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1 Corinthians 16, the Bible reads in verse 1, Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye, upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, then will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. Now the first thing that we see in this chapter is he talks about this gathering together and taking up a collection. What this is, is they're giving a financial offering, you know, they're giving a financial donation for the poor saints in Jerusalem. And that's why he's saying there in verse 3 that they're going to bring their liberality unto Jerusalem. They're going to bring whatever was collected, the money that they gave to minister unto the poor saints in Jerusalem, and this is spoken of in other places in the epistle. But notice he says that it's upon the first day of the week. And not only that, but he says here that this is not something that he's just commanding to them, but this is something that he has given as an instruction to all the churches in Galatia as well. So this isn't just for them alone, but he's giving this instruction to a lot of churches to take up the collection or take up the offering upon the first day of the week. Now there are many people out there, and this is especially becoming a prevalent doctrine now, that teach that somehow meeting for church on Sunday is pagan. You know, they say, oh, you're meeting on Sunday, that means you're worshiping the Son, and therefore you are pagan, and that goes back to the Roman Catholic Church and Constantine and all this stuff. Well, it looks right here like they're being commanded to get together and meet on the first day of the week. And it looks like they're collecting up the offering, then they must have been assembled together in order for every man to lay by him in store as God had prospered him. It sounds like every man's there. This doctrine that says we need to be having church on Saturday, well I guess we're worshiping Saturn then, if we have church on Saturday. You see, there are a lot of people out there today with a lot of really strange ideas and divers and strange doctrines and heresies, and because of the internet, this stuff just spreads like wildfire and people believe everything that they read on the internet instead of studying and doing the research for themselves, reading the Bible, here's an idea, going to church and actually going to a real church and actually listening to preaching from a real preacher and actually opening the Bible and reading it instead of opening every occultic pagan encyclopedia. Now if you like, after church we can go into my office, I can show you all my bookshelves, you're not going to find any encyclopedias of paganism, you're not going to find the Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, you're not going to find every book on Freemasonry and paganism and the occult and the Tower of Babel and everything like that because I do not believe that we should make a study of every satanic, occultic, pagan thing. Where does the Bible tell us that we need to become an expert on everything that is occultic and pagan and satanic? Nowhere. If I'm going to spend my time studying that, I'd rather spend my time studying the Bible. I'd rather spend my time studying the truth than learning the truth. You say, oh, you're just hiding from the fact that everything's pagan. Well look, we live in a sinful world. The devil is the god of this world, okay? So obviously sin has tainted everything in our society, whether it's the names of the days of the week like Sunday and Moonday and Tuesday and Odin's day and Thor's day and Friday and Saturday, but to sit there and say that I'm somehow in sin because I use the term Monday or I use the term Saturday or Sunday is ridiculous. It's nonsense because even Jesus, when he preached about hell, what did he call hell? He was speaking Greek and he basically used the word Hades, right? Well, isn't that a pagan word? And what about our English word hell, which a thousand years ago comes from the old Norse Scandinavian word that was there, you know, pagan underworld or whatever. So I guess the word hell is pagan. And then they'll tell you that the name of Jesus is pagan and Sunday's pagan and they'll say circles are pagan and triangles are pagan. You know, and I mean, what shape is left that's not pagan? Oh, you have a spiral, that's pagan, sphere, pagan, trees, pagan, flowers are pagan, bells are pagan. I mean, it's just basically, you know, there's no end to it. It becomes bizarre, okay? And so to sit there and say that we are somehow pagan because we're worshiping on Sunday is ridiculous, okay? Now first of all, who really knows for sure what the first day of the week is anyway? Isn't the first day of the week just whichever day we decide is the first day of the week? You say, well no, Pastor Anderson, the first day of the week is the first day of the week. Oh really? Okay, well let's get on an airplane and let's go to Europe and we can go to Germany where my wife was raised and where I lived for several months and let's look at the calendars there because every calendar starts with Monday and ends in Sunday in Germany. So what's the first day of the week over there? No, everybody knows that the seventh day is Saturday, okay? No, because the term seventh day means the seventh day wherever you count from. And the Bible always defines itself. Six days shalt thou labor, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest unto thee. Okay, they labored six days and then the seventh day is a Sabbath. Does anybody really actually believe that we today in our week are on the exact same week that Adam and Eve were on? And I mean out of all the calendars that have been changing, I mean does anybody really think that we're still on that exact seven day rotation unbroken all the way back to the beginning of the creation? Okay, so people will teach basically that today we need to be observing the Sabbath and we need to be having church on Saturday and that if we meet on Sunday we're pagans, we're heathens, we're Roman Catholics. Now it used to be that this was something that I only ever heard taught by those that were seventh day Adventists, okay? Which seventh day Adventism is a cult following a woman, and look, any religion started by a woman, that should be a red flag right there, okay? Because the Bible says I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence. That doesn't sound like he's ordaining women to found new religions and to give new revelations on top of the New Testament. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think all the books of the New Testament were written by men, isn't that true? Correct me if I'm wrong, all the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ were all men, okay? But this LNG White starts this false religion and basically says oh, you know, it's all about the seventh day, it's all about Saturday, it's all about the Sabbath day. Now here's the thing about the Sabbath day, if you study the Bible, okay? Not the Internet, not your pagan encyclopedia, but if you study the Bible, all throughout the Old Testament the Bible talks about the Sabbath and observing the Sabbath. Now let me ask you this, when did they start observing the Sabbath? When did God command them to observe the Sabbath? Well it was with the Mosaic law, it was with Moses. Now before that you don't see the command to observe the Sabbath. Now you can say well, but in the beginning God created the earth and after six days He rested, yeah but that doesn't matter, that wasn't a commandment that was taught or observed until the Mosaic law, okay? And when the Mosaic law came, the Sabbath was instituted, turn to Colossians chapter 2 if you would, when the Mosaic law came the Sabbath was instituted that they were to work six days and to rest on the seventh day, okay? Now we in America don't even usually work a six day work week, do we? I mean the vast majority of people, they don't even work the six days. I mean they're observing both. I mean they take Saturday and Sunday off, I mean that's the vast majority of people, right? But look what Colossians says because it's clear that we are living in the New Testament. Now I'm not one that believes that just because we're living in the New Testament we throw out the Old Testament, we shouldn't throw out the Old Testament. And here's a good rule of thumb, anything that God did not specifically change we should still observe, okay? So basically if God said something in the Old Testament, if God told us hey do this or don't do this, unless He tells us that He changed on that, shouldn't we just stick with it? Okay so if the New Testament just said absolutely nothing about the Sabbath, let's say the New Testament just said nothing about the Sabbath, then shouldn't we just keep doing the Sabbath? The Old Testament said to do the Sabbath, and if the New Testament just said nothing about it, then I'll stick with it, okay? But here's the truth, okay? The New Testament, not only does the New Testament not one time tell us to observe the Sabbath, not once, in the whole 260 chapters of the New Testament, not one time does God tell us observe the Sabbath, okay? But you say, but wait a minute Pastor Anderson, you said as long as He doesn't tell us anything, we shouldn't change it. Okay but look what the Bible does say in the New Testament in Colossians 2 verse 14, it says, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. So here, God gives us a list of things that we should not let anybody judge us about, that were just a shadow of things to come, that are ordinances that have been blotted out. He says these ordinances have been blotted out, therefore don't let anybody trouble you concerning what? He lists meat, drink, holiday, or that would be like our word, holiday, meat, drink, holidays, new moons, and Sabbath days. So isn't that telling us right there, don't worry about the Sabbath days? But yet somebody's going to judge us for not respecting the Sabbath days. Well the Bible says here that that ordinance has been blotted out because it was a shadow of things to come. Go to Hebrews 9, because you see there's a certain classification of laws in the Old Testament that were temporary laws. They were not permanent, they were temporary. Now there are a lot of laws of God that never change, that are permanent, that are always in place, that have always been in place, and always will be in place, but then there were other temporary ordinances that were put in place at the time of Moses only for a temporary period that would end. And the Bible teaches this in Hebrews chapter 9. And by the way, the Bible also says, I believe in chapter 8, now the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. So to just say, well the law never changes, then why did he say that there is made of necessity a change of the law? And look if you would at Hebrews chapter 9, he talks about this. He says in verse 9, which was a figure for the time then present. So it was something that was just for back then, he says, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience. Verse 10, which stood only in meats and drinks and divers' washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them forever. Is that what it says? Impose on them till doomsday? No. It says impose on them until the time of reformation. And the Bible then defines what that time of reformation is in the next phrase. He says until the time of reformation, but Christ being come, an eye-priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect table, not make with hands, but that is to say not of this building. So right there he defines that the time of reformation is the coming of Christ. Now doesn't this list match up with the list that we saw over in Colossians? Because the other list was, remember, meats, drinks, and then it was the new moons, the Sabbath days, okay, the holidays. Well here we see meats and drinks, same thing, and then we also see the word ordinances, which is the same word that he used in Colossians 2, the blotting out the handwriting of ordinances, which was against us. But these lists include a few different things also. The other list talked about holidays, new moons, and Sabbath days. This one talks about the meats, drinks, and the divers' washings and carnal ordinances. So basically anything that doesn't fall under these categories we should still do. So like when God said that a man should not put on women's clothing, and a woman should not put on man's clothing, let's keep doing that. And the law that said don't marry your sister, hey that was a pretty good law too, let's stick with that. But when we get to the one about meat, drink, new moons, because what was the new moon? On the new moon they're supposed to blow a trumpet on the new moon and have a feast. Do we do that? Do we observe that? In fact we're told not to, okay? Now the Sabbath is in that same list, in that same category. Now go to Romans 14, Romans chapter number 14. Romans chapter number 14 talks about, well let's look at verse 1, it says, Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. Now that's a good verse, if we would understand that verse it would be helpful. Understand that verse again, him that is weak in the faith receive thee, but not to doubtful disputations. Now what does that mean? That means if some guy walks in with weird beliefs, okay, where he's weak in the faith and he thinks stuff is wrong that's not really wrong. You know what I mean? Here's the example. It says for one believeth that he may eat all things, another who is weak eateth herbs. So let's say somebody walks in here and has this weird belief that says, you know, I am against eating any animal products. I am vegan. You know, I am against meat, cheese, milk, eggs, I just, I eat herbs. Okay now, should we just say, get out of here, you freak. No. You know, the Bible says him that is weak in the faith, and look, who is weak in the faith according to the context? The guy who just eats herbs only, okay. He's weak in the faith because he doesn't have the faith to sink his teeth into, you know, a pork sandwich, okay. So you know, the Bible says that one believeth that he may eat all things. By the way, that's the guy who's right. And there are a lot of, you know, I could go into all the scriptures to prove that, I'm not going to do that for the sake of time. Another who is weak eateth herbs. Now shouldn't we receive that guy? We shouldn't look down on that guy. We shouldn't judge that guy. We shouldn't be mean to that guy. We shouldn't be rude to that guy. We shouldn't call that guy names or laugh at him. We should receive that guy. And just, okay, that's fine, if you're vegan, that's fine. Come on in, brother, you know, when you come over, we'll serve you hummus or whatever, you know, and a vegan snack. Okay, but, but he puts a qualification on that. He says him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations, meaning we don't want this guy coming in and creating all these arguments about things that are not biblical, right? So it's okay for the vegan to come in and we're going to receive him, but not when he starts coming around trying to convert us all to being a vegan. Because that is not, look, is there a clear scripture that tells us to be vegan? In fact, there are scriptures that tell us the contrary. Okay, so if a guy comes in and wants to just go on and on about how we're not supposed to eat pork and just, you know, he just wants to dispute about it and he wants to argue about it, then at that point we draw the line and say, look, we're not going to sit here and argue with you about this. We're not going to sit here and play games with this. That's not what the Bible teaches, we're not interested in that doctrine. You know, that doesn't mean we're not receiving him, but when he's forcing the issue, then we might have to just tell him, look, I don't want your vegan food. You know? So, but the thing is, so does everybody understand verse 1? Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. Don't get into all this doubtful disputation. Look, everything we believe should not be doubtful, it should just be clear scripture. That's what we preach. Like, I shouldn't just preach stuff that I'm doubtful about. You know, if I'm doubtful about something, I should just hold off on preaching that until I get certain about it. You know, and look, I don't know everything. You know, you guys that are in here that someday are going to pastor a church, you know, you don't know everything and you're never going to know everything. So here's the key, when you prepare a sermon, preach stuff that you know for sure, and the stuff that you're not quite sure about, just hold off on that stuff. You know, you don't want to preach doubtful doctrine, okay? And here the Bible is saying, don't get in these doubtful disputations. Don't argue about stuff that is uncertain. There's enough to be certain about. Talk about that. So he says in verse 3, let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not. So I shouldn't despise Mr. Vegan when he shows up, but he shouldn't despise me. Because it says, let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not, and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth, for God hath received him. So people have peculiar doctrines like that, okay? It's okay if they have a peculiar doctrine as long as they respect the fact that we're not all going to get on board with their peculiar doctrine, you know? And we're okay, and look, honestly, if somebody doesn't want to eat meat, that doesn't offend me at all. If I go out to lunch with somebody and they say, no, I'm vegetarian, or I'm vegan, and they order a vegetarian entree, that does not offend me at all. But you know what, they shouldn't be offended by my, you know, meaty double meat whatever, you know, either. So it says here, you know, let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth, for God hath received him. Who art thou that judges another man's servant? To his own mastery standeth her followed, yea he shall be holding up, for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another. Now doesn't it sound like we're on the same type of a thought here? Have we really changed thoughts? He's giving another example, because verse 1 is the topic verse. Verse 1 tells us, hey, this is what we're talking about. People that are weak in faith receive them, but not to doubtful disputations. He gives the example of one that believes he eats herbs. Look at the next example he gives. One man esteemeth one day above another. Another esteemeth every day alike, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he does not regard it. He that eateth, eateth the Lord, proving that we're on the same subject, because now he's back on eating. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks. And he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieteth himself. So what is he saying here? That basically there are people out there who esteem one day above another, okay? Just like there are people out there who eat only herbs, and a lot of times it's the same people, right? People tell you, you know, oh man, we need to not work on this day, and then the same people turn around and tell you not to eat pork and all this, you know, because they have a misunderstanding of the correlation between Old Testament and New Testament. But here's the thing. The Bible says here that it's okay to esteem every day alike. So let me just ask you this, would it really make sense for God to talk a whole bunch about the Sabbath in the Mosaic law, okay? Not before that though, but in the Mosaic law to make a big deal about the Sabbath, make this commandment, okay, then in the New Testament, okay, not tell us to keep the Sabbath even once, and then to have two places that tell us not to worry about it, right? So we have zero verses in the New Testament telling us to do it, and two telling us to worry about it. Wouldn't that be strange to think that God's up in heaven mad that we're not keeping that wouldn't make any sense, okay? Now there are people that believe that, and look, if people believe that, I'll receive them, but not to doubtful disputations, okay? And because you live in America, you know, you could observe the Sabbath and still make it to church on Sunday because, you know, most people work Monday through Friday only, okay? But anyway, the bottom line is that, you know, we are, go back to 1 Corinthians 16, we are scriptural by meeting on Sunday, meeting on the first day of our American week, our American week starts on Sunday, and it is very scriptural for us to meet on the first day of the week. It's commanded here in 1 Corinthians 16, 1. And then not only that, but in the book of Acts, we have examples of the disciples meeting upon the first day of the week. After the resurrection of Christ, the disciples met on the first day of the week. They heard preaching on the first day of the week. So we have examples in Acts of them meeting on the first day of the week. And then what we see in Acts that they were doing on the Sabbath day, we don't see them having a church service on Saturday. You know what we see them doing? Going to the synagogues of the unsaved and disputing with the unsaved. Or going down, you know, to the markets and where the Jews would gather. They were doing soul winning on Saturdays, what we see in the book of Acts. They weren't meeting with each other, they were going out amongst the lost on Saturday. They were using that opportunity to go into these synagogues and preach unto the lost, the unsaved. Okay, so I just wanted to clear that up. And it says in verse number four, and if it be meet, that I go also, they shall go with me. Now I will come unto you when I shall pass through Macedonia, for I do pass through Macedonia. Verse six, and it shall be that I will abide, yea, and winter with you, that you may bring me on my journey whithersoever I go. Now you might not have known that winter is a verb, you know, because we think of winter as a noun, right? But to winter means basically to stay somewhere for the winter. And the reason that they did that is because back in those days, you know, transportation in the winter was very difficult. And even now, in many places, transportation can be difficult in the winter, so they would really have to just honker down somewhere in the winter. And so he's saying, I'm going to winter with you. Now one thing that this ties in with is in Matthew 24, when the Bible says, Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day, okay? And then also in Mark 13, the same thing in the Olivet Discourse, he's talking about the Tribulation, he says, Pray that your flight be not in the winter, period. Now you say, well why does he mention the Sabbath in the one and not in the other, okay? Now a lot of people will teach that Matthew 24 is only talking to the Jews because he mentions the Sabbath day. Now in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, okay? So here's the thing, God does not have a different set of rules for Jews and Gentiles that are in Christ, right? So let's say I ethnically am a Jew, which I am not, but let's say I am ethnically a Jew and let's say Brother Matt's, you know, just totally a son of Japheth all the way, he's a Gentile, okay? So he's a Gentile and I'm a Jew, we're both believers, we're both Christians, we're both in Christ, would it make sense to say, well we live by different commandments, different rules, do you guys believe that? We go to a separate church, I go to my Messianic Jew church, he goes to a Baptist church and we have different rules. I'm observing the Torah and he is not. The Bible gave the same rules in the New Testament, he said that was the time of reformation, Christ being come. He didn't say Christ being come and you're a Gentile, because I think he said Christ being come in a book called the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. So wasn't he writing to the Hebrews when he said to them that these ordinances were only imposed on them until the time of reformation? So you say, well the Jews have to observe the Sabbath and the Gentiles don't. Okay, well how do we know who's a Jew and who's a Gentile? Oh, we need a genealogy, right? Avoid it. That's what the Bible said, avoid genealogies. You just say, oh that guy's Jewish, how do you know? Where's his genealogy? Show me his genealogy. Don't show me a funny hat on his head, show me a genealogy. Because in Nehemiah, when they showed up, and in Ezra, when they showed up in Jerusalem, you know, Ezra didn't just look at their funny hat and take their word for it. He said show me the genealogy, and the ones that couldn't prove it from a genealogy, he said, well I don't believe you guys. And they were put from the priesthood, because they couldn't show the genealogy. And in the New Testament he says, avoid genealogies, why? Because it doesn't matter. There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, okay? So if there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek, and God already finished telling us, don't worry about the Sabbath day, don't worry about the carnal ordinances, don't worry about the new moon, esteem every day alike, then when God is telling believers in Matthew 24 in regard to the tribulation, pray that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day, is he saying, well, if it's on the Sabbath, you're going to have to stop everything you're doing and resting, as you flee for your life. Now the Bible flat out said that if your ox or your ass falls in the ditch on the Sabbath day, can't you lay hold on it and lift it out? Okay, so what if the Antichrist is chasing you and trying to kill you on the Sabbath day? You just wait for him to come get you? That doesn't make any sense, okay? How much better is a man, well let's go to that scripture, what is that, Matthew 12? I think it's Matthew 12, let's see here, I think it's Matthew 12, I'm going off memory here, I didn't plan to go here, but it's an interesting point, yeah, there we go. So it says right here in verse 10 of Matthew 12, Behold there was a man which had his hand withered, and they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days that they might accuse him? And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will you not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? So if you can save your, don't shave your sheep on the Sabbath day, if you can save your sheep on the Sabbath day, this is a tongue twister, you can shave your sheep on the Sabbath, you know, then can't you save yourself if the Bible says a man's better than a sheep? If I lift the man out of the ditch, I'm dead sure, if I lift the sheep I'm dead sure you're going to save a man on the Sabbath day. Okay, so even if we were observing the Sabbath, it'd be so ridiculous to say, oh, let's rest. You know, we're running from the police, the sun goes down, oh, got to rest. We're toast. Okay, it's so stupid, I mean, I'm sorry to use the word stupid to describe stupid people with stupid doctrine, but that's what it is, okay? But this is what it, you know, oh, we got to rest. So what do you think Jesus meant when he said, Pray that your flight be not in the winter on the Sabbath day? Is he saying, because if it's on the Sabbath, you're going to have to stop and rest because you're one of the special chosen ones. You're an ethnic Jew, even though you don't have a genealogy to prove it, you have to rest because I'm only talking to the Jews. No, he said at the end of Mark 13, what I say unto you I say unto all. So he wasn't talking to the Jews in Matthew 24, he's talking to all, that's what he said. And the thing is, when he says, pray that your flight be not in the winter on the Sabbath day, he's not talking about because you need to stop and observe the Sabbath, he's talking about other people observing the Sabbath is going to make it difficult for you to escape. Now think about this, in Matthew, the book of Matthew is a book that is geared more toward the Jews. Obviously every book in the Bible is written to all of us. It's all profitable for doctrine, it's all directed at us. But the book of Matthew emphasizes things for the Jews, the book of Mark emphasizes, you know, things to another group. So the bottom line is, if you think about it, Matthew brings up the Sabbath, Mark doesn't. Mark just says pray that your flight's not on the winter. So if the whole thing's just to the Jews, then why is he not even bringing up the Sabbath in Mark 13? Because of the fact that Matthew 24 is more geared toward people that are in Israel. So think about this, if you're a Christian, right, and you're in the tribulation and you're living in Israel, if your flight's on the Sabbath day, you're going to have a hard time because, you know, there's not going to be any buses running, there's going to be less bustle and hustle for you to hide in, there's going to be, you know, lack of travel. I mean look, get the context. Pray that your flight be not in the winter or on the Sabbath day. What's wrong with fleeing in the winter? I mean why not flee in the winter? Why don't I want to flee in the winter? Because it's cold. Because look, if you're trying to escape into the wilderness, do you want to do it in the winter or in the summer? And we're not talking about Arizona, okay. I'm just saying, you know, if it's winter, you're dealing with snow, you're dealing with cold, you're going to have a harder time getting the right shelter, okay. It's going to be harder for you to travel quickly, the roads are all jammed up and so forth. Well same thing with the Sabbath. If everybody's off, if everything's closed, if every store's closed and every business is shut down and all the roads are empty, it's going to be a little harder for you to flee or escape, okay. So I hope that made sense. I was trying to explain that in a way that made sense, that he's not speaking to the Jews that have to observe the Sabbath as they're on the run for their lives. They got to stop and observe the Sabbath, okay. It's not what he's saying. He's saying the Sabbath, just like winter, is going to slow down your flight because it's an obstacle that you have to deal with, okay. So that's what he's saying here in 1 Corinthians 16, he's saying, you know, I'm going to winter with you because he's not able to travel well in the winter. So he just picks a place and just stays there. And throughout his other epistles, he talks about wintering in other places. So Paul would go on these missionary journeys when the weather was good, and then in the winter he'd pick a place and he'd stay in that place all winter because travel is difficult in the winter, okay. He says in verse number 7, for I will not see you now by the way, but I trust to tarry awhile with you if the Lord permit. But I will tarry at Ephesus until, or unto Pentecost, for a great door and effectual is opened unto me and there are many adversaries. Now if Timotheus come, see that he be with you without fear, for he worketh the work of the Lord as I also do. Now he says in verse 9, a great door and effectual is opened unto me and there are many adversaries. And you know, whenever God opens a great door to us, what does a great door open mean? An opportunity. He's basically saying there's a great opportunity for me to do a lot of great things for God and because of that, there are many adversaries. The Bible's telling us that when we do great things for God, we're going to have a lot of enemies. There's going to be a lot of opposition. You know, whenever we set out to do something good for God, the devil's going to resist us and he's going to send others to resist us. You look at the book of Nehemiah and he's building the wall around the city and he's doing a great work, in his own words, and he's serving God. And what happened? Everybody around who hears about it, Sanballat, Tobiah, they show up, Gisham, you know, they show up and they're his adversaries. They fight him, they resist him, and you know, when you do right, the devil's going to fight you every step of the way. And so when you start to do right and all of a sudden there start being adversaries and things start going wrong and bad things happen, a lot of people just say, oh, this must not be God's will, I better just stop doing this. When in reality, that just means that your great door's open. I mean, you know, you're going to face opposition, you're going to face adversaries, so just get used to it. He says in verse 11, let no man therefore despise him, talking about despising Timothy, he says, you know, I want you to have respect for Timothy, conduct him forth in peace that he may come unto me, for I look for him with the brethren. As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren, but his will was not at all to come at this time, but he shall come when he shall have a convenient time. He says, Timothy, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. So here he's telling us basically when he says quit you like men, he's saying act like men. Now he's not talking to the women in that verse, okay. He's telling us as men, you know, to quit ourselves like men. And we often use this term today like be a man. You know, we'll tell somebody, right, be a man, man up. Don't be a baby, you know, don't be a sissy, be a man. And you know, the Bible's telling us the same thing. And then he defines what it means to quit like men. He says be strong. Now here's the thing about men, they're stronger than women. Women are called the weaker vessel, okay. Not that they're inferior, but they are weaker, okay. Therefore strength is a manly attribute, is it not? I mean having great strength is a manly attribute. Lack of strength, weakness, is not a manly attribute. So you know, and I'm not just, you know, physical strength is obviously a good illustration of this because we can see it with our eyes, but you know, when the Bible talks about being strong, there's a spiritual strength. There's a courage and a boldness and you know, there's more to it than just being physically strong. It's about being spiritually strong. It's about being morally strong. It's about being a leader. And God's commanding us to stand fast in the faith, be firm, be steadfast, be unmovable. Look at chapter 15 verse 58 right there. We didn't get to this last week. Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast. That's similar to what he said in chapter 16 when he said stand fast. He said be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. So God wants us to be strong, to stand firm. What does that mean? Don't let everybody push you around. Don't let everybody come with their false doctrine and their doubtful disputations and they come with every window of doctrine and just push you around and get you to do stuff that you don't want to do, get you to do stuff that's sinful. You know, stand up for what's right. Stand up for what you believe in and don't let people back you down. You know, those that are going to pastor one day, people are going to try to back you down on certain things that you believe in and certain stands that you take and certain doctrine that you hold. And they're going to try to pressure you to change and pressure you to back off on certain things. You know, if you know that what you believe is right from the Bible, you need to be steadfast and unmovable, meaning it's impossible to move you. Even if the whole world comes against you and says, you're wrong. If you have the Bible, you know you're right. You take the stand and you're unmovable. He says, let all your things be done with charity. And then he continues that thought in verse 15, I beseech you, brethren, you know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first fruits of Chiah and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints. Now, it's an interesting term there, addicted themselves to the ministry. Now, the word addicted there, it's only used one time in the whole Bible. In fact, this is the only time in the whole Bible that the word addicted is used. How would you define the word addicted? Hooked. If you're addicted, you're hooked, right? What are other words that come to mind when you think of the word addicted? You can't stop. What were you saying? Can't stop, you're hooked. Wouldn't you say that it's a habit? Because people talk about caution, it may be habit forming, and that's usually an addiction. Now the word addicted in our modern vernacular is a lot stronger of a word than it was back then. Back then, addicted, you know, in 1611 when the Bible was translated, you know, it pretty much meant similar to what it means now, but it didn't have as strong of a connotation like today, it has a real negative connotation. You know, if we say addicted, usually that's a bad thing. Well this is obviously not a bad thing. But it is having the same meaning that basically it was a habit. Now, you could have a good addiction, is what I'm saying. Now if somebody's addicted to alcohol or addicted to drugs or addicted to cigarettes or addicted to gambling or addicted to pornography or addicted to television or, you know, addicted to video games, you know, that's a bad addiction. Because that is not profitable, that's not bringing you closer to God, that's not, you know, a lot of that stuff is sin. Now I talked about this a few weeks ago when I preached a sermon on habits, and this verse ties in perfectly with that sermon that I preached on habits. Because we develop, we are very much as human beings, we're creatures of habit, and we develop habits. And so we need to be careful not to develop the wrong habits, but to develop good habits. See as creatures of habit, we can develop a good habit, like reading the Bible every day, can become a habit. It can become an addiction, okay, literally. I mean it can become an addiction, because what characterizes an addiction? If you don't do it, what do you have? It starts with a C. C-R, what do you have when you don't get your addiction? A craving, that's right. You have a craving, right? That's what an addiction is, you know, you start going like, man, you know, where's my whatever? And you start craving it. Because there's a habit, a habit is something I do every day, like let's say every morning, or every other day, but let's say every morning I get up and I read my Bible. I get up, I read my Bible. I get up and read my Bible. Well I get so used to that, that basically I go one day where I don't have the Bible, and then I should crave the Bible. Like, you know, I feel like something's missing and I need to go read the Bible right now, you know, and I just need to go read the Bible now, you know. So anyway, and man, I've seen people that got pretty crazy with their cravings. Like I used to fly a lot, and people are not allowed to smoke in an airplane, are they? For many years now, they're not allowed to smoke in an airplane. And I remember being on flights where literally people were starting to freak out at the end of that flight because they hadn't smoked in three hours, four hours. One time this lady started screaming and shoving people out of the way because we landed the plane. And you know when you land the plane and the seatbelt light goes off, you think like I'm getting off the plane right now, but you're not because everybody gets up and stands there and then they take forever to open the door, and then the door opens, everybody's getting their bags down, and it's just this really slow, you know, bottleneck. This woman was just freaking out and you know, I gotta get out of here, I gotta get a cigarette, I gotta get a cigarette, you know, and she was just going nuts. And it was like the line was moving really slow, finally she just started screaming and just shoving everyone out of the way. Just get out of here, I gotta get out of here, just shoving everybody away. I mean I just laughed, like she shoved by me. And I just laughed, we all just laughed, we thought it was funny, she just ran to get to the smoking area to light up. You know, that's a craving, but you know, I wonder if there was a Christian that, you know, would do that about their Bible reading or about church, you know. Get out, I need to get to church, you know, I'm addicted to it. Now the Bible says here these people had addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints, so we should develop good addictions, good cravings. And look, Job said, I've esteemed the words of my mouth more than my necessary food. So he's saying, you know, he needs to read his Bible like he needs to eat. And remember David said, as the deer panteth for the water, he said, my soul longeth for God, okay. So he basically had a craving to be in the house of the Lord. He had a craving to read the Word. He had a craving to spend time in prayer. And we ought to develop those same kind of habits and have those same kind of cravings and get rid of bad habits. And here's the thing, habits can be very dangerous because a lot of people talk about a chemical addiction versus a psychological addiction. You know, because if you look at like heroin for example, right, that's a pretty good example of something that everybody would agree, hey, that's a chemical addiction. I mean it doesn't matter what somebody thinks, if they get off heroin, they're going to go into physical withdrawal symptoms. But what we need to understand is that some things that we look at, and maybe we'd even laugh at it, like come on, gambling addiction? Because it's not a chemical thing, but it really is a chemical addiction because there's a chemical reaction taking place in the brain. And our body, you know, has this thing in the brain called the reward center. And our body will release these endorphins and basically, it'll basically activate the reward center in our brain and give us euphoric feelings and euphoric sensations similar to, you know, someone who's taking drugs or doing something else. You know, when somebody's gambling and they're addicted to gambling and they win, they get a certain high from that. You know, they get a certain rush or, you know, a euphoric feeling when they see the three cherries come up and, you know, ding, ding, ding, and they get a feeling. So their body can actually physically crave that feeling and crave that excitement and crave that energy. And you know, an addiction that people have been addicted to that I've noticed recently too is video games, you know. And I'm not saying that video games are necessarily a sin in and of themselves, okay? Because obviously, you know, sin's the transgression of the law. There's no law in the Bible that tells us not to play video games. But, and I don't think it's a sin to play video games, but wait a minute. Do you really think that that's what God wants you doing with huge amounts of your time? Number one. And number two, do you really think that that's what God wants you thinking about when you're not doing it? He tells us to meditate in the Word of God day and night and let me tell you something. People who play a lot of video games, and here's a sign of an addiction too. When you're thinking about it when you're not doing it. I mean, if you're going through your day and you're just, just all you're thinking about is that video game. The whole day you're just strategizing. What am I going to do next when I get back, when I can sign back into my video game? Where am I going next? You know, when you go to sleep at night thinking about that video game, and then when you wake up in the morning and the first thing that's on your mind is your video game. And look, I'll tell you this. When I was a teenager, there were times when I was addicted to video games. My name's Steven Anderson and I'm a video game addict. You know, it was like a video game anonymous. You know, I'm telling you, there have been days, and I'm telling the honest truth, so I'm not judging you. There have been days when I literally in my life have woken up in the morning, eaten a bowl of cereal, played video games nonstop until it was time for lunch, had lunch, played video games nonstop until dinner, had dinner, played video games nonstop until bedtime and went to bed. I have lived days like that. Who's lived a day like that? All right, hands are going up all over, God bless you, I see that hand. Hands are going up all over the building. I've been there. I've lived it, and I've lived it, I've lived it when the time, the time it took to use the bathroom was frustrating. Yeah. Got a lot of amens on that one. I mean, just getting up and going to the bathroom is like, oh, I've got to be gone for a minute. I mean, you're playing it for 12 hours, 15 hours. I have played it for 15 hours. And then I went to bed thinking about it and woke up thinking about it. And look, this is back when the games were primitive, man. I wasn't even playing that complicated of a game. I was playing Nintendo and Sega Genesis, okay? Sega Genesis is the most advanced system I ever had, okay? I mean, the games now are even more enthralling and can suck you in even more. And I'm telling you, it's possible to get addicted to video. It's very dangerous. And so, you know, and especially if you're an adult, I mean, children shouldn't be addicted to it. We're supposed to meditate on the word of God day and night. We're supposed to be working and laboring with our hands and so forth, you know. But here's the thing. If you're an adult and you're addicted to video games, you need to get some help or you need to just get off that. You need to, I mean, if you struggle with video game addiction, you need to just quit playing video games because obviously if you're the type of person, now some people would laugh at that. Some people could play a video game and just, okay, I'm done with that now. But if you're the type that's getting addicted to video games, you need to just stay away from video games because, you know, you're going to eat up so much of your time. And you know what, probably, you're probably going to lose some respect of your spouse. Think about that. Do you think that your wife, when she was, you know, when she married you, wanted to marry a video game addict? I mean, do you think that that's what she wants in a husband? What are you looking forward to? I would love to be married to a husband who eats chips off his chest while playing a video game for seven hours on end and stays up until three in the morning playing video games and then rolls out of bed with red eyes and rushes off to work and then comes home and plays more video games. And do you think any husband really, you know, if he was writing his own version of Proverbs 31, would say she considerate a video game and playeth it? You know, that's not, you know, he wants her to put work into, you know, educating the children and making food and, you know, cleaning the place up and, you know, getting some smarts, you know, not sitting and rotting her brain on a video game, okay? And so we, you know, we live in a day where there are a lot of other competing addictions. Let's get addicted to the Bible, let's get addicted to the ministry, let's get addicted to church. I mean, look, if I didn't go to church, I'd feel weird, right? You feel like, oh man, I need to be, I'm supposed to be in church right now, right? Because it's just a habit, it's an addiction, it's something that you're prone to doing. Reading the Bible, praying, you'd feel weird if you didn't pray, if you didn't read your Bible, if you didn't go to church, it'd be like, man, what's going on? If you're not singing the hymns, if you're not soul winning, because those are your habits. We need to develop those kind of habits. Let me just hurry up and finish here. Jump down to verse 19, it says, the churches of Asia salute you, Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house. Let me just briefly mention the church that is in their house. Nothing in the world wrong with a church meeting in a house. In fact, there are five examples of New Testament churches that met in a house. And when Faithful Word Baptist Church started, guess where we met? In my house. For how long? A year and a half. When Brother Jimenez started his church in Sacramento, Verity Baptist Church, they met in his house for I think a year and nine months. I think it's the best way to start a church, is to start in your house. Instead of worrying about getting a building, and you know, we talked to a friend of ours recently who started a church, okay, and you know, things were going good and they have a building and everything, but it just got to where the payment for the building was just expensive and they didn't really have a huge amount of people coming to really justify, you know, needing that particular building. And so they, even though they started the church recently and they started in a building, they're going to the, they're actually moving the church into their house. Like they didn't start in the house, they're going to the house. And it's not because the church is getting smaller or anything, it's just they're just moving to the house because they just realized, you know, this is the stage we're in. This is where we're at. And I think that that's great to get the emphasis off of fancy buildings and get the emphasis off of where you're meeting and understand that the church is about the people that are assembled, okay? Amen and amen. But let me say this though, a lot of people will twist this and misuse this and there's this so-called house church movement, which is not a church. It's just a couple buddies getting together at someone's house and calling it church. That's not church, okay? So if people say, well, what, just because we don't have a building? No, it's not because you're in the house, it's because you're not a church. If you're a church and you're meeting in the house, great. But when you're just, when it's just you and your family meeting in the house, that's not a church. And when it's just you and a couple buddies meeting, you say, well, I don't get it, Pastor Anderson. I don't understand what the difference is. Okay, in a church, the Bible has ordained the bishop. The Bible has ordained a pastor and there are qualifications for the pastor that are specifically laid out of this is what a pastor is. Okay, well, if you don't have that guy meeting there with you, leading, then it's not a church. If it's just a couple of people getting together and reading the Bible together, that's a great Bible study, but it's not a church. Okay, the other thing is that everything brings forth after its own kind and the church begets the church. You know, you shouldn't just go out, I'm just going to go out and start a church. You know, basically what you should do is you should go to church and then you should be sent out of the local church to go start a church, you know, because the church should beget the church. Okay, so that you're getting the training and the teaching and the guidance to go out and start a church because the Bible talks about bishops being ordained, ordained basically means that they are chosen for that specific job and told. You know, you have met the qualifications. According to our church, you are qualified. You know, we should be, God willing, we're going to be sending out a couple of guys to start churches in the next year or so, okay, and basically what we're going to do is we're going to look at these guys and say, okay, you're qualified. You know, we are putting our stamp of approval on you and we are sending you out to go start a church. Now once they go out and start the church, we're not going to rule over that church like a denomination. We're going to cut the umbilical cord and they do whatever they want because we believe in independent Baptist churches. But they are still sent out by the local church, okay, because otherwise what you'll have is just people who just say, well I can't find any church that's right. I can't find any church that preaches right so I'm just going to go out and start my own church. You know what, if you can't find any church that believes right, you're probably the one that's wrong because it sounds like you have some divers and strange doctrine, okay, because if you can't find any church that believes what you believe, then you probably believe wrong because look, don't we all have the same Bible? Don't we all have the same Holy Spirit? So shouldn't anything that I believe, shouldn't somebody else believe it also? Okay now, you say well Pastor Anderson, you believe all kinds of stuff that nobody else believes. Okay name one thing. Name one thing that I believe that nobody else believes. Name it. Name the one doctrine, in fact I'll take it a step further. Name one doctrine that I believe that millions of other people don't believe. See I don't believe peculiar and strange doctrines. If what I believe is based on the Bible and the Bible is the best-selling book in the world and the Bible is in every country and the Bible is in millions and millions of households of people that are saved and indwelled by the Holy Spirit, aren't they going to come up with the same stuff when they read the Bible that I'm going to come up with when I read the Bible? And that's why whenever I meet people that I've never met before who are Bible-believing Christians who know the Bible well, I just, wow, we disagree on all this stuff, why? Because we're both reading the same Bible. Name the doctrine that I believe that is unique to me that nobody else believes in. You say, well, you know, the post-trib rapture. There are millions of people that believe in the post-trib rapture. There are tens of millions of people. In fact, the majority of people who call themselves a Christian are not pre-trib, they're post-trib. That's just a fact. It's just Hollywood and the Christian bookstore and the evangelicals and Baptists that are mainly pre-trib. But believe me, post-trib is very prevalent. You say, well, you know, you're against birth control. You're the only one who believes in that. Okay, well, how about, how about one million members, or I'm sorry, one billion members of the Roman Catholic Church? The Roman Catholic Church officially is against birth control. Now I'm not saying, I mean, they're a wicked false religion straight out of the pit of hell, but I'm saying I'm not the only one who believes that, okay? Then you say, wow, but you're the only Baptist who, I could name for you right now ten Baptist pastors who believe that birth control is a sin, that are independent fundamental Baptists, and that's just the ones I know. There's probably a thousand. Are you listening? So what do I preach, what do I preach that's so radical that no one else believes it? Nothing. Oh, you want Obama, you know, to get brain cancer. You know what? Half this country wants Obama to get brain cancer. I'm just willing to admit it. One out of two people in America would be happy if Obama would get brain cancer, okay? So you know, I'm not alone on that either, okay? So I'm not alone on anything, okay? But I'm not looking to man's approval, I'm not seeing, well what do other people believe, but I'm telling you this, if you're the only person on the planet that believes your doctrine, and you can't find any church that, I mean, you've got your website that teaches your doctrine, but you can't find any church that preaches the doctrines that you believe, you're the problem. You know, and you need to get, and I'm not saying that everybody has a church right in their immediate area, but there are churches all over this world that believe the right stuff and that are good churches. Faithful Word Baptist Church is not the only good church. Pastor Aniston is the only good pastor, it's the only good church, that's garbage. There are lots of other preachers that love God, that are saved, that are spirit-filled, that are serving God. And you know, this is not some cult-like thing where our church is right and everybody else is wrong. No, on certain issues, for sure. But you know what, we could find 7,000 men that have not vowed the knee to bail on any doctrine that you want to bring up, any issue you want to bring up, okay? And so, meeting in the house should not be, well nobody believes what I believe, I can't find any good church, so I'm just going to have friends come over to my house and we're going to have a house church and it's just me and one other person or me and two other people. That is not a legitimate bonafide church. Now if you're starting a church and you only have one or two people coming, okay, but you're not staying that way. I mean you're out, you're reaching people, you're a qualified man of God and you've been ordained, you've been sent out by the local church, you're out reaching people, you're bringing in visitors, okay yeah it starts small, I get that. But it shouldn't just stay small forever, you know, you should eventually get an assembly going and get people coming. And so beware of a house church movement that, you know, instead of just moving the church to a house as a building, they're just basically not having church, not going to church and just calling it a house church, okay? I mean in that case, I mean I've got nine people in my family. I guess I just live church every day. I mean that's an assembly, that's a congregation. I mean when we sit down at the breakfast table it's a congregation, okay? But that doesn't make it a New Testament church. And then he says, you know, in verse 21, the salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand because someone else would always write down his epistles for him and then he would sign them with his own hand just to make sure that they were authentic. And he warned the Thessalonians never to believe an epistle that didn't have his handwritten signature at the end. The salutation where he would say the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you or something like that at the end in his own hand. The reason I like to point that out is because Paul's epistles, the only one that he talks about having written by hand the whole thing was Galatians. You know the other ones like Romans, a guy named Tertius wrote Romans and then he just signed off on it. What that shows us is that God's the real author. Doesn't matter who put pen to page. It's the Word of God. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for what we've learned from this chapter. Help us Lord not to be carried about with every wind of doctrine, Lord. There's a lot of false teaching out there. There's a lot of crazy stuff on the internet. And you know the internet's a great tool of information and wisdom and I use the internet frequently to gain knowledge and wisdom and instruction. But Father, help us to beware not to get our spiritual doctrines from every wind of internet teaching. Help us rather to get in a real spirit-filled local church and also to read our Bibles and study the Bible and listen to a real Baptist preacher or listen to our parents or you know actually physical human beings, not just web pages and so forth. Help us to be steadfast and unmovable in our doctrine because it's based on our own personal Bible reading. And help us to be addicted to it and in Jesus' name we pray.