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Alright, we're here in Zephaniah chapter 2, Zephaniah chapter 2, and this is gonna be the sermon I'm gonna try to encourage you to get involved in this Bible reading challenge we have in January. I know both my wife and I will be doing it, and this has always been a good reset button when we were at Verity to make sure we're still reading our Bibles, because especially during the holiday season, it's very easy to get out of doing your Bible reading in your normal routine. When your routine's very, you know, normal, you start work at this time, you end, you can plan it out. During the holiday season, when we have lots of free time, we generally use about this much of it wisely. You know, that's usually what happens, and so January 1st is a good reset button to read your Bibles. Now, most of you know my son's name is Zephaniah, okay, so recently I've been doing a really deep study on the book of Zephaniah, because I really want to understand, you know, what this book's about, and this is a confusing book in the Bible. It's one of the most confusing books in the entire Bible, and quite honestly, I understand it a lot better now, but there's this verse that just jumped out at me when I was studying this, and it's here in Zephaniah chapter 2. Let me start at verse number 13, Zephaniah 2 verse 13. And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation and dry like a wilderness, okay? Now the Assyrian empire is the empire that ruled the world, okay? They were the most powerful empire in the world at one time. The Bible speaks about basically six great powers that have existed, and the early ones were Assyria and Egypt, and then after that you had Babylon, you had Persia, you had Greece, you had Rome. But Assyria is one of the most powerful empires ever. Easily in the top ten, it's one of the ones the Bible mentions, and Assyria is going to be destroyed, the Bible says. Verse 14, and flocks shall lie down in the midst of her. All the beasts of the nations, both the cormorant and the bitter, shall lodge in the upper lentils of it. Joy shall sing in the windows, desolation shall be in the thresholds, for he shall uncover the seed of work. Verse 15, this is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly. That dwelt carelessly. The name of this sermon is dwelling carelessly in 2020. Dwelling carelessly in 2020. What do we mean by someone who's careless? You know, if somebody basically is holding a glass bottle, let's say, and then it breaks on the ground, you'd say they were careless, okay? Basically someone who doesn't really pay attention, they break a lot of things, they have a lot of accidents. That's someone who is careless. Well when it comes to Nineveh, Nineveh or Assyria, the Assyrian empire, they were careless as a nation. They were so powerful, and yet then they were destroyed. You say, Brother Stuckey, the United States of America is so powerful. They could never be destroyed. What should happen, because history repeats itself. All powerful empires fall, okay? And Assyria fell just like Babylon, just like Persia, just like the Greeks, just like the Roman Empire. They all come and they go. You say, why does that happen? We're going to learn this in this sermon. What I want you to understand is that when we're talking about dwelling carelessly in 2020, as a nation Assyria did many things that caused them to lose their power. As individuals, we could do many things and dwell carelessly and lose our ability to serve God, and as a church, the same way. Number one, let us look at the cause of dwelling carelessly. Notice what it says in verse 15. What is the cause of dwelling carelessly? Well it says in Zephaniah 2, verse 15, this is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly. You know, what the Bible says about Assyria is they were the rejoicing city. They basically were very joyful and excited and bragged about how they were powerful. They rejoiced too much in their success, okay? They were too enthusiastic, too excited, too basically arrogant about how powerful they were. They rejoiced a little bit too much. Turn to Luke 17, Luke 17. You say, give me an example of what you're talking about. Well, if you've ever seen a sports highlight of, you know, a basketball game and somebody steals the ball and they have an open layup and they're basically just kind of bragging and goofing off, then they miss the layup because they're just like, oh, look at me. I just stole the ball. Then they're like, whoops, and they completely miss. Or you've seen highlights, you know, of American football or whatever where somebody gets an interception and they're running into the end zone, just kind of hot dogging it, like, look at me. And then like right at the goal line, somebody like strips it away from them and they fumble the ball. Why does that happen? Because they're rejoicing. Look at what I just accomplished. And as an empire, that was Assyria. Look at how powerful we are. We conquered this enemy and this enemy and this enemy and how it applies to us as individuals is we can look at our lives and say, man, I did lots of soul winning in 2019. Look at all the great success that I had. Look at everything I accomplished. I've read the Bible so much. I know the Bible so well. And what's going to happen is it's going to cause you to dwell carelessly and not take your personal walk with God seriously. And then one day you could be like Nineveh. You could be destroyed. Notice what it says in Luke 17, Luke 17, verse 7, Luke 17, verse 7, Luke chapter 17. But which of you, verse 7, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by when he has come from the field, go and sit down to meet, and will not rather say unto him, make ready wherewith I may sup and gird thyself and serve me till I've eaten and drunken and afterward thou shalt eat and drink. Verse number 9, doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I tro not. 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 is our duty to do. Thanks, brother. And so it says here in Luke 17, verse 10, at the end of the day, we're just unprofitable servants. What is that saying? No matter how much Bible reading you do, no matter how much memorization you do, no matter how much soul winning you do, that was your duty to do. That's what it's saying here. That's expected of you. You say, brother Stuckey, I'm really serving God. I go to church every week. You're commanded to go to church every week. As a servant of God, that's the bare minimum. I read the Bible every day. I hope so. Yeah, read therein all the days of thy life. You should read the Bible every day. You say, but I mean, I pray every day. Pray without ceasing. You're commanded to do that. And see, people rejoice and say, look at how well I know the Bible. Look at all this soul winning I do. And what happens when you get overconfident like that, you end up just basically not taking your walk with God seriously, and you can end up being like Nineveh one day. As a church, we could be the same way. We could look at our bulletin and say, look at all these salvations that we have, over 6,000 this year, and say, you know what, we can kind of calm things down. We've done so much. We're doing more than the other Baptist churches. We have soul winning several times other week, and we can end up dwelling carelessly because we're rejoicing too much in success. Now, look, as a church, we do have a lot that we can be thankful for, that God has blessed us with in our first year of ministry in all of 2019. Look, as a church, we have a fully functioning church plan in Pampanga that has several families that come every week, that has soul winning, that's preaching the truth and serving God. And praise the Lord for that. That's great. As a church, we get lots of people saved. We have many people at our church that go soul winning several times during the week, and their personal time they're going soul winning. It's not a one man show. It's an entire church doing it. We're all serving God. We're getting lots of people saved. And praise the Lord for that. As a church, we're reaching new people. We have a successful missions trip every single year that brings in people from around the world. People from all over Asia and the US and Great Britain and all over the world are going to be here with us in February. And that's exciting. But don't rejoice too much in that. Don't look at that and say, that is enough. Because honestly, that's just our duty to do. As a church, we're supposed to try to reach the world with the gospel. Look, it's not that we're doing something that, you know, wow, it's so amazing. We're just doing what God wants us to do. Other churches, they might not be doing what they're supposed to do. That doesn't mean that we're so special, though, because we're doing these things. This is what we're expected to do. Okay? And see, Assyria looked at themselves and said, man, we've conquered Egypt. We've conquered Israel. We own the world right now. And they did own the world. Assyria literally owned the world. But I mean, does anyone really know much about Assyria today? They're not very famous anymore. Why? God put them out of memory. They were so famous at one time and so powerful, Assyria's not a power today. Look, I mean, if Assyria said, we're going to war with the Philippines, we're going to win. Assyria's nothing today. There is no Assyria. There's like a remnant of people from that lineage. They're nothing today. They were powerful at one time. Not anymore. Why? Well, they rejoiced a little bit too much in their success. Okay? It's like somebody who steals a basketball, they go, somebody steals a basketball and they think they can dunk, but they're not tall enough. And they're just like, oh, yeah, look at me, and they go for the dunk, they completely miss it, fall on their back, and then they're like, oh, I'm injured. That's what we're talking about here. That's called rejoicing too much that you stole the basketball. Now turn in your Bible to Zephaniah 2, Zephaniah 2. And look, I understand, we get back from soul winning, we're excited, we tell the stories, we encourage one another, but don't ever think that we've done enough. You can never say you've done enough. Don't ever think that, man, I mean, until there's a great church in every province in Luzon, I don't even feel like we've scratched the surface. It's like, that's a long ways to go, my friend. And it's like, I'm sorry, but the vast majority of people in this country are still Catholic. Once the vast majority of people say, yeah, you know, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, by grace through faith, you can't lose your salvation, well, then maybe you can rejoice, but that's never going to happen. As many people as we get saved, 6,000 is a small percentage of this country. It's a very small percentage. There's almost 60 million people in this country. Do you realize 6,000 is like one out of every 10,000 people we've gotten saved? That's a pretty small amount. It's a large amount, but it's a small amount. That's why you need a lot of churches doing the work, okay? We have a lot of work to do because most people we talk to still tell us, live a good life, repent of your sins, go to church, get baptized. They still don't understand. Let us not rejoice too much, and you individually, you say, Brother Stuckey, man, I've been saved for years now serving God, listening to all these online sermons, you know, I know a lot about the Bible, I can kind of just take it easy, okay? That's a very foolish attitude for many reasons. For one, have you not read the Bible? I mean, the Bible's infinite. I mean, I learn new things every single week reading the Bible. Look, when I was studying the book of Zephaniah, guess what? I didn't know most of the things I learned, okay? There's a lot of new things that I came across. Nobody knows the Bible perfectly. Nobody's even close. Look, you could memorize the Bible and still not fully understand it, okay? We're not even close to knowing everything in the Bible, and so none of us can dwell carelessly and say, man, you know, that January Bible reading challenge, I've already read the New Testament. I had a friend of mine in college, and he literally asked me this question, and he had never read the Bible cover to cover, but he said, you know, Stuckey, do you think that, because my friends always called me by my last name, he said, Stuckey, do you think that if you can finish the Bible, you know that you can know like everything about it? And he was literally saying, you know, I think I know everything once I finish reading the Bible. I'm just like, are you crazy? I was like, what? He's like, you understand all of Isaiah? You understand all of Ezekiel and Zephaniah and Zechariah? It's like, are you kidding me? It's like, no, I don't think you can know everything in the Bible. No, that's why we always need to be reading the Bible, okay? Zephaniah 2, verse 15, one problem with Assyria is they rejoiced too much in their success. Look, take excitement out of our soul winning and serving God. At the end of the day, though, don't just look at it and then just rejoice and say, look at all the great things I've done. No, that's just what you're supposed to do. At the end of the day, you're just an unprofitable servant. You're just doing what you're called to do, expected to do. At your job, when your boss gives you a list of assignments to do, and you do those assignments, that's your duty. Do you understand that? God gives us a lot of things to do, and we don't do all of them. So when you do half of them, don't sit here and say, look at me, I'm so profitable. No, you're not, because you're only doing half of what he told you to do, including myself as well, okay? God has a lot of things he wants us to do. Now praise the Lord's salvation is just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. But in terms of actually living for God, man, there's a lot of things God wants us to do. Zephaniah 2, verse 15, Zephaniah 2, verse 15, it says, this is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me. What does that statement mean? It's just pride. Look at me, I am, and there is none beside me. And they're right about that. Assyria ruled the world. They were, and there was none beside them. But now you're nothing, okay? Why? Because when you get prideful, you will come down. It's a guarantee, yes, the way up is down and the way down is up. You get lifted up full of pride, you're going to come down pretty hard. And that is what happened to Assyria. They were so arrogant, they were destroyed, okay? Why? I am, and there's none beside me. We're more powerful than Egypt, and this is literally what Assyria says throughout the Bible. We're more powerful than Egypt ever was. That's literally what they say. It's like, well, first off, the Bible disproves that, but secondly, you're nothing today because of your arrogance, okay? Now turn to Zechariah 10. Zechariah is right before Malachi, the second to last book in the Old Testament. Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi, Zechariah chapter 10, Zechariah chapter 10, Zechariah chapter 10. And look, pride is a guarantee you're going to come down, and if you get filled full of pride in your life, you're going to come down hard, okay? The Bible says that we should always be staying as humble people, and if you start getting lifted up full of pride, you're going to destroy your life. And the Bible says that by reading the Word of God, it will prevent you from being prideful. It will keep you humble. If you start becoming an arrogant person, I can almost guarantee you're not reading the Bible, because when you read the Bible, it forces you to be humble, and the Bible says that this will cause you to be humble. It will cause you to fear God and be humble if you read the words. So it's your choice in January, what you do. If you choose not to read the Bible, then yeah, you'll probably become an arrogant person if you're not reading the Bible, okay? Here's what it says in Zechariah 10, verse 11, Zechariah 10, verse 11. Zechariah chapter 10, verse 11, and he shall pass through the sea with affliction and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up, and the pride of Assyria might be brought down, shall be brought down. Say why? Pride will always bring you down, shall be brought down. It's a guarantee, shall be brought down, and it says in the scepter of Egypt shall depart away. The guarantee here in Zechariah 10, verse 11, you get prideful, you're going to come down hard, okay? Now when it comes to the Assyrian empire, this is kind of interesting, because you look at the famous empires that have existed, and look, Greece was not completely destroyed. By no means does Greece own the world now, but they weren't completely destroyed. Why? Because they didn't get as arrogant as Assyria. Rome didn't get completely destroyed. They still exist today. They're not powerful like they used to be, but they still exist today. Egypt. We think of Egypt as being wicked. No, Assyria was worse than all of them, and you can prove that with the Bible, and that's why nobody even knows them anymore. They're nothing anymore. Nobody knows Assyria. Why? They became more arrogant than Egypt or Greece or Rome or any of them, okay? They were destroyed. Why? Because of their pride. You become prideful, you're going to come down, and look, quite honestly, even in the Bible, godly men, you see, struggle with this. People that are prideful, people that love God and are serving God, and they end up becoming prideful and it destroys their life, okay? This applies to everybody in this room, because the Bible speaks about the pride of life, and naturally as people, we're filled full of pride. That's the truth. All of us naturally were filled full of pride. We think we're better than we are, okay? I had a preacher one time who, he was talking about how there was these people that were on the ground, they thought they were something special, they were acting real cool and everything, and then this person saw them dancing around, he thought they looked kind of foolish, but then he went into this building that was like 30 stories or whatever, and he looked at the same group of people, and they looked like ants, because they were so small, and he said, you know, just imagine how we look to God when we think we're something special. We think we're like the greatest thing since sliced bread, and God's all the way up in heaven looking down on us. We look like a little speck, we look like nothing to him. We look like a little ant to him. We look foolish when we get filled full of pride, because we're nothing special. And you look at this world, and the pride of life is all throughout entertainment, in Hollywood, and the sports stars, they're all filled full of pride. The pride of life, 2 Kings 18, 2 Kings chapter 18, 2 Kings chapter 18. Look, this can very easily happen to us as individuals, because you start learning things in the Bible, and you start thinking you're a little bit better than you actually are. Isn't that true? You say, Brother Stuckey, I know more than the Baptist pastor down the road. That doesn't mean you know enough, though. Just because you know the Bible, just because you can prove all these doctrines, that doesn't mean you know enough, okay? And last I checked, the Bible says grow in grace and in knowledge, and one sad thing is a lot of people grow in knowledge, and grace is kind of like, well, you know, maybe one day, I'll become graceful. All you have to do is go on Facebook or YouTube, and you can see there's not a whole lot of people that are soul owners filled with grace. Very few. Just because you have some knowledge, you need to grow in grace. And let me tell you something, anybody in this room that's married would admit that at times they fight with their spouse because they get a little bit prideful, they have a bad attitude, they're angry sometimes, they're bitter, they're in a bad mood or whatever, they're not always patient. I've literally had people, somebody told me this before, they said, you know, Brother Stuckey, you're a man of God. You never fight with your wife, right? I'm like, what? Because this was someone who I guess was having, you know, a marriage fight or whatever. I was like, no, everybody does. There's no temptation taking you, but such is the common man. Everybody fights. Look, I preach sermons, but I struggle with bitterness. I struggle with being patient, not being angry, not saying things I shouldn't. We all struggle with those things. I'm not perfect, and I don't claim to be, okay? But here's what I want you to understand. When you're reading the Bible, it's going to help you on these things. And one thing I've noticed in my personal life is that when I read the Bible, I'm in a better mood, okay? When I don't read the Bible, I start being in a bad mood. That's usually what takes place in my life. Notice what it says in 2 Kings 18 verse 19, 2 Kings 18 verse 19, and Rabshaki said unto him, speak ye now to Hezekiah. Now, I don't think that Rabshaki is his name. I think that is a title to everybody. There's a lot of Rabshakis. Whoever had that position was Rabshaki, okay? But it says here in verse 19, and Rabshaki said unto them, speaking now to Hezekiah, thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, what confidence is this wherein thou trustest? And what he says to the Hezekiah is he's like, you know, thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria. Notice how he calls the king of Assyria the great king? Now, you have to realize how insulting that is, because we believe the king of kings is our Lord and Savior. Basically what he's telling Hezekiah is, you know, your god's not the great king. Our literal human king is the great king. He's nothing. Why? You know, the god of the Assyrians was a god of war, and they took glory in the fact they killed other empires, okay? And so to them, they say, we rule the world, we're taking over the world. Our god's the number one god. Our king's the number one king. And they're basically slapping Hezekiah across the face and saying, your god's a fake god. Your religion is fake. Let me tell you something. I don't really like it when people insult me in general, but when they insult the god you believe in, that's far worse than anything. When people will mock what we believe, you know, I remember Brother Bo was visiting us from Hong Kong, and he said he was going soul winning in Rizal Park, and there was this Filipino Jew, okay, a Filipino Jew that was basically mocking Jesus Christ and, oh, look at me on the cross. Oh, I'm in pain. Oh, oh. Just mocking Jesus. It's like, man, Bo might have more strength than I do because he's a big guy, he's a strong guy, but man, he's just stayed calm, and he's just like, you're such a wicked person. And it's like, you know, there's nothing more insulting than mocking the god we believe in. That's why I don't understand people that will watch movies that use the Lord's name in vain. I don't get it. Doesn't that offend you? I can't stand hearing the Lord's name used in vain. And you have to hear from the secular world, I'm certainly not going to listen to music or movies that are blaspheming God. And that's all Hollywood does. That's all the movies and the music of the world do. They mock the god we believe in. Do you really think that God, do you think that if Jesus was here today, he would just sit beside you on a couch and watch the movies that you watch and the TV shows that you watch? I don't think so. They all are just mocking the god we believe in. That is what Rabshaki here is doing. Now notice what it says in verse 28. Then Rabshaki stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language and spake, saying, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. Once again, he's saying that your king is not a great king. Our Lord and Savior is not a great king. Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand. What Rabshaki is saying is, as the Assyrian Empire, we're basically conquering the world. Nobody's able to prevent us. And if you read this whole chapter, the whole thing is just him being filled full of pride, just mocking Hezekiah. We're going to take you over. You can't stop us. We've taken this king and this king and this king and this king. Who are you to fight against us? That's what he's saying. You say, What is that? That's called pride. Being a prideful person. Let me tell you something. People feel like, I'm such a great Christian, because I've read through the Bible more times than other people. Look, you're commanded to read the Bible. That's what you're expected to do. Just because you have more knowledge than someone else, for one, that doesn't make you a better person necessarily. And for two, that's just what we're supposed to do as Christians. Let me tell you something. There was a day in this world, at least in America, where families would read the Bible every night as a family. Every family in the United States did that. Every family would have their Bible time. They'd only be able to afford one Bible, and they would read together as a family every night. In today's world, nobody reads the Bible. Just because you've read through the Bible a couple times, it's really not that much. At Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, the qualifications, one requirement to basically being ordained for the ministry, is reading the Bible ten times cover to cover. Ten times is not that much. But people don't really read the Bible much these days. It's like if you read through the Bible just 15, 20 minutes a day, you'll finish the Bible one time in a year. You read it for 40 minutes a day, and look, if you're training for the ministry, it's not really a big requirement to ask you to read the Bible an hour a day. And it's like you will be able to do the ten times through cover to cover in like three, four years. Three or four years. That's not that much. Now turn in your Bible to 2 Kings 18. So the first point we have is not to rejoice too much in our success. Secondly, not to get prideful. But number three, do not compare yourself with other people, which is what Assyria does. 2 Kings 18, verse 20. 2 Kings 18, verse 20. Thou sayest, but they are but vain words, I have counsel and strength for the war. Now in whom dost thou trust that thou rebelest against me? Now behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust in him. You know what Assyria is saying here? You're trusting in Egypt to rescue you? We're more powerful than Egypt. What are they doing? They're comparing themselves to Egypt. They're comparing themselves to somebody else. See, that's one of the problems people have with serving God, is they start to serve God, but then all of a sudden they kind of reach a point where they feel like, I know the Bible better than most people, so I'm satisfied. I don't need to read it anymore. I go soul winning more than most people, so that's okay to me. Look, it doesn't matter if the world's not doing what they're supposed to do. The Bible says it's unwise to compare yourselves to other people, and it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have, I promise you there's people in this world that know the Bible better than you, and I promise you, you still need to know the Bible pretty well. Let me explain something to you. I got saved when I was 18 years old, and I didn't get married until I was 30 years old. I was saved basically just over 11 years, not 12 years, but around 11 years before I got married. I learned a lot about the Bible during those 11 years. I read it every day. I've wanted to be in the ministry since I was 19, and yeah, I learned a lot of things, but here's the thing. There's a difference between reading the Bible before you're married and then reading those same things in the Bible after you are married. Why? That's a different stage in life, my friend. All of a sudden, there's passages in the Bible where I'm like, wow, okay, because once I got married, I said, okay, I'm more interested in books like the Song of Solomon and Ephesians about being a good husband, being a good father, things such as that. Those are things you don't think about when you're single. When I was single, I was like, man, how do I disprove this false belief? How do I disprove this Mormon or this Jehovah's Witness? But then all of a sudden, once you get married, then all of a sudden you say, man, how do I become a good husband? Okay, I've never really looked for that before. So guess what? At every stage in life, you need to read the Bible a lot. After a few years, my wife and I had Zephaniah, our son, and all of a sudden, as we were expecting a child, I said, man, I need to figure out how do I become a good father. It's not really something that I've really had to focus on. And even within kids, they have various stages. Our son is a baby. Our daughters will be obviously a baby. And so for years, they're going to be at that stage. But as they get older, there's certain things in the Bible I need to know about how to raise them at every stage in life. And it doesn't matter how old you are, there are various stages in life, you must always read the Bible. Otherwise, you're going to fail in the stage you're at. It doesn't matter if somebody reads the Bible a hundred times before they're married. If they stop reading once they get married, it doesn't matter how much knowledge they have, they will never have read with the understanding of looking at it being a husband. And they'll fail as a husband. They'll fail as a father. Our life is a series of stages, and if you ever stop reading the Bible, you will fail at the stage you're at. You say, Brother Stuckey, how do I know whether or not I'm supposed to spank my kids? Well, the answers are all right here. And the Bible says, spare the rod, spoil the child. If you don't spank your child, you're going to do a bad job raising them. That's what the Bible teaches. But the only reason why I know that is because the Bible says that. And look, that's not the only thing. At our church, whenever I preach on being a father, the verse I always use is Ephesians 6.4, right? It's the verse on the coffee mug, and you say, why do you use Ephesians 6.4? Because when my son was about to be born, all of a sudden the thought went through my mind, oh, actually, what am I going to do once he's born? How do I become a father? It seemed like it was so easy to me, and then all of a sudden when my son was about to be born, I'm like, man, do I know what I'm doing? And it's like that verse comforted me, because it said that you provide nurture and admonition, and I said I can really break it down to two things. Abmanition means to instruct when they do wrong, but you also have to provide nurture and care for your child and spend time. And if you combine those things, you'll do a good job. If you don't combine those things and you only do one of them, you won't do a good job. But I had read that verse so many times, okay? I memorized the book of Ephesians, and I never paid attention to that verse. You say, why? Because I wasn't a father at the time. Once I became a father, I said, okay, wow, this is what God's trying to tell me. So it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have, you need to learn new things, okay? Look, if I never learned anything new, preaching sermons, my sermons would get very boring. You'd say, Brother Stuckey, I've already heard that sermon like 20 times before. You say, why are you studying the book of Zephaniah? Because it's something that's new. There's new knowledge that's in the book of Zephaniah. There's new knowledge in books like Ezekiel and Zechariah. Look, these are the words of God. It's an infinite amount of knowledge, but you're not going to know it if you don't read for yourself. You say, Brother Stuckey, I'll just listen to the sermons. Well, you're going to get like one-tenth of what's actually in the Bible then. Second Kings 18, verse 22, but if you say unto me, we trust in the Lord our God is not that he whose high place is in whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah in Jerusalem, he shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem. Now in verse 22, Rabshaki is confused, because Hezekiah, when he became the king, he took out the false idols. Okay? Let me give you an example. If one day I become the president of the Philippines, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to take those statues of Peter and just smash them with a sledgehammer. I'm going to take those idols of Peter and of Mary and of Jesus and all the idolatry in this country and destroy it. And you know what some people are going to say from the outside? Look at him like he's destroying Christianity. He's not a Christian. It's like, no, that is part of Christianity. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. And it doesn't matter how much the Catholic Church tries to just take that out as being one of the Ten Commandments. That's what it says in Exodus 20. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. And so look, when it comes to these statues, I destroy them. But do you realize that the unsaved world, the Hindus, the Buddhists, they would look at that. They wouldn't understand that. So Hezekiah, he becomes the king. He destroys the idolatry, as all the godly kings do. But Rabshaki doesn't understand that because he's not a believer. So he's saying, Hezekiah, he's going to deliver you from us. He's the one who just destroyed your gods. No, those aren't our gods. Look, you go down this street with these big idols of Peter, that's not our god. That big idol, the Feast of the Black Nazarene that some people worship in a couple of weeks, that's not our god. That's a mockery of God. That isn't even how Jesus looked. What kind of a statue is that? You think that's how Jesus looked? Affeminate, with long hair, a sissy, are you kidding me? Jesus was tough in the Bible. And they make Him look like a little girly man, and you've got millions of Catholics who will worship this Feast of the Black Nazarene. And if I just rub this little idol, I'll be cured of my sickness. They don't understand the Bible. And let me tell you something, if I became the president, I would destroy all this idolatry. And you would do the same thing, but the unsaved world would not understand that. Why are you destroying your gods? That Feast of the Black Nazarene has brought you so much great things. It's idolatry. But they don't understand that. And so He says, this is the same guy who destroyed your high places and your altars. Yeah, because most religions are false. We would do the same thing. Verse 33, verse 33, hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of a king of Assyria? Verse 34, where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvam, Hanah, and Ivah? Have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand? Who are they among all the gods of the countries that have delivered their country out of mine hand that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand? And so notice how He brings up all of these gods, these false gods, because in the past, countries would kind of look at their country as having their own god. You win a war, that proves you have the true God. That's sort of the mentality. And nobody even knows these names anymore. You say, why? Because nobody worships these false gods anymore. Now look, you can go to India and you've got like 55 billion false gods that they worship, but I want you to realize that all these gods out there, they're fake. They're false. Jesus said, I am the way, the way, ang da an, not isang da an. I am the way, the truth, which means every false religion, every other religion is false. Because He says, ang khatotohannan, not isang khatotohannan, the truth and the life. So when it comes to receiving spiritual life, spiritual, nabuha na walang han gan, it is only in Jesus Christ. You're not going to find it in some other religion. And so I want you to realize all these other gods, they're fake gods. They're false gods. But Assyria doesn't understand that. But notice how it's said in verse 33, hath any of the gods of the nations? What are they doing? They're comparing their god to these other gods. Look, comparing is a great way to end up dwelling carelessly. Look, if you end up rejoicing too much in your success, you become prideful, or you spend your life comparing yourself to other people, you will destroy your life. Okay? Now turn in your Bible to Zephaniah 2, Zephaniah 2. And this is a common thing we do as people because, look, we all like to get success for the things we do. And people oftentimes in church, it can become a prideful thing where they basically compare and say, well, I got nine people saved. This guy only gets like a couple people saved each week. And it's like they spend their life just comparing themselves to other people. You know, there's several reasons why the Bible says that's foolish. One reason is this, because if you end up having more success than someone else, it will make you feel like I can just kind of slow down and not go so many as much. Man, I read the Bible more than anybody else at church, I'll just kind of calm it down then. I just want to win. As long as I'm ahead of number two, I'm okay. I don't have to just read a lot. And see, that's the problem with comparing. The other problem with comparing is this, because some of you in this room, maybe you've never read the Bible cover to cover. And you might look at certain people at this church and think, man, they know the Bible so well, I'll never be able to know that much. And see, what it causes is it causes people not only to basically get prideful if they compare, but it also can cause people to kind of get depressed and feel like I can never end up serving God. I just don't have that ability. Look, when I got saved, do you know how much Bible knowledge I had? This much. I could quote zero Bible verses when I got saved. I couldn't quote John 3.16 when I got saved. I didn't even know the verse Jesus wept. I couldn't quote anything in the Bible when I got saved. You say, how do you learn? You read every day, and then over time you hear sermons, you're learning, you're learning, you're growing, and eventually you learn the Bible better. But it's foolish if you just compare yourself to other people, it's going to cause you to quit reading the Bible. So we saw the cause of dwelling carelessly, and that is when you rejoice too much in success, when you get prideful, or when you compare. But let us see the result of dwelling carelessly. Notice what it says in Zephaniah 2 verse 13. And he will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation and dry like wilderness. What he says in Zephaniah 2 verse 13 is Nineveh is going to be a desolation. Basically they're going to be brought to nothing. Look, Assyria, make no mistake about it, they were the most powerful empire in the world. They got brought to nothing. The only people really in this world that really know Assyria was a power are people that read the Bible. Nobody else even knows that. Nobody knows Nineveh. They don't know that. They don't know Assyria was a power. I didn't know Assyria was a powerful empire before I read the Bible. You say, why? Because nobody knows them anymore, because God took their name out of existence. Nobody even really knows about Assyria being powerful or Nineveh. They've forgotten it, they've completely forgotten. They became a desolation. Basically there was nothing there. Basically you went to the country, there was no fruit, there was no veggies, there was nothing. It was all destroyed. This was the powerful empire that had everything. The rich country that ruled the world, they had nothing then overnight. Why? Well, because they got prideful, they compared, and they rejoiced too much. They got brought to nothing. Notice verse 14. In verse 13, let me just say this. Not only did it say it will make Nineveh a desolation, when it says dry like a wilderness, what the Bible's trying to tell you is this. When ground is very dry, you can't plant fruits and veggies and produce. When it's dry like a wilderness, basically it became an area where you couldn't even recreate it. Before that, it was a very plush society with very rich, they had everything the world had to offer. It got destroyed and the land became dry where you could no longer till the ground and create fruit and veggies. It was destroyed. Why? That's the curse of God in that area. That area of the world changed when God destroyed it, and it became dry like a wilderness because it was the curse of God. Verse 14, and flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations. Both the cormorant and the bitter shall lodge in the upper lentils of it. Their voice shall sing in the windows. The nation shall be in the thresholds for he shall uncover the cedar work. Once again, it says here in verse 14, it says desolation. You're seeing in verse 14, Nineveh became a place that was filled with a bunch of wild animals. Look, when you look at areas of this world when there's no people, you'll see a lot of animals. That's the way it works. In the last 20 years, last 10 years, in the United States, Detroit, Michigan, which is a very famous city, they've just become very poor and then half the people have left the city, and now there's literally just wild animals roaming in Detroit. You say, why? Because when there's no people, the animals will come. The Bible teaches animals are afraid of humans. Why? Because we hunt them and kill them and eat them, and so they're afraid of humans. Animals naturally are afraid of humans. Now I have personally seen this in my life before because I remember when I was in Pennsylvania and I mentioned this story, my parents, their house, they have a backwoods in a hiking area, and I was listening to my iPod, just listening to the audio Bible, and my head was kind of down and all of a sudden I heard this thump hit the ground. I look up and there's this bear that dropped out of a tree, and he was just like 50 feet in front of me, less than 50 feet, not very far in front of me, and so I look up and there's this bear in the middle of the wilderness. I didn't have a gun on me, I didn't have a knife, I had nothing, and so guess what the reaction was from the bear? He ran away from me. Why? Animals are afraid of humans. Guess what my reaction was? I ran away from the bear. Why? Because I'm afraid of bears. And so here's the thing, could that bear have killed me? Absolutely. There's no way I would be able to fight a bear. It would have killed me. It was bigger than me, and obviously it's a bear, it would have killed me. But animals are afraid of humans, and so what you're seeing here in verse 14, when the people are gone, it gets inhabited by wild animals in verse 14. Verse 15, this is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me. How has she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in? And let me tell you something. In your life, no matter how successful you are, you can become a desolation and destroy your life. You can become nothing overnight. You could be the greatest soul winner in this church, the greatest preacher, have the most Bible knowledge, and you could become nothing this year if you dwell carelessly. If you don't read your Bible, if you don't have your personal walk with God, you're going to be just like a Syrian and become nothing. And notice what it said in verse 15, where it said, that said in her heart. See, sometimes we don't talk about how great we are. It doesn't mean, though, that you might not say that in your heart. You might not brag about how much you've read the Bible, but in your heart right now, some of you might feel like, man, I really know the Bible better than other people this church. Be careful. You're dwelling carelessly right now. Be careful if you're saying in your heart, look at me, I'm better than other people this church. You're going to destroy your life one day. That is going to be the end result. It's not going to come overnight. Look, I mean, Nineveh had their warnings. Jonah was sent to Nineveh, and a long time goes by, and once God laid down the hammer, they were done. You and your life, you start to get prideful or compare, you rejoice too much. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but in six months from now, you'll be out of this church. You won't be serving God. You'll be sitting around watching movies all day, sitting around watching TV all day, sitting around listening to rock music that blasphemes God all day. You say, will that happen if I quit reading my Bible? Absolutely it will happen. You say, why? Because this sort of church, when you preach these sorts of sermons, it causes people either to get in or get out. If you're not going to do the steps of walking with God, you'll leave this place. Let me tell you something, everyone's welcome at this church that's obviously not some sort of pedophile, as we've mentioned. Everyone's welcome at this church, and I don't want you to leave, but the reality is that with any single person in this room, if you quit having a walk with God, you won't like these sermons. Why? Because these sermons step on your toes. When you're being told, read the Bible every day, guess what? If you don't read the Bible, it offends you. When you're being told, hey, you know what, you need to serve God and pray every day and you're not doing that, that's why most preachers, they just preach generic sermons. They pat you on your back, your best life now. Just leave this place, God will bless you. Why do they do that? Because they don't want to lose members. I'm not concerned if we lose members of this church. I'm concerned that the members that are in this church are serving God. That is why we preach this way. Look, of course, I would love to see this church become a very big church with people that serve God, but I'm not going to compromise the preaching to increase the growth of this church. Just one bit. But I want you to realize, it doesn't matter how much you love God now, if you quit reading the Bible now and quit serving God now and start living a worldly life, you will leave this church one day. And one day, people will raise their hand and say, man, what happened to Brother So-and-so? He used to love God and it's like, yeah, like two years ago, he just started to slowly fade out of the things of God. What makes this dangerous is it starts in the heart. See, even if you start backsliding in your heart, I won't know immediately because you'll still be at church. You'll still be soul winning, but you start backsliding in your heart and you stop really walking with God. It starts in the heart and eventually you'll just be out of this place. That's the way it works. Notice 2 Kings 19. Turn to 2 Kings 19, 2 Kings chapter 19. It's funny because I've watched various people talk about the Assyrian Empire. The people that are remnants of the Assyrians today, they're not bad people. This was thousands of years ago. But they're very defensive about this because some people will say, hey, we looked at the historical evidence and you're like the most evil empire ever and they're really offended by that. It's not just me saying this. Historians say this about the Assyrian Empire, that they're very wicked and the Bible proves this. And they're very defensive about this. But this is what the Bible teaches. They're a very evil empire and that's why they were destroyed. 2 Kings 19, verse 35, and it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians in a hundred, four score and five thousand. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. And so in verse 35, this is this arrogant, prideful country, Assyria, and overnight a hundred, four score and five thousand people die. That is one hundred and eighty-five thousand people. Now look, our country is filled full of a hundred million people. Let me tell you something. Countries weren't a hundred million people back in this day. A hundred and eighty-five thousand is a large, it would be like if overnight like fifteen million people were dead in this country. A huge percentage of people just dead overnight and these are their warriors. These are their fighters. This was a country where their thing was we just start wars and conquer people and overnight a hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers end up dying. They don't look so tough now, do they? Verse 36, so Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned and dwelt at Nineveh. Now look at this guy Sennacherib. He was the king and they were so arrogant, but notice verse 37. How does his life end? Verse 37, and it came to pass as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his god, that at Dremelech and Shirezer, his son smote him with the sword and they escaped into the land of Armenia and Azir had in his son reigned in his stead. Look, it doesn't really get much worse in your life than your son kills you. I can't really think of a worse way for myself to die if one day my son killed me, but that was this mighty and powerful king Sennacherib. Turn back to Zephaniah 2. So one thing that we'll see is that if you end up backsliding and getting out of church and quitting on the things of God, your life is going to be destroyed. You're going to be brought to nothing. I don't know the end result, but people go and they drink alcohol, they destroy their life, they destroy their marriages, they become bad parents, their kids grow up and don't love the Lord. Why? Because the parents stop serving God. That takes place. Zephaniah 2, verse 15, this is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am and there is none beside me. How has she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in? Everyone that passeth by her shall hiss and wag his hand. Now let me explain something to you. When the Bible says everyone, it means everyone. We're not Calvinists. When it says everyone, it means everyone. Everyone that passeth by her shall hiss and wag his hand. What is it saying? It's saying basically that everyone's going to walk by Assyria and mock Assyria. Whenever anybody walks by Assyria, they'll be like, look at this country. It's nothing. It's a desolation. That's what everybody did in that day. You say, why? They were brought to nothing and everybody just mocked them. Look, if you end up leaving this place, people, and I'm not just saying this church in general because people move and things like that, that's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying if you get out of the things of God, people will look at your life and they will mock your failures in life. I'm not saying we should do that as people, but that's the reality of what will happen. If you end up becoming some sort of drunk and destroy your life, people will look at you and they'll mock your failures in life. That's the reality. Also, they're not going to remember any great things you ever did. Look, you might have spent every week this year going soul winning and accomplished a lot of things, but do you realize that if you backside and quit on the things of God, nobody will remember that. The only thing people remember about Assyria is they were destroyed, that Nineveh was destroyed. That's all anybody knows. That's the majority of people in church. All they'll tell you about Assyria is Nineveh was destroyed. Nobody's going to mention they conquered Egypt. Nobody's going to mention they conquered the world. They did, but nobody remembers that. The sad reality is that if you quit on the things of God, nobody's going to remember the good things you do. They're going to remember your failures. Look, if I backslid and I left church, and let's say I committed some grievous sins and I was no longer in church, nobody would say, hey, I remember that great sermon Brother Stuckey preached. They would only remember my failures. Look, at this church, some of us we know, someone was a great man of God, a great pastor at one time, who did a lot of great things for God, and then he destroyed his life. Nobody remembers the great things he did, do they? They don't remember that. Nobody would ever talk about the great things he did. All they talk about is he destroyed his life. That's the reality for any of us in this room, that if you backside on the things of God, nobody's going to remember the good things you do. It's going to be forgotten. They're going to remember how you destroyed your life. Look at the celebrities of this world. Celebrities are, everybody loves them. Look at all the great things they do. Then when they destroy their life, the only thing people remember is, man, look at those things they're doing. Look, the day that Vice Pange drops dead out of some disease because he's a sick, perverted person, no one's going to remember how funny he was. They're going to remember how he died being a miserable loser, a disgusting pervert. That's what they'll remember. Let me tell you something. That is what the Bible says about some man that's going to cross-dress. He's a pervert destroying our country. This sort of preaching is trying to save this country from that because it's disgusting. You see young kids in today's world, they think that's normal. They think it's normal to walk down the street and see a guy dressed as a woman. Do you realize how big of an embarrassment that is to our country? When people come to the missions trip, the one thing they comment on is they're shocked at how many guys are dressed as women out there. You think that's normal? That's disgusting. It is an embarrassment to our country. That's the reality. You say, why? Because no Baptist preachers are getting up and preaching this. They're too scared. Oh, no. That's just the Old Testament. We're just trying to reach people with love. It's like, well, you go ahead and try your method. We're going to try our method of doing lots of soul-winning and preaching hard and doing what God said. Turn in your Bible to 2 Peter 3. You say, Brother Stuckey, are you a hate preacher? Amen. Amen. Yeah. I have a lot of love and I have a lot of hate. I love what's right and I hate what's wrong. I love the good. I hate the bad. I hate every false way, as the Bible says. That includes the Mormons out there. I hate them. I don't hate the individuals. I hate that church. I don't hate the average Mormon person out there, but I hate that church. I hate the Mormon church, the Latter-day Satans. I hate them. I hate the Jehovah's Witness church. You say, why? They're sending people to hell. If you don't hate them, there's something wrong with you. They're preaching a false gospel. You should hate their religions. I'm not telling you to hate the members. You say, Brother Stuckey, do you hate the Roman Catholic Church? Amen, I do. I hate the Roman Catholic Church because 80% of these people in this country are following a religion that's going to lead them to hell one day. That's the reality. You say, but nobody else is preaching this. Everyone else is. Let's just get along. Well, I'm going to preach the truth. I'm not going to shy away from that. I hate every false way. Second Peter 3. What we saw here today was we saw the cause of dwelling carelessly. What will cause you to end up dwelling carelessly and get too comfortable in your Christianity to basically not be like Peter and just stay in the boat? Peter is the one who walked on the water. Peter failed, but at least he tried. Too many of us, we get comfortable in the ship and we say, well, look at Peter. He can do whatever, but I'm just comfortable here. What causes us to dwell carelessly and not still try to accomplish something for God? What we saw, pride is something that does that. We saw rejoicing too much, the rejoicing city, and we also saw that comparing yourself. The result is you'll be brought to desolation, you'll destroy your life, and nobody's going to remember anything you accomplished for God. You could literally go soul winning for 20 years, get 1,000 people saved, because 20 years is basically 1,000 weeks. One person saved per week, which is a very doable goal in a country such as this, and get 1,000 people saved in your life, and let's say, for example, you destroy your life by doing something stupid. No one's going to remember the 1,000 people you got saved. No one's going to remember. Now, look, I'm not saying they shouldn't because obviously you accomplish good things, but even when you look at characters in the Bible, Samson accomplished a lot of things in his life. How do you remember Samson in the Bible? I mean, David, at one time, did some great things. He killed Goliath, but honestly, people didn't remember him committing adultery with Bathsheba. That's what he became known for. Why? Because better is the end of a thing than the beginning, the book of Ecclesiastes says. The reality is that if you start well on your race and then kind of fade out, people will remember that. Now, let me just show you two verses here that talk about the importance of reading the Bible. 2 Peter 3, verse 18, 2 Peter 3, verse 18, it says, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to Him be glory both now and forever, amen. The Bible says we're supposed to grow in both grace and in knowledge. You say, Brother Stuckey, I have knowledge. I can prove to you why I believe this and this and this. Yeah, but do you have grace? See, if there's anything this last week has taught me when you look online, it's that there's a lot of soul winners with no grace whatsoever. No grace whatsoever. Yeah, it's like, man, I can prove the posterior rapture, I can go to Matthew 24, but are you a jerk? Let me be honest with you. When I was single, what I wanted to do was really learn the Bible. I memorized the Bible, I would read the Bible, and I was very interested in learning and learning and learning. Being a father, I can honestly tell you I'm more concerned that my son grows up and he's not a jerk and he has grace, that he has lots of knowledge. I want him to have both, but if he's sitting in church, he can learn through the preaching the various things he believes, but you know what, there's certain just general manners that people used to have and they don't have them anymore. The Bible speaks about this like when basically you're someone who's sitting down and someone who's older will come in the room, you're supposed to kind of basically stand up as a sign of respect, or just let's say, for example, four people are sitting around and a lady walks in. What is the right thing to do? You should offer your seat to that lady if you're a guy. Isn't that right? But do people know these things today? No they don't. Let me tell you something, I was raised this way by my parents. I started getting homeschooled in middle school and I was raised with very strict parents and I'm very thankful for it. Why? Because I learned some of these things even before I was saved. But quite honestly, I look at a lot of people and it's great they got saved because they watched after the tribulation, but it's like they need to learn to be a nice person. Let me tell you something, as individuals and as fathers and as husbands and as wives, we need both of these things. You need to read the Bible so you can learn knowledge, but don't forget the fact you need to learn grace as well. We need both of those things. Turn to Deuteronomy 17, we'll close up here. Deuteronomy 17. You say, Brother Stuckey, why in the world are we preaching through Zephaniah? It's such an obscure book. Quite honestly, I just don't want to dwell carelessly. I want to learn new things in the Bible. And I could honestly say I didn't know the book of Zephaniah very well, and I was like, I want to understand this book. Once I finish Zephaniah, I'm going to start really studying another book and memorizing another book. Why? I don't want to dwell carelessly and say I have enough knowledge, I've arrived, I'm at this point of strong Christianity. No, we all need to keep learning and keep growing. Deuteronomy 17, verse 18, and it shall, Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 18, and it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom that he shall write him a copy of this law and a book out of that which is before the priests of Levites. And it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life. The Bible says you should read God's word every day. Now notice how it said, it shall be with him. You know a good way to read the Bible every day is to have the Bible with you. It's hard to read the Bible without it with you. I recommend on your cell phones, if you have a smartphone, to download the Bible because that's a way you can read the Bible sometimes. Obviously, I do most of my reading from the Bible itself, not on my cell phone, but I'm just saying have the Bible everywhere you go. You say, Brother Stuckey, are you embarrassed to bring a Bible to a restaurant? Why would I be embarrassed about bringing the word of God with me? I usually bring my Bible just about everywhere I go. Why? I like having the Bible around me, okay? And if you're going to read the Bible, you need to actually have it there. And so the Bible says, read therein all the days of his life, meaning every single day. Why? That he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them. See you can hear all these sermons preached over and over again, but you're going to learn to fear the God when you actually read it for yourself. When you read what the Bible says, it will put you in fear, okay, if you don't obey what God says. But notice also in verse 20, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren. See the Bible says the person who does not read the word of God will be prideful. If you don't read the word of God, your heart will be lifted up above your brethren. When you see people that are very prideful, you can guarantee they don't read the Bible much. Why? Because reading the word of God will cause you not to be lifted up. It will cause you to stay humble. And so when people are very prideful people, it shows they don't read the Bible much. And that's what the Bible teaches us. Now look, this is one of the big things that will cause you to dwell carelessly is being filled full of pride. This is why you need to read the Bible. It says that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. A lot of people, they start serving God, and they have strong standards that this is what I believe in, this is my life, and what ends up happening, they turn aside to the left or right somewhere along the road. Isn't that true with people? You start living for God, and then at some point in your life you kind of just fade out in serving God. I don't want to fade out. I don't want to change what I believe. I don't want to water down my stances. I don't want to just start justifying worldliness. I want to serve God until the day I die. And the Bible promises this happens if you read the Bible. Look, the reality is most Christians do not read the Bible. Most people that are saved do not read the Bible. I'm not asking people to raise their hands. We're not having an altar call, that's a whole other sermon, things such as that. But the reality is in this room there's probably a lot of you who have never read the Bible cover to cover one time. Now one thing I want to do real quickly is just kind of go over this and explain to close up because quite honestly we're trying to make reading the Bible, I don't want to just encourage you, I want to actually help you to read the Bible. Because I not only want to just try to motivate you, I want to kind of give you a plan. For starters, every single person in this room should get one of these on the back table. This was created to help you read the Bible, to help me read the Bible, to help all of us read the Bible. This is for the month of January. There are two sides to this, okay? There's this side which is nine chapters a day, that's kind of the method we use at Verity. As a math-oriented person, I have to have it go down to the, like, Matthew has 28 chapters. Three days of nine chapters leaves you with one chapter. I prefer just like seven chapters each day. But basically you have two options, you can do this side or this side, and every day that you finish it you can cross off and say, okay, day one, this is what I read. Day two, this is what I read. Day three. So it's not just, hey, I need to finish the New Testament every day. It's like, okay, wait a minute, I've got to get through this chapter by the end of today. Why is this important? It's important because when it's 915 at night, your flesh wants to get on Facebook. Your flesh wants to just kind of say, oh, what's going on here, and whatever. You want to spend 45 minutes being lazy, and this will force you not to be lazy. Why? I didn't finish my Bible reading yet. I've got to finish this. Now let me say this, that the best method for you to do this is actually start in the mornings. I understand people have different work schedules, but I can promise you this, that especially if you have a family, it's very difficult when you come home from work. It's very difficult when my son just runs and just wants to play with me all the time. You know, I do better early in the morning just having a private place. And so a couple of things you need to do, one, start in the morning, first thing in the morning, get your cup of coffee if you need it, whatever. If you need an energy drink, whatever you need to wake up, to read your Bible, get your cup of coffee, sit down, turn off your cell phone, turn it on silent, get it out of the room, whatever you need to do, don't have your computer beside you, because there are people that spend three hours reading the Bible and get through seven verses because they have their cell phone right beside them, and that's really not an exaggeration. Get your cell phone away from you for at least one hour. Look, you won't believe this, but for over 6,000 years in human history, there were no cell phones, and people were fine, okay? If you have your cell phone beside you, they're like, oh, wait, another message on VBC Manila Facebook chat. Oh, wow, look at this picture, that's funny. You're never going to do any Bible reading. Get your phone away from you, okay? Get your computer away from you. Don't read the Bible while you're watching TV, okay? Literally people do this and they wonder, man, I don't have any time to read the Bible, but you spent like three hours texting or three hours on Facebook. Get the social media away from you and get alone with God, and use this chart, and every day you're going to be learning things. And you know what, if you want, write things down that you're learning, because I'll tell you this, every single one of us, if we're actually reading the Bible without distractions, we will all learn a lot of new things. And you're going to find this month, coming up in January, you're going to be in a good mood, you're going to be more patient with your husband or wife, you're going to have a better attitude, you're going to be in just a much better mood than you normally are. But if you don't take this challenge and don't read the Bible, then I don't know, I guess it's up to you. It's your choice what you want to do. What I'd like to see though is 100% participation. I understand some people read faster than others, maybe you can't finish, but at least try. Everyone should take one of these on this back table. Let's close in word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today in your house and just getting to see your Word and just this interesting passage here in the book of Zephaniah, God, help us not to dwell carelessly and just get satisfied with our success or satisfied with how much we know the Bible, God, help us to realize we all, including myself, need to learn more and to basically be edified from your Word, God, help us this coming month to put aside all of our distractions and just spend time alone with you everyday, God, just reading your Word and praying to you and memorizing your Word, God, help us to have our personal walk with you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.