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Hey man, this morning I preached out of Genesis 49 and I focused on the instructions or blessings, cursing, last words if you will, of Jacob to his sons Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. And tonight, the title of the sermon is Not Making Excuses. Not Making Excuses. And I want to focus on Jacob's words to Joseph here. The two sons who get the big blessings, the very positive blessings in this chapter are Judah and Joseph. And this morning I talked a lot about the blessing to Judah. Tonight I'm going to focus on the blessing to Joseph here. In verse 22 the Bible reads, Joseph is a fruitful bough, which obviously being fruitful is always a blessing. In fact, the very first blessing that God ever gave in the Bible was God blessed them in Genesis 1. God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. But the Bible says Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him. But his bow abode in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. And then says the shepherd, the stone of Israel, even by the God of thy father who shall help thee and by the almighty who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren. So this is kind of the big blessing in this chapter for Joseph. Why was Joseph blessed? Why was he a great man of God? Why did the Bible say over and over again the Lord was with Joseph? And we see that whatsoever he did prospered throughout his life as we go through that long saga in the book of Genesis giving us the story of Joseph. I'll tell you why. Because he was a person who didn't make excuses but whatever situation he was in, whatever obstacles were in his way, he found a way to continue serving God and to always go forward. The first thing that it says here in verse 22 is that Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well and then look at this phrase, whose branches run over the wall. No. When he was confronted with a wall, he went over that wall. He didn't stop and say, oh, there's a wall here. Can't go any further. No. His branches went over the wall. Now if you would, flip over to Exodus chapter 4. Exodus chapter 4. The title of the sermon tonight is Not Making Excuses. Let me give you some scriptures from Proverbs while you're turning there. Proverbs 22, 13 says, the slothful man saith, there's a lion without. I shall be slain in the streets. Proverbs 26, 13, the slothful man saith, there's a lion in the way. A lion is in the streets. As the door turneth upon his hinges, so did the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom. It grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. What's the Bible saying? The slothful man is the lazy man. He tosses and turns in bed. He doesn't get out of bed. He doesn't get out and do any real work. And he has an excuse all the time. Oh, there's a lion in the streets. It's too dangerous out there. I'm going to get hurt. I'm safe here at home in bed. But not only that, it says that he's wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. So what he's saying is that lazy people are really good at making excuses. They're very clever coming up with reasons why they can't go to work, why they can't get things done, why they can't finish the job. They're seven times wiser than the guy who gets the job done in their own mind, in their own conceit. What does it mean to be conceited? Those that are conceited, they think very highly of themselves is what that means. So they're wise in their own conceit. They think they're smart. They think they're clever. And they're always finding ways to shirk work and shirk responsibility. They're lazy and they make excuses. There are people who make excuses and then there are people who get the job done. There are people who hide behind all the reasons why they can't work or do whatever it is that they need to do or whatever it is that God has commanded them to do. And then there are those who find a way to get it done. You'll find people who have far greater obstacles in their life finding a way to get their branches over the wall. And then other people, the slightest little thing, will just put up a roadblock to them and stop them. You'll see this in the secular world just at your job, just at work. People who have a can-do attitude and people who just always have a reason why it can't be done. Very defeated all the time. Now here's a story in the Bible where Moses is making excuses. Exodus chapter 4 verse 1. God has appeared to Moses in the burning bush and he's telling him how he needs to go to Egypt and confront Pharaoh and bring the people out of bondage and into the promised land. And Moses answered and said, But behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice. For they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. Now look, they haven't said that yet. He hasn't even gone there yet. He hasn't even tried to preach to them yet. He's just already predicting, oh, they're not going to listen. They don't want to hear it. He's just making excuses because he doesn't want to do it. He's being asked by God to do something very hard and he doesn't want to do it. Now this is the same way that people act today in regards to soul winning. They make excuses and especially when you talk to people who live in foreign countries, they'll tell you, oh yeah, soul winning's never going to work here. Well, you know, they won't listen here. Everybody's so liberal. Everybody's so atheistic here. They're all so anti-religion. They're all so against Christianity. Nobody's going to listen to the gospel. But you know what? You'll talk to people from that exact same country who are having success, who are having success. Whether it be some European country, whether it be Scandinavia or Germany or France or whether it be a place like South Africa that's banned our church, that's banned like 30 members of our church, that banned people. They banned my wife. They banned Pastor Berzen's, Pastor Berzen's wife, Pastor Jimenez, Pastor Jimenez's wife. They banned just random church members that weren't even trying to go to South Africa just because they were just going through my Facebook friends and just banning people I think. Because they sent me a list of everybody that was banned. It was a pretty long list. So but yet, I'm getting successful soul-winning reports from South Africa constantly, from our friends there, people that we met while we were in Botswana and everything that are continuing the soul-winning mission. They're continuing to get people safe. I remember when I visited Germany as an 18-year-old young man and I stayed with this missionary or that missionary. And so many of the missionaries in Germany had a very defeated attitude saying, look, this place is unreceptive, soul-winning doesn't work. And look, they're right about the fact that Germany is one of the more difficult places to do soul-winning or to do missions. But yet there are other missionaries who were in Germany who were succeeding, who were winning souls to Christ, who were getting things done. I remember one German missionary in particular, he found success by just going to the refugees from other countries. You know, you always hear about all these refugees pouring into Europe and pouring into Germany and Sweden and places like that. He decided to just make that his soul-winning. And he did a whole bunch of soul-winning there and he actually had a church that was growing and thriving and he ended up winning like over 1,000 people to the Lord over the course of years and had hundreds and hundreds of baptisms and was just thriving and succeeding. And then some of the other missionaries criticized him and said, well, I'm here to reach Germans. Hey, a soul's a soul, buddy. Red, yellow, black, or white. It doesn't matter whether they're German or whether they're foreigners. You know what? At least he's reaching people. And you know, if he can build a big church with a bunch of foreigners, then he can use that as a soul-winning army to go out and reach the Germans, which are a little bit tougher maybe to reach. But the bottom line is that there are people who find a way to get it done. They find a solution. And then there are people who are like, oh, well, I don't know the language. I got to go sit my butt in language school for three years while I'm getting paid full time as a Christian worker and I'm just in school. Pray for the one person I witnessed to last month. And then there are the other people who realize that a whole bunch of people over there speak English and while you're learning the language, win some English speakers, the Lord. Get something done. Find something or someone that you can preach to and get it done. Or you can just make excuses, right? I don't care what country in the world you're in. You can win a soul to Christ. And if you say, no, Pastor Anderson, that's not true, not in my, then you need to get out of that country and get in a country where you can win somebody to the Lord. Because when the apostles were in a place where they couldn't win anybody to the Lord, they shook the dust off their feet and they went somewhere else. If you're in a place where soul winning doesn't work, that makes you wrong for being there, especially as a missionary who chose to go there. Why did you pick such a stupid mission field then if nobody will listen? Oh, God called me. You made that up from your own heart. You just like wurst and sauerkraut and whatever. That's why you went there. And I'm not against going to Germany. I'm all for going to Germany. If you're going to go there and win some souls and find a way to get it done. If you're going to find a way to get the branches over the wall, great. But not if you're just going to go whine about how hard it is. And I've been soul winning in some of the hardest places. I went soul winning in Norway, just super liberal, not receptive place. And guess what? I got people saved. The pastor that I was with, he got people saved. Now it was a lot of work. It took a long time, but you can get it done. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again, doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. So you can always find a way to get it done. And if you can't, shake it off and go somewhere else. Find a way to do something for the Lord. Don't just make excuses. Get something done. Oh, they're not going to listen to me. Look at verse 10 and Moses said unto the Lord, Oh my Lord, I'm not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou has spoken unto thy servant. So he's been talking to him for a few minutes. He's like, well, I wasn't eloquent before he started talking to me. I'm still not eloquent. He says neither heretofore nor since thou has spoken unto thy servant, but I'm of slow speech and of a slow tongue. So he's making excuses like, Oh, I'm not really a good speaker. I'm not eloquent. Look at verse 13 and he said, Oh my Lord, send, I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. And the anger of the Lord was kitted against Moses. And he said, is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? You need to be his silent partner, right? He says, look, I know he can speak well. And also behold, he cometh forth to meet thee. And when he seeth thee, he'll be glad in his heart. You know what? There's a soul winning marathon going on in your area. And it's like, Oh, well, I don't really know how to go soul winning. Hey, there's, there are people there that can speak well. You say, well, you know, March 31st to make a marathon. And look, we're, we, I want to have full participation at our church. This is a big deal. It's a historic event. We're having soul winning marathons in all 50 States, man. I hope that we can really have a great showing here in Arizona. You know, I hope that everybody in our church, even if you don't even normally go soul winning, even if you only go soul winning rarely, or even if you've never been soul winning, just show up on March 31st to that Panera in Avondale at 9 AM. And you say, well, I'm not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since the sermon started. But let me tell you something. You can show up and there are going to be plenty of people there who can speak well. Right? And you know what? The Bible said, he cometh forth to meet thee. We're going to meet you there. We're coming forth to meet you at Panera. And when we see you, we'll be glad in our heart. We're glad when the silent partner shows up. We're glad when somebody shows up, hey, I've never done this before. I don't want to do any talking. Just pair me up with someone to be a silent partner. We say great. And the same goes for all of our soul winning marathons all across America that day. You know, we just want people to show up, right? And so this excuse doesn't hold water. And when we make excuses, the anger of the Lord is kindled. Kindled means it's on fire. You know, you don't want God getting all fired up and mad at you. And by the way, later in this chapter, God actually seeks to kill Moses. I mean, he's this close to killing him. You don't want to make God that mad. Look, Moses was a great man. He was greatly used by God. But he almost got killed by God in this chapter, right? Because he was making excuses or his wife was making excuses. The Bible doesn't really give us all the details about why he didn't want to circumcise his son or why he didn't just get that job done because his wife was one of these intactivists. You know what I'm talking about? The intactivist? Who knows what I'm talking about? All right. Only a few people. All right. So anyway, and let me just clarify. I don't believe that we should practice circumcision in the New Testament. Amen? The Bible is clear that that's an Old Testament thing. It's not for the New Testament. But I do have a problem when I hear people saying that circumcision is barbaric or wicked because God did command that in the Old Testament. So it must not be barbaric or wicked. Now it's not for us today in the New Testament. And I take a strong stand on that. But at the same time, these intact people are going too far because they are acting like, yeah, it's blasphemous, right? Because they're being negative about something that God did use in a certain time in history. So anyway, back to Joseph, if you would, flip back to Genesis 49. So what are we talking about tonight? We're talking about not making excuses. In Exodus, even a great man like Moses, when faced with a very difficult task, he made excuses and God got angry. But we see that God had an answer for all his excuses. And there are people who make excuses and then there are people who get the job done. But let's go back to the passage on Joseph. Genesis 49 verse 22 says, Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall. Now let's talk about being fruitful. There are two ways to be fruitful. You could be physically fruitful. This would be reproducing, meaning having children, having kids, right? Be fruitful and multiply, like Genesis chapter 1. And then there's being fruitful spiritually. Spiritually reproducing, that would be winning a soul to Christ, right? Christians beget other Christians spiritually by preaching them the gospel. So let's first talk about multiplying physically, being physically fruitful. Don't people make excuses for not being fruitful physically? Don't they make excuses why they can't have kids? Now if God has closed the womb, that's out of your control. You just pray and wait on the Lord. But I'm talking about people who say, well, we're not going to have kids and they make an excuse why they're not going to have kids, even though God has told us that children are a blessing and that we're to be fruitful and that that's something that's a good thing to do. They have a lot of excuses and one of the big excuses is, you know, I can't afford it. We can't afford to have kids, right? But what does the Bible say? The Bible says, but my God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. The Bible says, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you, talking about food and clothing. And let me tell you something. When I made the decision that I was going to follow God's plan and put it in God's control how many kids that I had and not follow the worldly philosophy of birth control, but to just go the way of just following God's plan and nature, you know, when I, when my wife became pregnant with our first child, I couldn't afford it. I mean, you know, we're just kind of barely getting by, but when my wife got pregnant with our first child, I got a raise, you know, and then when the second child was on the way, I couldn't really see how we were going to afford that either, but I got another raise, you know, and I kept getting raises and getting better jobs. Why? Because if you serve God and obviously you got to work hard at your job too, that's an important element. And there were times when I had to work two jobs, but working hard and trusting the Lord, God will meet your needs. He has to. He promised to. Now, he's not going to meet all your greed, but he will meet your need. Okay. So, you know, he's not necessarily going to give you all the things that the Joneses have, but you can get by. You're going to survive. You're going to make it. And you know what? I thought to myself as a young man, I thought to myself, you know, you can always fix your financial situation later. You can always make money later. You can always buckle down and straighten out the finances or lay up your wealth later, which I don't believe we should ever lay up wealth anyway. But I thought to myself, you know, I'm not going to be able to have a bunch of kids later. You know, you have kids when you're young and your body is able to have kids. And obviously I'm not for going into debt. I'm not for being financially irresponsible or stupid, but I am for working hard, making as much money as you can and having as many kids as the Lord gives you and making the sacrifices necessary to get it done. And you know what? Today, the Mormons are reproducing all their little cult members, and that's the only way that that cult is even growing. Nobody wants to convert to that stupidity. The people who are converting to it pretty much marry into it or they're born into it. Ever since the internet was invented, how can you be a Mormon when there's so much information online where it just demolishes it? Not even a matter of opinion, but just facts online. Just this fraud after that fraud and that forgery and this was fake and this turned out to be fake. And it's just the information is abundant. Their numbers are going down except for the fact that they're reproducing and brainwashing their kids from youth into that false religion. The Muslims are reproducing, right, and they're coming in and taking over Europe slowly and they're reproducing. And you know who's not reproducing, though? American Christians are not reproducing. They're having one or two kids and popping them up, oh, we're done, that's it, that's all we can handle, we're done. You baby, you weakling, oh, man, I can't handle more than that. Well, we'd hate for you to do something hard. And not only that, but if you correct your son, he'll give delight unto your soul, the Bible says, chasing your son and he'll be a son that brings joy, not pain and sorrow. I love my kids, I love every single one of them, and there's not a one of them that I think like, well, maybe we should have practiced some kind of a contraceptive. I mean, I love all my children, I'm glad that I had every single one of them, and my wife's about to give birth any day now, so if you show up to church and I'm not here over the next few weeks, then that's probably where I am, I'm being a birth coach somewhere with my wife. So, you know, I'm excited to have the tenth child, it's exciting. You know, we want to have number ten, and it's a blessing from God, that's a biblical view is that it's a blessing, and my wife has given birth approximately every two years for the last, like, 17 years or whatever, okay, so, and none of our kids are nine months apart, we don't have any Irish twins, and a lot of people, they think that if you just don't use birth control, you're going to have kids every nine months, but that's not even true because if breastfeeding is done properly and you follow certain rules, 99% of the time you're not going to get pregnant for at least like a year after you give birth, and that's all that my wife has done is just no birth control, she just breastfed the kids and followed that protocol of just natural breastfeeding and childbirth, and our kids are naturally spaced at like two years apart, and we didn't follow any kind of birth control, we didn't use natural family planning, we didn't use the rhythm method, we didn't use the barrier method, we didn't use the Onan method, we didn't use any method, we just did what married people do and let the chips fall where they may, you know, and that's what God teaches in the Bible, and you say, oh, that's crazy, that's radical, well, it used to be considered normal, it's only in the 20th century that we see this push for birth control and the world's overpopulated and all that. You know what? We need to raise up an army of young Christians that are raised by people like us. Everything brings forth after its own kind. This auditorium full of Bible believing Christians needs to reproduce tenfold, right? And think about how the next generation is going to have all these great Christian young people, and not only that, I want my kids to grow up and not have to marry like the girl at church or the guy who they go to church with. You know, I want them to have some choices, right? I don't want them to say, well, I guess I'm going to go out and look in the world because of the fact that there's only two Christian guys that are my age and they're both dweebs. You know, I don't want them to be looking at some stud out there. I want them to have 20, 30, 40 young people to choose from. But the problem is, the last generation of independent fundamental Baptists, what we affectionately call the old IFB, the baby boomer generation of independent fundamental Baptists, they totally screwed this up and they taught Margaret Sanger's birth control philosophy, and so we lost a whole generation. And so when I was a teenager, I had to fly to the other side of the world to get married. There were no Christian girls in my church that were my age. You know, it worked out great for me, thank God, but the point is that today's young people often don't have a lot of choices. And they're not necessarily going to take that initiative that I took. And if they're a woman, then it's a totally different scenario. You know, it's not good for them to go out and reach some guy and get him say, you know, because they're looking for a spiritual leader. And so today's young people, I feel sorry for them and so many independent Baptist churches because the youth group, the youth group should be like eight times the size of what it is. But the youth group's empty because they only have one kid or whatever to that last generation. You know, well, not this generation, buddy. You know, our independent fundamental Baptists that are in our movement, you know, we want to have a lot of kids. Amen. And look around at all these little kids and toddlers. I mean, they're everywhere. There must be, I mean, how many, how many toddlers, how many kids do we have in the auditorium tonight? Let's figure it out. Okay. How many kids do we have in the auditorium tonight that are 17 and under? Okay. So here's, here's how we're going to do this. I know this is really complicated. Okay. But listen, I want one parent per family. If the mother's here, let's have the mother do it. Otherwise dad'll do it. If the mom's not here, I want you to just hold up. How many kids you have with you tonight? Hold up your hand with a number of how many kids hold them up. Let's count, let's count and get a number here. Okay. Who's got kids with them tonight? So we got four, five, seven, 16, 17, eight. We just went to my family, so kind of jumped there. 17. We got, is that a six, 23, 30, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 48, 51, 54, 57, 60, 65, 67, 74, 76, 77, plus nine would be, 77 plus, 80. I'm combining a few, 86, 87, plus seven, 94. Did I miss anybody? 94. I don't, I didn't count you. How many fingers did you have up? Is that two? All right. 96. So we have 90. Did I count you back in that room? I don't think I got you back there in the room. Mother baby room. Yeah. Oh, did he do, did you do it? Okay. All right. Good. I think we're, yeah. So 97. Let's just call it a hundred. We've got like a hundred. Now who's under 18, but you didn't have a parent to represent. Put up your hand if that's you. Anybody like that? Any teenagers that are here solo tonight? What? Would you like to share with the rest of the class? Look, we got a hundred. We got a hundred kids on a Sunday night, let alone the kids that we have on Sunday morning from the Sunday morning crowd. We got a hundred. Now what's the attendance tonight? So we have 217 people in our church tonight on a Sunday night and a hundred of them are kids. Okay. Okay. We're the future of the independent Baptist movement. And you know, the independent, the old IFP can huff and puff and blow the house down. But you know what? While you were popping birth control, we were popping out babies and we're taking over because we had the faith to do it and we obeyed God and we put our finances on the back burner and put our family first. Be fruitful. But there's plenty of excuses why you don't want to have kids. But you know what? We got to have kids. Amen. Go if you would to Psalm one, Psalm one, Psalm one. I like what it says. Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall. And then it mentions that he's a fruitful bough. Then it mentions that he buy a well. And then it mentions that his branches go over the wall. Now we talked about two of those aspects. Now let's talk about the fact that he's by a well, right? Part of Joseph's success is that he was like a tree that was by a well. What does that represent? Well, look what the Bible says in Psalm one verse one. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seed of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree, watch this, planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Now nothing could be truer about the life of Joseph than whatsoever he did prosper. Right? And we know he was fruitful. That's the first thing out of Jacob's mouth. You're like a fruitful bough. Why? Because he's by the well. And here it talks about the tree that's planted by the rivers of water, being fruitful, and whatsoever he does shall prosper. How do we apply that? The way we apply that is verse one. We don't walk in the counsel of the ungodly. That's Margaret Sanger. That's planned baronhood, right? That's your unsaved relatives telling you, you're having too many kids, you need to stop. Don't listen to them. You just keep on doing what's right, and let people make fun of you, or laugh at you, or point you out at your job, or your family, or whatever. You know, how many times have I heard it before, don't you know what causes that? Yeah, I do, and I'm going to keep doing it. And they say, you know, oh, don't you have a TV? No. We don't have a TV, you know. Haven't you discovered ice cream? Hey, there's too much fructose in it, amen? So anyway, you know, we don't need to listen to the counsel of the ungodly, or stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful, but our delight needs to be in the law of the Lord. And in his law, doth he meditate day and night, the Bible said. That's how you're like the tree that's planted by a well. That's how you're like a tree that's planted by the rivers of water, because what's a well? It's the underground rivers of water that flow beneath the earth. So that's what Joseph had in his life. Back to Genesis 49, verse 22, it says, Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall. Look at verse 23, the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him. So one excuse that people could make not to be fruitful physically would be, we can't afford it, right? Another reason that they could give not to be fruitful spiritually is, oh, well, people won't listen, or I'm a bad speaker, or I'm not eloquent, or I'm not gifted in that area. But another excuse that people could use for not being fruitful physically, or not being fruitful spiritually, just not being fruitful in general, is to be afraid of persecution. This is often an excuse that people hide behind a, well, I can't come out and preach that, or I'll be severely persecuted. I'll be hated of everyone I know, or I'll be hated of my family, or I'll be persecuted of this world, or I'll get in trouble with the law, or whatever, the fear there. But in Joseph's life, he had all these type of oppositions, because the Bible said the archers shot at him, and hated him. Now go, keep your finger there, but go to Psalm 11. Go to Psalm 11, we were just in Psalm 1. Now let's look at Psalm 11. The archers, what is an archer? Well, archery is when you fire bow and arrows. And so the archers have shot at him, right? They fired arrows at him, and they hated him. Well, what does the Bible say in Psalm 11, verse 1? In the Lord put I my trust, how say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain. I'm not going to go flee like a bird to my mountain. Why? Because I'm trusting in the Lord. I don't have to go running away, and hide, and flee into the mountain. I'm going to stand my ground, I'm going to stand right here, and I'm going to boldly preach God's word. Flee as a bird to your mountain, for lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. So it's not just Joseph who had the archers shooting at him and hating him, but the Bible tells us that in general the wicked bend their bow, and they shoot privily at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, what does that mean? He sees what's going on. His eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men. The Lord trieth the righteous, but the wicked and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest. This shall be the portion of their cup, for the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. His countenance, his face is what countenance means, doth behold the upright. He sees the upright. He sees from heaven. He's looking down on this earth. He knows what's going on. And when the wicked bend their bow to privily shoot at the upright in heart, he's there to protect them. He's there to defend them. And he will rain fire and brimstone and destroy the enemy, and destroy the adversaries. So we don't need to fear and use that as an excuse to not serve God. Be like Joseph where you just keep doing what's right no matter what persecution comes. Genesis 49 verse 24, but he was shot at, they hated him, and the Bible says ye and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Verse 24, but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hand of the mighty God of Jacob. And thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel, which is more prophecy about Jesus Christ obviously, the good shepherd, the stone of Israel, who's going to come of the house of Jacob. Verse 25, even by the God of thy father who shall help thee, and by the almighty who shall bless thee with the blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, and then watch these blessings, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. See, children are not accursed from God. They're actually a blessing. And so when the womb conceives, that's a blessing. And when the breasts are able to give suck to that young child, that's a blessing. Those are the blessings of the womb and the blessings of the breasts, right? And unfortunately, our last generation of fundamental Baptists, they completely miss these blessings by and large. Every once in a while, you'll find a pastor who preached this right, but it's probably one in a hundred out of the old IFB. I mean, I grew up in independent fundamental Baptist. I never heard anyone preach like this, never. And I went to a whole bunch of different independent fundamental Baptist churches. I wasn't even aware that anyone believed this way, that you should just have a lot of kids and just have children and not to use both. I never even heard of that until I was 18 years old and I was sitting in a Romanian Baptist church. The preaching was in the Romanian language and back then, I was studying Romanian and I was able to converse and Romanian understand. I've forgotten most of it just because if you don't use it, you lose it. And I have opportunities to speak German and Spanish all the time, but Romanian is gone pretty much. But I can still pick up a lot of it. But back then, I would go to this Romanian Baptist church and I would listen to these sermons and the preacher got up and was preaching about this. And I was taken aback by it. I was like, what in the world? Maybe I need to go back and study the language a little more, because surely he can't be saying what I think he's saying. And I went home and told my brother, I was like, man, I was at this Romanian Baptist church and the guy was preaching like, don't use birth control, just have as many kids. And I was like, isn't that crazy? And he's just like, yeah, that's crazy. We both just kind of thought it was crazy. I'm just kind of like, wow. But that kind of planted a seed in my mind though. And then I'm reading my Bible and thinking about it. And then I made a friend in Bible college who showed me some scripture on this and kind of exposed me more to this too. Because by the time I was in Bible college, I was already leaning toward that view of just to continue having children, but I wasn't solid on it. And God used one of my friends at school to kind of shore me up on that doctrine, sharpen me up on that doctrine from the Bible. And so, uh, you know, it's, it's just, it's just rare today that it's even taught, but you know, what's funny is that president Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech where he said, quote, birth control is sinful in a speech a hundred years ago. And like, I think it was in the early 19 hundreds while he was president, he gave a speech to a woman's organization to say, Hey, I think birth control is a sin. And John R. Rice, the famous independent Baptist, who knows who John R. Rice is kind of a household name amongst independent Baptist. He was against birth control. In fact, his book on the home, come see me after the service. And I will give you a copy of his book on the home because I have a stack of them in there that we, we got a stack of them real cheap used or something. We have like 10 of them there. He has three chapters in there, rebuking birth control, you know, but then the baby boomer generation come along and all of a sudden that's just completely forgotten. And it's like us four, no more, you know, two kids and that's it, you know, and look, I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad if they only have one or two kids. First of all, sometimes that's all God gives you. You know, there were great men and women of God in the Bible who were only blessed with one or two children. That's not what we're talking about, you know, or maybe, you know, maybe when you were younger and you were less enlightened, you only had a few kids and then used a bunch of birth control. But I'm talking to the people that are still that childbearing years, you know, don't make don't, you're going to regret that if you make the wrong decision in this area. You know what I mean? I'm talking about those that are young and you're trying to decide, is Pastor Anderson crazy? Is he out to lunch? Do I want to have a whole row at the church like that, you know, do I want to drive that 12 passenger van, you know, you know, and people say like, man, you know, you're maxing out the 12 passenger van, you're going to need to get a new van because I have 10 kids, two parents, that's 12 people, right? But here's the thing, we've reached critical mass. We're at critical mass. Now if you don't know what critical mass means, that means that basically we're to the point where we pretty much have as many kids in that vehicle as there are going to be because now my oldest kids are starting to drive, right? So now as we add more on the bottom, they're going to start rolling off the conveyor belt on this end. So that's what I mean by critical mass, because my kids are going to start moving out and they're driving their own vehicles and everything like that. And we crammed nine people into an eight passenger for like two years anyway, you know, we didn't want to cram 10 into an eight seater, but we did put nine and eight seater per year. This is our last vehicle, honey. Okay. 12 passenger. We're not going any bigger. All right. All right. I'm just doing this publicly. I'm just kidding. But anyway, the point is that, you know, it takes faith to follow what God teaches here. And there's always a lot of excuses of why your case is different, but you'll be blessed if your branches go over the wall, you find a way through obstacles, you put aside objections and you be like Joseph and God will be with you. And you'll get those blessings of the breasts and blessings of the womb. The Bible says in verse 26, the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors under the utmost bound of the everlasting Hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brother. And what's he saying when he says the blessings of the father, he's talking about himself because he is their father, right? So this is dad talking to his son, Jacob's talking to his son, Joseph saying the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors. That's a progenitor. It's one who comes before you in the lineage, right? So his progenitors are Abraham and Isaac. So he's saying, I've been even more blessed than Abraham and Isaac were. And then he says that those blessings will be on the head of Joseph, right? So he's passing on all the blessings that he had in his life that exceeded that of Abraham and Isaac. And he's saying that blessing is going to be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brother. Cause he was separate because he got sold into Egypt at when he was 17 years old and was separated from his brethren for over 13 years. Cause he stood before Pharaoh at age 30, right? And then another seven years of famine or seven years of plenty. And then the famine started. So he separated from them for over 20 years. Okay. So if we want to have these blessings, right? I mean, those are some, I mean, was Abraham blessed? Was Isaac blessed? Look, you could have blessings that exceed that. If you'd be like Joseph. Joseph received the maximum blessings here. So however blessed your parents were, don't ruin that birthright. Don't squander that like a Reuben, right? Be like Joseph. Get the double portion of the inheritance, the double portion. If you're a young child tonight, if you're one of the 100 children or 97 children that are here under the sound of my voice, you know, you can be more blessed than your parents. You can be more blessed. Your parents didn't grow up in faithful word Baptist church. Most of your parents probably didn't even grow up in church at all, or they might've grown up in a watered down church, or maybe some of them did grow up in great churches, but many of them had even less of an advantage than you have today. Don't squander that unto whom much is given of him shall much be required. Why don't you take the blessings to another level? Why don't you walk in the spirit? Why don't you follow God's word? Why don't you be like Joseph and quit making excuses for why you can't serve God, why you can't go soul winning, and just decide, you know what, I'm going to serve God. I'm not going to let anything stop me. No wall will get in my way. No obstacle is too much. I'm going to stick my root down deep into God's word, and I'm going to love the law of the Lord. I'm going to meditate on it day and night. I'm going to tap into those rivers of water. I'm going to tap into that well water, and you know what, I am going to do great works for God. I'm going to be fruitful more than my parents were ever fruitful. I'm going to be a fruitful generation that will make Pastor Anderson's generation look pathetic. We'll look back at Pastor Anderson and say, he was weak. He's the old IFP. We're the new, you know, Pastor Anderson slew his thousands. We slew 10,000. Hey, you know what, there's no reason why we shouldn't raise up a great generation of godly young people. One of these bunch of Mormons and Muslims will run for their money, raise some Christian young people that are going to, and you know, the old IFPs, they're just waiting for the pre-trib rapture to happen in the next five minutes. That's why they're not even having kids. They're like, you know, raising kids, 20 years from now, the Lord's coming tonight, right? That's why they're so nearsighted. That's why they don't invest in the next generation. That's why they're lazy. And you know what, that's why they're not, that's why they shun YouTube. They'll never be caught on Instagram, you know, or whatever. I'll tell you why. It's because they're totally out of touch. Because why? Because they're a bunch of gray heads with no youth because they have this generation. You know what? My goal is not to have a generation. Look, I love old people. I'm glad. Well, we don't have any old people here tonight, but anyway, you know, I'm glad for the middle age people that we have here tonight. But the point is, you know, I think a healthy church has a spectrum, and I'm not going to have all the old people raise their hand and count, although we could. But you know, I think a good church has a spectrum of the wise elders all the way down to the newborn baby and everything in between. But what we have in most Baptist churches is an imbalance, where you walk in and it's just everybody's 70. Everybody's 80 years old. Right? Who knows what I'm talking about? Yeah. Now look, we don't want to have only young people. We want the older people to come in. I wish we had more older people. Most older people don't like our church. You know, I don't know why. It's just true. They don't. But thank God for those that are here. And we should have a spectrum. But see, the old IFB is a whole lot of gray headed people, and they have a generation gap because of the fact that they have two kids and then stop, and then there's this huge gap. See, here's why there's not going to be a generation gap in my house, because my wife's probably going to be still having kids while my kids are having kids. So I mean, there's no generation gap. It's just going to be like just a continuum of childbirth. I mean, by the time my wife's done having kids, God willing, the grandkids will just be coming and coming and coming and coming and coming. So the point is that the generation gap, and look, obviously, again, I'm not against small families if that's what God gave you. But what I'm saying is when everybody in the church has a small family, then you have these big generation gaps. You have just these gaps. And then the older crowd is totally out of touch with the younger crowd instead of having a continuum. Do you see what I mean by like an unbroken chain of age groups and a continuum of young people coming on board? And you know, they laugh at us and say, oh, you know, don't go on YouTube. Don't listen to preaching on YouTube, because they know what they're going to find if they start searching YouTube. They knew who was going to be on page one of the search results. I search any subject, like Pastor Jimenez is popping up, Pastor McMurtry is popping up, Michael Johnson is popping up, Jimenez is popping up, I'm popping up, it's like Romero is popping up. Why? Because we're actually uploading stuff to YouTube, because we're actually reaching the youth. We're actually reaching young people. And you know, they're building their palaces, and they've got their fancy buildings, and we're in a strip mall. But you know what? It's kind of a microcosm of the way that we live our lives. Because think about it, like look at our church building. We're in a strip mall. We got ceiling tiles, right? But it gets the job done, right? You go to the old dead IFB church, where everybody's, you know, median age is like 75, okay? And they've got this fancy palace of a building. That's what they prioritized. You see what I mean? Now, same thing. You go to my house, if you come to my house, you know what you're going to find? A humble house. A small, old, humble house. But you're going to find a bunch of young people, right? You go to somebody's house, you go to other houses where it's a palace of a house, but there's no youth there. See what I mean? That's kind of the residential house kind of mirrors the church house. You know, the emphasis is on a building instead of on being fruitful, right? So in my house, we're not emphasizing the building because we know the kids are going to destroy it anyway. Maybe once all the kids are out of the house, we can make it a little nicer, you know? But I'm just joking about that. My kids are very well behaved and would never destroy anything. But the point is that, you know, our family is not all about the building, right? It's where no oxen are, the crib is clean. But there's much increase by the strength of the ox. And so my house is not all about the building, it's about being fruitful. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to bring forth some fruit, trying to raise some fruit for the kids. Well, here's the thing. It's the same with our church. It's not about the building. What's it about? Spiritually winning souls, growth. That's what we're about. Not ability. See how it's kind of the same philosophy, same problem? It's like a spiritual birth control that they're on when they're canceling soul winning or toning it down or scaling it back. It's like a spiritual planned baronhood of soul winning program, okay? And you say, well, Pastor Anderson, you know, God hasn't blessed me with kids or I'm past that age. But you can go out soul winning and have some spiritual kids, amen? Nothing wrong with having only one kid if you're out winning souls. Nothing wrong with having no kids if you're actually out winning souls, you know, if that's what God gave you. But when you're following the world's philosophy, though, that's where you're not tapped into the well where you need to be. So let's be like Joseph. Let's be fruitful. Let's not make excuses. Let's not follow the world's philosophy. Let's have an attitude that says I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the example of Joseph, Lord, he's fruitful and he had a great influence on his brethren. They became very fruitful and they multiplied in Egypt into a great nation. They went down there with only 75 people and then 400 years later, there were millions of them because they were fruitful and multiplied greatly while the Egyptians were inventing birth control, Lord, even in those days, history even tells us. So Lord, we just pray that you would just help us not to follow that worldly philosophy and help us to be fruitful and multiply physically, spiritually and not to get so caught up in the buildings and the cars and the vehicles and the cares of this world, Lord. Help us to value what's important which is a life, which is a soul, Lord.