(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Men, this morning I'm preaching on the subject of the house of God, which, of course, in the New Testament is the local church. And there's something special about being at church. I've noticed that even just reading the Bible at church, different things are jumping out at me than when I'm reading the Bible at home during the scripture reading before the sermon. Singing the praises to God with God's people in the congregation is different than just singing them on your own. Being here, present, physically here, listening to the sermon always seems to hit different than when you just listen to the sermons online, because God's house is a place of God's special presence. Now, in Genesis chapter number 28, and this is where I'm pretty much going to spend the entire sermon, in Genesis chapter 28, we have the first mention in the Bible of the house of God, and there's actually a lot that we can learn about the house of God just packed into this one little chapter in Genesis. And the first point, I already said it, is that number one, the house of God is a place of God's special presence. Look at Genesis chapter 28 verse 16, and Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. So whether or not you realize it, the house of God, the local church, is a place of God's special presence. In Matthew chapter 18 verse 20, the Bible says, For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Right? Now, we know, obviously, God is omnipresent. He's everywhere at once, but that's why I say it's a place of God's special presence. God shows up in a special way at the local church when his people are gathered together, even if it's just two or three people, but when we're gathered together in the church, God shows up. Now, let me just give you a little bit of context before I go any further with the sermon on what we're looking at here in Genesis chapter 28. This is Jacob. He's leaving his family. He's leaving his home, and he's going to Padan Aram in order to find a wife, and on the way there, he stops and sleeps on the ground, and he uses stones for pillows, and he lies down, and while he lies down, he has this dream or this vision of heaven opened, and there basically being a ladder up to heaven, and angels ascending and descending on that ladder, and then God speaks to him in this vision, and so he ends up naming the place Bethel, which is Hebrew for the house of God. We all think about this time of year, Bethlehem. Bethlehem is house of bread, okay, because Beth means house, El means God, Bethel, house of God. Right? So it's a place, the house of God, and it's a place of God's special presence, but number two, the house of God is a place of the fear of God. Look if you would at verse 17. It says, and he was afraid, and said, how dreadful is this place? This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Now when we see the word dreadful, today, first of all, we probably just wouldn't use this word at all in 2024, but if people do think about this word, they might think of maybe an elderly woman saying like, oh, it's just so dreadful. That faithful word about this church is a dreadful place. Yes, you better know it's a dreadful place. It's the house of God. It ought to be dreadful, right? But see, sometimes when people would say dreadful in that context, they mean that, you know, there's something wrong with it, and this is the way our language has drifted because words like horrible, terrible, dreadful, now they just have a meaning of just something that's bad, okay? But if you look at the root of these words, dreadful comes from dread, horrible comes from horror, and terrible comes from terror, right? These are words that have to do with intense fear, okay? And this is why the Bible will talk about it, and the King James Version will talk about God being a terrible God. It doesn't mean like, oh, he's just terrible. It means he's a terrible God, meaning that he invokes terror. He's terrifying. He's worthy of our fear, and the Bible also says that the Lord should be our dread, okay? And again, this just has to do with extreme fear. It didn't have the same negative connotation when the Bible was translated into English as it does now, so we want to be aware that when the Bible says how dreadful is this place, we're talking about not just fear, but we're talking about dread. We're talking about extreme fear or intense fear, and the fear of God is something that is missing today from a lot of our churches. People have no fear of God, and this is also a New Testament concept. Of course, let's look at some verses from the New Testament. You can stay there in Genesis 28. That's where we'll be throughout the sermon, but for example, in Acts chapter 9 verse 31, the Bible reads, then had the churches rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified. So the churches are being edified, they're being built up, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied, right? So the churches are growing and thriving, why? Because they're walking in the fear of the Lord. Look, having fear of God means that you have a proper respect, and a proper understanding, and a proper reverence for who God is. You don't just treat God flippantly, like, ah, whatever, yeah, I guess God will do something. You actually fear and tremble before the God who created the universe, who holds your breath in His hand, who holds your fate and your destiny in His hand. You'd better serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Now some people will try to kind of take the teeth out of this word fear, and say, well, fearing God's just respecting God. Well, God could have just said respect. He could have just said reverence. Why does He say fear, well, I'll prove to you that fear really means fear, because it says fear and trembling. Trembling means that you're actually shaking with fear, and so you don't just shake out of respect, right? You shake out of literal fear, because guess what, fear means fear, dread means dread, and so forth. And so we want to have a proper fear of God, understanding what God is capable of, understanding that He holds our life in His hand, understanding that everything depends on being in His favor. Then we would have a fear of God, and church, the house of God, is supposed to be a place of the fear of God, right? It's a place where the preaching should put the fear of God into you, and where the fear of God should cause you to come and show up and treat this institution with respect, because you have proper respect and fear for God, you respect His house as well. The Bible says in Ephesians 5 21, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, and again, the context is the local church. Hebrews 12 28, wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, why? For our God is a consuming fire. Sounds like fear really means fear, because it says we're to serve Him with reverence and godly fear because our God is a consuming fire, that's why. And so the Bible is clear throughout both, I don't have time to turn to like literally a hundred verses on the fear of God, I just wanted to give you a little sampling there. So the house of God is a place of the fear of God. Now what did it mean though when it said that this is a dreadful place and this is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven. Why is Jacob saying that Bethel is the gate of heaven? Because we need to understand that when it comes to the house of God, it is not a place where God literally lives. Now pagan gods would have their temples that they supposedly literally lived in, whereas God is always clear in the Bible that He doesn't actually live there. For example in Acts chapter 7 verse 48 it says, howbeit the most high dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as saith the prophet. Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool, what house will you build me, saith the Lord? For what is the place of my rest, hath not my hand made all these things? And so what we need to understand is that the house of God is not a building. It's not a structure. It's not a building where God lives because God doesn't live anywhere. God inhabits the whole universe. Heaven is His throne. The earth is His footstool. You can't really build a house to contain Him. The Bible says in Acts 17, 24, God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worship with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He give it to all life and breath and all things. So not only does God not live in His physical house, it's not even a building, it's not even a structure, Jacob when he says this is God's house is literally outside. He's in a field with a pile of rocks and he says this is God's house. We today in the New Testament church, sure we're in a building right now, but we could literally move this entire assembly to the park a half mile south of here and it would still be the house of God. It would still be the church. Nothing spiritually would be different because it's not about the building. Also the church is not a place where we, you know, serve God with men's hands or something like that. It says He's not worship with men's hands as though He needed anything. So it's not like we have to feed Him and give Him something to drink and take care of Him. Like the pagans believe that they literally have to feed their God or do things for their God and that their God somehow is missing out if they don't take care of Him, right? If you read any, you know, Greek or Roman mythology or something, all of these gods, you know, they're really enjoying the worship and if they don't get the worship, it's like they're missing out on something and they're kind of like competing with each other who can give more worshipers and who gets more sacrifices and they're like, they're actually like eating it. Okay. Obviously God doesn't need anything from us, right? We go to church and worship the Lord, not in order to fill some need that He has. It's really more to fill our own need by coming to church and being blessed by God in that way and we're obedient by worshiping Him, but it's not a building. It's not physical, carnal actions that we perform. We don't have to do anything physical in order to serve God, right? It's just about spiritually being here, praising Him, listening to the preaching and so forth, praying, but it's not a physical building. So let's go back to Genesis 28. We said number one, the house of God is a place of God's special presence. Number two, the house of God is a place of the fear of God. Number three, the house of God is a portal to heaven, right? Because we talked about how it's the gate of heaven. It says in verse 12, he dreamed and behold a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached heaven and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. Now I would take this quite literally. I don't believe that this is just figurative or something like that. The Bible is really clear that angels really do exist and demons exist as well, by the way. The Bible talks about angels and there's a whole spiritual realm that's going on. There's a whole spiritual battle that's going on that we can't see with our eyes, but yet it is happening nonetheless. Okay. For example, when Elisha is with his servant and they're totally surrounded by an enemy army and Elisha and one other guy, two people, what does he say? He says, well, there are more with us than there are with them. It's more of us than there are them. And he's like, what? Can you count? But he says, Lord, open this young man's eyes that he may see. And he opens his eyes and just the whole hillside is filled with angels of God. And what does the Bible say? The angel of the Lord and campeth round about them that fear him. Okay. That is real. You say, are guardian angels real? Absolutely. They're real. Yes, for sure. Because the Bible says that God's angels are ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be the heirs of salvation. And so we are served and ministered unto by angels. We are protected by angels. The angel of the Lord campeth round about everybody. No, them that fear him. The angel of the Lord camps around them that fear him. You know, you go to church and you walk in the fear of the Lord and you worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. And the church is literally a portal to heaven with angels ascending and descending on it. And so, you know, you want to pick up some guardian angels, you've got to pick them up at church. This is the, this is the train station. All right. This is where they, this is grand central station for the Lord's host. I don't need church. I just, I just kind of do church at home. Sorry. Your, your home is not the portal to heaven. The house of God is the portal to heaven. That's what the Bible is teaching here in Genesis 28. The house of God is a place where angels ascend and descend upon the people of God. But number four, the house of God is the pillar and ground of the truth. Genesis 28, 18 says, Jacob rose up early in the morning and took the stone that he had put out for his pillows and set it up for a pillar and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. Now there's just so much symbolism just packed into these couple of verses, but of course we know from the New Testament, 1 Timothy 3.15, but if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God. And again, that has to do with the fear of God, right? Knowing how to behave yourself in the house of God because you have fear and respect for God's institution. But he says the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. So according to the New Testament, the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. So in Genesis, Jacob sets up a pillar to represent the house of God. And of course this pillar is made of stone because the stone represents the word of God, right? Being built upon the rock. Now you should turn to this one, Matthew chapter seven, you don't have to, but Genesis 28 is where we'll be. But Matthew chapter seven, of course, Jesus' famous parable about the wise man who built his house upon the rock. Okay. The rock is the word of God. And what's interesting is that Jacob used the stones as pillows and you might look at that and say, that doesn't seem like a very soft pillow, right? He used a stone for a pillow. Okay. But if you stop and think about it, the stone represents the word of God, right? The pillar and ground of the truth. He sets up the stones as a pillar because he's lifting up truth. He's lifting up the word of God because the church, the house of God is a place where God's word is proclaimed. But not only that, is that we as God's people, we also find great comfort in the scriptures, the Bible says, right? And so other people might look at it and be like, that's not very comforting. That rock doesn't look very comforting. You know, they got their little fluffy pillow called fornication, drunkenness, right, gambling, all this cheap entertainment and stupidity that people, you know, and this is all their little pillows and everything. God's people, we look at the stone of God's word and say, that's comfortable right there. And you know what drives me nuts? Beds that are too soft. Drives me nuts. This is the one thing I hate about traveling. My mattress at home is nice and firm. But it seems like everywhere I go, every hotel room, everywhere I go is these super soft mattresses. I wake up, my back's hurting and everything. Maybe I'm just getting old. But I wake up and my back is sore because they don't provide support. I'd almost rather sleep on the floor than these super ultra soft mattresses. You know what else drives me nuts? Soft pillows. You put your head on it and you just sink in. And you just hit bottom right away. It's like, no, no, no. I want a firm pillow, right? If I were at the store buying a pillow and they have like soft, medium, hard, grab the hard one. You know, if they have a stone, I'll take it. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, the point is that God's word, yeah, God's word has some hard things. It's hard, but God's people are comforted by, we use that thing as a pillow, man. We're comforted by hard preaching. We're comforted by the hard things that the word of God says. But the stone is the word of God. Look what the Bible says in Matthew 7, 24, therefore whosoever hearth these sayings of mine and doeth them. Jesus is talking about the stuff that he says, also known as the word of God, right? Jesus is speaking, of course, the word of God. And so he says, whosoever hearth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And so if you're building your life upon the word of God, you're doing the things of the word of God, then you're like a wise man who built his house on the rock, right? And who remembers the song? Those of you who grew up in church, you know, the wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house upon the rock. Who grew up singing that song? All right. Way less than half of people. Well, you know what? That's because most of you didn't grow up in church, but that's good. I'm glad you're here now. And so the wise man built his house upon the rock and the rains came a tumbling down. I don't know. I feel like I need to teach you the whole song now. Rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. But the house on the rock stood firm, but the foolish man built his house upon the sand. The foolish man built his house upon the sand. The foolish man built his, or no, I think we would go like this. The foolish man built his house upon the sand. Foolish man built his. And the rains came a tumbling down. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. And the house on the sand went SPLAT! So build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ. Build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ. Build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessings will come down. The blessings will come down as the prayers go up. Alright, that's enough. You get the idea. I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere. Well it is now. So it says the rain descended, verse 25, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock. Now I've got bad news for you. Life is going to beat on you. This is not a maybe. It doesn't matter whether you build it on the rock or whether you build it on the sand. Life is going to chew you up and spit you out. This is the reality. You know, young people are like, uh, yeah, yeah, right. Uh, yeah, it will. Okay, the world and life and circumstances and calamities are going to beat on you. It's not going to be a little drizzle. It's not going to be a sprinkle. It's going to be beating upon you. And if you're founded on the rock, you will still be standing at the end of the barrage that will inevitably come. Whereas if you're on the sand, look what the Bible says, you're going to crash and burn. It says in verse 26, everyone that here at these sayings of mine and do it them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell. Don't miss it. And great was the fall of it, right? I mean, you will just crash and burn marvelously if you hear these sayings of mine and do them not. You know, it's one thing to not really hear the word of God much and then not do it because you didn't really hear it much or maybe you just heard a little bit, but when you're sitting there hearing the sayings of Jesus Christ, when you're going to a church like ours and hearing biblical preaching and you're growing up around the word of God and church and the things of God, boy, you are going to crash and burn big time if you do not do what Christ taught in the scripture. And so again, I'm just showing you this, that the rock represents God's word. The church is supposed to be founded upon the rock and the church is all supposed to lift up the rock and be a pillar of the truth, meaning that it holds it up, lifts it up, shows it to the world and so forth. Back to Genesis 28 if you would. So we said number four, the house of God's the pillar and ground of the truth. It's really amazing how much is packed into Genesis 28 with all the symbolism that's there. You know, the oil being poured upon the pillar has to do with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit because the oil represents the Holy Spirit and so forth. And then, you know, the wine that's poured out on it represents the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for the church. You know, we could go on and on with all the symbolism, but I'm just trying to give you some practical things here from Genesis 28. The next thing I want to point out to you is that the house of God is a place of decision. It's a place where decisions are made. The Bible says in verse 20 there, and Jacob vowed a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee. And what we see here is that first of all, Jacob is content with food and raiment, right? The Bible says having food and raiment, let us be there with content. And so he says, look, God, if you take care of me, if I have food to eat, if I have clothes on my back, then the Lord's going to be my God and I'm going to worship him at the house of God and I'm going to give one tenth unto the Lord. So he's making this, he's at the house of God and he's not just seeing a vision, hearing the voice of God, hearing the word of God and just saying, oh, that's cool. That's interesting. No, he goes away making a decision. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do something. We come to church and we hear the preaching of God's word. We should walk away on a mission. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to pray, right? I'm going to love my neighbor as myself. I'm going to do good and not evil, right? I'm going to do right according to God's word. I am going to learn how to win souls to Christ or whatever, whatever the need is. You walk away with a decision of what you're going to do, not just listen to the show, but you'd rather be a doer of the word and not a hearer only. And the sixth point that I want to make, the specific decision that he makes, he says, I will give one 10th unto the Lord. Right? And so the house of God is also a place of tithing, right? Tithing. Another word for tithing is just giving a 10th, giving the 10th part. And of course this is already mentioned back in Genesis chapter 14 when Abraham defeats the King Kedorlaomer and these other Kings of the Canaanites and Melchizedek who represents Jesus Christ shows up and Abraham gives to Melchizedek tithes of all. He gives him one 10th. And so you don't have to turn there, but Malachi chapter three verse eight says, will a man rob God yet you have robbed me. But you say wherein have we robbed thee in tithes and offerings. You're cursed with a curse for you've robbed me, even this whole nation. And here's the part I want to focus on. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in my house. So notice that the storehouse is also called my house with God speaking, right? God says, bring the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in my house and prove me now. Prove means test me now herewith sayeth the Lord of hosts. If I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast or fruit before the time in the field, sayeth the Lord of hosts and all nations shall call you blessed for you shall be a delightsome land, sayeth the Lord of hosts. So the idea here is that if you give one 10th unto the Lord, God's going to pour out blessings upon you. You're going to be able to do better on 90% than you would be able to do on a hundred percent is the idea here. And the Bible says here, bring the tithes into the storehouse that there be meat in my house. This particular doctrine is often called storehouse tithing because you'll have a lot of TV preachers, evangelists, radio preachers that will basically try to get people to send their tithe somewhere other than the local church. So they'll try to get them to send the tithe to just some, you know, Kenneth Copeland ministries or you know, uh, Greg Laurie ministries or just, I don't know. I don't even know who that is to be honest, but some guy that I get his junk in the mail and throw it away, but you know, just, just these kind of send it to Billy Graham ministries or whatever. And the idea is just, you've got these people that are just on TV saying, Oh, you just send your tithe wherever you just give your tithe wherever. It's just, you know, you just give it to anybody who's doing the work of the Lord. So that's, you know, some televangelist with a private jet and a Louis Vuitton belt or whatever. And so the idea here is that the tithes are to be brought into the storehouse so that there may be meat in God's house. So the doctrine of storehouse tithing says that tithing goes to the church, the house of God, not just to random quote unquote ministries. And we have so many para church ministries out there, but what's the institution that God has designed for his work? It's the church. You know, all these other ministries out there doing their thing. Isn't what God originally intended. His original intent was the church, you know, and you also just have a lot of people that are just making a video, you know, out in the woods or something. I don't know. And maybe in Maine or something, but they're out in the woods making a video and you know, that's their ministry or whatever, and you give unto them or whatever. You know, nah, man, God wants us involved in the local church. And yeah, I love listening to preaching online, you know, and, and, and, uh, all of us listen to preaching online probably or many of us. And I know I was listening to preaching online back when it was dial up internet. So I mean, I've, I've been a long time listener of preaching online. I was downloading stuff that took hours to download super low quality. And so listening to, but, but you know what? I was downloading preaching from churches. You know what I mean? I wasn't, it wasn't just kind of just randos preaching the word of God. It was actually pastors. It was actually men of God from churches and so forth. So I don't want to go off on that, but I just wanted to say that also according to Genesis 28, the church, the place of tithing, the house of God is a place of tithing because he's at the house of God. When he says, I'm going to give a 10th unto the Lord, obviously that's what's being symbolized for. But number seven, the house of God should be treated with respect. We talked about this earlier, but if you would flip over to Genesis 35, Genesis chapter 35, I said we're going to be in Genesis 28, but 28, 35, what's the difference, right? It's all Genesis and it's all about Bethel, but look at Genesis chapter 35 verse one. It says, and God said unto Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou flattest from the face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household and to all that were with him, watch this, Genesis 35 to put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean and change your garments. Why? Because we're going to Bethel. Let us arise and go to Bethel. So going to the house of God, he says, hey, all right, want everybody to get rid of your weird little Buddha necklaces and all of your strange gods or whatever junk you have and we want you to get clean and want you to put on clean clothes and we're going to go to Bethel. So he's treating this place with respect, understanding that it's a dreadful place. Okay. Now obviously there's a symbolic meaning here. When the Bible says to be clean, it could also just be referring to, you know, cleaning up your life as it were and, uh, you know, getting things right now, like nobody's perfect. Nobody's sinless. Nobody's perfect. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, right? No, there's not a just man upon the earth that do with good and sin is not right. We all are imperfect in that way, but there should be an effort to clean yourself up both physically and spiritually. Okay. What does the Bible say? In Corinthians chapter seven verse one, you don't have to turn there. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. This is a process of perfecting holiness. It's a process of cleansing ourselves of the filth of the flesh and of the spirit. There should be an effort made. We don't want to be a come as you are, stay as you came kind of church, right? The whole point of church is that it's supposed to be transformative and you know, you should already be trying to clean your act up when you even show up at church. You shouldn't just show up at church and you're just in gross sin and you just don't even care. You know what always cracks me up? This is what's always funny to me. I always find this hilarious is that there'll be some person who's been to church like a thousand times or literally been to church three thousand times or something, right? And they're just out, not right with God, not living for the Lord, and often even doing things that the Bible says are things that would get you kicked out of the church, like fornication, drunkenness, things like that. And there's this fascination with, oh, if we can just get this person to church, if we can just get this person in church and whatever, and I'm just thinking to myself, you know what, church is not going to do this person any good if there's no effort made to change or any kind of an effort made to be receptive to what's going on at church. And I'm just thinking to myself, this person's already heard two thousand sermons and look at the way they're living. They've heard a hundred sermons against alcohol and they're drinking. They've heard a hundred sermons against gambling and they're gambling, whatever, you know, they've heard a thousand sermons about fornication and they're fornicating. And then it's like, oh, we just get them to church, it's going to fix everything. No, my friend, because it's, you know, the word preached is not going to profit you unless it's mixed with faith in the hearers. And even if you're saved, but you're not interested in living for God and you just don't care, dragging people to church that don't care isn't really going to do anything for them. Unless maybe they're a person who hasn't really been to a real church before, you know, you might drag some worldly heathen buddy and drag him into church because, you know, and he's a drunk and a fornicator, drag that guy in. We want to drag that guy in and get him under the preaching of God's word, let him experience it. But I'm talking about people who've already been a Christian for years. They've already lived for God. They've already served God and now they're super backslidden and living in fornication and living in drunkenness. They shouldn't even be allowed to attend church. Why would we be begging some backslidden drunk to come to church? They shouldn't even be allowed to attend. The Bible says we should have no fellowship with someone who's called a brother who's a drunkard. Isn't that what the Bible says? I mean I didn't make that up. That's 1 Corinthians chapter 5, with such a one, know not to eat, put away from among yourselves that wicked person, have no company with someone who's called a brother who's a fornicator, drunkard, etc. So I don't understand the fascination with dragging some backslidden drunkard to get him back in church or something. No, man, he's not even welcome. Okay, clean up your act. Okay, now look, again, we're not talking about perfect people, right? But you know there's a big difference between being perfect and being a drunk or living in open fornication or something like that. You see what I'm saying? The Bible clearly says that these things are not allowed. And so the house of God needs to be treated with respect, right? And part of respecting that is this idea of put away the strange gods, right, and clean up yourself physically and spiritually. And obviously it's a process, obviously we're all growing, but you should care about the things of God if you're going to show up to church and expect to get anything out of it. Right? If you just show up here and you just don't even care, it's probably not going to do anything for you anyway, especially if you're a backslidden Christian. Now look, again, heathen, worldly people who don't care, yeah, let's drag them in, maybe they'll start caring. But you know, these backslidden Christians, they should know better anyway. And by the way, when someone is church disciplined, when someone's thrown out of the church and then they just kind of just go to another church, it kind of just defeats the purpose of what church discipline even is, you know? And I'm not just talking about people just leave on bad terms or something. I mean, I'm talking about people who are literally kicked out of the church, like for something like drunkenness or fornication or railing or something where they commit serious sins and they are kicked out. They're delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, and then they just go to another fundamental Baptist church. It's always hilarious to me when other fundamental Baptist churches just take these people in. They're just like a, what do they call it with the illegal immigrants, like a sanctuary city or something for all the rejects, for all the people that are under the curse of God, for all the people who've been rejected by the local church. They just go to their little sanctuary city Baptist or whatever. But the Bible says that they clean themselves up, they clean and change their garments. We can also look at the literal and say, hey, take a shower before you come to church or put on clean clothes. Now look, here's the thing. I'm up here wearing a shirt and tie right now. This is not something that I have to wear. It's not something that you have to wear at all, right? There's no rules about what clothes you have to wear to go to church. So a lot of people wonder, well, why do you wear a shirt and tie or why do I see people wearing a shirt and tie or button up shirt or at least dress kind of business casual or whatever. Why do I see people dress kind of nice? It's really just a sign of respect. They're just putting on nice clothes to come to church because it's an event for them, right? Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, it's an event for us. So we put on something nice and whatever just to show respect and again, not saying you need to wear a tie. Before I was a pastor, I didn't even wear a tie. I just wear like a polo shirt or whatever, but I still dress nice. You know what I didn't do? I didn't come to church wearing my pajamas, right? I didn't get into like Walmart at 2 a.m. mode and come to church and we've had people at our church who just consistently come to church in their pajamas and I'm just thinking to myself, you know, not really a shock when this person is later disrespectful to the church, disrespectful to the house of God and ends up crashing and burning spiritually. Why? Because they're, they're apparently not really taking things that seriously. And again, I'm not up here being legalistic and telling you, hey, you got to wear certain clothes or you know, you got to do this or do that. I'm not, look, I don't want you to go out and buy new clothes or something. I don't care. I'm not into buying clothes. I'm not into nice things. I'm not into nice clothes at all anyway, but here's what I am saying though. You know, think about the fact that, hey, we're going somewhere important and whatever that means to you, then do that. Okay. Because I guarantee you that if you were going to go meet the president of the United States, maybe two and a half months from now or whatever, you'd dress nice, right? If you were going to a graduation, if you're going to a wedding, if you're going to a funeral, you know, don't come dressing all black or anything, but I'm saying like if you were going to show up somewhere that was special or even, even just, let's say you're going to go out to dinner with your wife and it's kind of a special night, you might dress up a little bit or whatever. That's all we're doing up here, folks. That's all this is. This isn't some kind of a rule. This isn't some kind of a manmade tradition or something. No, man. You know, I could walk down the street this way and nobody's going to think I'm clergy, right? I don't have people coming up to me at the airport saying like, oh, excuse me, father, you know, cause I'm just wearing a shirt and tie. For all they know, I could be a Buddhist or a Hindu or an atheist or whatever. Okay. Why? Because this is just normal American clothing. This is just, I didn't have to go to a special store to buy this with like a cross on the logo or something. I just went to a normal department store. I'm pretty sure it was JC Penny. It might've been Kohl's, you know? Because I was traveling, otherwise it would've been the thrift store, but I was in a hurry when I bought it. So it was JC Penny, whatever, hey, it was on sale. But the point is, everything's always on sale at these places, high, low pricing, right? Don't get me started. But the point is that I'm just wearing normal clothes. You should wear normal clothes, but you should just be looking nice and not just be like dressing up all nice for your little night out with the girls or night out with the guys or whatever and you're putting a bunch of effort into going to a sporting event or going to a wedding or a graduation and then you just come to church and you're just looking like you just rolled out of bed, right? It just, again, it's not about what you're wearing. It's really just about the mentality that says, well, this isn't important. This thing over here that I do is important. This thing over here is important, but church is just not important. So I'm just going to just be a slob about it. Well, I'm not going to be a slob about it. And you know what? You say, well, it's hard to make a big deal about church when it comes three times a week. But you know what? For me, I go to church three times a week for decades and it still is an event for me. It's an event in our house. It's a church day. We're going to church. It's an event. Treat it as something big because it is something big. I got to hurry for sake of time. But number eight, the house of God is a place of answered prayer, right? Because God's house was said that it would be a house of prayer for all nations. And that is a prophecy about the New Testament church. And so it's a place of answered prayer. Look at Genesis 35 where you are there in verse three, let us arise and go up to Bethel and I will make there an altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distress and was with me in the way which I went. And so for Jacob, literally, Bethel was a place of answered prayer in his life. And you can turn there if you want. Matthew chapter 18, we already quoted from it earlier, but Matthew 18 verse 17 says, if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. This is talking about throwing people out of the church again, excommunicating people. First Corinthians five is the big one. Matthew 18 is another one. And then in respect to that, it says, verily I say unto you, verse 18, whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father, which is in heaven. This is the one we quoted earlier for where two or three are gathered together in my name. There am I in the midst of them. So church is a place of God's special presence. And therefore it is also a place of answered prayer because if two people agree as touching anything and they pray that to the Lord, then God says that he'll hear that prayer. He'll answer that prayer. Okay. In order for you to do this, you would have to share what that prayer request is with someone else. So obviously we do most of our praying on our own. What does the Bible say? When thou prayest, enter into thy closet. When thou shut thy door, pray to thy father, which is in secret. So most of our praying we do on our own, but if you actually can team up with somebody in prayer and say, hey, this is what I'm praying for. Let's pray for this together. And they say, okay, I agree with you. Let's pray for that together. You know, there's power in that. And then if the whole church agrees on something and prays, there's power in that. Okay. And so this is why I'm not necessarily a fan of the unspoken prayer request because how can I agree with something I have no idea what I'm praying? It could be something stupid and I don't, you know, I don't want to get in on that. I don't want to be part of that. And again, I understand a lot of good people, their hearts in the right place, but it isn't really biblical. The whole point of praying as a church or praying as a group or praying with other people, the whole point is that we are supposed to agree on something and, and, and, and obviously some things are left better unsaid. So don't, don't say, oh, well, I got to just say all these embarrassing things because pastor Anderson said, unspoken prayer requests don't exist. So I have to just reveal all this dirty laundry. No, no, no. Those are the things you pray for on your own. Tell it to Jesus alone. But things that are appropriate to be discussed publicly, things that are acceptable to be brought up publicly that are not, you know, derogatory about other people or, you know, you know, like, oh yeah, pray for brother so-and-so he's kind of backslidden or whatever. You know, just, you don't want to use this as like a passive aggressive way to criticize people. You know, pray for sister so-and-so she's been a real jerk lately or whatever, you know, I don't know what's wrong with her, but she's clearly going through some stuff. So based on the way she's acting all the time with a bad attitude, let's pray for whatever that is. Let's make it an unspoken. But the point is that when we have a need, right, and we can share that with someone at the local church, even if it's just one other person and two people agree on that prayer request and then pray, right, that is special. That's actually getting more prayer power. Or if the whole church prays for something, right, then that obviously is going to have more oomph behind it. And in fact, let's stop the sermon right now and let's pray right now for our people that are in Jamaica right now, right? We have like 30 some of our people in Jamaica right now doing soul winning and a big Jamaica missions trip. And so I think it was like 31 or 33 people over there or something. And so it's exciting. But let's pray for them right now as a church. Let's all bow our heads. Let's all agree. And let's all pray right now. Dear Lord, we pray that you would please just bless the Jamaica mission strip, Lord. And please just give everyone safety, keep everyone healthy and strong so that they can do their best preaching the gospel. And Lord God, please just prepare the hearts of people over in Jamaica that they'd be ready to receive the gospel. Please just help all the time wasters to just be busy and not around and just take them out of the way, Lord, so that our team could actually get to the people that are actually interested in the gospel. Please help the soul winners with clarity of mind and boldness to do a good and thorough job and preach the gospel. And Lord help many people to be saved as a result of this great trip. And also Lord, just bless everyone with a good time and health and safety and help it to be something that they would want to repeat. And Lord God, we ask these blessings in Christ's name. Amen. You know, and that that's, that's powerful. That's more powerful than just praying on our own, right? Because all of us are here. We're all in agreement. We all are asking God to do this. And so God says that if two of you shall agree on earth is touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father, which is in heaven. Uh, quickly point number nine, the house of God is a place of transformation. Look at Genesis 35 again, where you were Genesis chapter 35. It says in verse six. So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan. That is Bethel. He and all the people that were with him and he built there an altar and called the place El Bethel. Now remember, what does Bethel mean? If you don't know this, you haven't listened at all. I don't even know why you're here. If you don't know what this means, Bethel means the house of God is what the whole sermons about, right? This is the house part. El is the God part. So what do you think this means El Bethel, right? This is like the God of Bethel. Okay. So it's basically the specific God that is associated with Bethel. Okay. Because there are a lot of gods out there, right? There are a lot of people out there that are called gods or Lords, false gods, false Lords, right? But then there's, we always say this, the God of the Bible, because in the Bible they'll say something like the God of Abraham, because they're trying to figure out, okay, which God are we talking about here? We're not just talking about any old God, we're talking about the Hindu God. We're talking about the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. We will often say the God of the Bible, because if it's not the God described in the Bible, you got the wrong God, right? It's got to be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because if you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father. If Jesus isn't involved, we're not talking about the same God. And so this is the God of Bethel, the God of the house of God, right? And so it says, because there God appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his brother, and Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak, and the name of it was called Alanbakut, and God appeared unto Jacob again when he came out of Padan Aram and blessed him, and God said unto him, thy name is Jacob, thy name shall not be called anymore Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name, and he called his name Israel. So it's a place of transformation, right? Where Jacob is being transformed into Israel, okay? It's a place where we should leave changed, right? And this also has to do with making a decision, right? And getting right with God and cleaning up our act as a result of being in church. God said unto him, I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply, a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins, and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land. And God went up from him in the place where he talked with him, and Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone, and he poured a drink offering thereon and he poured oil thereon, and Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Bethel. And my last point is this, I'll quickly review the nine points and then I'm going to give you the final tenth point. Number one, the house of God is a place of God's special presence. Number two, the house of God is a place of the fear of God. Number three, the house of God is a portal to heaven. Number four, the house of God is the pillar and ground of the truth. Number five, the house of God is a place of decision. Number six, the house of God is a place of tithing. Number seven, the house of God should be treated with respect. Number eight, the house of God is a place of answered prayer. Number nine, the house of God is a place of transformation. And then the last point I want to make is this, every so-called church is not actually the house of God. Everything that's called church is not actually the house of God. And the last place we'll turn is 1 Kings chapter 12 to prove this point. 1 Kings chapter 12. And by the way, if God's house is a house of blessings and God's presence and being equipped and being blessed with being fruitful and being safe and having the food and the clothing and the things that we need, if it's a place of cleaning up our lives, if it's a place of answered prayer, if it's a portal to heaven where the angels of God are ascending and descending literally upon God's people, if it is that important, can you imagine the foolishness of just getting out of church and just saying, well, you know, I'm just busy right now. You know, I remember decades ago a family member telling me, well, you know, life has different seasons and right now I'm just in a season where I'm just working on my career and I'm just working on family and whatever. And so I've just, I haven't been to church in two months. That's garbage. There's no season for not going to church. And this thing of saying like, well, and I remember then later, then a few years later, there was a pastor in the area who got burned out on pastoring. And so, you know, he decided he's going to stop pastoring and it's, yeah, I get that. But here's the thing. He said, well, I'm just not going to go to church anywhere for the next couple months because I'm just going to focus on my family and just kind of just, you know, relax and take a break. What is that? What is that? Right? Go to church. Why would you not want to tap into the spiritual blessings of church? Why would you not want to be at the portal of heaven? Why would you not want to be in the house of God? Why would you not want to be where the power is, where the blessings are? And you know what? If you want your life to crash and burn, the best, fastest way to do it is to get out of church. I've seen people that are doing well, you know, both from a secular perspective and a spiritual perspective. They're doing well in their lives. Everything's going great. And then I notice that they stop going to church or they scale it back to where they're going like twice a month. They're showing up at church like twice a month. That's not enough. And they'll get to the point where this person's just, life just becomes a train wreck and it just gets worse and worse and they get worse and worse spiritually. Look, let me tell you something. When I was growing up, our family had its ups and downs in my own personal life. I've had my ups and downs, but let me tell you something. We have always stayed in church. My parents always went to church. It doesn't matter what's going on as far as, you know, in their lives. They never went through some season of no church. I'm not saying they never missed church for being sick or vacation or something. Obviously, you know, you shouldn't miss church for vacation. But the point is that they would always go to church and they ingrained this in us too that basically like even if you're in a bad place spiritually, even if you're not feeling it, even if you're going through hard times or especially if you're going through hard times or if you're struggling in other areas, you know, it's just the least you can do is drag your butt down to church and just sit there for an hour and a half. That's a week? Three times a week? Drag yourself down here and just sit there. And you know what? Just sit here and just frown all, you know. But man, at least get to church. Now if you're a fornicating drunk, don't come to church, idiot. Get right with God. But I'm talking about people who are just maybe just struggling or backslidden or, you know, but they're not to those levels of just off the deep end, okay? You know what? Drag yourself to church. Why? Because I'm telling you, people who get out of church, I've seen, look, I've been doing this for a long time, my friend. First of all, I've been in church since I was born, okay? I was born at 1611 in the afternoon and I've been in church the whole time. And the thing is I got saved as a six-year-old boy. I've been a Christian. I've been in church. I know what's up. I've pastored a church for, what is this going to be, 19 years? This month? So I've been a pastor for 19 years and I have seen people that they are doing good, they're fine and then they get out of church and you just watch their life go down a downward spiral. It is the worst move to get out of church. Actually there's one thing that's worse than getting out of church, getting kicked out of the church is worse because then not only do you not have the blessings of the church, you're actually under the curse of the church, you know. You better fix that immediately. If I were thrown out of the church for one of the things that the Bible says or for being a railer or a back-biter or, you know, offending God's people in an irreconcilable way or being a drunk or... Man, I would be... I wouldn't even want to go to sleep without fixing that. I would want to fix that so fast, okay? And then aside from that though, what about people who just kind of just get bored with church, they just get a little spiritually cold and they just kind of drift away, fade away, pretty soon they go from three times a week to three times a month to two times a month to once a month out of church, get ready to be on a spiritual decline and it's going to happen fast because I've seen... and I'm speaking from experience, I've seen it over the last 19 years and I'm not talking about bad people, I'm talking about good people, solid people. Look around the auditorium and think about some of the people in the auditorium that you think of right now, that they are some of the most solid people in our church, people that are really into soul winning, people that are really dedicated, people that are really on fire for the Lord, right? And I mean, you don't have to look far, there's a lot of people like that at our church. I've known people like that and they were not fake, they were not Judas, I mean people that are legitimately on fire for God, great people, great church members, a huge asset to the church and I mean, you're just thinking to yourself, hey, this guy may even be a pastor someday and you know, and you're just looking at these people just thinking about how solid they are and yet in 19 years of pastoring, I could list a whole bunch of people like this and I'm talking about saved good people who just got out of church for whatever reason, they just faded away and you're like, what in the world? This guy? Her? Him? Are you serious? Hey, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Statistically it's going to be some of you, just statistically speaking, if experience is a guide, there are going to be some good, godly, righteous, so many people in here who just kind of just peter out and then, you know, you'll be a sermon illustration, not by name but you'll be in this kind of a vague thing like I'm doing right now but I have specific people in mind, people that were awesome people, you know, and one of them just faded away, no reason. Another one got back into drinking and just ruined everything and I mean, this guy was pastor material. I'm like, what in the world is going on? Do not get out of church, okay? But the final point is this, every so-called church is not actually the house of God. I'm not going to read it for sake of time. I had you turn there but in verses 28 and 29 here is the famous story about Jeroboam, how he set up idols instead of going to Jerusalem where the real house of God was, right? Instead of Jerusalem where the real house of God is, he sets up two idols in the northern kingdom of Israel. He sticks one of them in Dan. Now why does he put it in Dan? Because he knew that idolatry is going to be successful in Dan because Dan was an idolatrous tribe from day one. From day one when Dan was founded, they were founded on idolatry in the book of Judges and that's why the Bible even says when he set up one in Dan and one in Bethel, it says, man, the people really went after the one in Dan. The one in Dan was a success but why did he choose Bethel for the second golden calf? Because of the name. Because the name is the house of God. So because the name is called Bethel, the house of God, he knew he could trick people that are more into just the geography or the name of the place into thinking that that's actually the house of God when in reality, God said in the law, in Deuteronomy, that there would be a place where the Lord would choose to put his name there. It's not Bethel. Bethel had already been talked about. Bethel had already been mentioned throughout Genesis. He says, no, there's going to be a place that is going to be chosen for the Lord to put his name there. That place is Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a place where men ought to worship. Jesus also schooled the woman at the well on that, the salvation of the Jews, Jerusalem is the place, Samaritans are off base. And here's the thing about that, is that because Bethel was called the house of God, because that's what Bethel means, a lot of people got sucked in by it. And so we got to make sure that we realize not everything that's called Jesus is really the Jesus of the Bible, because the Bible says there's another Jesus in 2 Corinthians 11, right? And not everything that's called Baptist Church is actually a house of God. Right? And so we want to make sure that the house of God is actually a pillar and ground of the truth. So, you know, at a minimum, what are we looking for? We want the right Bible and we want the right gospel. I mean, that's like minimum. Right Bible, right gospel, and if at all possible, soul winning. You know what I mean? Because if, you know, if you're in, if you're really hard up, like people that are online or something, or maybe you're visiting here today from another town. If you're super hard up, desperate, then you just have to just go with right Bible, right gospel. You know, that's, that's, that's all you can hope for sometimes. And the right gospel is salvation by grace through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast. Okay. But, if it's, if there's, if you're in a big city, big town that has options, then you need to make sure that it's right Bible, right gospel, and soul winning. Right? Soul winning. That's what it's all about. And so I want to make sure that we actually go to an actual real house of God because there are a lot of false prophets that have gone out into the world and there are a lot of fake churches and, and, and places where it's not a house of God that are masquerading as a house of God, just like Jeroboam was doing with the golden calf. Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the church, Lord. Thank you for giving us a place where we can go, uh, three times a week and be spiritually refreshed. Lord, I can't even count how many times I've been in a bad mood, upset, depressed, uh, not, not in a spiritual mindset. And I came to church and just right away, the spirit of the place, uh, renewed me, Lord. Help me, Lord, as a pastor to preach the best possible sermons that I can from your word and Lord help all of us as we come to your house, be filled with the spirit, Lord, and understand the, the, the dread of this place, the wonder of this place, the awesomeness of this place, Lord, not because it's a physical place, but because it's your house and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. If you would, please pray for him. We'll sing our last song for this morning. Song number 424. Song number 424. O come all ye faithful. Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant Oh, come ye, oh, come ye, to Bethlehem Oh, come ye, oh, come ye, to Bethlehem Come and behold Him, born by King of Angels Oh, come, let us adore Him Oh, come, let us adore Him Oh, come, let us adore Him in Christ the Lord Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation Oh, sing in all ye kind, most of heaven's call Glory to God, all glory in the highest Oh, come, let us adore Him Oh, come, let us adore Him Oh, come, let us adore Him in Christ the Lord Yea, Lord, we greet Thee For this happy morning Jesus, to Thee, we all glory give Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing Oh, come, let us adore Him Oh, come, let us adore Him Oh, come, let us adore Him in Christ the Lord Great singing this morning, you're dismissed.