it needs to be preached because, you know, we're in California. You guys are near Portland. It's like, and you got Washington or Seattle not too far away. I mean, Brother Anthony just showed me, I'm not trying to go on rabbit trails, but their soccer team, the Seattle Saunders, now they're making them wear rainbow shirts. And it's like, are you kidding me? I mean, that honestly shocked me that everyone and every single one of them is bound to need bail because I guarantee you all those soccer players do not agree on the sodomite issue. But every single one of those Seattle Saunders soccer players, I mean, he showed me the picture. I couldn't believe it. The streets were paved with rainbow colors. And I'm just like, man, I thought a rainbow had seven. I thought it had seven colors, not six. But yeah, the sodomites, they made it six instead of seven because I want to take away God's number of seven. It's not the same thing. See, there's three colors. There's, between blue and purple, there's another color. We look at it as blue and purple. The sodomites have it as six colors. But yeah, the rainbow actually has seven colors. But not this rainbow the Seattle Saunders are wearing. Not the one that's paved in Seattle. It's six colors. The sodomite colors of this rainbow. They took God's symbol. Man, that makes you mad. But you know, we can't just focus on that one issue. Philippians chapter one, the last thing I want to focus on, the last one is putting God first in our lives. Now that might sound strange to you because you think, man, how could you overemphasize that? But I'm going to show you that. First, let's focus on the underemphasis because we look at these churches that are always just lame as can be. They don't go soul winning. They don't love the Lord. And we tell them, man, you need to start reading the Bible more. And we preach that all the time. Ninety-five percent of the time you're going to get up here and preach how we need to do more. We need to read the Bible more. Go soul winning more. Philippians one, verses nine and 10. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. That you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ. And we preach that you need to abound more and more. I preached it a million times. And you need to go soul winning more. And I believe that. You need to go soul winning more. Read the Bible more. Love the Lord more. Turn to Luke 17, Luke 17. And obviously we love songs like I Surrender All. We ought to give everything to God. In Luke 17, verse 10, it says this, So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded, you say, We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do. That's a hard saying. To think that you go soul winning all the time and you're still just like an unprofitable servant. Because that's what we're expected to do. We're expected to go soul winning. We're expected to read the Bible. You say, man, I woke up and I prayed and I read the Bible. I went soul winning the day I came to church. God expected you to do that. He expects that. And in the end, we're just unprofitable servants. That's what the Bible says. But I want to show you the other side of that coin. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter seven, Ecclesiastes chapter seven. And honestly, this is kind of tough to preach because I don't want to dissuade people from living for the Lord. I mean, if you're pushing the pedal to the metal and man, you just want to go, go soul winning all the time. Man, keep doing it. If you have the energy, keep doing it. But you know, the Bible does give us the other side as well. And Jesus preached really hard in the Bible. The Bible talks about people we were not worthy of. And as great as they were, we see their mistakes. And God will get on them when they screw up. But at the same time, it talks about we weren't even worthy of them. Look at what it says in Ecclesiastes seven, verse 16, Be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise. Why shouldest thou destroy thyself? You know, you can go so hard for living the Lord that you basically just destroy yourself. You're just pushing it a little bit too hard. You know, it's like I used to be an avid runner. You know, obviously life gets busy. I don't really run that much anymore. But you know, if you were to run a long distance, you know, let's say a 10 mile run, can you sprint for 10 straight miles? It's impossible. You can't sprint for that long at all. You're going to run out of energy. And it's like in the Christian life, we're in this for the long haul. And, you know, there's a balance between just pushing the pedal to the metal, but at the same time, still spending time with family, still spending time relaxing, going fishing every once in a while. These things aren't sinful. They're not wrong. You know, the problem with Peter was he was basically forsaking the ministry to go fishing for a living. But it's not like there's anything sinful about going fishing, going for a jog. Turn to Psalms 127. And honestly, I'm one of these people, I always feel like I need to do more. I feel like every single night I go to bed thinking, man, I didn't read the Bible enough, didn't pray enough. And I think that's how most of us feel. And I think that's good that we feel like, man, I need to keep living for the Lord. But at the same time, God still wants to have fun in life. You know, I don't think there's anything sinful about going for a jog. I don't think there's anything sinful with picking up a hobby. Obviously, if we have the wrong balance, it gets worse. So this is kind of a tough thing because I don't want to push you in the other direction. But I want you to realize God does have the other side where it's like, it's not all just about your entire life every single second, it's just devoted to God and otherwise you're like a heathen. You know, we're allowed to have fun every once in a while. We're allowed to go jog, never forsake church, never quit reading your Bible, never quit praying. Do those things all the time like the Bible says, but you don't have to go soul winning seven times a week. Right? Like every week I get out of work at 5 p.m. and I'm just going to go soul winning until 9 p.m. Right? Wouldn't that be a little bit of an improper balance? Do you think God expects you to go soul winning for four hours after work every single day of the week? It is possible to push this a little bit far in the other direction. And like I said, this is a tough balance because I don't want to dissuade you from living for the Lord. If you're pushing that pedal and you're not running out of energy, that's great. But I'll be honest with you. I do have hobbies outside of just living for the Lord. I like to work out. I like to play sports sometimes. I do have some hobbies. And there's nothing in the world that's going to change my life. There's nothing in the world that's going to change my life. There's nothing in the world that's going to change my life. But God says in Psalms 127, Verse 2, There's various sides to this, because because the Bible talks about living for God, redeeming the time, but it doesn't mean that every single day you have to stay up till just 1 a.m. just reading the Bible, set your alarm for four in the morning, and then just go to town reading the Bible and praying again. And you hear these crazy stories of these legends from the past, like Martin Luther and Charles Finney. There's this book called The Power of Prayer that Ian Bounds wrote, and they list all these heretics. And I can't even remember the numbers, but it'd be like John Wesley just didn't feel like he could live for the Lord because he spent like four hours in prayer every morning. And it's just like, do you expect me to believe that? I mean, that's just ridiculous. You can go a little bit overboard on these things sometimes. Turn to Proverbs chapter 20, Proverbs 20. And honestly, that's a balance you need to figure out in your life, because here's the thing, as long as you're pushing upward, we shouldn't just be comparing ourselves to other people. If there's somebody who isn't quite moving as fast in their growth as you are, you don't need to look down on them. I mean, if they're growing, praise the Lord for that. And if like, maybe they are spending less time reading the Bible than you, but as long as they're growing, that's the key. As long as your direction is upward, because honestly, we're all a long ways away from reaching where Moses was, climbing the mountain, right? We're all a long ways away. I know I am a long ways away. So if there's someone growing faster or slower than me, hey, as long as I'm personally growing, that's the key. Proverbs chapter 20, very similar verse to the one we started with. It says, diverse weights are an abomination unto the Lord, and a false balance is not good. The Bible talks about having a proper balance on things. And honestly, like I said at the beginning, we are very extreme. And because we're so extreme, sometimes we can go overboard. But here's the thing that just because we're really extreme, you say, well, I'm a fundamentalist. Well, sometimes you can push that a little bit too far in the other direction. It's like sometimes people will be complete jerks and they say, well, I'm more fundamental than you, because I just called out some sodomite on Facebook. And it's like, no, you're just wasting your time. Sometimes you can push that a little bit too far in one direction. We need to have a proper balance on the things of God and not to have a false balance, because the Bible says a false balance is not good. It says a false balance is abomination. It's important for us on all topics not to swing too far in either direction. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here tonight and just ask you to help us apply this to our lives, myself included, just to have a proper balance on the things of God. Continue to help us to strive to live for you, God. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.