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Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, everybody. Welcome to Pure Words Baptist Church. Glad you all could join us for service this Sunday morning. Let's go ahead and take out our hymnals. We're going to begin this morning with song 449, Dwelling in Beulah Land. Just because we've got a packed house, if you see seats next to you, try to like squeeze in. That way we have some of those outward seats available. Song number 449, Dwelling in Beulah Land. Sing it all together on the first. Far away the noise of strife above my ear is falling. Then I know the sins of earth be set on every hand. Doubt and fear and things of earth and nature be our calling. None of these shall move me from Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh, yes, I'm feasting on the manna from the mountain full supply. For I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Far below the storm of doubt upon the world is beating. Sons of men in battle, won't the enemy withstand? Safe am I within the castle of God's word retreating. Nothing then can reach me this Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh, yes, I'm feasting on the manna from the mountain full supply. For I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Let the stormy breezes blow. Their cry cannot alarm me. I am safely sheltered here, protected by God's hand. Here the sun is always shining, here there's not care for me. I am safe forever in Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh, yes, I'm feasting on the manna from the mountain full supply. For I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Viewing here the works of God, I seek in contemplation. Hearing now His blessed voice, I see the way He planned. Dwelling in the Spirit here, I've learned of full salvation. Gladly will I tarry in Beulah Land. I'm living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh, yes, I'm feasting on the manna from the mountain full supply. For I am dwelling in Beulah Land. Amen. Brother James, could you open us up with a word of prayer? Amen. Next up is going to be 370, Throw Out the Lifeline. Great hymn about soul winning, 370, Throw Out the Lifeline. Song number 370, let's sing all together on the first. Throw out the lifeline Across the dark cave There is a brother whom someone should save Somebody's brother who then will dare To throw out the lifeline His peril to share Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline Someone is drifting away Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline Someone is sinking today Throw out the lifeline with big wind and strong Why do you dare me? Why linger so long? See, he is sinking, oh, he's sent today And out with the lifeboat away, then away Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline Someone is drifting away Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline Someone is sinking today Throw out the lifeline to danger brought men Sinking in anguish where you've never been Winds of temptation and billows of war Will soon hurl them out where the dark waters flow Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline Someone is drifting away Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline Someone is sinking today Soon will the season of rescue be o'er Soon will they drift to eternity's shore He said, my brother, no time for delay But throw out the lifeline and save them today Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline Someone is drifting away Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline Someone is sinking today Amen. Good singing. At this time, we'll go through our announcements. If you need a bulletin, raise up your hand and brother Eli or brother James can grab one for you. On the front, you'll see we're working on Psalm 16. This is our Bible memory chapter. Anybody that can quote this entire chapter word perfect will receive a special prize. Any child, if you can quote the verse perfect for this week, you can come on Thursdays and redeem yourself an ice cream cone. On the inside of our bulletin, we have our service time. Sunday mornings are at 10.30. Sunday evenings are at 5.30. And Thursdays, our Bible studies at 7. We have our churchwide so many times listed there below. Were there any salvations to report that did not get added yet? Okay. Uno. All right. Praise God. Is that included in the 16? Okay. We got 17 so far for the month of July and that puts us at 5.17 for the year to date. So praise the Lord for that. Please be in prayer for our expecting ladies listed there below. We do have a praise report for Magdalena and Argenis Argenis. They just had their baby boy last week. His name is Santiago Mateo. What a good Bible name right there. James Matthew and then he was, I guess I was on the 22nd, I'm sorry. He was seven pounds, one ounce and then 19 inches long. A good healthy size baby. So congratulations to the Hernandez family. Hopefully we'll see him back here soon. Upcoming events, you made it. Pastor Anderson, we have him here preaching for us today and tonight. So come back for the service tonight. And after the service this morning, we do have some ice cream for you. So stick around after and enjoy some ice cream with us. We also have a couple baptisms after the service so stick around for that. And if you need to get baptized today, now's the day. Stop putting it off. We got clothes to change into. There's no excuse. See, here's water. What to hinder you from getting baptized, okay? So today's the day if you want to get baptized. We'll also do it tonight if you want. The next event coming up, I didn't put it in the schedule yet, but next week we're going to be doing a soul winning marathon. It's going to be here at the church building. We're going to do what we normally do Saturday. We'll meet here at 10 for breakfast. We'll go out from 10 to noon. We'll meet back for lunch and we'll come back and we'll go out for soul winning from 10 to 4. So that's next week for soul winning if you'd like to go out with us. After that, July 29th, we're going to do a men's preaching night at 6 p.m. So this is on a Saturday and essentially it's an open invitation for any man. So if you want to preach, it's a closed service. You don't got to worry about it being online or everybody making fun of you. It's just the people here. We will criticize you. But essentially we want to rise up men and help men learn how to preach. So if that's something you want to do, I made a sign up sheet for that. But you know, you don't have to necessarily sign up for it. You can just show up that night. So any men, if you want to prepare a 5 to 10 minute long sermon and we'll have some good fellowship that night. The next thing after that, we're having the Mighty Men's Retreat, August 17th through the 19th. And then there's the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship, October 12th through the 14th. That's hosted by Steadfast Baptist Church. So don't show up here. You want to go up there to Fort Worth to hear all the good preaching. We have our prayer requests listed there below. If you have any requests, just please email the church. And we have our church reminders listed there as well. If you need water, coffee, it's all the bathrooms, everything on the side right there. So glad you could join us for service. Let's go ahead and take out our white handouts. We're going to be doing Psalm 12. If you don't have a white handout, we might not have enough for everybody. You can always take out your King James Bible to Psalm chapter number 12. Because this is a word by word. Psalm chapter number 12. Let's get on there first. The words of the Lord are pure words. That silver trite in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, purified seven times. The words of the Lord are pure words. The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things. Who has said with our tongue, will we prevail? Our lips are our own, who is Lord over us. The words of the Lord are pure words. That silver trite in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, purified seven times. The words of the Lord are pure words. For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy. Now with high of rise, saith the Lord, I will set him in safety. I will save thee from him, that puppet that knew. The words of the Lord are pure words. That silver trite in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, purified seven times. The words of the Lord are pure words. Thou shalt keep him, O Lord, thou shalt preserve him, from this generation forever. The wicked walk on every side, when the violent men are exalted. The words of the Lord are pure words. That silver trite in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, purified seven times. The words of the Lord are pure words. Amen. As the offering plate is being passed around, please take out your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter number 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created, to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all exception. For therefore we both labor and suffer reproaches, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe. These things command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things, give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your pure words, Baptist Church. Lord, we pray that you'll help us walk in the light as children of the light, and to let our light shine out, stolen into this. We pray that you'll bless Pastor Anderson as he preaches from the word of God, and be with us all. Amen. Amen. Well, it's great to see everybody once again, and thank you for having me come preach. Thank you to those who are faithful to this church week after week, and also thank you to those who drove in, especially just for today. I know some of you drove from hours away, and so I'm really glad that you're all here. We're having a great time on the road trip. This is actually only our third church, so I'm still feeling pretty fresh, and I'm sure that later in the trip I'll be a little more worn out, but so far so good. And so this morning I'm going to be preaching out of 1 Timothy chapter number 4 here, where the Bible talks about people in the latter times departing from the faith. Now, the first thing I want to point out is that when the Bible says here, the Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith. We're not necessarily just only talking about right before the second coming of Christ, because anything in the New Testament is often referred to as the latter days or the last times. You know, the Bible says in 1 John chapter 2, it says, Little children, it is the last time, and as you've heard that antichrist shall come. Even now there are many antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time. Or like in Hebrews, for example, it says, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his sons. So latter days, latter times, last days, that's really anything in the New Testament falls under that. So this stuff that we're going to read about in chapter 4 has been going on for a long time. It's not something that just only happens right before the second coming of Christ. But the Bible says the Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. And so what we're talking about here are spinoffs from Christianity or departures from Christianity. You can't depart from something if you were never there. So these are not just totally separate pagan religions out there, but rather they're people who are taking the gospel of Jesus Christ and twisting it. They're taking Christianity and departing from it and giving heed to these seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Then we'll get into some examples in a moment. But he says speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. Now what does that mean to have your conscience seared with a hot iron? See, a conscience is something that we all as human beings have, but it's supposed to be something that is sensitive or tender, where even when we do the mildest thing, it bothers us a little bit, right? But the more that you sin, the more that you do wrong, your conscience becomes dull. You become desensitized to feeling bad about sinning. And the Bible talks about people like, you know, for example, these people out here that are past feeling. You know, they have no more conscience. And so the idea of having your conscience seared with a hot iron, it'd be basically like if you got a burn on your skin that were so bad that your skin's just numb there permanently, right? You've just kind of killed the nerve endings. I don't know about you, but I have some scarring on one of my fingers, and there's a part of my finger that's just permanently numb because that nerve ending's just been totally destroyed. And so your conscience is supposed to be sensitive, and some people have their conscience seared with a hot iron. And what you're going to find in the Bible is that false prophets, false teachers, false religious leaders are reprobates. They're put in the same category with sodomites and other reprobates because they are also the most wicked possible people that there are. Because think about how evil it is, how wicked it is to lead people astray on a matter of heaven and hell. Now it'd be one thing to just ignorantly preach something that's wrong or make a mistake or be ignorantly following a false religion, but I'm talking about the people who are preaching and teaching this stuff for decades, people who are the pastors and the priests and the archbishops, they are virtually all reprobates. You know, there could be an exception somewhere, but in general, these false teachers, they're speaking lies in hypocrisy, and what that means is that they know that they're lying. It's not that they're just really sincere and they just love the truth and they just accidentally somehow got mixed up in a false religion. No, the Bible says they are speaking lies, not sincerely, not ignorantly, but in hypocrisy, meaning they are saying things that they know are not true. They know they aren't true because hypocrisy is like acting, right? So if someone's a hypocrite, then they're acting like they're something that they're not. They're pretending to be something that they're not, and these people that are speaking lies in hypocrisy, they know that what they're saying is a lie, but they preach it anyway, and anyone who would tell you lies about God and the Bible when heaven and hell is at stake is really the lowest of the low, and so it shouldn't surprise you that the Bible lumps them in with reprobates. You know, in 2 Peter chapter 2, the false prophets, the false teachers, the Bible compares them to reprobates and puts them in the same category with Sodom and Gomorrah and all that. And so these people have their conscience seared with a hot iron, meaning that they know that they're lying, but it doesn't bother them. They don't feel bad about it. They're past feeling. They don't care anymore. And then it gives some examples of the type of false doctrine that these people would preach. Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God has created to be received with thanksgiving, of them which believe and know the truth. These are example or sample doctrines of devils right here. Okay, so forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats. Now, when we read this passage, we need to understand it's not necessarily just only talking about one religion that does all of these things, because when the Bible says some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, it's not like there's just one devil religion out there. It's not like there's a right Christianity and then this one devil religion. I mean, we could think of all kinds of false religions, right? We could think about Roman Catholicism. We could think about different cults like the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-day Adventists. We could think about Islam, which is really another perverted Christianity spinoff. And we could go down the list. There's not just one that necessarily checks all these boxes, but I think that the big one that you could point to with this, and again, we don't want to limit ourselves to this, but a big one we could point to is Roman Catholicism, because right away when we see this thing of forbidding to marry, you know, that just right away makes you think of the fact that all of their clergy is celibate. Even though the Bible specifically tells us that the bishop must be the husband of one wife, they teach the opposite. They say the bishop must not be the husband of one wife, right? They actually have a celibate clergy, and the clergy are forbidden to marry, which is a doctrine of devils, okay, because people should be at liberty to get married. And by the way, it's a false doctrine to say somehow that, well, those who are celibate are somehow better or more spiritual or more righteous. That's false, because God has said that every man or woman has their own particular calling of God, and one person has this calling, another has that calling, one person has this gift, the other has that gift, and so to sit there and say, like, oh, well, that's a superior calling, that's garbage, my friend, because in fact, being a pastor, being a preacher, being a bishop isn't a low calling, and yet it requires being married. Okay, so that is a wrong doctrine, and it's a doctrine of devils. You ever wonder where Roman Catholicism got some of these doctrines that are just not in the Bible? Well, I'll tell you where they got them. They got them from demons. They got them from literal demons and devils, and you say, well, you know, you could just say that about anything. No, I mean, we could actually trace the specific demons that they got them from, because all we have to do is look at religions that came before Catholicism that already forbade to marry and commanded to abstain from meats, and of course, we would point to Buddhism, because Buddhism, 500 years before Christ, had monasteries and monks and nuns. Show me a monk in the Bible. Show me a nun in the Bible. Show me a monastery in the Bible, right? These things are foreign to scripture, but yet the Buddhists were doing it in 500 B.C., okay? And so Roman Catholicism has borrowed things straight from the devil, doctrines of devils, doctrines of demons, right? Demonic religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, Roman Catholicism has borrowed from those religions. You ever wonder where they get worshiping Mary? Well, all we have to do is go to India and see that the so-called Old Testament, the oldest religion, yeah, it's old because it goes all the way back to the Tower of Babel, it goes all the way back to Cain, it goes back to the serpent in the garden, Hinduism, what are they worshiping? A female goddess, right? They've got their female mother goddess that they're worshiping over there that goes by different names depending on what part of the country you're in, but those are demonic religions right there. Hinduism is demonic because they're worshiping idols and the Bible says the things that the Gentiles offer and sacrifice unto idols, they sacrifice to devils, the Bible says. And I would not that you have fellowship with devils. Buddhism is demonic because Buddhism will try to get you in the door by saying, oh, we don't believe in God and there's no faith required and it's just about meditating and inner peace and nirvana and all this, but then once you go a little deeper into Buddhism, because I've talked to people who it appealed to them as an atheist and they're like, well, I don't believe in God, but I want to be spiritual. So they gravitated toward Buddhism, but then once they got into Buddhism, next thing you know, they find themselves praying to some ascended master, some bodhisattva, some other Buddha who's ascended who's going to help them and you know what they're actually talking to is a demon. And so when Roman Catholicism is borrowing this female goddess worship of the queen of heaven, when they're borrowing monks and nuns and monasteries and forbidding to marry and so forth, those are doctrines of devils that they borrowed. And the people who teach them are liars and they know that they're teaching lies and they're super wicked, they don't feel bad about it because they have their conscience seared with a hot iron. That's what the Bible says. And you say, well, no Pastor, I think that they're sincere, they're just mixed up. Well, what about the fact that the Bible says that if you ask you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. That sounds to me like anybody who's actually seeking truth will find it. Anybody who's sincere and wants to know the truth will find it. And if someone is spending years and years and years studying the Bible, studying about God, studying religion for years and years and years, and then now they're a Catholic priest, did that person love truth? Was that person seeking truth? Was that person sincere? No, because they would have arrived at the truth had they been there. Now you say, what about the Apostle Paul? You know what the Apostle Paul said? He said, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Howbeit, he said, I obtained, I quoted the wrong verse there, but he says, I did it ignorantly in unbelief. He said, I obtained mercy, this is the important part, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. So why was the Apostle Paul shown mercy? Because he did it ignorantly in unbelief. He wasn't speaking lies and hypocrisy. He didn't have his conscience seared with the hot iron. He was just sincerely wrong about Christ. And did God reveal the truth to him? Look, he was seeking and he found. The fact that he eventually got saved is just proving my point right now. And he said that before he got saved, he was ignorant. He wasn't doing it on purpose. He was not rejecting the truth. But today when the gospel is so prevalent in the United States and so many people have heard the gospel, and then you have people going to a Bible college or seminary and spending years and years and years and years studying, and then they come out and they're a Roman Catholic, my friend, it's a pretty safe bet that that Roman Catholic priest is a reprobate. He's got his conscience seared with the hot iron. Forbidding to marry is a doctrine of devils. Telling anyone, hey, you know, you must be celibate, you must not ever get married, you know, that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says marriage is honorable and all and the bed undefiled, but whoremongous and adulterous God will judge. The Bible says to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. The bishop must be the husband of one wife. And then he says also commanded to abstain from meats. Now, in this regard, we could again point to the Roman Catholic Church and say, well, they have a thing called Meatless Friday. Now, this might not be as big as it used to be, but still to this day, if you ever, look, I love clam chowder. Okay? And if I ever want to eat clam chowder, I always know that virtually any restaurant I go to in America, if they serve clam chowder, they're serving it on a Friday. Okay? That's just a fact. So every restaurant will have the soup du jour, right? The soup of the day. And if you want to have clam chowder, 99%, the clam chowder is served on Friday. Now, why is the clam chowder served on Friday? Why not on some other day? Why is it so consistent that so many restaurants only have clam chowder on Friday? It's because of Meatless Friday. Now, obviously, not necessarily all Catholics still observe this, but it's still so ingrained in our restaurant system that that's still the day for the clam chowder. Why? Because the Roman Catholic Church for many years would not allow their people, or they would teach their people not to eat any meat on Fridays. So they would only eat seafood. So oysters are fine, clams are fine, fish is fine, but no meat on Fridays. No meat on Fridays. Where is that nonsense in your Bible? No meat on Friday. First of all, it's stupid because Jesus wasn't even crucified on Friday, because it's literally impossible to get three days and three nights out of that. He was crucified on Thursday, as your pastor has done such a good job of teaching. But, you know, secondly, I don't want to have Meatless Thursday either, okay? And it's not just because I'm just some riotous eater of flesh over here. It's just because of the fact that it's not biblical. It doesn't make any sense. It's some pagan practice. And again, we could go to India and we could find Hindus who don't eat meat on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Or they don't eat meat on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And all of these different variations on that. There's no new thing under the sun. These doctrines came from somewhere, and they came from devils. They're doctrines of devils. But even a more broader application of this, when he says commanding to abstain from meats, the immediate context here is not talking about Meatless Friday necessarily. But actually telling you that you can only eat certain meats. Because he goes on to say, Which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. Look at verse 4. For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving. Notice it says every creature, that's every animal of God should be received cooked on a plate. Okay? That's what the Bible is saying. There's no animal that is forbidden for us to eat in the New Testament. Okay? So boiled dog with rice is fine. Okay? I'm not recommending it. But if you're in that part of the world, I'm not going to mention any names of any parts of the world, but it's out there. Okay? If you're in that part of the world, you know, Guten Appetit. Right? Bon Appetit. Every creature of God is good. Every creature of God is good. And what this is getting at is that in the New Testament, we're also not under the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament. So you've got religions out there like the Seventh-day Adventists that are going to tell you no pork or no shellfish. The Jews, obviously, the Judaizers of today are going to get you abstaining from meats. Right? What other religions practice that besides the Seventh-day Adventists, Jews, Judaizers? Islam is another one. Good one. Anything else? Anything else? I mean, those are the big ones. Right? It's a doctrine of devils. God has given those things to us to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth. Every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving or to sanctified by the word of God in prayer. Now, this is an important thing to talk about because it says in the next verse, if thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou should be a good minister of Jesus Christ. Nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine. Notice the play on words here. He was just talking about eating food a second ago, eating meats. And then he says, nourished up, not on a physical diet, but nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. Right? So instead of worrying so much about the physical food and what meats you are or not eating, he says, you know, be nourished in the words of faith. Be nourished in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. But refuse profane and old wives fables and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profits little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. Now this verse is one of the most taken out of context verses in the Bible. Okay? It's one of those verses that people who don't work out, they really love this verse. Right? This is like their first memory verse. And they recite it daily. But it says, you know, bodily exercise profit little. And, you know, it's sort of like every, every wino's favorite verse is like, hey, take a little wine for thy stomach's sake. You know, everybody's got their life verse. Well, a lot of people, they take this verse and they say, you know, well, bodily exercise profit little. Now obviously when we hear the word exercise, what do we immediately think of? You know, we think of going to the gym. Right? We think of running or doing push-ups or lifting weights or doing pull-ups or whatever. And obviously that is what the word exercise means. And then you're not going to believe this. If you go back and read this in the original Greek, it still says a word that means exercise and calls to mind those same things. It reads exactly like English. Isn't that shocking to you? And so the King James is right on here, as always. And so what do we make of this? Is he really just like, hey, let me warn you about all this false religion. Oh, by the way, by the way, going to the gym, little profit. Like, like why would, doesn't that seem a little bit kind of like out of nowhere? Because that's not really what he's saying. He's not warning you about like why jogging isn't worth it. Okay, I'm really sorry to burst some of your bubble because, you know, this has been one of your favorite verses and I'm kind of ruining it for you. But he's not telling you, he's not saying this in the context of, hey, you're not going to make a lot of gains if you go to the gym. You know, you know, exercise that self rather under godliness because, you know, bodily exercise probably. Does that really seem like the context that we're really just talking about like working out or being an athlete? Not really, were we? So I don't believe that that's what this is actually saying. Now, it is using that kind of language, it is using that kind of wording, so you could take that as a secondary application. And I do think that's a good secondary application to say, hey, you know, it's more important that you read your Bible than that you work out that day. Amen? I mean, that's a good application to say. But that's a secondary application. That's not really what he's primarily talking about. You could say, hey, skipping leg day or skipping Bible reading. You skip leg day and you read your Bible, okay? It's getting quiet in here, you know. But anyway, the point is, though, that that's a secondary application that you could make. The real primary application when he says, bodily exercise profit a little. What were we just talking about? We were talking about abstaining from a marital relationship and we're talking about abstaining from foods. That is the bodily exercise we're talking about, okay? That is what profit little. Because bodily exercise is just anything that you go through bodily, right? Because if I said, hey, I'm doing a math exercise, it doesn't mean I'm doing push-ups and counting the push-ups, okay? A math exercise could be just me with a pen and paper doing math and I'm saying, hey, I'm working on exercise five in my homework. Does everybody understand? This word exercise can mean a lot of different things. It can mean things like, you know, hey, the military is doing some missile exercises or something, right? So bodily exercise is just you going through some kind of a process or some kind of a practice physically. And what he's saying is that these carnal things like meats and drinks and abstaining from marriage and so forth, these are a bodily exercise that profits little, rather we should exercise ourselves on the godliness. So what he's actually primarily talking about is being ascetic. Now what does it mean to be an ascetic? It's someone who basically puts themselves through all of this pain or deprivation physically, right? So we think of asceticism, we could think of someone who just never eats any rich foods, they're just living on bread and water and they're sleeping on a cot and they just are, you know, living a very strict life and, you know, maybe that could include, you know, a lot of workouts or a lot of running or a lot of just whatever. But the point is, God is warning us about demonic religion and doctrines of devils that would promote and exalt asceticism and bodily exercise above actual godliness and spirituality. Okay, what do I mean? You know, a religion, for example, that would exalt and glorify, say, extreme fasting and just all of these, you know, not having any fun, going and living off by yourself somewhere and just enduring all kinds of pain like for the sake of pain. I mean, think about the Roman Catholics when they literally beat themselves or when they literally carry the cross around on Easter or something and they're dragging crosses or they literally crucify themselves, you know. And this is not some obscure thing that goes on on the other side of the world only because this goes on literally two miles from Faithful Word Baptist Church in a little town called Guadalupe. It's literally two miles. I'm not saying it's not three miles. It's two miles. I'm not just using the number two as a symbol. I'm saying, like, count one, two miles. It's one mile south on 48 and one mile east on baseline. And then if we take the hypotenuse, you know, and get to that corner, 1.414141414, you know, just doing a little exercise here, then, you know, if I go the other .6, man, I am in a town called Guadalupe and in that town of Guadalupe which is a reservation for the Yaqui Indian tribe, they have parades and events all around Easter where they beat each other, they beat themselves, they crucify people, they do all this wild stuff and there's no cell phones or cameras allowed because it's so weird they don't want you filming it because people will be like, wow, this is weird. Okay, so this is going on and we've all seen the documentaries probably of them doing it in the Philippines and other places where Mexico and so forth, they're crawling on their knees for miles and they beat themselves and go through all this. That is a bodily exercise. That's a bodily exercise, right? Fasting is a bodily exercise, okay? Going through deprivations, not getting married because you think it's somehow morally superior to be abstinent for life is a bodily exercise, okay? And what the Bible is saying here is that bodily exercise profit little in the sense that there is a little bit of profit in controlling your appetites. I mean, obviously, God doesn't want us to be gluttons. Obviously, God doesn't want us to be drunkards. He doesn't want us to be out fornicating or committing adultery. He doesn't want us just gratifying our flesh and being lazy and if it feels good, do it. Obviously, he wants us to exercise some discipline in our lives and be disciplined and that's the bodily exercise that's good, you know, would be like not eating too much or, you know, not sleeping in too late or whatever. And of course, fasting is biblical. It's good to fast but what we don't want to do is think that the bodily exercise is the big thing and that that's what we would lift up as the ultimate spirituality. Fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, 3 days and 3 nights of fasting, you know, and lift up as the ultimate spirituality someone who's so ascetic and disciplined. They never have any fun. They're never going to get married. They never enjoy any pleasure. You'll never see them eating any ice cream after the service because they're just so disciplined and so ascetic. That is not the pinnacle of spirituality according to the New Testament. That bodily exercise profit a little. Exercise yourself rather into godliness. Okay, godliness. What is godliness? Godliness is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Godliness is loving your neighbor as yourself. Godliness is following the commandments of God. This is the love of God that we keep as commandments and not stealing, not killing, not committing adultery. And how about studying the word of God and actually following what the Bible says and getting our doctrine right from the Bible and living our lives the way God has told us to live our lives. And being married but being a good husband. Being married being a good wife. Being married being a good parent. Being a good father. Being a good mother. Going to your job and being a good worker at your job and being a good Christian example to this world and opening your mouth to make known the gospel is superior to just going out in the woods somewhere and beating yourself. Going out in the woods somewhere and starving yourself and running a marathon every day and, you know, I mean, look, let me put it to you this way. I want to help you understand this passage. Let's say, you know, you got these people in Japan and they go out and they run a marathon every day for like ten years or something. They just run a full marathon every day for ten years and they bring a knife with them because if they fail to finish the marathon they kill themselves. With that knife. Right? And then they do that for, and I might be getting the number of years wrong, but they do this for years. Like years they run a marathon every day. And then for years, then they run fifty miles a day for years and years and years and years and they're supposed to kill themselves if they don't finish their course. Those people are going to go straight to hell when they die because they're not even Christian. They don't even believe in Christ. But are we supposed to say, oh, it's so spiritual. Well, let me ask you something. Is an unsaved person spiritual at all? I mean, is any unsaved person spiritual in the eyes of God at all? Are they godly at all? They're not even saved. And without faith in Jesus Christ it is impossible to please God. So if someone doesn't even believe in Christ but they're out there fasting and doing these extreme workouts and doing all this extreme asceticism and abstaining from this and abstaining from that, it doesn't prove that they're spiritual because we know for a fact they're not spiritual because they don't believe in Jesus. So now let me ask you this. What about the guy who believes in Jesus and does all those things? Does that make him spiritual? Does that make him right doctrinally, the fact that he goes through all this bodily exercise and he's super strict about what he eats, he's super strict about his discipline and his exercise and whatever? Okay, what the Bible is saying, because it seems a little out of context, why bring that up? Because he's talking about basically a spirituality that is based in the flesh that says it's all about abstaining from these foods. And think about the Jews. What was the spirituality of the Pharisees? Were they good people? They weren't good people. They weren't nice people. They didn't love God and they didn't love their neighbor. They despised their neighbor. They despised everyone. I mean, they look at the public and, oh, man, I thank God I'm not like this public in here. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess, not like the stinkin' publican. You know, the publican's saved. He's in heaven and that Pharisee's in hell, according to Jesus Christ. The one went down to his house justified, the other didn't. And so the Pharisee's going through a bodily exercise twice a week by fasting. He's going through a bodily exercise by doing all kinds of washings and rituals and things. And here's the thing. The devil's religion is a religion based on bodily exercise. So think about it. What do you do as a Roman Catholic? You go to the service and you cross yourself and you kneel and you light a candle. You stand up. You sit down. You stand up. You sit down. You walk up. You get a wafer put on your tongue. You drink the wine. You get slapped in the face and told to receive the Holy Ghost. My wife told me when she was a kid, she went down and at her confirmation she was slapped by the priest. He said, receive the Holy Ghost and slap her in the face. Benny Hinn didn't make that up. Benny Hinn doesn't get credit for that. They go down, they get ashes put on their head on Wednesday, fat on their plate on Tuesday, ashes on Wednesday, Good Friday. It's all these rituals. And then when they pray, it's not godly praying. It's just a bunch of chanting. Hail Mary full of grace. Swing those beads all over the place. Swing them high. Swing them low. Swing them Mary. Go, go, go. Or they chant Our Father. They chant the Hail Mary. They go through all of these bodily exercises and it's just a physical act. But it's not a spiritual act. Now it's easy to point out these things in false religion. You know, to say, hey, look how the Roman Catholics, they're into bodily exercise. I'm not saying they go to the gym every day. I'm saying their religion is based on bodily exercise. Fleshly, carnal, just activity that they go through. They're doing a lot of stuff, but it does make them godly. You look at the Hindus and the Buddhists, again, you're going to find a lot of ritual, a lot of just going through physical processes and going through things that don't make them godly, according to the Bible. But what we want to do is we want to apply this to ourselves, right? Because it's always easy to point at some other group and say, oh, they're giving heed to fables. They're giving heed to old wives' fables. They're into bodily exercise. They are ungodly. It's easy to point that out about other religions. But remember, the Apostle Paul is saying that we need to put the brethren in remembrance of these things. People that are actually saved, we need to put them in remembrance of these things. And he says that we also should realize for ourselves that bodily exercise profited little, because he's even telling Timothy, who's a preacher and a man of God, he's saying exercise thyself, specifically you, Timothy, exercise yourself rather than the gods. Don't get caught up in bodily exercise as the ultimate spirituality, because it isn't. You know, just proving that you can go without food for a really long time doesn't make you more spiritual. Just proving that you, oh, I read my Bible, you know, ten times last year. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're more spiritual, because that's a bodily exercise. Now, again, I'm not against bodily exercise. I'm for fasting. Does the Bible have good things to say about fasting? Yeah. I'm for prayer. I'm for fasting. I'm for reading your Bible. I'm for going to church. Hey, I'm even for all kinds of bodily exercise. I'm for running. I'm for lifting weights. I'm for body weight exercises. I'm for calisthenics. Hey, I'm for all that stuff. But at the end of the day, I realize that what actually makes me more godly and what actually is what I should focus on spiritually is never going to be a bodily exercise. It's going to take place in the heart and in the spirit. It's going to be about loving God. It's going to be about loving my neighbor. It's going to be about doing what the Bible says and believing what the Bible tells me to believe. I mean, imagine some orthodox monk. He's whipping himself. He's living in a cage. He's going through all these things, and he's chanting for five hours a day. He's chanting prayers, and he never eats any ice cream, and he never has jumped into a swimming pool or whatever, and he's just over there just beating himself. Well, here's the thing. But then the Bible tells him how to be saved, and he rejects it. He rejects the God of the Bible and follows a God of his own imagination. He follows a God of the orthodox imagination or the Roman Catholic imagination. Does he love God? No, because he's chosen a false God. He's chosen a false religion. He's chosen a perversion of Christianity, another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel, because his heart isn't right. And anything he does physically can't fix that. We could find all kinds of atheists who are extremely physically disciplined. We could go to the military and find some four-star general, and I guarantee if we found some four-star general in the U.S. military that gets up and runs 10 miles every morning, and he sleeps five hours a night, and he reads a book every single day, and he's lifting weights, and he's in shape. He's jumped out of an airplane 700 times. But does he know Christ as savior? You know, bodily exercise profit a little. Exercise yourself rather than the godliness. So we want to apply this to ourselves and not allow these wrong ideas and wrong philosophies about religion to creep into our own lives. You know, for example, when it comes to prayer and fasting, God wants us to pray, but he doesn't want us to use vain repetitions as the heathen do. Prayer is not meant to be a bodily exercise of just, oh yeah, well, I can spend four hours straight on my knees without even getting up. You know, and everybody else is like, oh, my knees hurt. It's like, you're pathetic. I could do this all night. Right? I mean, is that really what it's about? Just some bodily exercise of just how much time you can spend praying. It's just logging those hours in prayer. Is that really what God wants to do? Because the Bible says your heavenly father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him. They think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. They think it's just how many minutes are spent in prayer. They think it's just how many words did they say? How many reps? How many sets of how many reps? Because to them, prayer is a bodily exercise. Like when they go to the gym, they're cranking out reps of prayer. They're doing supersets of prayer. Maybe they even do circuit training where it's like they pray and then they go straight to Bible reading, sing a hymn, back to prayer. I'm doing 20 supersets. I'm getting spiritually shredded over here, man. But that's a bodily exercise. What we need to understand is that prayer is not about how many reps, how many minutes, how many words you said. It's about actually speaking to God from the heart and communing with God from your heart. And you know what? God already knows what things you have need of before you ask him. So you don't need to just keep chanting or repeating it over and over again. You should pray and spend time with the Lord every day in prayer, but it should be real. It should be from the heart, not a bodily exercise. Okay, and then here's the thing about fasting. Fasting is biblical and the Bible talks about combining prayer with fasting and so that we can, you know, basically let God know that we're serious and go through that process. And you know, the Bible does talk about fasting and it's positive, but here's the thing. Nowhere does the Bible command us to fast, by the way. Some people will teach like, you're commanded to fast. I don't believe that. I think fasting is good. It's something that we should do, that we could do, that men of God in the Bible have done, but there's no command in the Bible that gives you a certain length of fast or how often to do it or even to do it at all necessarily. And you know, a lot of the fasts in the Bible are just not eating until the sun goes down or just a one-day fast. The most common fast in the Bible is one day. And then you'll have some other more extreme fast of three days, seven days, thirty days, and so forth. But here's what we don't want to do. We don't want to think that prayer and fasting is some kind of magic or sorcery whereby we can work miracles by following some formula. Does everybody understand what I'm saying by that? See, you know, you've all heard of magic and sorcery. And obviously, when you think of magic, you might think of a video game or some kind of a fantasy film or book or something. But what, you know, if you think about the kind of like the academic or scholarly definition of magic, you know, kind of the difference between magic and the miracles of the Bible, why are those things different? Here's why they're different. Because the idea of magic is like a formula whereby pagans and ungodly people could basically manipulate the supernatural. So if they say this word and they mix these ingredients, they can suspend the laws of nature and they can actually manipulate supernatural forces. It's sort of like if you, you know, rub a genie lamp or something, right? And then the genie comes out and like he has to obey you because you rubbed that genie lamp and you've got three wishes and he's your slave now and he has to obey you, right? And of course, that's not real. But here's what a lot of people could do with prayer and fasting is they could somehow think that somehow, oh, well, God has to obey me because I did X, Y, and Z. We can never manipulate the supernatural, my friend. God is never going to be our slave or our servant or obligated to do anything for us. You know, I could pray and pray and pray and fast and fast and fast and at the end of the day, if God's will is something different, he doesn't just have to do what I said because I put in those hours or because I did that fast or whatever. We don't want to think that prayer is like magic or sorcery where we're somehow manipulating the supernatural. Prayer is rather letting our request be made known unto God, right? The Bible says, be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds to Christ Jesus because we know that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. And what the Bible is saying is that if we pray to the Lord, we can then rest assured that either God is going to do what we've asked him to do or he is not going to do it because he has a greater reason, he has a greater purpose, he knows best for us. I mean, how many times have you read these fairy tales about genies and so forth where the person gets their wish and it ends up destroying them, right? And they ask for stupid wishes and they end up getting destroyed in the process. Right? That's the danger of these things. The difference with God is that if we ask for something stupid that's going to destroy us, if we're a godly Christian and we sincerely just, we don't know what's good for us and we say, oh God, please help it to work out for me to marry so and so, if God's up in heaven thinking like, you don't want to be married to so and so, that's going to be a drag for you, then, you know, God could just break up that relationship for our benefit. And he's doing that to bless us. It's not like, oh, God didn't answer my prayer. It's like, well, God is actually looking out for you and caring for you like a father, you know, he's not going to withhold any good thing from his children, but if they ask for something stupid, he's going to say, hey, you don't want that. Trust me, you don't want that. You know, it's like sometimes your kids will want to eat something, they'll see something, hey, I want to eat that, I want to drink that, and you know they're not going to like it because it's spicy or whatever. You know it's something nasty. They think it's something else. They're confused about what it is. And so you know better and you're like, no, no, no, trust me, you know, you want the chicken fingers or whatever. Because you know them. And here's the thing, God wants us to pray, he wants us to ask for things, but when we ask for things, that's what we're asking our heavenly father and he's either going to give it to us or not give it to us. It's not like we just say this three times and as long as we abstain from food and drink, then boom, it's in the bag because it's just, you know, it's like a genie or something. God is not a genie. Prayer and fasting are not magic and sorcery. And so what we need to understand is that prayer and fasting should not become a bodily exercise, but they should be a spiritual exercise, a spiritual activity, and they don't in and of themselves make you godly. Because you've got to follow the word of God to be godly and be a good person and love the Lord and love your neighbor and do all these things that God has told us to do. Not just a physical, you know, well I show up at the church three times a week, I showed up at soul winning, I read my Bible, I prayed, I tithed, therefore I'm a good trician. Not necessarily because you could be rotten on the inside and just going through a bodily exercise. So we want to make sure that we apply these admonitions to ourself. You know, not only that, but he says not to give heed to fables. He says in verse number seven, but refuse profane and old wives fables and exercise thyself rather unto godliness for bodily exercise profit little. You know, even as independent Baptists, sometimes we have some fables that we buy into, some fake stories or fairy tales that we buy into. For example, when I was coming up in the old IFB, we would hear about this preacher, Charles G. Finney, okay? And we'd hear about these great revivals of the past and, you know, the second great awakening and Charles G. Finney. And I remember hearing stories in an independent fundamentalist Baptist church about Charles G. Finney, about like, for example, he walked into this sewing factory. And he just walked in and he just stood there and just, just looking at everybody, just not saying anything, not saying a word. And at first people were doing like you're doing, kind of laughing and, you know, snickering and like, what's this guy's deal? But then next thing you know, somebody started crying. And then everybody's crying. Everybody's falling on their faces and begging God for mercy. And next thing you know, the owner comes. He's like, shut down the whole factory. And all of a sudden, like, they just have this great revival and everybody in the factory gets saved and all this. And he's like, he didn't even have to say anything. He just stood there and just looked at him. But this man was just so dripping with the Holy Ghost and so dripping with the power of God that just, you know, he just walked in and just by being there, just like everybody is just falling on their knees and getting saved. You know, and then they tell other stories about this guy, Charles G. Finney, that basically like people would be like on the way to his services. And they're in these horse-drawn carriages and they're on their way to go hear Charles G. Finney preach. And it was like the roads are all jammed up and they're trying to figure out why can't we get to the service? The roads are so jammed we can't get there. That's because people were like getting out of their wagons and just falling on their faces by the side of the road and just weeping and just crying out to God because the power of God was already affecting them before they even got to the service. Folks, that is a big load of crap and it never happened. Okay? It's just a bunch of made-up, stupid, fake stories. You say, well, how do you know? How do you know that he's not a man of God? Because the man was the most hardcore works salvation teacher. Like, he made the Roman Catholics look like they're teaching grace through faith. I'm not kidding. I mean, we're talking about this guy is the most hardcore teacher of works salvation. And he taught that you had to be sinlessly perfect to be saved. Sinless perfection, hardcore works-based salvation, total lose your salvation. I mean, one of his most famous sermons was called salvation is difficult for the righteous, impossible for the sinner. Okay, this guy is the most full of baloney, false teacher, wicked, false prophet you can imagine. If you read anything that he wrote, it's all total garbage. So why am I hearing about this independent fundamental Baptist church? These fake stories. Here's the other reason. So number one, I know it's a bunch of malarkey because number one, the guy is a mega false prophet. If he's saved, then every Roman Catholic is saved and every Mormon is saved because this guy is more extremely false than any of those people. I mean, this guy is just so far off the deep end, it's not even funny. I mean, sinless perfection, are you kidding me? We say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves in the truth. It's funny how Paul wasn't sinlessly perfect, funny how John the Beloved wasn't sinlessly perfect, but we're supposed to believe that this... And just Google Charles G. Finney images, the guy just looks demonic. The guy looks like a complete freak. Go Google it right now, Google it later. But you know what that is? That's a fable, that's a profane fable that I heard in church a bunch of times. Then when I actually went and fact checked it, I found out the guy's a mega false teacher, number one. Number two, did we see some miracles when we read the Bible? Yeah, there's some miracles in the Bible, aren't there? What kind of miracles take place in the Bible? Healing and Jesus walked on water, multiplying food, raising the dead, right? Aren't those the kind of miracles that we see? Partying the Red Sea, calling down the fire of God. You know, we could go down the list. Isn't that funny? I never read about any preacher in the New Testament just standing there and the power of God coming upon everybody and they all just fall over and start just weeping and begging to be saved. You never see that, ever, in the Bible. Nor do you ever see people on the way to go hear Paul preach, on the way to go hear Peter preach, on the way to go hear Jesus preach. And before they even get to Jesus, they're just crying and weeping and they just, they're just, oh, the power of God. You never see, it's funny, when the people come to hear Jesus, they show up and they actually listen to what he's saying and they hear the sermon. And guess what? Most of them don't get saved. Like, some of them get saved. When they come to hear Jesus, some of them get saved, some of them don't. Right? Think about when Paul shows up on Mars Hill and Paul preaches, right? And there are some people that believe, some people make fun of him, and other people are like, well, we'll hear thee again on this matter. Isn't that interesting that that's what we see in our lives? If we go and preach in a school somewhere or if we preach, you know, in a prison or something, you know, you'll get this mixed reaction. You get some people getting saved, some people not getting saved, some people that are going to think it over. You know, isn't it amazing that what we see in our real lives actually matches up with what we see in the book of Acts, but then we have this fairy tale about this guy who's just so dripping with the power of God that he just, you know, everywhere he goes, people are just crying and falling on their faces and getting saved just by being in his presence before he even says anything. You know, last time I checked, it was the word of God that had power. It was the preaching of the cross that had power. It was the gospel that had power, not just this man showing up. He's a cult leader. He's a weirdo cult leader that has everybody falling around him or whatever. First of all, I don't even believe it really happened. I think the whole story's a lie. I think it's made up. I think it's just some bizarre exaggeration. And you know what? If you want to go see people falling over, I could take you somewhere in Houston, and I'm sure we could find people falling over today. Who thinks that if we really wanted to, we could find a church where people are falling over before anything's even said? Before a word's preached and they'll fall on their faces and flop around and they'll bark like a dog and hop on one foot and whatever. But folks, these are fables. And you know what? These sermons were usually in the context of just prescribing extreme prayer, extreme fasting, and you've got to get the power of God on you so you can be like Charles G. Finney, where you just have all of these amazing powers. Because we would all just love to just walk into some public school or something and just start glaring at everyone. And then next thing you know, everybody's getting saved or wanting to hear the preaching or something. It sounds great. Except that it's not real. And except there's nothing like that in the Bible. Why didn't Paul do that? I mean, the Apostle Paul's probably the greatest Christian who ever lived, right? I don't see him doing that. I mean, the Apostle Peter is one of the greatest Christians who ever lived. I don't see any of that happening with him. You know, when he shows up, they're making fun of him and he has to preach a sermon. He has to preach the word of God. And then people come over to his side and say, hey, what shall we do, right? And they're actually interested in what he has to say. And so there could be fables that we could even have amongst ourselves, even as independent Baptists, where we have some fable about some wild story that's promoting some bodily exercise type religion and ignoring the doctrine. Like, why do we ignore? Why does no one talk about Charles G. Finney's doctrine? You know, all you gotta do is a quick internet search, read a few of his sermons, and you'll see what a damnable heretic is. Like, it's not even borderline, my friend. It's not even like, well, you might be misinterpreting. I mean, it's just like, it's the most extreme heresy you can imagine. If he were alive today, we would be saying he's the worst heretic we've ever seen. We'd be calling him a cult leader. We would say, and even if there was some so-called miracle, we'd say it's a lying sign and wonder. I mean, the Antichrist is gonna have lying signs and wonders. And so we don't want to give heed to those kind of fables and get sucked into this bodily exercise type religion, okay? What does the real thing look like? Let's hurry up and finish here. If we just jump down a little bit, we can jump down to verse 9. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, for therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe. These things command and teach. Watch this. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. You know, God wants us to be loving people, right, in charity, in conversation, the way that we live our lives, the things that we talk about, the time that we spend with other people, our spirit, our faith in our heart, living a pure life. These are good Christian spiritual virtues, but bodily exercise profit a little, okay? Look, I'm for being physically disciplined. Like I said, I'm for running, lifting weights. I'm for prayer and fasting. I'm for restraining your appetite. I'm for all these things, and I'm definitely 100% for abstaining from relations until you're married, okay? Because the Bible says that's fornication. That's a big sin. It's a big no-no. But you know what? We don't want to go over the line into asceticism and start being like Buddhas and Hindus and Greek Orthodox monks and Roman Catholic monks, where it's like we're forbidding to marry and we're commanding to abstain from meads and we're prescribing these extreme prayer sessions or extreme fasting or whatever. Hey, look, if you want to, of your own volition, do a very long session of prayer, amen, but as long as it's from the heart, as long as you're actually talking to God and you're not just like, you know, all right, you know, I'm getting warmed up because, you know, I'm getting ready to, I got to be tapering and getting ready for my big prayer marathon, you know? If it's just a bodily exercise for you and if it's just a pissing match of like, hey, everybody, I prayed longer than anyone else. I can fast longer than anyone. You know what? That's ungodly. There's nothing righteous about that. You say, oh, look how close he is to God. You know what? Here's the thing. When people are going around telling you that they're fasting, I don't care how long they fasted. I'm never impressed about some preacher talking about some big fast that he did because the Bible specifically says that when you fast, you're not supposed to tell anybody. It literally says that when you fast, you know, you should not appear on demand to fast. So some guy talking, yeah, I was doing a 40-day fast. You know, yeah, you know, I fasted for 14 days, fasted for seven. It's like, shut up. I don't care because you know what? Why don't you exercise yourself rather under godliness? How about you follow Christ's teaching not to appear on demand to fast? That's what Christ taught rather than get up and glory and grandstand about how many hours you spent praying. It's like, you know who used to brag about this kind of stuff? Pastor Jack Scopp, who of course went to federal prison for, you know, committing horrible sins. He spent literally a decade in federal prison for the sins that he committed, the wickedness that he committed, and you know what? He used to always brag about how when he was in Bible college, he prayed for three hours every day. Every single day for three hours he would pray. Now, here's the thing about that. First of all, it's quite possible that he's lying, number one. But even if that's true, does that make him a man of God? Does that make him righteous? I believe that Pastor Jack Scopp's a reprobate. I believe that even before he got caught with the stuff that he was into. Because of the false doctrine he was preaching, I said that he was a reprobate. Because he was preaching such horrific things. But yet he would brag all the time about praying for three hours a day. But you know what? One time, because I probably heard him tell that story about praying three times, probably like ten times I heard him talk about this, praying three hours a day. But then one time he kind of slipped up because he kind of explained in more detail that part of what he was doing during that time was like reading his Bible, reading the hymnal, singing songs. It was just kind of like, well, wait a minute. Is that really praying for three hours? Not that it really matters, but I'm just saying he's trying to make it sound more extreme. Because probably a lot of people in this room have read your Bible for three hours or something. We've probably sang hymns for three hours. I've sung hymns for three hours before. But I mean, he was trying to exaggerate and make it out like every morning he's praying for three hours. But let's just say that he really did that. Let's say he did it for five hours. Who cares? Because when you're out, when you're sleeping with teenagers in your church, I don't care how many hours you spent praying. You're a weirdo. You're living a double life. You're a fornicator. You're wicked. When you're preaching lies about Christ, lies about the Bible, you're teaching heresy and then committing statutory rape with teenagers. I mean, folks, how many hours do, well, how many days did he fast, though? Maybe we could get a baseball card that tells us how many, max fast, max prayer, his praying average, his fasting average. You know, all this, I've read the Bible 700 times. Like, who cares? You know, I mean, Sam Gipp claimed that he read the Bible like 120 times. Number one, no. Number two, no. Number three, if he actually had read the Bible that many times, he wouldn't be such an idiot. Like, and he'd be able to read and write. Because the guy could barely even form up his newsletter. He can't even make a coherent sentence half the time. Just so many grammatical mistakes, so many errors. It's like, no. But here's the thing. I don't, maybe, let's say he's read the Bible 300 times. If you're not saved, you can't understand the Bible. And you know what? Who cares how many times I've read the Bible if I'm getting up and bragging about it to you as just, well, I read the Bible this many times. You know, at the end of the day, though, does that guarantee that I'm spiritual? No. Now, look, we should read the Bible as many times as we can. Hey, and I'm for you reading the Bible 10, 20, 30, 50 times. Great. Amen. But, folks, I hope you're reading the Bible because you want to learn something. I hope you're reading the Bible because you're spending time with the Lord, because you're trying to learn the Bible, because you want to know the truth, because you want to do the truth, not just, hey, I'm going to read the Bible more than that guy. And I can outfast him. I know I look skinny, but I can outfast any of y'all. You know, it's stupid. It's meaningless. Bodily exercise profit a little. Exercise thyself rather unto godliness. We don't have some ritualistic religion of crossing ourselves and kneeling and lighting candles and stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, go here, go there. Hey, what we do in our lives should mean something, and you don't get an award when you get to heaven. And the award for the most pain goes to Stephen Anderson. Hey, the guy who had the least fun in his life. Where is he at? All right, come on down, Logan. You had less fun than any Christian in history. And the person who beat himself the most, the award for the most lashings on his own back. Do you really think anybody's going to get awarded for that kind of craziness? No. What about are you going to get awarded, all right, we're at the judgment seat of Christ. You know, the pastor who was able to bench press the most weight goes to the envelope, please, Gabriel. You really think anybody is going to care about that stuff? No. And again, these things could have their place in our life, but they're wood, hay, and stubble is what they are. The gold, silver, and precious stones are your love for God, your love for people, the souls you win to Christ, the correct doctrine that you preach, the right actions that you took in your life in conformity with God's word, and it's about the heart and the spirit, not the letter, not the flesh, not the body, it's about the heart. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this passage, Lord. I pray that all of us would understand that bodily exercise profiteth little and that we would exercise ourselves unto godliness, Lord. Help us to never get this kind of sorcery, magic view of prayer and fasting, Lord. Help us never to get caught up in rituals and going through the motions, Lord, but help everything that we say and do to be real and from the heart. And Lord, help us to be sincere in your sight, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's just... Let's just... Let's just... Let's just... Let's just... Let's just... Amen. Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed. Stick around for some ice cream and we got some baptisms coming up soon. Amen.