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Now, whenever I preach at a book of Proverbs and I read the whole chapter, there's about 25 other sermons that come into my mind just because there are so many great things in this chapter. But the one part that I wanted to focus on tonight is beginning in verse 19, where the Bible reads, He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread, but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough. A faithful man shall bow with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. By respect of persons is not good for a piece of bread that that man will transgress. He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considerth not that poverty shall come upon him. Now, what I want to talk about tonight is taking shortcuts, you know, taking the easy way and not doing the real work that needs to be done. Now, I'm going to apply this to a lot of different areas of life, but I'm starting out here in Proverbs because this is just talking in general about work. Now in verse 19 we see the difference of someone who tills their land. Now tilling the land is not easy, is it? I mean, that's backbreaking work, farming, this has been for machines, I mean, this is out there tilling the land with oxen and with ghouls. It talks about someone tilling the land to make good. It says in verse 20, a faithful man shall bow with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. And then it says in verse 22, he that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye. Now, all throughout the book of Proverbs you'll see two different things contrasted. The diligent man, and the word diligent is used over and over again in the book of Proverbs, and the hasty man, the man who just wants to just make a quick buck, just some kind of a get-rich-quick, and you know, you see this stuff all the time. You see a sign that says, you know, you're going to make $10,000 from home every month, you know, or people who play the lottery, you know, and they're just trying to just get rich quick, you know, they just want to scratch that thing off, and just boom, the shortcut to wealth and everything. But there's another way to get there, there's another way to get money, it's hard backbreaking work that you do diligently over and over. You know, sometimes you give a child a job to do, and they do it sloppily because they're in a hurry. They hasten through it, you know, and they basically, for example, you tell them, you know, my children have to do copy work, you know, they have to copy out verse in the Bible and it's for penmanship, and they just kind of, you know, scribble it out because they're hastening to get it done instead of being diligent, taking their time, and doing it right. And you know, you see all kinds of sloppily work in this world, and people who go to their jobs sloppily do the work instead of taking their time being diligent, yeah, it's going to take longer, but you're doing it right the first time. And that's what the Bible's talking about here, people who want to just make a shortcut to be rich and to have money, and first of all, the Bible tells us that being rich should not even be a goal of our life. The Bible says, they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition, for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some covet it after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. The Bible says in Proverbs, labor not to be rich, cease from mine own wisdom, but we all need to provide for our family. We all have to pay the bills, and the way to do that is not through being a cheat and a liar or being hasty and trying to find some quick little scam, no, it's just about going to work, working hard, being diligent, that's what young people need to be taught at a young age, that nothing's free in this world, there's no free lunch, you get up every day, you work, you get up early, you stay up late, you work, and that's how you make it in this world, and that's how you pay the bills, and that's what God's teaching. But there's a lot of other ways that people are hasty and want to take a shortcut in life, go back to Proverbs 21, you're in Proverbs 28, one of them obviously can apply to work, you know sometimes you just sloppily do something and you end up having to redo it, and you end up wasting more time by having to redo it, and that's why anything that's worth doing is worth doing right the first time, I mean if it's worth doing, do it right, and do it right the first time, but it says in Proverbs 21 5, the thoughts of the diligent, that's the opposite of the hasty, diligent man, tend only to plenteousness, but of everyone that is hasty, only to want, you know the person who's just in a hurry to make a quick buck, instead of taking their time and working and doing things the right way in life, but there's so many other areas, turn to Luke chapter 15, Luke chapter 15, now this is a famous story in the Gospel of Luke, this is the third book in the New Testament, Luke chapter 15, you've probably heard the story about the prodigal son, and that's what this story is, beginning in verse number 11, but before we get there for a second, let me just make an application here, one area is soul winning, you know we go out soul winning, which is just when we go out and knock doors and just preach the Gospel to people, just try to get people saved, and you know the question is, when you go out and go soul winning, and you're going out to preach the Gospel to try to get people saved, are you hasty, or are you diligent, you know diligence is when you're going to take the time necessary to actually explain to someone, you know the truth of the Gospel point by point, not just blow through some quick little, oh yeah you know we're all ready to pray this prayer, you know just blow through something, but actually be diligent to make sure that they really understand the Gospel, that they really understand what you're preaching to them, and not just in a hurry to get, you know why do you not hurry to get to the next door, that's the door you're at, take the time necessary to preach the Gospel thoroughly, now anybody who goes soul winning to me knows that, you know I don't kick a dead horse, I mean if somebody understands a point, I'm going to move on to the next point, I'm not going to run into the ground, but you know what, if someone's not getting it, I'll definitely really slow down and keep going over with them, and you know what will build your patience, sometimes we get out soul winning, we'll run into people that are mentally handicapped, in some way, and boy that will really build your patience, because you know you have to keep explaining things over and over and over, but you know what to me it's worth it, you know just to talk to that one person, and to just keep going over with them, to make sure that they get it, to make sure that they get it right the first time, and I'm not saying kick a dead horse, I mean if they've got it, they've got it, but make sure that they get it, don't just be in a hurry, if some people just want to blow through, next door, next door, wrong, I'd rather go out there and be thorough with one person, and just get one person saved, than to give the gospel to ten people, and I don't know if any of them got saved, because I don't know if I was really doing a thorough job, I don't know if they even comprehended it, because I didn't take the time necessary to explain it to them, and so don't be hasty, be diligent, have the patience to spend the time necessary to get the job done right, no matter what the job, and especially when it's the work of the Lord, and we're out soul winning, that's the most important job there is, boy take that seriously, but look at Luke 15, it's a famous story, it says verse 11, and he said, a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me, and he divided unto them his living, not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living, and when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in the land, and he began to be in want, and he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him, so here are a couple of young guys, and they're living in their dad's house, they're living at home, and basically one of the sons, the younger son just says, you know what, all of my inheritance that I'm supposed to get when you die, when you die and you pass this on to us, he said, I want to have it right now, because I want to leave, I don't want to be here, I don't want to live in this house, so just give me my whole inheritance, give me everything I've got coming to me that I've worked for my whole life, you know, but just give it to me right now, because I don't want to wait, I want it right now, and so dad said okay, fine, whatever, and dad gives him all the inheritance, he splits it up between the two sons, gives him everything, and right away he's gone, he goes into a far country and just wastes it all, with riotous living, now riotous in the bible is just talking about just a sinful lifestyle, that's what it's talking about, it talks about rioting, drunkenness, it's not talking about necessarily like where the police come out with shields and helmets and sticks and everything, it's just riotous living, it's just going out and just the party life, is what we would call it today, so he just goes out and he just lives the party life, you know, the drinking, the women, the fun, and the spending money, and blowing it off, and he goes out and just wastes it all, and blows it off, and in a very short time the money's all gone, and then all of a sudden there's a famine in the land, then all of a sudden today it would be like the economic downturn, the recession, and all of a sudden he doesn't even have enough money to pay his bills, to feed himself, he has nothing, and so the only job he can get is feeding pigs, and he's out there feeding the pigs, and he can't even afford to buy food, and he's looking at the slop that the pigs are eating and saying you know what, I'm thinking about feeding that slop right now, okay, because I'm that hungry, now I don't think any of us have probably ever been that hungry, but he was that hungry, and he's looking, I mean he's been brought down to nothing here, and that's when he comes to himself, it says in verse 17, and when he came to himself he said, how many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger, I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, father I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hired servants, and he arose and came to his father, but when he had a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him, and the son said unto him, father I have sinned against heaven and am no more worthy to be called thy son, but the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on it, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and be married, for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost in his found and they began to be married, now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew not in the house he heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant, and he said unto them, thy brother has come and thy father has killed the fattened calf because he had received him safe and sound, and he was angry and would not go in, therefore came his father out and treated him, and he answered and said to his father, lo these many years do I serve thee, neither transgress thy at any time thy commandment, and yet thou never gave us me a cant that I might make merry with my friends, but as soon as this thy son was come, which had devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fattened calf, and he said unto him, son, thou art ever with me and all that I have is thy, it was meet that we should make merry and be glad, for thy brother, this thy brother was dead and alive again and was lost in his found. Now here we see the brother getting angry and saying, wait a minute this isn't fair, I mean he got the whole inheritance, went out there and blew it all, wasted it all with riotous living with harlots, here I've done nothing wrong, I've been here working steady and not breaking the rules, and you don't go to these kind of parties for me even with the kid of the ghost, let alone the fattened calf, and he says, you know what, everything I have is yours, but we're just making merry because he's bad, and let me tell you something, the guy who stayed home, he owned the whole ranch. Now look, sure the prodigal son got to come home and have his little, you know, returning party, and yeah he gets to live at home again, but guess what he's going to inherit later on? Nothing. Nothing. The other brother is going to own the whole business, he's going to own all the ranch, he's going to be employing all the servants, he's going to have this great wealth, the other brother wasted all that and lost it because he said I want to have it all right now, he wasted it all in just a short time and spends the rest of his life poor. The rest of his life with nothing. Whereas the other brother is inheriting all these riches, he just has to wait a little bit longer. You know, a little bit longer, dad's going to pass on and he can throw himself a party whenever he wants because you know what, he's got everything. He owns every cow on the pasture. He can slaughter them and eat t-bone steaks whenever he wants. And that's what we see here, but the mentality of the prodigal son is the mentality that people have today. They want to have everything right now. Now a lot of it, God's going to give you later anyway. But it's like no, I want to have it right now. But then you end up wasting it, you end up ruining it, you end up destroying your inheritance. You know for example here, he said I want to have all the riches right now. You know a lot of Christians today, they want to have all the fun and pleasure right now, but then they can end up messing up their whole life in the future. Like for example, you look at teenage young people. You know, basically today, fornication is the norm among young people. It's a rarity that young people are not fornicating. And it's wicked, it's sinful, and people try to justify it, but God has no justification for it. I mean, what goes on in the bedroom is reserved for marriage only, and yet teenagers today will go out and commit fornication, you know, because they don't want to wait until they get married. They don't want to wait. They say, give me the fun right now, give me the pleasure right now of the marital act there. You know, let's do that right now because I don't want to wait. And they end up sinning against God, you know, incurring the wrath of God, messing up their life, and because of that, they're missing out on a lot of joy in the future for the rest of their life of having been pure to their wedding day and being just about one person. But hold on a second. Wouldn't they get that same pleasure anyway when they get married if they would just wait? You see, if they would just keep themselves pure and just wait a few more years, they're going to be married, they're going to be with that person that they want to spend the rest of their life with, and they can enjoy the same thing, but they can either just waste it now, enjoy it now, cause all the sin, cause all the problems, sin against, or they can just wait a little while and do it with God's blessing when they're married. You see, it's not that God is trying to withhold joy from us, but it's just that we have to be diligent and patient and receive the things that God gives us in His timing and not try to rush ahead and say, no, I want it right now. I want to take a shortcut to that. You know, I want to have that husband-wife relationship right now, even though I'm just a teenager and I'm not married, you know, I want to jump forward and take a shortcut to that. No, there's no shortcut. It's the diligent route of patience and waiting until you get married, you know, and that's a sensitive subject today just because so many people are not following that route. They're all on the shortcut. They all want to take that shortcut, but we need to be on God's path for our lives. Look at Genesis 16. Here's another great example of a shortcut in the Bible that led to disaster. First of all, we saw the shortcuts to be rich. You know, that's why I don't buy a lot of those tickets. Because if I buy them, let's say I go, oh, you might win the lottery. What good is it going to do me? Most of the people who win the lottery, it ends up messing up their life or they end up losing everything. You know, did Michael Jackson's money help him? It turned him into a weirdo. You know, the more money he got, he just spent it on weird things, creepy things, you know, and the bottom line is money is not just the end-all-be-all of life. And money that comes easy usually goes easy. Easy come, easy go. But when you work hard for money, you understand the value of money. You appreciate money. You're not going to waste it on stupid things. You know why that prodigal son wasted his money? Because you know what? It was something that somebody else had earned. Somebody else had really built that business and gave him his portion. That's why he didn't have respect for it because he didn't really work hard enough for it and stay diligent with it. But look at Genesis chapter 16. Here's another shortcut. I'll bring you up to speed in the story real quick. This is where God has promised Abraham and Sarah that they're going to have a child. But they just keep getting older and older and this child is just not coming. Finally, they get to the point where he is 87 years old and she is 76 actually and that's pretty old. And they basically say, this isn't happening. And they start to doubt God here and you kind of see why they've done God, but they shouldn't have doubted him. But they did. And so they said, you know what? Let's just take a shortcut here and do it. It says in Genesis 16, 1, Now Sarai, Abram's wife, buried him no children. And she had him handmade an Egyptian whose name was Abram. It's a younger woman that's just a servant in the house. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. Now, if the Lord restrained you from bearing, shouldn't that just be, okay, well, I guess God doesn't want me to have a child right now. If God restrained you from bearing. And all throughout Genesis it's clear, God is the one who opens and closes the wound. You know, God can control whether people have children or not. And it says in verse 2, you know, Hey, the Lord has restrained me from bearing. I pray that you go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. So basically Sarai tells her husband basically to impregnate the maid, the servant there. And, and she, you know, this is how we're going to have a child. This surrogate here, you know, and then we can basically raise it as our child and this will be our child and you know, it'll be your child because it's with the maid here. And Abram says, okay. It says he hearkened to the voice of Sarai. He should have said no. That's bad. You know, if God's not doing this for us, then it must just not be God's will. You know, I mean, do you really think that God is not all powerful? I mean, if people can't have children, don't you think God could give them children? And did you know that every single time in the Bible, there's a lot of stories in the Bible about women who were not able to have children. Did you know that every single time they had a child eventually when they prayed to God, I mean, Abraham's son, Isaac, married his wife, Rebecca, and they tried for a child for 20 years. And after 20 years, God answered the prayer and gave them that child. But that's a long road, isn't it? Twenty years of wanting that child. But you know what? People want to take a shortcut for that and say, no, no, I, you know, I don't want to pray away. We've tried for a year and a half. Let's go to the doctor and let's get the artificial this and in vitro this and do all this stuff instead of just waiting on the Lord here. They want to take a shortcut, you know. And here's what happened. He did this shortcut and it was disastrous, obviously. It caused this hatred between Hagar and Sarah and it caused finally them to have to be thrown out of the house. When Ishmael was 13 years old, he has to leave the house and he doesn't even see his son again. I mean, bad, bad thing here. Broken home, destroyed marriage and adultery and all these bad things because somebody's trying to take the shortcut instead of just waiting on God. Now, you know, if you're a young married, you know, you get married, not everybody's just instantly going to have a child. But we live in this Burger King mentality, have it your way and you go up to the drive-thru and I want my food at 60 seconds, 90 seconds. And you can take a shortcut to meals. It's called fast food. But try living on fast food day after day because you don't want to wait for a meal to be cooked. I want it pre-made, ready-made. I want to, you know, try eating a McDonald's every day. You're going to die. You know, you're going to get sick because that is not the healthiest food. Fast food is not the healthiest food out there, is it? You know, you go out there and you buy the fast food because you're taking a shortcut. Oh, I'll just do something quick here. You know, eat the fast food. But you know what? If you really want to eat a quality meal, you know that it takes time. You know, you ever go to a really nice restaurant and sit down and you have to wait for your food, don't you? But guess what? When the food gets there, it's better, isn't it? I mean, when my wife cooks, sometimes I'll ask me, you know, how long until dinner? It's like an hour, two hours. Oh, man, you know, I can't wait that long. So I just open a bag of Cheetos and get a, you know, Coca-Cola. No, you know, you wait. And you get the real nourishing, nutritious, homemade meals that take hours to cook. But there's a shortcut to that. It's called Hungry Man frozen dinner. But the quality isn't there. Do you see what I'm saying? There are all kinds of shortcuts in life. Just take the easy with quick. I don't want to wait. I'm just going to do it. You know, I can't have a child. I'm just going to go to the doctor and artificial this and test tube baby this. You know, that's not right. That's not a God. You know, I've exposed that in another sermon and, you know, all the things that are wrong with that. But you know, the same with marriage, same with your job. You know, people are just in a hurry to take a shortcut. Look at 2 Timothy, chapter 2. 2 Timothy, chapter 2, toward the end of the New Testament there. You know, another great example of this is just, you know, when it comes to church. You know, I started this church five and a half years ago. And there's more than one way to basically start a church and to see that church grow. And a lot of people have these methods to make it grow really fast. But I've noticed that when you look into the natural world, you know, weeds grow really fast, don't they? I mean, weeds are just, you can just go out of town for a few days and come back and your yard is filled with weeds. And the weeds get really high and really fast. But you know, a tree takes a lot longer to get started and to get going. But eventually it's a lot bigger, a lot stronger than a weed. And today we have these that want to just start a church really fast, you know. So they bring in all the rock and roll and they bring in all the things that are going to attract the crowd. But they don't really stop to think about who they're attracting or why they're attracting. And they just bring in a bunch of unbelievers and just bring in a bunch of just whoever and just try to pack as many bodies into like a Christian rock concert, basically what it is. And there's nothing real there. You know, and it springs up in a day and it's gone in a day and it didn't do anything that was worth it. You know, if you want to build something that's really worth something, it's going to take time. It's going to take diligence. It's going to take just reaching people one at a time, getting them saved, getting them baptized, teaching them the Word of God and building something that has a solid foundation. Building something that's legitimate, that's real is going to take time. It's going to take a long time. It's going to take patience, diligence, not just the hasty spirit that says I want everything right now. I want this church to be running a thousand by next month. Well then you know what? You're not going to be able to preach the Bible exactly how it needs to be preached because that's going to run people off when you start really hitting the nail on the head. Well then you can't have hymns because the hymns are not what the crowd wants. You're going to have to bring in the Christian rock and jam for Jesus and whatever and wiggle and wail and the backup singers and the miniskirts. That's what's going to draw the crowd today because I can take you to all kinds of places today where women are wiggling and wailing in miniskirts and they're packed. I can take you to a rock concert. It'll be packed because it's not hard to break a crowd but to build a real soul winning, bonafide, Bible believing, Bible preaching church is something that takes time. It takes diligence. It takes a lot of hard work to till the land. It's not something that happens overnight when people want to take a shortcut. Here's a big shortcut that people take. It says in 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, this is a famous verse. It says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Now look at that. Study to show thyself approved unto God. He's saying you need to study the Bible for yourself. But today, people want to take a shortcut. Oh, somebody else already studied it for me. And so they've got all the commentaries. They've got all this stuff that's just going to spoon it into their mouth. You know, just everybody else's research that they did for them. And today, many people, they don't know the Bible. They know about the Bible but they don't know the Bible because you get to know the Bible by reading it yourself, studying it yourself. And today, a lot of people, when they come to it, and technology can be a great thing, but sometimes it can be a negative thing depending on how it's used because I remember when I was a teenager coming to passages in the Bible that I did not understand, passages in the Bible that I really struggled with. And I can remember just reading the whole Bible cover to cover over and over, trying to look for clues that would help me interpret that passage. And I can remember a specific passage that I was having trouble with. And I remember literally just for two weeks, every day, just praying that God would help me to understand that passage as I read the rest of the Bible. I looked for the truth. I looked for the answers. And I prayed and I prayed. And you know, after a couple weeks, God showed me the answer to that through the scripture. But today, it's like, oh, let's just Google that. But the problem with just let's just Google that is who knows who you're listening to? Who knows whether they're right or wrong? And a lot of things sound good and they make sense. That doesn't make a lot of sense. And when you go into the wild and woolly world of YouTube or Google to make that your spiritual authority where you're going to find the answer and you say, you Google, what does so and so versus so and so mean? You're going to have all kinds of answers and all kinds of crazy stuff. And you can get into a lot of false doctrine really fast. That sounds good. And you know, even before that, though, it was the commentary. You know, and it's like, oh, let's just look in the commentary. And they've got the Matthew Henry or whatever. And they just pull that thing down, look it up. Well, he says this. And I've even had people try to show me the Matthew Henry commentary or one of these other commentaries and say, see, it says it right there. That's what that means. And I'm thinking to myself, he's not God. You know, just because he said that, that doesn't make it so. And so we got to be careful that we don't just have someone else doing all the study for us. Go to 1 John chapter 2. You know, and it's even people could just come to even this church and just everything Pastor Anderson says, just take it like it's just gospel truth without actually doing their own reading, their own study. And that isn't right. We should be searching the scripture daily to see whether these things are so. And the shortcut is just Google the answer rather than I remember I had a question about baptism. There was a certain I was hearing a lot of different doctrines on baptism and I had a question about a certain aspect of baptism. And I remember saying, you know what, I'm going to read the whole New Testament this week. And this week I'm going to read the whole New Testament and the whole time I read it, I'm going to just be looking for the answers to these questions that I have on baptism. That's all I'm looking for. You know, but that took a long time. That took a lot of work to read the whole New Testament because I could have just Googled, explain baptism, enter it. But you know what, I guarantee you I got the right answer. And I know I got the right answer because I got it from reading the whole Bible and I got it from the Holy Spirit, not from a man. Because I went and did the reading and the study to show myself approved unto God. And it's so easy to get the answer, isn't it? But to get the right answer takes diligence. When you're 60, you might get the right answer, but you'll probably get the wrong answer. And so it says in 1 John chapter 2, of course I've preached this verse many times, but it says in verse 27, But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you. But as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. That verse there says that we don't need someone to teach us the Bible. We don't need it. Now it's great to go to church and be taught the Bible, and that can help you understand more, but you don't need a man to teach you the Bible because if you are saved, you are qualified to open the Bible for yourself and learn it yourself. There's nothing that I'm preaching up here that you couldn't have figured out on your own for reading the Bible. There's nothing I've ever preached that was biblical that you could not find on your own. I mean I'm not up here with some kind of a special power. I've got a special revelation. No, I have the same Bible that you're holding in your hand right now. I have the same Holy Spirit living inside me that's living inside you if you're a believer. And so therefore you don't need man. And a lot of religions like Catholicism for example will teach you like, well you know, you need the priest to interpret the Bible for you. He's going to break it down to you, and the Pope's going to break it down to you, and he's going to explain it to you. Well guess what, the Pope's a liar and an antichrist, and he's the vicar of hell on earth, and I'll tell you something right now, that you go to some priest and he's going to break the Bible down to you, I'll tell you right now. You don't need that man to break it down to you. You need to open the Bible and read it for yourself. That's a fact right there. And the Catholic Church is going to tell you to work your way to heaven, work salvation. They're going to tell you everything that's a lie, everything that's false, everything that's out of hell, and people will just go to that and just say, you know what, just tell me what it means. And I've been on the airplane trying to give the Gospel unto a Catholic because I love him. And I tried to show this Catholic the truth, tried to show this Catholic the Gospel, and here's what he said, well we can't understand the Bible. The church has to interpret it for us. Well guess what, I don't need a church to interpret the Bible for me, and neither do you. You come to church to hear God's Word preached, but that's why you bring your... pull up your Bible if you have your Bible with you. You notice how people bring a Bible? Because they're not just blindly just sitting here, just listening, oh okay Pastor Anderson, explain it to us. No, they're looking for themselves. They're getting the truth for themselves. They're learning it for themselves. They're not just blindly believing a man. And you know, two thousand years of blindly believing a man, product, the Catholic Church, which preaches everything contrary to the Bible. Why? Because it's just, the church will interpret it for us. And it's funny because I talked to this guy on the airplane that was a Catholic, and he basically said, well, he said, I'm part of a really strict part of Catholicism, like we don't actually accept everything that the Pope has said recently, because the Pope has like gotten a little more liberal or something. And he said, we don't accept all that, we stick with like the old way of the Catholic Church. And I said, wait a minute, you just told me that the church is always right and that the church has to interpret it, and now you're telling me that the church is wrong on certain issues? When they have homo priests and all this? You know, they have a priest that's a homo, and you don't agree with that. And he's like, yeah, actually you have a point on that. Because if the church is always right, then I guess they're always right, even when they have a homo as their priest. That's right too. But see, guess what, the church isn't always right. And that's why that guy needed to believe on the Bible, but unfortunately he didn't get said, because I kept showing him the Bible, and he just said, well I don't know what that means, I can't interpret that, we got to go to the church and interpret it for us. And you know what, don't ever let it be said that the faithful Word of Baptist has to interpret the Bible for you. Interpret it on your own. Read it on your own. You know, and I'm here to preach to you, and I hope that you're judging everything I say based on whether it's biblical or not, and not just blindly saying, well Pastor Anderson said that I believe that that settles it for me. That's not right. Okay, and that's what the Catholic Church represents. Mindlessly believing what you're taught by man. And that's why they bow down and worship the Pope. Nobody can deny that. When he shows up, they get on their face, they bow down, they kiss his ring, they worship him and bow down to him, and he just takes it all in. It's a false religion, my friend. But you see, we need to not take the shortcut of saying church is going to spoon feed us the truth, or Google, or commentaries. You know, get in the Word. Read it yourself. And you know, it's a lot of work to read your Bible cover to cover, isn't it? It's a long book. But you got to read it, and read it, and again, and again, and read it, and read it, and read it. And that's how you find the truth. I'm going to end my sermon a little bit early because I want to talk about one other thing quickly before we get going. But let's start with that Word prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your Word, dear God, and for the opportunity, again, to be in your house. And help us not to be people that just always want to take a shortcut, take the easy way. Help us to be diligent and to do things the right way, to take our time, dear God. And God, help those that are in the bondage of the Catholic cult to get out of it before it's too late, dear God, and to receive the light and the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. Peace and our praise. Amen. Now, one thing I want to just quickly touch upon is we're going to have baptism after the service. There's a few people getting baptized. And I just want to briefly just talk about what baptism means and just discuss biblically what baptism is, just to make sure everybody understands. We haven't baptized people in a few months because we had an issue with the heater, or a bottle over the bathroom. But we've got another way that we're doing it now. But anyway, I just wanted to quickly talk a little bit about baptism just to make sure everybody understands it. And so if you would just turn in your Bible to Acts chapter 8 really quickly. Acts chapter 8. I'm just going to show you a couple scriptures on baptism and then we'll be dismissed and then we'll have baptism. But we used to baptize every week whenever somebody needed to be baptized. And that's what we're going to get back to doing. We just had a technical difficulty over the last few months. But we're getting that straight. And plus the weather is now on our side. It's getting nice and hot. So we don't even need a heater this much because the water is warm. But we have a technical difficulty. But we do believe in baptizing people just whenever. We like to baptize people right away. Look at Acts chapter 8 and verse 36. Actually look at verse 35 of Acts. It says, Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? So basically, Philip preaches the gospel to this guy. And as he hears the gospel and he's hearing about how he just needs to believe on Jesus Christ, he sees some water. And this guy is excited. So he says, Hey, there's some water. What's stopping me? What's hindering me from being baptized right now? And this is what Philip says to him in verse 37. And Philip said, If thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest. Right? So he's saying, If you believe, yeah, you can be baptized. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And that's when he baptized him, right? First he had to say, Hey, I'm a believer. I believe on Christ. And then he said, He commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. Okay. So baptism is something that takes place after salvation, right? So if somebody was baptized before they were saved, they should get baptized again after they're saved, because you should be baptized after salvation. And there was an instance of that in Acts chapter 19, where some guys came to Paul, and they thought they were saved, but they weren't. And they'd already been baptized. But then once they got saved, after Paul preached them the gospel, then they got baptized again. Because you're supposed to be baptized after you are saved. Because you got to believe. He said, If thou believeth. Now, is there any other requirement for baptism? Do you have to be joining a church, or do you have to start living right? No. There's one requirement to be baptized in the Bible. If thou believeth, with all thine heart, thou mayest. And so this is for every believer to be baptized. Notice it says, They went down both of them into the water. Does this sound like sprinkling? No. And hey, is this baby baptism like the Catholics do? No. Because he said, You got to believe first. Babies don't believe anything. They're not aware of anything. And so the bottom line is here that baptism is, you know, underwater, and it's something after you're saved. And then I just want to show you one other scripture. Just turn the page to Acts 10. Look at Acts 10, verse 48. The Bible says, And he suggested unto them. Is that what it says? It says, And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, then prayed they him to tarry us our day. So is baptism something that is just like if you feel like it, or it's optional? No. You know, it's something that God has commanded us to do. Now, does baptism save? No. No, it has nothing to do with salvation. Many people have been saved and they never got baptized. Many people have been baptized and they never were saved. I mean, the two have nothing to do with it. Here's how I illustrate to people. I usually use my wedding ring as an example. You know, I wear this ring to show people that I'm married, but if I remove it, am I still married? Yeah, because this ring isn't what makes me married. It's just a symbol. Baptism is a symbol as well. When you're in the water, it's a picture of Jesus on the cross. When you go down into the water, it's a picture of his burial. When you come up out of the water, it's a picture of his resurrection, okay? And you're basically publicly saying, I believe that Jesus Christ died and married and rose again. The other thing is that in Romans 6, the Bible explains that baptism is also a picture of the fact that you're marrying the old man and you're going to walk in newness of life. It's a decision you're making because when you get saved, the Bible says if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away, all things have become new. But in addition to the new creature, we still have the old man too, the old flesh, the old sinful nature. And so there's a battle going on every day where we have our flesh pulling us in one direction and the spirit is pulling us in a different direction. Baptism is just a symbol where you're expressing your desire to walk a new life in Christ. You know, not to just be saved, being saved is most important. But then, you know what, now that I'm saved, I want to live a new life. So baptism is a first step of obedience after you're saved. It doesn't make you saved, it has nothing to do with salvation, it's just symbolic. But it is something that God has commanded us to do. And so we're going to be baptizing a few people tonight and I just want to encourage you this, if you're saved and you haven't been baptized, today is the day that you ought to get baptized.