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Man, the title of my sermon this morning is All the Council of God, All the Council of God. If you go back to verse number 20 there in Acts chapter 20, the Apostle Paul says how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you. The Apostle Paul is saying that in his preaching, anything that would have been helpful to his audience, anything that would have edified the church, he preached it to them. He did not keep back anything that was profitable. Now why would anyone keep back profitable teachings from God's Word and not declare all the council of God? Why would they do that? The reason why is simply because they don't want to preach things that are unpopular. They don't want to offend people. Or maybe they just haven't even done the study to even know all the council of God. Maybe they're just not even reading the Bible. Whatever the reason, it's the wrong kind of preaching that just emphasizes one small portion of the Bible over and over again and does not teach all the council of God. We need preachers who won't hold back, right? They're studying their Bible. They find something edifying. They find something helpful and they preach it to the people. They teach them everything regardless of how they think it might be received by the congregation or by society. And so the Apostle Paul kept back nothing that was profitable unto them. But he showed them, he said, I've showed you and I've taught you publicly, right? So he's not hiding it under a bushel. He's preaching it from the housetops. The sermons are public. The services are public. It's not like the Mormon church where they have some secret meeting and some secret temple ceremony, right? The services are all public. The preaching is public. Actually back then, it wasn't live streamed, but you know what, if they would have had the internet, it would have been live streamed. The apostles wouldn't have been like, well, you know, we don't want to put this sermon online. It's a little too rough of a sermon. No, they're sending out epistles. They're preaching it from the housetops. The services are public. They didn't shun to declare the whole council of God. He said, I've showed you, I've taught you publicly and I've taught from house to house, right? I've been walking doors and preaching the gospel to every creature. Jump down to verse 25. It says, and now behold, I know that ye all among whom I've gone preach in the kingdom of God shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men for I've not shunned to declare unto you all the council of God. He's saying, look, nobody's blood is on my hands because I did my job. I preached the word of God. I preached all of it. I held back nothing. And therefore anybody's blood is on their own head. You know, because as preachers, all we can do is preach. We can't make people listen, can't make people follow the word of God. All we can do is just preach the truth and let the chips fall where they may. He said, take heed therefore unto yourselves saying, look, I'm free from the blood of all men. I've done my part. I've preached the whole Bible and now it's time for you to take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he had purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Watch and remember that by the space of three years, I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears. Now, what is the sermon about this morning? All the counsel of God. What's the point? Here's the thing. The problem with most churches is not what they preach. It's what they don't preach, right? And all over this city are churches that are filled with saved people that preach very little of the word of God. You see, we go out and knock doors and we know the spiritual lay of the land because we're out there talking to people. And we talk to people from all the local churches. And typically when someone tells me what church they go to, I've heard of that church just because I've been knocking doors the last 17 years. So I've talked to so many people from each church that when they say the name of the church, unless it's a small church, I've probably heard that name 50 times, 70 times. And I'm associating it either with a bunch of people who are saved or a bunch of people who are unsaved. Because I've had those experiences of talking to 50 people from their church and asking 50 people from their church, do you know for sure if you were to die today, you'd go to heaven. And there are a lot of these kind of liberal, what I call fun center churches where it's non-denominational, it's really watered down, it's really casual, it's not fundamental, it's not the King James Bible, there's no hard preaching, it's a short little sermonette and everything. But you'll run into just so many people from these churches that are saved. I mean you just run into people over and over and over again that go to these watered down non-denominational churches that are not preaching all the counsel of God that are saved. And the sad thing about that is that these people are not doing much for God because they're sitting in these churches that are just sort of a babysitter type church. They're not the type of church that actually goes out and reaches the loss. They're not out evangelizing. They're not out preaching and tearing it up and getting a bunch of people saved. They just sort of babysit people that are already saved and they just give them just the milk of the word. They give them the most basic teachings and then these people are just sitting in these churches doing very little for God. And here's what's going on. If the preaching at these churches would actually preach all the counsel of God, this country would be a very different place. It's not that we don't have enough saved Christians in America. Now obviously we could always want more people to be saved. But I'm telling you there are a lot of saved Christians in America today and when we go out knocking doors, we're just constantly running into people that are already saved. These non-denominational liberal churches are filled with people who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. They're on their way to heaven. They're sure about that. They know the gospel but unfortunately they don't know a whole lot else because the church is preaching so little, the message is so watered down and they're not being motivated or taught to go out and evangelize this world. You know the Bible says that people need to hear the word of God to be saved and how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach except they be sent. And so we need churches that are actually sending people out into the highways and hedges to preach the gospel. We need churches that are preaching hard against sin and preaching hard about the need to evangelize and preaching hard against false doctrine and false teachers because then we can take this potential army of saved Christians in America today and actually send them out to fight the spiritual battle, send them out to do the Lord's work. But unfortunately right now they're typically being babysat in a church that is not preaching even close to the whole Bible. So you've got all these people that are saved and then you've just got so few people that are actually on the front lines fighting the spiritual battle, winning souls to Christ and it's because of the watered down nature of churches today. They're not preaching all the counsel of God. They're not preaching the whole counsel of God. You see everything in the Bible needs to be preached. Even the most unpopular passages, even the parts that are politically incorrect, even the parts that are going to offend people, everything in the Bible needs to be preached from Genesis to Revelation. We got three times a week to get up and preach and we need to be getting through all the material and preaching everything that we possibly can and not just over and over again preaching the things that are popular, the things that are smooth, the things that are easy. The apostle Paul said that I warned you in verse 31 there, I warned everyone night and day with tears. You see the apostle Paul, when he got up to preach, he didn't just preach what's right. He preached against the things that are wrong and he preached against the false prophets. He preached against the false teachers. He warned people about the false religions and false teachers that they should not be listening to, that they should not be influenced by, right? But today that kind of preaching is not really popular, right? We don't want to criticize anyone. We're supposed to respect all faiths and respect all beliefs and so forth. No, the apostle Paul is a preacher who's constantly calling out false prophets and when we read Paul's epistles, he's naming the names of the false teachers of his day, Phygelus, Hermogenes, Alexander and he says these people are wrong and he says I have warned you often about these people with tears telling you in Philippians, he said, that they're the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame and he rebukes the false prophets. So does John, so does Peter, right? So do the rest of the apostles. They preached negative messages in addition to positive messages. They preached all the counsel of God. They preached all the doctrine. They didn't hold anything back. They weren't afraid to call out false prophets and that's the kind of preaching that we need today because I understand that there are a lot of unsaved people in America today. I don't expect unsaved people to be serving God. I don't expect unsaved people to believe right. I don't expect them to be living a Christian life. They're not saved. Heathen are going to be heathen. Unsaved people are going to be like unsaved people but you know what? We ought to expect God's people, saved Christians with Jesus as their savior, with the Holy Spirit living inside them, man we should expect them to be doing something for God in 2023 America, winning souls, standing up for what's right, knowing the Bible and helping other people to find Christ and helping other people to get on the right track with their lives and so forth and it's not that we don't have the manpower out there. It's just that they're being babysat instead of being trained, instead of being taught, instead of being preached to, they're being babysat. They check off. Oh, they went to church on Sunday. They got their little worship in but unfortunately all the counsel of God is not being preached. That's the problem. So the problem with most churches today, it's not what they say. I mean if we were to just all head over and caravan over right now to one of these liberal fun centers, we could jump on to the maybe 11 o'clock a.m. contemporary service, right? And we could go there and, you know, our God is an awesome God, you know, and you know, we're not going to be like, wait a minute, is God awesome? No, yeah, we'll be like, okay, yeah, God's an awesome God. You know, the songs and then the teaching is probably, you know, going to be correct. Love one another. I mean, how do you argue with that, right? You know, put God number one, sin is bad, right? I mean, that's the kind of stuff you're going to hear and it's going to be stuff that you agree with. The problem is not what they say. The problem is what they won't say. The stuff that they won't cover. The lack of specific preaching, okay? Let me just finish this passage and then we're going to flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, but it says in verse number 32, now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. I've coveted no man's silver or gold or apparel, yet ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered under my necessities and to them that were with me. I've showed you all things, how that so laboring you ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said it's more blessed to give than to receive. So notice the apostle Paul is saying, look, I'm not in this for the money and that's why he's able to preach all the counsel of God because he doesn't care about just having as big a crowd as possible, as big an offering as possible, as big a paycheck as possible. So he's got to kind of see what's popular and preach that. No, he's just going to preach the whole Bible because he cares about the congregation and he's not there just to see how much money he can make. He didn't covet anybody's gold or silver, right? We need preaching that's clear and we needed to preach the whole Bible. Now, if you would, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. While you're turning to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, let me remind you that Christ said, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, right? We've got to have every word. Every chapter, every verse in the Bible needs to be preached. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 7, and even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known? What is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye uttered by the tongue, words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken for you shall speak into the air? The Bible's saying that the preaching in the house of God needs to be easy to understand. It needs to be clear, sort of like if we were going to battle with an army and we're waiting for that sound of a trumpet to initiate the attack. When you hear the trumpet sound, charge, right? Attack. Now, what if you heard kind of this half trumpet, you know, was that it? Was that not it? Do we go? Do we wait? Is it now? What's going on? Right? You want it to just be obvious, just, you know, everybody knows like, go, this is it. That's the signal, right? So preaching needs to send a clear signal. This is what we're doing. This is where we're going. This is right. This is wrong. Not just some water down, beating around the bush. It needs to be clear, crystal clear what's being said. We got to be specific. Another similar verse, you don't have to turn there, but in Habakkuk chapter 2, it says, the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. So in order for the recipient of the message to run with it, in order to run with something, you need a clear message, right? You see, what am I talking about? First of all, the gospel needs to be crystal clear because even people who are saved and they know for sure they're going to heaven and they believe on Jesus Christ as their savior and they're fully trusting him, sometimes though, they can be a little bit wishy washy on the doctrine. They can get a little cloudy on the doctrine and you'll run into these people when you knock their door and they have the right answers. They believe it right, they're saved, but they have to kind of think for a second and they're kind of unclear on certain things and maybe they're not really good at articulating it. Well, they're not going to be able to really run with that message until they're 100% nailed down what they believe about salvation. They've got it down for sure. They know what they believe. They know why they believe it. They know where to find it in the Bible, right? Now they're ready to confidently articulate that to someone else, right? And so here's the thing, most of these non-denominational churches, if you go to their doctrinal statement and look what it says about salvation, it'll be correct. It'll be something along the lines that it's salvation by faith, it's not by works, and that once you're saved, you can't lose your salvation. But then you talk to the people in the congregation and they're like, can you lose it? Let me think about that. Well, no, no, no, no, you can't lose it. No, you wouldn't because Jesus paid for us. So they have, they have the right belief. They get it right. But why is that not on the tip of their tongue? You know, why do they have to wonder about that or why do they have doubts being put in their mind about that? It should just be clearly taught and hammered so that they are just ready. They're confident. They know the Gospel and they could take you to five verses to prove that. They could show you verses on faith alone for salvation. They could show you verses on the eternal security of the believer so that they're ready to articulate that clearly to someone else. Because look, teaching someone else is another level of knowledge, isn't it? Right? There are certain things that maybe you know how to do or maybe you vaguely understand. But then if I said, well, can you get up and teach it to the church? You'd be like, whoa, you know, I don't know if I'm that confident or that clear, right? Because teaching something is kind of another level of knowledge to be able to clearly explain it. And usually if you can clearly explain it to other people, that's a pretty good sign that you understand it pretty well yourself. You know, and that's what we need. We need churches to be clear that salvation is by faith. It's not by works and that you cannot lose your salvation. Just those three basic elements need to be hammered to where the congregation has those things ready. And even if they know those things really well, they need to be able to know where to find it in the Bible. You know, everybody in this room, I hope that if I asked you, hey, prove to me from the Bible that salvation is by faith, you'd be able to go straight to some verse. Somebody just start shouting out verses to me. Salvation by faith alone. Amen. Those are all good. You know, John 3 16, Ephesians 2 8 and 9, Romans 4 5. I mean, you know, we could go down the list, right? All the different scriptures, Romans 10 9, right? Go down the list. There's plenty of them. John 6 47, John 3 36, John 3 18, you know, we could go on and on. John 1 12, you know, on and on. We could go through Romans chapter three and find several just in that one chapter alone, right? We want to have those things at the tip of our tongue, want to know those things well. And the church is clear on salvation. It's being clearly taught so that we're equipped to go out and preach that, you know, where do we stand on sin? You know, where do we stand on these issues, right? We don't want it to be cloudy and murky. What we think about drinking alcohol or something that, you know, well, you know, just don't abuse it. You know, don't drink too much now, right? No, we need a clear standard, a clear message. And you know, what about something as simple as fornication? I mean, you think that all Christians, right? We should all be able to agree that fornication is a sin, right? That basically sex outside of marriage is a sin, right? You need to wait until you're married to have that physical relationship with your spouse and that unmarried people must be abstinent. That needs to be clearly preached and clearly taught. Let me tell you something. I spent many years in these liberal churches as a teenager from the time I was about, you know, 13 to the time right about the time I turned 17. You know, those years of my life I spent in these kind of watered down NIV teaching churches where again, the doctrine was right on paper, but the message was so unclear. And I remember going to Sunday school classes where, you know, whether fornication was a sin was being questioned even by the youth pastor, even by the students. And it was like, it was like it was up for debate and we're kind of discussing it. And some people are like, well, I don't think it's necessarily a sin. You're like, what? What in the world? I mean, it was bizarre. It was like the twilight zone to hear people debating about whether we were really supposed to preach the gospel to every creature. I sat in a Sunday school class and that's up for debate in some of these churches. And these weren't even the most liberal churches. I mean, these were even churches that still had Baptist on the sign and they're still debating about whether the Bible really commands us to go out and just preach the gospel to every creature. And I'm like, uh, it's, that's what it says right here. And they're like, well, yeah, but that verse isn't necessarily original to the Bible because, you know, they, they, they question the end of Mark and the NIV has a big thing about, oh, you know, this might not be real or whatever. What a bunch of garbage. Of course, the ending of the book of Mark is God's word. It's been part of every Bible for the last several centuries of our English languages existence. Every English Bible has contained it. It's been preached and believed and loved by Christians. And now all of a sudden, because some German egghead scholar, atheist in Germany doubts it, well, well, you know, it's not in this messed up manuscript we found in the trash somewhere. So it might not be original. Yes, it is. It's the word of God. Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It's not up for debate. It's the Bible. We're to go out and preach the gospel to every creature. That's that's not the only verse that teaches that, but it's the best one. And it's the word of God. But I've sat in a Sunday school class and heard that up for debate. I've heard it up for debate whether it's OK to go to a drunken party and telling teenagers Jesus was at a drunken party at the wedding at Cana. It's absurd. It's foolishness. But when you're sending teenagers these mixed signals, these unclear signals of, hey, we're not really sure partying is wrong. We're not really sure fornication is wrong. We're not really sure if we need to be preaching the gospel to every creature. And then you wonder why these teenagers are so confused and they don't know what to do with their life and they don't serve God with zeal. I wonder why. It's because you're not giving them clear teaching, clear preaching. We have to make the message plain so that he can run that reads it. And we need to give a certain sound so that we know we believe. I remember one time sitting again in a Sunday school class because look, folks, I'm speaking from experience. I grew up as an independent fundamentalist Baptist. But like I said, when I was around 12, 13 years old, we had some problems with our church and we ended up switching and going to liberal churches for like five years. So I've kind of seen the other side and I've sat in these churches. And like I said, these were not the most liberal possible churches. These were North American Baptist Convention churches. North American Baptist Convention, that was the denomination. We were going to those churches for about five years. They preached out of the NIV. They were just kind of a watered down liberal church. They were kind of debating about taking Baptist off the sign, but they hadn't removed the name Baptist yet. So I've been there. I've sat in these churches and I've heard these things debated. I've sat there on a Sunday morning and had one of the teenagers who I'd spent time with and hung around with who had just gone off to Bible college come home on his Thanksgiving break from Bible college and get up in the Sunday school class on Sunday morning because, oh, he's home from Bible college. Let's have him teach. And he literally said, you know, I'm not really sure if works are required for salvation or not. I'm still trying to work that out. What is this guy doing teaching? He doesn't even know if the works are required for salvation, almost fell out of my chair. Like what in the world? And did anybody stop him? Did the teacher get up and say, well, you know, it's too bad he's confused about that, but I'm not. I'm not confused at all. It's by faith. It's not of works. The city man should boast. But no, it was just, it was just allowed to stand. This guy just gets up. I don't know. And everybody's just like, we don't know either. Who cares? And I'm just like, am I the only one around here that actually cares that salvation's by faith? It was shocking to me. It was horrifying to me. I mean, again, up for debate, same church. My parents went to their Sunday school class and they're talking about how they, they, they think Pope John Paul II is saved. And that's, and it's just, we don't know, maybe he is, maybe so, yeah. It's like, what? But I'm telling you, this is the kind of confusion that reigns in these churches. And look, a lot of good people go to these churches. A lot of saved Christians go to these churches, but they're being babysat in a church that's not building up their faith. It's not strengthening them. It's not saying, hey, let's go to the Bible. Let's figure out right now whether John Paul II is saved. Actually, you know, I don't have to figure it out because I'm teaching you because I already figured that out a long time ago and I could show you 30 verses to prove that he's not saved. Because I already figured that out. I'm not just up here figuring it out on the fly. What salvation is, figuring out on the fly whether we should be out partying and fornicating, just kind of making it up as I go along. What is that? It's nonsense. We need clear preaching and teaching, and that's where these non-denom churches are failing. Yeah, they're teaching a lot of good things about love one another, put God first, stop sinning, receive Christ as Savior. But the problem is what they won't clearly get up and just say, don't divorce your wife. Just don't divorce your wife. Don't divorce your husband. Don't get a tattoo. Don't get drunk. Don't go out and take any kind of drug. Don't smoke marijuana. Like, you'd think that a lot of these things wouldn't even be controversial. Even in places where they're not controversial, they just don't want to say it because they're like, well, we know somebody out there smoking pot, somebody out there is living with their girlfriend that they're not married to, 80% of the congregation has a tattoo, and that's a faithful word. I'm just saying, like, you know, so they're just afraid to get up and preach. Everybody's divorced. Everybody's family's divorced, you know, and I mean, let's not even bring up the fact that they won't even touch the subject of the sodomites half the time because everybody's got the queer uncle and cousin and whatever, but burn them all at the stake. But if you would go to 2 Timothy Chapter 4, 2 Timothy Chapter 4, but the problem again is not what they say, it's what they won't say. And the job of the preacher is to get up and preach things whether they're popular or not. And if you're not willing to do that job, you can't be a preacher. And so it says in 2 Timothy Chapter 4, this is the Apostle Paul training his young protege in the ministry, Timothy, to be the next generation of Bible preaching. He says in verse 2, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season. What does that mean? He says when it's in style and when it's not in style, preach the word because, you know, a lot of the preaching today that's out of style, it was in style 50 years ago, right? And then some of the preaching that was out of style then is in style now, but the truth never changes. There are always going to be truths that that generation doesn't want to hear, okay? And they need to be preached. Preach the word, be instant, instant meaning just ready, standing firm, ready to go, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves, not preachers, they'll heap to themselves, teachers, because he said preach the word, but they'll heap to themselves, teachers, having itching ears. They don't want somebody preaching at them. They want somebody just teaching them things that they already know and teaching them with a bunch of platitudes and a bunch of nice stories and feel good illustrations. They don't want to be preached at. Well, you know what? God's people need to be preached at because they need to be motivated to make some changes. Otherwise what's the point? He says they'll turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned into fables. You know, the definition of a fable is a story that isn't really true. It's just a story, right? Like Aesop's fables, you know, you can learn a nice little moral from it, from the tortoise and the hare or something, but it isn't true, it isn't real. What we need to learn is from Bible stories that are true. The gnarly stories of the Old Testament, those are real true stories. Don't turn from those to fables. Stick with the stories God gave us. Those are the good ones, but watch thou in all things endure afflictions. He's saying, look, if you get up and preach the whole Bible, you're going to be persecuted. You're going to be afflicted. You're going to go through tribulations. He says, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. And what is that full proof of thy ministry? He's saying you need to have a well-rounded ministry. He's saying it needs to be fully checked out. It needs to be complete. It needs to be all the counsel of God that you're preaching, not just part of it. Look at Jeremiah chapter 23. Jeremiah chapter 23, let's go to the Old Testament. Jeremiah chapter 23, and here's a key point that I want to make this morning on this subject of all the counsel of God is that we talked earlier about how there could be some motives for not preaching all the counsel of God. Like for example, maybe the fear of offending people, the fear of persecution, or perhaps just a laziness that has not studied and learned all the counsel of God themselves. And it makes you wonder sometimes about the level of study that these guys have done when they don't know basic things and when they even will get up and say, well, I'm not sure about something basic. I remember I knocked on a guy's door out soul winning, and he was an assistant pastor at a church, and I asked him if he knows for sure if he died today that he'd go to heaven. And he said, well, I know I'm saved. But he said, I'm just not sure that people go straight to heaven when they die. You know, I'm not sure if they just sort of do like a soul sleep thing, like soul sleep, and then later, you know, then they kind of wake up at the resurrection and they're in heaven or would they go straight to heaven right now? He said, I don't know. And I remember, again, being in one of those liberal Baptist churches as a teenager, and our Sunday school teacher got up and said that he believed in soul sleep, which is very unbiblical. But anyway, I talked to this guy, knocked on his door, and he's the assistant pastor of the church, and he told me how like, oh, yeah, I have this master's degree from over here and I got the Master of Divinity and Masters of the Universe with He-Man and She-Ra and all of them. And so he was telling me how he had these seminary degrees, and he's like, I don't really know. So then I just said, well, let me show you a couple of verses in the Bible to think about. I was just friendly to the guy. I just said, well, let me show you a couple of verses. And I showed him the verses where the Apostle Paul said, you know, I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, but nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And he said, you know, for me to live as Christ and to die as gain and to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And then I showed him in Revelation where you have all of the souls that are up in heaven even before the resurrection of the dead has happened, and they're already up there and they've been martyred for the cause of Christ. So I showed him a bunch of scriptures. You know, I took him to scriptures in 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Revelation. And he just said to me, he said, you know what, he's like, you're right, I mean, yeah, that's what it is. And then all the verses about sleeping are talking about the body and how when Christ returns at the rapture, how it says the dead in Christ, the asleep in Jesus, will God bring with him? He's bringing them from heaven. And when it talks about the dead rising, it's talking about the bodies are rising. So the bodies are asleep in the dust of the earth, but the soul is in heaven. And so I showed him a bunch of verses and he's just like, you know what, you're right. That's what it is. He's like, you're definitely right. It's definitely straight to heaven, which is, I'm glad he acknowledged that after me giving him like a 10 minute quick little lesson. But it's like you spent years in Bible college. Why didn't they do that for you? What I just did for you in 10 minutes, which is kind of an important doctrine, like what happens to us when we die? Isn't that something that Christianity is supposed to answer? Isn't that a question that we're supposed to be able to give an answer to? I mean, I wonder what happens to unsafe people when they die. I wonder what happens to them. Do they go to sleep too? No, they go straight to hell and the Bible says that when the rich man died, he lift up his eyes and he was in hell in torment and he said, send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am tormented in this flame. And then it's like, well, we're not really sure if there's fire in hell. The fire might be a metaphor. That's what they say in these churches. You know, maybe the fire is just, maybe it's just like a burning desire for God or something. You know? No, it's a, it's a flame. It's flaming. Sometimes you wonder why did God say flaming fire? Isn't that a little redundant? You know, he should have said burning flaming fire, scorching burning flame. And I'm joking. Obviously the word of God is perfect, but he had to say flaming fire because people think it's some other kind of fire that's not flaming. You know what I mean? Folks, hell's a real place. It's fire. It's burning. It's torment. It's everlasting punishment. That needs to be clear to us, but it's not being made clear. Same liberal church that we went to as a teenager. My dad walked right up to the pastor and said, I've gone to this church for two years. You've never mentioned hell. We've been here for two years. Why don't you ever preach on hell? He said, well, I know I should, but it's just so unpleasant. I don't like to. Oh, well, why don't you just do what's pleasant for you then? No, you're supposed to preach all the counsel of God, not preach the pleasant counsel of God. But that's what he said. He said, well, I know I should, but you know, I just don't. Well, have you thought about getting another job that you're actually want to do the entire job? I mean, what if, what if, what if you went to work at McDonald's? He said, well, I'll serve burgers, but I won't serve fries. You got to serve burgers and fries. You might even have to serve an apple pie or an ice cream cone or something or a Filet-O-Fish. Well, I don't do the fish. I don't do the fish. I know I should, but I don't like fish. So when somebody orders fish, I just, I just talk them out of it and just tell them we don't have any, you know, folks. And look, McDonald's is kind of the most entry level job you could think of. And even they're going to tell you do the whole job. Well, guess what? As a pastor, you got to do the whole job. Preach you don't just get to preach on heaven. You got to preach on heaven and hell. And so he just said, well, you know, I don't like to same church. I'm in Sunday school and the teacher asks us the question, where would we be without Jesus? And I said, we'd be going to hell. And a girl literally went, oh, as if I had uttered profanity because she literally thought that hell was profanity and that I had cussed by saying that we're going to hell. But that's what happens when you go to a church where the pastor literally never mentions hell. You start thinking it's a cuss word. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. How come so many words in the Bible have become so-called cuss words? How did these words become cuss words? The only way they could have become cuss words is if the Bible wasn't being preached. Because if Americans, because think about how many American Christians there are. Think about what percentage of Americans go to church every Sunday. You just have tens of millions of Christians going to church every Sunday. If they were going to church and hearing all the counsel of God, then these words would not seem exotic or profane or unclean or, you know, words like hell, damn, piss, bastard, whore. Like, they would just be just a normal part of everyday life to them. Just like, well, yeah. I mean, we go to church and the pastor says it all the time. The pastor's constantly using these words. But for those words to have become cuss words, then that means that, like, I guess decent people had to just not use those words for a really long time. So that when you hear them, it's like, oh, whoa, whoa, that's jarring, right? A word you hear every day isn't jarring. A word that rarely is heard and only in the most extreme context, whoa, that's jarring. And then these words slowly become cuss words that are in the Bible, like, oh, we can't say bastard, can't say piss. But if we've been reading our Bible and preaching the Bible, those words would be as natural as rain to us. Who would just decide, like, well, you know, this Bible word, let's make it a cuss word. No, it became a cuss word because people weren't reading the Bible. It just goes to show how large swaths of the Bible just weren't being touched. And people forgot that those words were even in the Bible. And then they were allowed to become cuss words because people forgot that it's in the Bible. Isn't that crazy? But that's what happened. Are you there in Jeremiah chapter 23? It says in verse number 16, thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you. They make you vain. Now what does vain mean? Vein means there's no point, worthless, empty, like, not effective, right? If I went out and did something, like, let's say I went to the gym and I did this really ineffective workout, right? Let's say I just went to the gym and I got on some machine and I'm just kind of like, just like, with like some low amount of weight and I'm just like, you know, and I'm not putting, I'm not doing free weights. I've got it set too low. I'm not going to failure. And you know what? My trips to the gym would be in vain because I'd be, I'd be there going through the motions, but I wouldn't be seeing any results. I would be ineffective, right? Whereas like, if I, if I went on a diet and I didn't lose any weight, then my diet was in vain. Okay. Let's say I was a contractor and I contracted to do work and I didn't make any money on the job. Then what would you say? All your labor was in vain, right? You went out and did all this work and you didn't get paid anything. It was in vain, right? So we could think of all these different examples of, you know, something being in vain. Instead of my cars broken down and I went out and spent three hours trying to fix it, I made things worse and eventually had to take it to the mechanic anyway. My work on the car was in vain. I was a vain mechanic. I was ineffective. I didn't accomplish anything. It was not. And look, these preachers who just preach out of their own heart, instead of preaching all the counsel of God, they make you vain, meaning that they make you ineffective. They make you someone who isn't really of consequence, who doesn't really matter in the scheme of things for the kingdom of God because you're just kind of not doing anything. You're kind of just this NPC while someone else is actually doing the work of God, fighting the Lord's battles. They make you vain. They babysit you as a Christian, but they don't make you effective. They make you vain. They make you vain. Make you just kind of empty, worthless, NPC, whatever. And he says, they speak a vision of their own heart, not out of the mouth of the Lord. You know, they've got all kinds of messages, but not a lot of it's coming from the Bible, and they're not preaching all the Bible. It says, they say unto them that despise me. So these preachers, they'll say to people that just downright hate God, people that despise God. They say to them that despise me, the Lord has said, you shall have peace. So the people that just hate God, they're like, hey, you guys are going to be great. You're going to have peace. And they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, no evil shall come upon you. So it's just, it's a positive message no matter what, even for those who hate the Lord, even those who are living a life of sin or whatever, it's just, everything's going to be great. God's not mad at you. And you know, today's going to be a great day and tomorrow's going to be even better. And they're just kind of telling people what they want to hear for who has stood in the council of the Lord, verse 18, and I perceived and heard his word, who has marked his word and heard it be old a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury. Even a grievous whirlwind, it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. The Bible is saying, here's the reality. The reality is that God's anger, God's wrath is like a tornado that's about to literally land on these people's head, right? They're about to be like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, except it's not going to be as gentle when this tornado sets them down, it's going to just slam them down. I mean, imminent destruction is what these people are heading for, but the preacher's like, no evil shall come upon you. And God's up in heaven like raging and ready to just come down on their heads like a ton of bricks. And the preacher's just like, looking good, buddy, keep it up, looking sharp. The anger of the Lord shall not return, verse 20, until you've executed, till you have performed the thoughts of his heart. In the latter days, you shall consider it perfectly. I've not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I've not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. And this is the key verse that I want to end on. This is an important thought, don't miss it. But if they had stood in my counsel, remember, what's the sermon called? All the counsel of God. If they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned from their evil way and from the evil of their doings. And again, our Bible, the King James Bible is translated 400 years ago, so sometimes the language is a little bit antiquated. When it says, then they should have turned, we would say that in our modern vernacular, they would have turned, is how we would express that. And so what the Bible is saying here is that if the preachers had preached all the counsel of God, the congregation would have turned from their evil way. And here's the thing, if all of a sudden, all across Arizona, every non-denominational pastor, and I'm talking about the ones who actually pastor a saved congregation. Because let's face it, all non-denominational churches are not the same. Some non-denominational churches, we run into like everybody from there is not saved. And then other non-denominational churches, everybody is saved. Because some non-denominational churches are actually Baptist churches that have just taken Baptist out, all their doctrine is Baptist, but they're just sort of like trying to look cool and trendy and accepting by being non-denominational. But then there's another kind of non-denominational church that's actually a Pentecostal church. That's a heretic church, right? And listen, Pentecostals are heretics. They are not saved. They do not believe in salvation by faith. They believe you can lose your salvation. It's totally works-based. They have a bunch of just crazy nonsense of their so-called fake tongue speaking and hakala gondola garbage, okay? And so I'm talking about the multitude of non-denom churches that are actually trusting Christ as Savior. I'm talking about the ones that are actually saved, the ones who, you know, on paper the gospel is all there. It's just that they preach so vaguely and so watered down. If all of those churches all across Arizona, all of those kind of liberal Baptist churches and non-denom churches, if all of a sudden they just started today and just started preaching hard against sin, and then they just started making the gospel really clear and preaching against false doctrine, preaching against work salvation, preaching against lordship salvation, preaching against losing your salvation, they just started preaching a really clear message and then they switch over to the King James Bible. They start preaching to King James. They start getting up and preach in hellfire and damnation, and they start getting up and preaching against fornication and drunkenness and adultery and abortion. If they got up and just started preaching hard like that, most people in their congregation would be able to handle it. And most people in the congregation would respond well to it. Of course there'd be people that would get mad and leave. There'd be a little bit of fighting. There'd be some strife. There'd be some friction. There'd be some affliction that God commanded us to endure as preachers. But I guarantee you the majority of people, why? Because they're saved. If they have the Holy Spirit living inside of them and the Word of God's being thundered forth by a Spirit-filled preacher, they will respond. And I guarantee you that if these non-denom preachers all of a sudden just started preaching like they were from the new IFP, one thing at a time, one sermon at a time, this week they hammer this doctrine, next week, obviously they can't unload the whole truck in one sermon. But I'm saying if each week they rolled out a clear biblical teaching, proved it from the Bible, preached it with power, I guarantee you the vast majority of the people would handle it. They wouldn't freak out. You know, pastors aren't giving their congregation enough credit, like, oh, you know, you guys can't handle this, you know, oh, well, I better not preach that. They can handle it. The people can handle it, the preachers just need to do the preaching. Because the people can handle way more than they think, they're not giving their people enough credit. They're not giving the Holy Spirit enough credit, that the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of believers and can actually transform them. And if they would get up and preach hard and preach clearly, I'm telling you, the people would rally. The people would respond, the people would by and large accept it, yeah, they'd lose some people, good riddance to the people who don't want to hear the Word of God, that don't want to hear the truth. Those people were just taking up space anyway. And I tell you what, this whole state would be so transformed, I mean, this whole area would be radically transformed because there are literally, literally hundreds and hundreds of churches like that, maybe even thousands. And man, if those pastors just got up and just started just ripping face and preaching hard, the people would respond. But unfortunately, the problem is with the leadership, it's not the people in the pew that are the primary problem, it's the leadership. Everything rises and falls on leadership. Look at the Bible, whenever a judge rises up and starts speaking the Word of God, the people rally, people respond. You get a godly king over Israel, people respond, people rally. When there's a void in leadership, everybody just kind of drifts off and just does their own thing. And of course, they're still saved. So in many cases, they'll still show up at a church and be babysat each week, right? Just kind of show up and they go to daycare Baptist and they go to just kind of placeholder Baptist and they just kind of check it off that they went to church. But they're not learning, growing, thriving. They're not getting equipped to go out there and A, evangelize, B, fight the Lord's battles, right? And we need to be doing both. And so I want to encourage you to stay with a church that preaches all the counsel of God and maybe if you're visiting or listening online and you're in one of these watered down liberal churches, you know, start supporting a church that is actually preaching all the counsel of God by actually joining a church that's doing the work, not making you vain, right? We need to rally behind the true men of God and not just be placeholders in NPC Baptist, right? We need to be in a church that's actually doing something, making it clear, making it plain, saying it clearly and equipping the saints and taking them to another level, not just changing their diaper, but actually taking them to another level. Putting the rifle of God's word in their hands and saying, hey, let's get out there and do something big for God. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you for our church and thank you for all the other great churches across America that do preach all the counsel of God. Lord, I know that there are hundreds and even thousands of churches out there that do preach the whole Bible and we're thankful for all of those many thousands of churches and millions of Christians who would fit that bill, but Lord, there are even more pastors that are glorified babysitters and even more Christians that are doing next to nothing. Lord God, I pray that they would be mobilized so that all the world could hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that all of our Christians, brothers and sisters, could be clear on what you expect from us in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.