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And so in Genesis 28 you have a very famous passage a well-known story about Jacob's ladder We've probably all heard that term You know the story of Jacob's ladder where he has his vision and he sees the Lord and he sees these angels going up And down and we'll talk a little bit about that But really tonight all I want to do is just focus on the last six verses of the chapter The first half is just kind of dealing with you know Isaac sending out Jacob and blessing him sending him to Go take a wife and Patan Ram with Laban and Esau sees that he takes a wife there and then Of course beginning in verse 10 is kind of where the story picks up with Jacob's ladder And it says Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran And he lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night because the Sun was set And he took up the stones of that place and put them for his pillows and lay down in that place to sleep So if you've ever complained about your mattress or your pillows, you know You just turn to Genesis 28. I'll help you sleep a little bit better He's literally sleeping on rocks here and he dreamed to behold a ladder set up on the earth and on top of it reached to heaven and Behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it and behold the Lord stood above it and said I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father and the God of Isaac and the land where in thou liest to thee will I give it and to thy seed and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth and thou shalt spread abroad to the west of the east of the North and to the south and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed and behold I am with thee and will keep thee in all places where thou goest and will bring thee again into this land for I Will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to of thee. So God is reassuring him in the way That you know, although you're leaving kindred behind though You're stepping out and kind of going into a strange land God showing up and reassuring him that you know He's got his eye on him. He's watching him He's gonna protect him and he's gonna bring him back into this land And this is something that you know in his dream. He's beholding That's why it says in verse 16 and Jacob awake out of his sleep and he said surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not and he was afraid said how Dreadful is this place? This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven and that's really from there on in It's kind of worth the verses. I want to focus on tonight where he says That it says that he was afraid and it says there Jacob the statement that he makes in verse 17 It says this is none other But the house of God, this is where God is dwelling. This is the place of God. This is God's home This is where God is present and he's saying this is none other but the house of God And this is the gate of heaven I kind of want to focus in here on the first part of the sermon on the idea that there's these parallels in this Passage with the New Testament Church because again, it's Jacob that's saying that this is none other Than the other but the house of God right? So if we look at this chapter tonight, I only have three points we'll see that there's some parallels here in the in what Jacob does what he sees and What he goes on to do as a result the building of the pillar and all of that There's some parallels there and and with the New Testament Church in three ways And I'll give those points to you now and its construction and its consecration and in its Commission Okay, so that we see these three parallels between Genesis 28 and the New Testament Church and its construction its consecration and Commission now I gave those listed those just now, but I'm not going to go in that order I'm gonna go a little bit out of that order. The first one I'm going to begin with is the parallel in its Consecration and really consecration is just means something that is made or declared sacred if we're going to consecrate something We're gonna say this is something that is sacred. This is something that is special, right? That's what it means to kind of consecrate something and we're gonna call it sacred sacred meaning that it is Dedicated that it's set apart for worship that it's worthy of respect Okay, so you can already start to see how there's some parallels here, right? He's saying this is none other than the house of God but one parallel is the fact that the house of God is a consecrated place and Before I get too far ahead of myself. I don't get too far ahead of myself But again, I don't want people to get the wrong idea and think that I'm talking about the physical building itself Okay Obviously the church is the assembly of the believers and we'll see that parallel here in this chapter as well But the first thing I want to point out is that you know Church the house of God is a special place It's not like in any other place that you go to throughout your week. It's not like, you know the mall It's not like the supermarket. It's not like the bank. It's not like your job. It's not even like your house It's a very distinct and unique thing and it's something that you know We should set apart as special It's something that is worthy of our respect when we come to the house of God, you know When we come to the house of God, we should understand that we're coming into the presence of God, right? God is here with us He's meeting with us tonight as we're praying and we're lifting up our voices and worship to God as we're reading his word As the Word of God has been expounded. We need to understand that that's not just something we do out of habit That's not just some vain ritual that we're practicing you know, we do that and we believe that God in heaven is taking note of the events that are playing out here tonight and Church is a consecrated place. It's somewhere someplace. It should be held sacred in our hearts It should be something that is dedicated and set apart for worship it should be something that is worthy of our respect and I'll get into some practical points tonight and how we can show that respect and how we can show that worship and really the respect not just for the Because it's church, but because of the fact that God's presence is there That's why Jacob says surely this is the house of God because the presence of God is there This is where God is dwelling, you know, that's a parallel with the New Testament Church If you would, you know, we'll just stay where you are. I'm gonna move quickly through this point, but Again, it says in verse 12 and he dreamed a dream and behold a ladder set up on the earth on the top of it reached to heaven and Behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it and behold the Lord stood above it so he's seeing God he's seeing the Lord at the top this ladder and Jacob again in verse 16 he wakes up and he says surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not You know that should never be said of us when it comes to church. It should never dawn on us that oh, yeah I forgot this is the God's house. This is where God dwells This is a sacred place that we should revere This is a place that we should have some respect for when we come into the house of God And again, it's not the building. It's the fact that God's people is here are here It's the fact that God's Word is being opened and expounded. It's the fact that we're worshiping God in song. Okay? The Bible says in Matthew 18 for where two or three to gather together in my name there I am in the midst of them and I know that's not a reference to church as much as some people out there Would would like to make you know, but we would like to use that and and and use that as an excuse to not go to Church, well, I don't need to go to church because whatever two or three together there I am in the midst You know, that's something doesn't have a respect for church. That's not somebody has a reverence for God's house and even today as I was driving about Not today, but earlier this week I Was at a stoplight and I pulled up a big behind a big church fan and somewhat and I had not a big church Man, just a regular like spinner minutes that seek Jesus and he will find you and it said seek Jesus and not religion and not Church and I instantly knew that you know, this is probably you know, maybe this is a saved guy I don't know. Maybe he might even be a lot of times these same people believe very bizarre things people of this ilk But you know, it was just a very, you know I looked at that and I thought what of you know in a reverent attitude towards church What is just a dismissive attitude that some people today that would even claim the name of Christ have today for God's house For the place where God meets with this people where God's Word is open and spoken They just had this flippant just kind of take it or leave it could care less about the local church and it's a shame You know Jacob woke up and said this is none other than the house of God and he took certain actions Again the book of Revelation the Bible tells us that Jesus was in the midst of the seven candlesticks which are representative of the seven churches You know, it's not just us that are here tonight It's us and each one of us that has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit the presence of God is with us when we meet Notice, you know Jacob's reaction in verse 17 when Jacob wakes up after having seen this vision and Realizes that he's in God's presence and says this is the house of God, you know, what's his reaction? it says in verse 17 and he was afraid and Said how dreadful is this place? This is none other but the house of God and This is the gate of heaven. Okay Jacob had a reverence. He had a you know, obviously a fear of the Lord a fear of God's presence But you know, he takes note of this place. This is a special place to him And again church is a sacred place for us. It's a place that we set apart to worship in the presence of God and I understand We can do that every day, you know in our prayer closet we can do that every day Driving down the road we can do that every day in our family devotions We can sing praises and we can worship God and we can read his word But there's no other place like the church The church is something that you know, we should not take lightly church is important Church is a sacred place. It's something something that is set apart if you would go to Ephesians chapter 5 And we'll just look at some New Testament passages to remind us of this You know, it's it's a sacred place because of the fact that One in Acts chapter 20 the Bible tells us that God has purchased the church with his own blood You know anything that Christ is laying down his life for anything that Christ is shedding his own blood for obviously is precious It's obviously something that is sacred. It's obviously something that is worth our respect It's obviously important to God if Christ died for it The Church of God, this is Paul speaking to the elders at Ephesus He told them to take heat in the cells and the flock over which God had made them overseers and And to feed the Church of God which he had purchased with his own blood Say how important is church? Well, Jesus shed his blood for it. Jesus purchased it with his own blood Look at Ephesians chapter number 5 verse 25 Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. I Mean, there's another pretty heavy church or excuse me verse that should tell us about the importance of church tonight Christ loved the church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word Again, this idea he sanctified it right? He separated. It's something that's sacred. It's something that's set apart It's something that's special That he might present it to himself a Glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish And I'll get into some of the practical points here, you know, Jacob woke up in the after having seen this vision It's like truly the Lord is in this place And he said it's a dreadful place. He had fear in his heart. He had respect for this place You know when we come to the church, we should show respect for the church And I don't want to get you know, too Mystical about it. I've seen some pastors. They they literally think that the church should be holy I've seen some pastors they they literally think there's something special about the building itself and they won't even You know do certain things on the property because you know Maybe god's name is on a lease or something. I don't know But you can get carried away with it But let's not have this irreverent Flipping attitude when it comes to the church What's some ways that we can show and if you would go to hebrews 10 When you get to hebrews bookmark it we're going to go back again later We'll be in first timothy a little bit here in a minute as well a couple times tonight So you're real close to first timothy right there. You got first timothy second timothy titus philemon in hebrews So we're going to be in that area, but how are some you know, what are some things we can do? Obviously, we're not going to go out back and find a bunch of rocks and you know break out the olive oil tonight And anoint some you know anoint this some pillar But you know, there's some things that you can do to show respect for the house of god How about this come to church Attendance I mean, how can we really say that we revere church that it's special to us that it's important to us that it's something You know, we have uh, we hold sacred if it's if it's not even something we go to It's if it's not even something that we appreciate And show up for Look at hebrews chapter number 10. Look at verse 23. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering For he that is faithful have that he is faithful that promised And let us consider one another to provoke one another to love into good works not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together Again, that phrase in verse 23 is let us hold fast the profession of our faith Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together How are you going to hold fast the profession of your faith? by being in church by attending church By being there for the preaching of the word of god for by being there for the fellowship by being there for the worship of god And he says not forsaking the assembling of other ourselves together as the manner of some is You know some people have a manner of missing church. Some people have a manner of not attending church They drive big white vans that say seek jesus not church not religion You know and a lot of people, you know, they they miss out on a lot Look at verse the end of the verse verse 25 says but exhorting one another And so much the more as you say the day approaching The day and age that we're living in we need more church and not less and yet it seems so often it's the opposite You know be in church church should be like a priority It should be a number one, you know thing that's like you're gonna go no matter what and and you wonder why over the years You just scratch your head and you wonder why some people just never seem to get on board with it Why is it some christians are just so hit and miss? They're just not consistent with church And you know, the only thing I can think of is because they just haven't made the decision You know, I've and i'm not saying this braggadociously i'm not saying this in a boastful way Because honestly church attendance is is like one of the easiest things in the christian life In fact, I think it's you know, as far as the christian disciplines, you know prayer bible reading soul winning Singing of the hymns church attendance. I I you know, just kind of without putting a lot of thought into it right now I'd probably just go ahead and say that church attendance is probably the easiest discipline in the christian life I mean we we can we show up in church and we're like, oh my gosh I mean we we can we show up at places all the time We just show up and we're there all the time You know, we run errands and go places and make sure we're at certain places at certain times all the time They have nothing to do with church. They have no spiritual benefit whatsoever It's not like coming to this building to this church is any more difficult, right? We didn't build it up on some mountain where you know, you gotta get a sherpa to find your way there It's right off the ten now I get tonight was kind of hard Right good thing. I had my old, uh, you know, michigan winter driving skills still with me, right I'm driving down the road thinking i'm going everyone's throwing their blinkers on doing 35 in the freeway practically i'm saying a bunch of pansies Get out of the way if you can't handle it, right? What are you doing out here? But you know, there's nothing hard about going to church and yet so many people skip out on it People don't they just don't make the decision. This is what I was beginning to say You know, they just haven't made the decision and that's something that I did This is why and i'm again not a braggadocious statement because there's nothing really to brag about the fact you just oh I showed up at a building, you know, two or one or two or three times a week or whatever it is But I remember, you know when I got into church, I just said i'm gonna be in church and I haven't missed And you know even me Little old me has managed to have consistent church attendance for decades Does that make me some spiritual giant of the faith? No, it's because that's easy that's so simple it's so basic So why if it's so simple and so easy why do people not show respect for church by showing up And I get it people are sick and things like that and there's seasons and difficult I I understand all that But you know a lot of people just aren't in church because they just don't feel like it That's it That's the only reason they have Well, I just don't feel like going Well, what's feelings got to do with it If I didn't do anything I all the things I didn't feel like doing a lot of things wouldn't get done You know, my boss would be calling me tomorrow. Why aren't you here? Well, I didn't feel like it You must not feel like having a paycheck I don't feel like being in church. Well, you must not feel like being exhorted. You must not feel like exhorting someone else You know, another one is is when people move like i've seen this over the years Sometimes people come and tell you and some people sometimes they just disappear But sometimes people come and say hey, you know, i'm gonna be moving here i'm gonna go in there and it's just like well great You've got a good church. Well, I don't know Well, I mean it must not be that important to you then That says a lot about us, doesn't it? What's our priority? Well, there's this great job offer there's this great opportunity over here I said really want to go do this But there's no church there. There's no good church Well, you know that shows us what your priorities are that's one way we can show respect for church I mean, that's what I see here in this passage That's the application i'm making Is that there's these parallels And one of the ones we're looking at the first we're looking at tonight is the consecration the fact that it's Sacred this fact that it's special. It's a place worthy of respect. That's church. How do you do that show up? And how about this while you're here since you've bothered to come all the way to church tonight Pay attention when you're here Pay attention How do you show respect for church? Well, you can you can attend And you can show attend you can pay attention your attendance and your attention I guess the big one would be how about you know, this is this is one people struggle with and I understand sleeping in church Sleeping in church like it's and I get it, you know We're we know we're out there laboring in the hot sun all day and working our jobs and moms are at home You know homeschooling the kids on a midweek service and it's you know It's been a long day and then you come here and you sit in those nice padded seats. Maybe that's the problem And the ac is blowing nice and cool And the deacon gets up and he starts to drone on like this And the next thing you know You know, you're not off, right? You know, we should we should try to not do that What what you know and I can understand that a little bit on a midweek and I you know That's the time to stand up. That's the time to you know, slap yourself. You got to do whatever But what really gets me and I wonder about sometimes is when people show up on sunday morning at 10 30 a.m And they fall asleep And you know, I know i'm not the most exciting guy I'm, not the most dynamic preacher, but you know, I and again i'm not trying to brag up here, but I think you could do a lot worse When it comes to you know, the level of dyn, you know Is dynamism even a word? You know the amount of dynamic, uh preaching here right And I try to keep it exciting and I try to keep it, you know Throw the jokes in where I can and try not to have this turn into a complete comedy routine sometimes But you know, I just go well, is it really me? Because you know, I've heard people say well people are falling asleep. It's the preacher that needs to wake up And sometimes like and I could see that in certain instances, maybe But sometimes I wonder Is it what you were doing last night? That's the problem You know was it because you were up to one two o'clock in the morning doing whatever on a saturday night And then you come in on sunday morning. Oh i'm tired. Yeah. Well, I wonder why You know one thing my wife and I have learned to do over the years the hard way Especially after getting into the ministry is to protect our saturday evenings Well, that doesn't sound like fun You know, that's when it's time to party Right. Well, that's friday night. Why don't you get it out of your system on friday night if you got to Do what you got to do on friday night, but you know, you should be coming to the church of god ready to pay attention Not sleeping through it I got to move through these points. I'm getting bogged down here I guess I got you know more of a burn under my saddle than I thought But show respect for church through attendance through attention How about through appreciation? Go to first timothy chapter number three first timothy chapter number three Appreciate your church And you know and this is twofold the place and the people And again, I don't want to get this idea that there's something magical about this building. It's just a building But you know, it is the place where we worship god It is the place where god's word is open. It is the place where god's people are meeting week in and week out You know, we could appreciate the place and and and and make sure and I get it You know, the bible says we're much oxen are the you know, uh, how does that go with the crib? We're no oxen are the crib is clean but much increases through the strength of the ox there. I got it proverbs Say what chapter you go find it But that's what it says You know and and sometimes the building is obviously going to get dirty You know, we're going to feed people there's going to be food there's going to be crumbs there's going to be things going on And and that's a good sign right when when the hymnals are all disheveled and there's Water bottles with or without water, okay It's strewn about the place You know, the trash is overflowing, you know, it's like oh, okay. Can you believe it? It's like well, that's a good thing, right because that means there's some forgive me some oxen Right, there's some beasts of burden in the house of god doing some work, right? But you know appreciate the fact that we have this place You know those of you that have been with us, which is most I think every almost everybody here tonight Remembers where we started over on first and stone. Is it over there first avenue? I can't remember I want to forget that place 26 6 6 I remember that right I mean if you were there you can appreciate this place if you were over in suite 160 you can appreciate this place You know, but also appreciate the people Look at first timothy chapter number three verse 14 appreciate church It says these things right anti hoping to come to these shortly But if I tarry long that thou mayest know how the oddest to behave thyself in the house of god Which is the church of the living god the pillar and ground of the truth You know church sounds like a pretty important place, doesn't it? It's the pillar and ground of the truth And paul is saying timothy if I tarry along I want you to know how you ought to behave yourself In the house of god, you know, there's a way we ought to behave when we come to church It's not your living room Okay, it's not your bedroom It's not your garage. It's not your closet. You know, it's it's a very special place And it should be treated thus show some respect for it Okay So again, I got to move through this we're talking tonight about the parallels in genesis 28 and the new testament church We're looking at its Consecration let's move on to the construction of it. Okay Again, if you keep something in first timothy, we'll come right back here going back to genesis 28 Let's look at the construction of the church It says and jacob rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had put for his pillows And set it up for a pillar and poured oil atop of it Now i'm, sorry, I know the sermon's already alliterated but it's right there in the scripture the pillows the pill the pillar and the pouring, right? So looking first in these sub points at the pillows, okay He he gets up and he takes the pillows which were if you remember stone, right? And it's pill you might get a look at you and say well you know You know, he took the stone that he had and put it up for his pillows right one's plural one isn't right? But stone is you know can be used that way for plural like when I worked with You know putting in septic systems and things like that. You had to bring in aggregate you would say You know, this is a bed of stone, right? You wouldn't say this is a bed of stones Okay, so you can that's just kind of how the word's being used there But it's more than one stone, right? He's taking this obviously if he's if he's Has pill pillows plural he's got an array of stone that he'd been sleeping on that night And he assembles it right he rises up and he sets this thing up for a pillar and then he pours oil on top of it The first thing I want to focus in on here is the pillows or What we know from the story to be the stones that he slept upon Notice firstly that jacob assembled them Now here's the parallel with the new testament church, right? And if you got something in hebrews you can uh, you can go back to chapter two if you're still there Keep something in first timothy But the church that's what the church is is an assembly right? It's something that has been assembled together It is something that has been gathered together and put in place So jacob assembling the stone I believe is very representative of the assembly of the believers Because again remember in the story jacob's saying this is none other than the house of god And we just read in first timothy that the church is the house of god the pillar and ground of truth So obviously there should be some parallels here And I believe one of them that we can see is that jacob assembled the stones the pillows, right? And that represents the assembly of the believers and that's what a church is If you look in hebrews chapter 12 He says in verse hebrews chapter 2, excuse me verse 12 saying I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church Will I saying praise unto thee and he's quoting psalms 22? Which i'll read to you. It says I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation Will I praise thee right? So in hebrews 2 it's the church but in psalms It's the congregation in psalms 22 verse 22 So these are two Words that are being used interchangeably, right? They're synonymous with one another The church is simply the congregation of the believers Again, that's why we don't get I don't want to say we get uh, disrespectful or or take the building or the physical ground that we're on for granted But we don't get all you know mystical about it Because the church is the assembly of the congregation you know if we took the same group of people tonight and You know went to my house and and all had church and living room that would be where church is tonight You know if we went out and when there's some underpass somewhere, you know, that's where church would be tonight Because that's where we are So again, you can see how important it is that you be here again going back to the point about Attendance and not taking church for granted Because you are part of that assembly You are one of those stones in that pillar that has been assembled together and built up and that's important I mean imagine if we had a pillar of stones who's ever seen, you know, the the the the panhandlers build their little pillar While they're waiting to collect money. Has anyone ever seen that? No one's ever seen them. I've seen them where they literally yeah, you've seen it. Okay, I got a witness, right? Well, they're actually build a pile of stones. So while they're waiting, you know, they'll start stacking stones like see see what I did, huh? It's like man if you can bend over and do that you could probably go get a job But in Michigan when we go walk the beach there's a lot of stone sometimes people will just For the fun of it. They would see how high they could stack stones, right? But what if we just came along and said well, I don't like that one and hit the stone right in the middle Well, everything else comes down that's on top of it Right, so you could see how one stone Is important to the rest of the structure You know, we are that stone You and I need to be in the house of god god is assembling us together This that's what the congregation is Bible says in first peter two i'll read to you. Ye also as lively stones as living stones Are built up a spiritual house. That's what peter said You know, there are some parallels here tonight We are in holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to god by jesus christ You know your part in the church is important Yeah, but you know, it's just one stone doesn't really matter it matters You know if you're if you're making a literal, you know pillar out of stone one stone, you know, it excuses itself from the pillar It was absent. Well, it's that much shorter You know, it's that that much lower to the ground it's it's that much less exalted And we'll see why that's important in a minute You know the the idea of this pillar that he's building is the fact that you know Jacob comes back to this later in the story with his family And he finds this spot And it wasn't because he you know pulled out his cell phone where he had geomarked or something Obviously, he kind of probably knew the lay in the land. He was being led yada yada yada But he knew where he was standing probably when he walked up to and said well, there's that pillar in fact That's what god tells him later says go back to the place where you built the pillar You See the pillar is supposed to you know, it's something that stands out it's a landmark It's something that people can look to and say, you know, this is a a guide You know, that's what we are as a church You know, this is a a spiritual lighthouse, right? Casting out the beam of the gospel saying, you know, there's safe harbor here You know those lighthouses are built with brick mortar stone And if you're not here, you know, that's one less stone that's that, you know, we can't be as seen as a far off I say why do you want a church to grow so it can do more? So it can reach more people so it can have a broader, you know, uh A broader, you know visibility to those in the in the community To those in the in the community So we're moving through the second point here the construction we looked at the consecration The first part of the construction is the the pillows or the stones in the story themselves, right? The next point I want to look at is the poured oil right because in the story it says that he He put put up for pillows and set it for a pillar and poured oil on top of it So you have the pillows the pillar And then you have the the the uh, the the oil that's poured upon it And obviously this is a pretty easy parallel You know, we are the lively stones that are being assembled together to make up the congregation of god But what gives a church its power? Is the holy spirit because you know, that's a parallel in scripture often For example in first timothy chapter 16, it's a parallel with oil. Excuse me It says then samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him being david In the midst of his brethren and the spirit of the lord came upon david from that day forward You know, it's the oil of gladness, you know, that's a representative in scripture of the holy spirit So, you know, it's not enough just to have people in church, you know, the people that are a part of that pillar You know, they should have the holy spirit in their lives You know, we all have the sealing of the holy spirit we're all indwelt by the holy spirit to the day of our redemption But what we need Is the filling of the holy spirit The bible says in jude chapter one beloved building yourselves up on your most holy faith praying in the holy ghost And we being built up like a like a pillar praying in the holy ghost I know I gotta I gotta hurry up here. Let's just move on to the next point, you know that and I and I feel like i'm kind of cheating the sermon a little bit tonight by not developing that more but You know do with it what you will Part of the construction of the local church Is the fact that the holy spirit is present with us And the more you know, we as individuals are filled with the spirit walking the spirit, you know The more mightily god will use this church. I believe that But let's talk about the pillar itself and I can't kind of already alluded to this we have the the pillows We have the pouring of the oil, but let's talk about the pillar itself The pillar again is a landmark. It's something that is prominent and perceptible It's something that could be perceived and seen on a horizon or wherever right we put that up there It's a landmark. It's something we can look to You know, jesus said he are the light of the world a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid You know a city that is up on a hill is not something you that can Not go without being noticed And he says we are the light of that world You know the church is here for a reason the church is for us to You know be noticed and to be seen and and to draw people to it And that's that leads me to the last point if you would go back to 1st timothy chapter number three And we'll be done there first timothy chapter number three You know, the pillar is prominent it's perceptible It's something that is set up so that people can see it. It's a landmark So again, you know, you could see how important church is Why it's important that we're here why it's important that we're doing the work of the ministry Because the church has a commission You know, we looked at the fact that the church is consecrated we looked at the fact that church has a construction to it us And the holy spirit make up that pillar But also, you know, the church has a commission it has a purpose And if you're still in the story let's just look at verse uh verses 16 and 17 again in genesis 28 We'll be back in first timothy 3 He said and jacob waked out of his sleep and he said surely the lord is in this place and I knew it not And he was afraid and said how dreadful is this place? This is none other than the house of god and notice this last statement and this is the gate of heaven This is the gate of heaven. This is the way to heaven. This is the entrance to heaven He's seeing a ladder. He's seeing these angels going up and down and there's so much there You know so many more parallels that we that come with the gospel there, you know those angels are are ministering, you know Ministering spirits to them which should believe You know maybe that's representative of that right these angels coming remember we're doing the work of Ministering to people and so on and so forth But he calls this place this place that he calls the house of god. He calls it the gate of heaven. It's both The house of God, he calls it the gate of heaven. It's both. And that's what we are tonight. That's what that pillar represents. This is the way to heaven. And again, not like the Catholic church would teach, where you've got to come to our building and take our sacraments and be baptized and go through all that stuff and so on and so forth. You've got to go in this little closet over here and tell some man all your dirty secrets in confession. But we are the gate of heaven in the sense that we're that pillar. We're the ones that are going out with the gospel. We are the ones that are showing the people the way to heaven. This is an opening. This is a way to get there. People did come to this church that weren't saved. They're going to get shown the way to heaven. They might as well be walking through the gate of heaven, hop into the gate of heaven, and say, hey, can I come in? If thou believeth, thou mayest. That's our commission, to be the gate of heaven. In 1 Timothy 3, he said, this is the pillar and ground of the truth. Thy word is truth. This, of course, is supposed to be a place where we preach the word of God, where we lift up the word of God, where we preach every bit of the word of God, unashamedly, without apology. But the commission that we have, the great commission, is to go out and preach the gospel to every creature. So in a way, you can see how the church is that gate. It's a way to heaven through the church. And I'll close by saying this, that the purpose of the church is precious. Why is church so important? You came on kind of heavy in the beginning about how important church was. Well, hopefully now you can see it. Hopefully now you can understand that the church has a very precious and important purpose. Jesus said, wide is the gate which leadeth unto destruction, and many there be which go in there at. He said, narrow is the gate, and straight is the way which leadeth unto heaven, and few there be that find it. The church, the house of God, this is a narrow gate. There's a lot of so-called churches out there today that are preaching a false gospel. There's a Mormon temple up there preaching a false gospel, another Jesus. There's more Catholic diocese in this town than there are in Phoenix. Think about that. That's crazy. There's more Jehovah Witnesses, as far as the last time I checked, in this town than in Phoenix. And Phoenix is like one of the top five biggest metropolitan areas. There's a lot of so-called churches out there, but they're all wide gates leading to destruction, because they're not preaching the truth. They're not preaching the gospel. They're preaching their false gospel. They're preaching their repent of their sins, salvation. They're preaching that Jesus is a created being. They're preaching all kinds of damnable heresy. And I'm not saying we're the only ones, but there's at least one narrow gate that I know of for sure in this town called Faithful Word Baptist Church that is the house of God that is the gate of heaven. And people don't have to come here to get saved, don't get the illustration wrong. So that's what we represent as a church. That's our commission. That's our purpose. And it's precious. It's important. And that's why we need to be a part of it. Let's go ahead and close the order of prayer.