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you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you on the verse you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you gone wrong Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Amen. Brother Keith, can you open us up in a word of prayer, please? Sure. Lord, thank you for this time of getting out and spreading your gospel. Thank you for the salvation this afternoon and for every day from henceforth. Lord, we just ask you to turn their hearts, Father, to you and that you turn your heart to them, Lord, because of your great love for all of us. We thank you for this great salvation. Father, I just pray for Pastor Dave as he gets up and gives the word, Lord, that you would fill him with your Holy Spirit and, Father, that you would give us ears to meet him. And we thank you and ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Take your song once again and turn to song 196. I will sing the wondrous story. Song 196 on the first. I will sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me, how he left his holy glory for the cross of Calvary. Yes, I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me, singing with the saints in glory, gathered by the crystal sea. I was lost when Jesus found me, found the sheep that went astray. Through his loving arms around me, drew me back into his way. Yes, I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me, singing with the saints in glory, gathered by the crystal sea. I was bruised when Jesus healed me. Faith was I from day to fall. Sight was gone and fears possessed me. God, he freed me from them all. Yes, I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me, singing with the saints in glory, gathered by the crystal sea. Days of darkness, still no morning, sorrows past my often trend. But the Savior still is with me, by his hand I safely lend. Yes, I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me, singing with the saints in glory, gathered by the crystal sea. He will keep me till the river holds its waters at my feet. Then he'll bear me safely over where the loved ones I shall meet. Yes, I'll sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me, singing with the saints in glory, gathered by the crystal sea. Amen. All right, great singing this evening. At this time, we're going to go through our announcements. If you do not have a bulletin, slip your hand up real high, and our usher will get one for you. If you open up to the first page, you will see our service time. It's listed there as always Sunday morning at 1030 Sunday evening and at 5 o'clock. Wednesday night seven is our Bible study. We will resume our Bible study. Galatians chapter three this week. Great chapter. Don't want to miss this chapter. Come on out for that, for our midweek service. We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there. As well as the salvations and the baptisms for the month of May as well as for the year. So let's go ahead and count up the salvations for today. If you had any salvations today, slip your hand up real quick. We'll get those counted. Okay, hold on. One, four, seven, eight, nine, ten. And how many? Okay. Wait, for both of you? Hold on. Hands up again. Now I got confused. I lost count. One person from each group. Please raise your hand and put up the number of salvations, please. Very good. Thank you. Eleven salvations for today. Praise the Lord. We need accurate counts here. We don't want to just overdo it here. Is there any other numbers to report for other days during the week that we missed? All right. Very good. Keep up the good work preaching the gospel. Down at the bottom of the page we have the offering totals received through the month of May. I received an update here for our prayer list. This is for brother DJ's grandmother, Debbie Pulser. She'll be doing therapy, walking exercises. She continues to see her pulmonary specialists. And after seeing the getting therapy and exercises, she seems to have more aches and pains, but I guess... I wasn't sure exactly what she was doing. I guess before she was just seeing the daily checkups to see how the medicine was doing, but now she's doing... It's a little more intensive. And for her it's more involved, and obviously it's going, but like walking and everything, and she feels like the day after, usually she'll notice aches and pains. Yeah. Well, that makes sense, though, if you're doing more and kind of exerting yourself a little bit more to have that... The main thing with the update, and maybe just in addition, is just with that in mind, as she does this, that it helps, and also she's able to not have pain. Right, right, right. Work through the pain and hopefully actually build in a normal way to be able to do more. You're making her do it, right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Very good. Thank you for that update. We heard about Rob's father this morning. The surgery went well. We'll wait for a follow-up on that. Any other updates? We heard Cindy's sister is doing well. There's no infection, and she continues to heal, so we're looking for full healing on that wound. Anyone else? All right. Well, continuing on with the announcements here. Of course, on the next page, the church camp was just a lot of fun. It was great. Everyone had a good time. A little exhausting, maybe, for some people. I'm a little exhausted, but I'm just getting old, I think, because this is for the younger crowd. You guys can just keep going and going and going, I guess. But we had a great time. I had a great time. It was a lot of fun. I know the kids had a blast, so we're going to continue doing this for as long as we can. Thank you again to everyone. Many, many, many people really put forth a lot of effort, not just any one person. A lot of people put forth a lot of effort to make sure that this camp was a lot of fun. All the volunteers, all the people who brought stuff, all the people that helped out and just cleaned and did all kinds of extra work behind the scenes, thank you so much for all the hard work. We really appreciate it. We made this trip awesome, and already thinking about next year. I'm going to try to get together a good little promo video. It's like a recap of events from this year. If you have some good shots, don't do a photo dump on me. Give me some, like, I mean, some people take a lot of pictures. I don't. If you have some pictures from some activities that were going on, because obviously I couldn't be everywhere anyways, if you took some pictures, if you don't mind just sharing me a few photos maybe, what you think to be, some really nice ones to be able to include. Give me the highest res photo that you have, because I want to try to make a video, and I'll probably have some stills and some within the video. And if you have video, again, I don't necessarily want, like, an entire recording of, like, the kids' field day or something. But if you have some segments or something that you think are just, are good that might go well in a recap video, which is also going to serve as a promo video for next year, then just let me know. I know Brother Matt had his drone footage, so that's going to be really cool. He was hovering above the jet skis while we're out there on the water, so that's pretty neat. The church got a GoPro, so I was testing that out with volleyball and on the jet skis as well and being pulled by that, so pretty neat. So anything that you got, just feel free to share it with me. You can send an email or a link to download or whatever to get that footage. I do want to try to put that together. It's not a top priority, but over the next couple months, it would be nice to put that together and then share it to our channel. May Challenge Digital Detox. So, again, the goal is to unplug from all digital devices for any purpose that's outside of work or education. So it's just trying to eliminate this big waste of time, suck of energy and uselessness. You know, the video games, whatever it is that you do particularly that you know is just a total waste. It has no real value. We're trying to just stay away from that, at least for this month. And even if you didn't know about it or maybe you didn't start or maybe you failed for a day or two or whatever, I still encourage you, as with all of our other challenges, stay with the spirit of this challenge and don't just give up and be like, okay, I'm just going back to being a zombie. Try to de-zombify for May at least. We've got like a week and a half left. See if you could push through the rest of this month and stay away from the phone. And look, the other thing is if you notice that you just can't do it, you've got a problem. And I'm not kidding. That's how addictions work. Like if you find that you're just like I just can't not go to Facebook or something, part of this challenge should identify if you really do have a problem with this stuff, you know, then I really encourage you to take the rest of the month and just stay away from it because you don't want to be addicted to anything even if you say, oh, well, this is harmless. Well, if you're addicted to it, you know, it's really not a good thing. So anyways, encouragement there. New church plant in Greenville. We've got the address listed there. I'm still trying to plan everything out. It's been a little hard with the camp to move forward in a productive way here. But we're getting all of the utilities set up and all the mundane things that just need to be done for that to continue going forward. So I'll give more details when we have them. Bible memory passage. We're finishing up Hebrews chapter 11. So hopefully you can get that memorized. I'm going to try to get on the prizes for the first half of Hebrews 11 soon. Birthdays and anniversaries through the rest of May are listed there. And then on the back, there's a missions trip that's coming up sponsored by Faith Award Baptist Church. And then, of course, our anniversary, June 23rd. This isn't going to be a huge, actually, I probably should have put the date on here, and now I can't remember the exact date. It's the weekend before Labor Day in August, so kind of the last full weekend in August. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we're going to be hosting the Fundamentalist Conference here. So those of you that know Brother Brett Stockton, he's been involved in this, and it's happened periodically over the past few years putting it on in Cincinnati, Ohio. He's put it on in the past and has had other preachers come out there and preach. So we're doing it. We're going to be hosting that here in August. So I'm going to put a little bit more effort into that for August than I'm going to for our anniversary. Our anniversary is still going to be cool. We're going to have a few things going on here, but it's not going to be like over the top. We'll probably invest a little bit more in this conference that's going to be at the end of August. So if you want to write it down, again, I forgot the exact dates, but it's going to be that Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday on the weekend prior to Labor Day. So the Labor Day will be the following weekend. So just to keep that in mind, and he's been doing a lot of work behind the scenes, so he's talked to Pastor Jones and Pastor Mejia and Pastor Enrique Reyes and the fourth name escapes me at the moment, but they all said that that time... Yeah, do you remember? What? I said Jones, Pastor Jones, Pastor Mejia, Pastor Enrique Reyes, and then there's one more. I forget who the fourth one is. Oh, Pastor Pazarski. That's right. So they all said... I think they all agreed on the time, too, that that was going to work out for them. So I just need to reach out to them, confirm it, and it'll be good. We'll be good to go. It's going to be pretty exciting. It'll be our first actual conference being hosted here. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out seating and all the logistics of an event like that. We'll see how many people come out and check it out. We'll have to get some promotion going and start pumping that conference. So you heard it here first, and yeah, we'll be prepping for that in August. I'm sure we'll obviously have some soul winning going on that Saturday of that weekend, so we'll be planning for that. And then, of course, we'll have another big soul winning marathon with the launch of the church plant in Greenville. So that's about it for all of the events and all of the announcements. So I'm going to turn the service back over to Brother Devin, or Brother Will. Come on up and lead us in our next song, please. Church, church, song number 12. Song number 12. Amen. Blessed Redeemer, song number 12, on the first. Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer, Sees now I see Him on Calvary Street. Wounded and pleading, more sinners pleading, Blind and unheeding, dying for me. Father, forgive them, thus did He pray. And while His lifeblood flowed fast away, Praying for sinners while in such woe, No one but Jesus ever lost so. Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer, Sees now I see Him on Calvary Street. Wounded and pleading, more sinners pleading, Blind and unheeding, dying for me. Oh, how I love Him, Savior and friend, How can my praises ever find Him? Through years unnumbered on heaven's shore, My tongue shall praise Him forevermore. Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer, Sees now I see Him on Calvary Street. Wounded and pleading, more sinners pleading, Blind and unheeding, dying for me. Will the ushers now please take up the offering to follow the rest of the church-church, First Kings Chapter 20. Witch, Mother Denzel, please read for us. First Kings 20. And Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, Gathered all his hosts together, And they were thirty and two kings with him, And horses and chariots, and he went up And besieged Samaria and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahad, king of Israel, Into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-Hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine, Thy wives also and thy children, Even the goodliest are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine in all that I have. And the messengers came again and said, Thus speaketh Ben-Hadad, saying, Although I have said unto thee, saying, Thou shalt deliver me thy silver and thy gold, And thy wives and thy children, Yet I will send my servants unto thee tomorrow About this time, and they shall search thine house And the houses of thy servants, And it shall be that whatsoever is pleasant In thine eyes, they shall put it in their hand And take it away. And the king of Israel called all the elders of the land, And said, Mark, I pray you, And see how this man seeketh mischief, For he sent unto me for my wives, And for my children, and for my silver and my gold, For I denied him not. And all the elders and all the people said unto him, Hearken not unto him, nor consent. Wherefore he said unto the messengers of Ben-Hadad, Tell my lord the king, All that thou didst send for to thy servant At the first I will do, but this thing I may not do. And the messengers departed and wrought Brought him word again. And Ben-Hadad sent unto him and said, The gods do so unto me, and more also, If the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls For all the people that follow me. And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, let not him that girdeth on his harness Boast himself as he that putteth it off. And it came to pass when Ben-Hadad heard this message As he was drinking, he and the kings and the pavilions That he said unto his servants, Set yourselves in a ray, And they set themselves in a ray against the city. And behold there came a prophet unto Ahab king of Israel, Saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver it into thine hand this day, And thou shalt know that I am the Lord. And Ahab said, By whom? And he said, Thus saith the Lord, Even by the young men of the princes of the provinces. And he said, Who shall order the battle? And he answered, Thou. Then he numbered the young men of the provinces, And they were two hundred and thirty-two, And after them he numbered all the people, Even all the children of Israel being seven thousand. And they went out at noon, But Ben-Hadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, He and the kings, and the thirty and two kings that helped him. And the young men of the princes of the provinces went out first, And Ben-Hadad sent out, and they told him, Saying, There are men come out of Samaria. And he said, Whether they be come out for peace, take them alive, Or whether they be come out for war, take them alive. So these young men of the princes of the provinces came out of the city, And the army which followed them, And they slew everyone his man, And the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them. And Ben-Hadad the king of Syria, Escaped on a horse with the horsemen. And the king of Israel went out, And smote the horses and chariots, And slew the Syrians with the great slaughter. And the prophet came to the king of Israel, And said unto him, Go strengthen thyself, And mark and see what thou doest, For at the return of the year, The king of Syria will come up against thee. And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, Their gods are gods of the hills, Therefore they were stronger than we. But let us fight against them in the plains, Surely we will be stronger than they. And do this thing, take the kings away, Every man out of his place, And put captains in their rooms. And number thee an army like the army that thou hast lost, Horse for horse, and chariot for chariot, And we will fight against them in the plains, And surely we will be stronger than they. And he hearkened unto their voice, And did so. And it came to pass at the return of the year, That Ben-Hadad renumbered the Syrians, And went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. And the children of Israel were numbered, And were all present, And went against them, And the children of Israel pitched before them, Like two little flocks of kids, But the Syrians filled the country. And there came a man of God, And spake unto the king of Israel, And said, Thus saith the Lord, Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, But he is not God of the valleys, Therefore will I deliver all this great multitude Into thine hand, And ye shall know that I am the Lord. And they pitched one over against the other seven days. And so it was that in the seventh day of the battle Was joined, And the children of Israel slew of the Syrians A hundred thousand footmen in one day, But the rest fled to Aphek into the city, And there was, And there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand Of the men that were left. And Benhaydah fled, And came into the city, Into an inner chamber. And a servant said unto him, Behold now, we have heard that the kings Of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Let us, I pray thee, Put sackcloth on our loins, And ropes upon our heads, And go out to the king of Israel, Peradventure he will save thy life. So they girded sackcloth on their loins, And put ropes on their heads, And came to the king of Israel, And said, Thy servant Benhaydah sayeth, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive? He is my brother. Now the men did diligently observe Whether anything would come from him, And he did hastily catch it. And they said, Thy brother Benhaydah, Then he said, Go ye, bring him. Then Benhaydah came forth to him, And he caused him to come up into the chariot. And Benhaydah said unto him, The cities which my father took From thy father I will restore, And thou shalt make the streets for thee in Damascus, As my father made in Samaria. Then said Ahab, I will send thee away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him, And sent him away. And a certain man of the sons of the prophets Said unto his neighbor, In the word of the Lord, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man refused to smite him. Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the Lord, Behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, A lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, A lion found him and slew him. Then he found another man, And said, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man smote him, So that in smiting he wounded him. So the prophet departed and waited for the king, By the way, and disguised himself with ashes upon his face. As the king passed by, he cried unto the king, And he said, Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle, And behold, a man turned aside and brought a man unto me, And said, Keep this man, if by any means he be missing, Then shalt thy life be for his life, Or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone, And the king of Israel said unto him, So shalt thy judgment be, Thyself hast decided it. And he hastened and took the ashes away from his face, And the king of Israel discerned him that he was of the prophets. And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand, A man whom I have appointed to utter destruction, And therefore, thy life shall go for his life, And thy people for his people. And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased, And came to Samaria. Dear God, thank you for this day and thank you for this passage here. I pray that you would be with Pastor Burzins as he preaches. Help us to apply the message to our lives and become better Christians because of it. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Alright, so here in 1 Kings chapter 20, I want to focus in on kind of near the beginning of this chapter. It's a lot of stuff going on here, real interesting passage, and what's really interesting to me is just there's a lot, there's like a bunch of wicked people, but God still works in this passage. You've got Ahab the king of Israel, who was a really wicked king. He was not someone who's known for like following the Lord. He was a wicked king of Israel, but then you have Ben-Hadad also, which is obviously some heathen king, and these two kings are coming together to battle, and the phrase I'm going to preach on, or the verse, is found there, and it's actually a great truth that's found there in verse number 11, where the Bible says, And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. So what's happening here is Ben-Hadad has just been destroying all these other countries, all these other people, these nations that have stood before him, and he keeps winning and winning and winning. He's got these victories, and he shows up here, and he's got, of all the things, Ahab is a really weak king. Ahab is someone, one, he's run by his wife, two, he's literally giving up anything that Ben-Hadad's saying to him. If you read the very first few verses, there's these messengers sent to Ahab, and he says, Look, your silver and your gold, yeah, that's mine. Your wives and your children even the goodliest, they're mine. Now, if someone just says, All right, all your money, many people might say, Okay, you can have my money. If someone that comes in, a big bully, they've got a lot of power, they've got a lot of force, you might just be willing to say, You know what? Go ahead, take my stuff. Because you're worried about being killed. You don't want to die over your stuff. But he's like, Okay, your wives and your children are mine. That might be somewhere to draw the line and be like, No, sorry, that's not happening. Verse four says, And the king of Israel, Okay, this isn't just some random dude, right, some poor guy out in the field who's some farmer or something. It's the king. I mean, this is the king of Israel. And said, My Lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine in all that I am. Go ahead. Yeah, my wife. Yeah, my wife. You can have her. You can have Jezebel. She's all yours, buddy. Have fun with that one. Go ahead. And the messengers came again and said, Thus speaketh Ben Hadad, saying, Although I have sent unto thee, saying, Thou shalt deliver me thy silver and thy gold and thy wives and thy children, yet I will send my servants unto thee, tomorrow about this time, and they shall search thine house and the houses of thy servants, and it shall be that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall put it in their hand and take it away. And he's like, Man, what do I got to say to this guy? Because he doesn't even really want this stuff. He just wants to fight. Like, he wants to conquer him and destroy him, and he's going, Okay, here. He's thinking that if I say, Give me all of your wealth and give me your family, that he'll, like, at least put up some type of a resistance, some type of fight. And he doesn't. And he's like, Well, what else can I say? Okay, well, basically, we're just going to walk through everything that you have, and they're just going to point to whatever they want, and you're just going to have to give it to them. So when they say that, now Ahab goes and tries to get counsel. Verse 7, Then the king of Israel called all the elders of land and said, Mark, I pray you and see how this man seeketh mischief. For he sent unto me for my wives and for my children and for my silver and for my gold, and I denied him not. And all the elders and all the people said unto him, Harken not unto him nor consent. They're like, You don't deal with a bully. Right? You just, you don't give in to terrorists. You know, they just come in and start asking for stuff, because that's how they operate. They're never going to be satisfied anyways, and that's something to learn, by the way, that people who want to bully you, people who just want to force you enough to be extorted, the extortioner, that's never going to be satisfied. They're just going to keep on extorting you. You have to be able to stand up and stand your ground. But he's like, I didn't do anything. So they said, OK, don't listen to him. And now he finally sends them a message that actually has a little bit of grit to it. So, but, wait, not yet. Verse 11 is when there's a little bit of grit. Verse 9, he sends the messengers first. Tell my lord the king all that thou did send for to thy servant at the first I will do. He's like, the second time he's like, OK, well look, everything I already agreed to, I'll do that. You can have my wives and my children and all my silver and all my gold. But, you know, I mean, I have to put my foot down the second time. He's like, I may not do. And the messengers departed and brought him word again. And that's all he wanted anyway. This is what Ben Haydad wanted. He was just like, finally something where he's gonna, even if it's kindly say no or I'd rather not, right? Verse 10, and Ben Haydad sent unto him and said, the gods do so unto me and more also if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me. He's like, all right, now you're in for it. And then he finally answers him with something that's a good response where he says, let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth off. And what he's warning him of is like, well, don't just think that the battle's over already. You haven't even come down here to fight yet. Don't just assume that like, oh, this is just gonna be a piece of cake. We're just gonna roll over and we're just gonna be one more notch on your belt and look, these are some wicked people, wicked kings, but this is something that we need to be able to apply to ourselves because this is an attitude problem. This is a high-minded problem. This is someone who ends up getting too lofty or too used to things and getting too used to a certain way of living, too used to getting some victories, too used to whatever it is that's going well for them in their life and they get too complacent and they get to a certain point in their life where you start just expecting things to happen and, you know, that's a dangerous place to be. We need to always be at a point where we're not just boasting of the things that haven't even happened yet. And, you know, I'll give you, here's a good example just in general for our church. We've been having a lot of good things happen. We have good things as we prepare for our church plant. We have a lot of good interest. There's been a lot of movement in this. We have all these things going forward. But, look, there's a battle to come. We're in a spiritual battle. First of all, we can't ever forget that. And no matter how good things seem to be going, we don't want to just get cocky and have this attitude of just like, oh, yeah, man, this is gonna breathe, breathe. This is just gonna be great. I mean, there's gonna be, you know, oh, so many people there. But we can't just have this attitude of just thinking that like it's already done. We haven't even, it's not even started yet. We have a space. That's as far as we got. It's not even there. And we can't be talking about things as though it's already done and just treating it like it's over. Okay? It's just starting. And we need to be very, very, you know, and that's just one example. Obviously, look, I'm not gonna spell everything out in your own life. You're gonna have many ways in which this can be a problem for you to just sort of think that, hey, I've got it all covered already. One, another example could be maybe some type of a sin problem. Right? And people start to grow spiritually. And like Ben Haydad, he's at battle after battle after battle after battle. Oh, man, here's an easy win, here's an easy win, and he's like, this is nothing. Chump change. This isn't gonna bother me at all. No problem. I got this. I don't even have to worry about this or think about this at all. I'm not even giving any thought. In fact, he's like, you know what? I don't care if they come out to fight, and I don't care if they come out to surrender, just take them alive. He's got this attitude of like, he's just gonna go out there like, you know, he's just gonna be like, no, it doesn't matter. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna take you in and do whatever I will, just take you alive. He just feels like he can do anything he wants. There's no way that he's gonna experience any hurt whatsoever. And we need to be careful and we need to be mindful when you're dealing with sin, when you're either dealing with someone else's sin or something that could be sinful that could affect you that you're not gonna feel like, oh, I'm Superman, man, I got all this sin out of my life and now I'm doing so great. And you allow your guard to come down thinking that there's no way anything or anyone can ever start to affect you. Maybe you start to let your guard down in an area that I think a real common one would be with spouses. Right? Maybe early on you start off and be like, okay, we're gonna have these rules, we're gonna make sure that we're our best friends, we're not letting these other people into our lives, but then you start to get a little bit too relaxed, you start to be like, well, that's never gonna happen and then someone comes, there'd never be anyone that's gonna come in between us and then all of a sudden someone comes in and then you're not paying that much attention and you're thinking and then it's like, whoa, where'd this person come from? And now you got a big battle on your hands, now you got a really big problem. You know, maybe someone gets a loss here. Maybe someone gets, you know, you have all these victories and all of a sudden you suffer a major loss as a result of not paying enough attention and thinking you just got it all. Oh, yeah, I don't need to worry about this, that's not a big deal, not a big problem. That's nothing for me to have to even focus on. The king's over there just getting drunk with his buddies like there's a battle going on, yeah, whatever, and I'm over in the beer garden, don't bother me. And then the forces come in and overrun them and chase them out and they suffer this massive defeat. Why? Because they're not paying attention. We got to remember that first of all that our Christian life is a marathon. It's not a sprint, it's not short distance, it's not something that you just get this victory in a short term. And some of the most common mistakes come early on in the Christian life when you do get a lot of victories, when you see a lot of growth, when things happen real fast, where people have a little bit higher sense of where they're at, and there's a little bit of an arrogance or high-mindedness that can come with a lot of learning, it could come with a lot of just spiritual growth really quickly, and it's just something to be aware of. Look, I'm all for a lot of learning. I'm all for a lot of spiritual growth really quickly. I think that's great. I want to keep encouraging that as much as possible, but there is the side effect potentially. There's a potential side effect here. We got to list off all the potential side effects. If you take this drug of getting really spiritually mature, really fast, and doing a lot of learning and reading a lot of Bible and getting a lot of sin out of your life, there's this into thinking that you're way off, like that nothing can touch you, that you've kind of gotten to a place where you're above sin, and don't get to that place, and no matter how good things may be going, remember the challenges are there. Yea, and all that will of God, letting Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, tribulation, troubles, anguish. It's going to come. There's going to be opposition. There's going to have to be there the more you try to do good, so you have to be ready for those battles. You have to be ready for the temptations. You have to be ready for the potential sin. I mean, even the Bible talks about that we need to be considering others, right, those that are weak, that we need to be there and consider them, but you also have to consider yourself, because, you know, you're helping someone through sin, you don't want to be caught up in the same problems that they're caught up in. Christian life, church life, it's going to be a series of battles, and it's never just one. You could have a great victory, and another great victory, and another great victory, and man, things are just going awesome. Well, it's not necessarily always going to go that way, and if you just get too high-minded and stop relying on the Lord for everything, because the more experience you get, we have also a tendency to start to think that maybe, maybe it's me, maybe it's us, like maybe, oh, it's just because I'm so good, right? When you get wealthy, when you have everything going for you, this is when you forget who is the Lord. That's why Proverbs teaches, hey, you know, don't make me so poor that I'm going to be tempted to steal, right? And also, don't make me so rich that I'm just going to forget, well, who is the Lord and forget that I need God, where I just start to think everything's happening so well because I'm so great. And it's not. I mean, no matter how many good things happen in your life, it's not because of you, and we need to remind ourselves of this. The more good things happen to you, the more you have to remind yourself and tell yourself, hey, look, this is not because of me. This is not because I'm so special. It's not because I'm so smart. It's not because I'm so godly. I'm just going to keep my head down, serve the Lord, do the job that needs to be done. Don't lose sight. Continue to ask God to help me, and if he's been helping you, if he's been blessing you, thank him, thank him, thank him, and keep moving forward. And don't lose sight. You don't want to be Ben Haydad here like, oh, that's nothing. You've arrived. And when it comes to the Christian life, by the way, how you finish really matters a lot. Now I do believe that there's eternal rewards that we earn, and there's people that, you know, obviously, once you lead someone to Christ, nothing could ever undo that. But there are crowns, there are rewards. You need to finish strong. You need to stay faithful to the end to get the greatest reward at the judgment seat of Christ. And it really does matter how you end up finishing your course here. And look, obviously, hey, when you're saved, that's eternal. There's no changing that whatsoever. You've got a home reserved for you. You've got a mansion in heaven that's guaranteed, no doubt about it. But the rewards you receive, they absolutely are dependent on your life, on what you do here for the Lord, and how you finish is very significant. So you could have these great battles, but man, if you end up at the end, you're going to miss out on a lot of things that you could have had otherwise. So keep that in mind too. Turn, if you go to Joshua chapter 7, you know, we need to never forget no matter what the odds are in your favor, no matter how good things are looking, you're never guaranteed anything. You're not guaranteed. You're not guaranteed a victory. You could have a lot of great odds. You could look at it going, oh, everything's looking pretty good. And again, the spiritual thing that comes to my mind, because it's just the thing that I'm focused on, is that church plant. Hey, everything's lining up. Everything's looking real good. That's not guaranteed. We're planning dates. Everything seems to be moving forward. Great. Not a guarantee at all. I mean, we could have something tomorrow, boom, pops up. It's just, wow, this isn't going to work out at all. There's a major setback. Right? And look, if that happens, what are we going to do? We're not going to tuck, tail, and run. We're just going to say, okay, well, here, we're going to try to find something else then and keep fighting, keep pushing. But it's a lot easier to be blindsided by things. First of all, if you just get lifted up and proud and haughty and whatever it is that you do, thinking like, oh man, everything's, you know, nothing bad could ever touch me. I'm already, I'm an old hand at this. This is all easy. This is no problem. Right? You get blinded to reality. You get blinded to real opposition. You ought to treat everything carefully. I mean, this is a battle. He's going to fight a battle. You should treat it as a battle. Ben Haydad didn't. Well, we see in Joshua, right after their first battle, Jericho, right, the famous battle where they didn't really have to do much of anything. They followed God's word. I mean, they followed God's command perfectly. The walls came crumbling down. They were able to go in, you know, just completely destroy the city. No problem. So they're thinking like, hey, this is pretty easy. I like having God with us. Right? And, amen, all the praise, all the celebration. Great. But then when it comes to AI, they're already going, look at verse number one, Joshua 7. But the children of Israel committed a trespass. So this was the real problem, by the way. This is the source of their demise. The children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing and the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdai, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah took of the accursed thing and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel. And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Avon on the east side of Bethel and spake unto them, saying, go up and view the country. And the men went up and viewed Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said unto him, let not all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai. And make not all the people to labor for their, but few. Like, well, let's make everybody work. Let's just make some people work. How about we just all go work together? It's a battle. Let's try to ensure a victory here and just go, we're all here to fight anyways. Let's all go fight the battle. So they went up of the people, about three thousand men, and they fled before the men of Ai. Now, that being said, they wouldn't have won with everybody going up either. Why? God wasn't with them. So God needs to be on your side and God would make sure that they're not going to succeed when they're disobedient and they've got this accursed thing and they've already been in disobedience to them. And of course, thirty-six men ended up dying and then it becomes this huge turn. Their momentum has just shifted completely against them and they're going like, Oh, what's going on? Maybe we should have never even come into this land. We would have just been fine over there. You know, it's just kind of like, you know, they're weeping and mourning before the Lord. And the Lord is like, why are you just like there on your face? Like, get up. There's sin. Like, this is the reason why I'm not with you. It's not because, like, I just decided I changed my mind that I'm not, that you're not my people. I'm not going to bring you into this land. I already told you, you take of the accursed thing, then there's going to be a problem with that. There's going to be repercussions. So, like, that's what happened. It's exactly like I said. So, you've got to deal with this and of course, then they do and they're able to get the victory. But we don't want to get so used to victories or you see God work so mightily at one point and just think like, you know, think about this. I know for me and I know for other people as well, especially even early on, God uses you and works in your life. I know for me, starting to go soul winning, starting to do things, you start getting some sin out of your life, right? And God has used me in many different areas during times where I've still had a lot of sin in my life, but it's getting better. You're improving and God's still working with you. But then after you reach a certain level, you might start to think like, well, God's used me with all this other stuff. It must not be that big of a deal or something if I just indulge in this area or indulge in that way. God could still use me or it's just kind of like, well, look, here's the difference. Now you know better. You were going the right direction before. Now if you're going the wrong direction, you better not have this bad attitude of thinking that like, well, I could just get in any manner of sin. It's not going to matter because God's already used me before. I've got more things right now. I'm just going to keep on serving God. He's going to be there with me. Well, no, maybe not. And that's a dangerous place to be when you start having those types of thoughts of how to justify your sin or thinking that everything's still just going to be okay. It wasn't okay for the children of Israel when Achan, one guy, went and took of the accursed thing. I mean, he brought that transgression in and that caused a problem for everyone, which by the way, hey, we're a church here. We're all working together to try to do something good. Don't be Achan. We need God fighting our battles for us. We need God helping us to grow. Don't be Achan. That's a big deal. This is a collective effort. You say, yeah, but I mean, I didn't do it. Yeah, Joshua didn't do it either. But guess who suffered? And, you know, those 36 people that died, they didn't take of the accursed thing, did they? No, Achan did. But they suffered the consequence for his actions. It's a big deal. Turn, if you would, to James chapter four. Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. You're just getting into a battle. Don't be boasting like it's over when it's not. The Bible says, Ecclesiastes 7, 8, better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. And the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. See, the proud in spirit, they're gonna be lofty. They're gonna be high-minded. They're gonna be the ones boasting, right? Boasting as him that's already done with the battle. No, wait till the end and be patient. Patiently endure through to the end, you know, and then you can have the glory or whatever. Then you can have the story. Then when it's actually a victory, you can claim the victory. Don't claim the victory before you've even started. You got some saying in your phrase, you don't claim the victory before you've even gone through it yet. Go through the battle. And then when you've trusted in God and God brings you through and defeats your enemies for you, then you could say it's a victory. The Bible says this in Proverbs 27, verse 1, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Again, it's the same thing that they're saying to Ben Haydad. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You can't brag about what's going to happen tomorrow. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You think you know. You think you know what might happen. You think you know what's supposed to happen, but the actual events you don't know. How many life altering things happen in a day like every one? People die in a day. People lose their life. And normally you're going about your normal schedule and then all of a sudden you just hear news, oh, this happened. You get a phone call. There was a car wreck. You know, it's like you don't know what day's going to bring forth. Obviously that's important when we go out and preach the gospel and explain to people, just sit around on this information. Don't sit around on this truth. You know, put your trust in Jesus today. You don't know what a day's going to bring forth. But also for us, there's still uncertainty. We don't know what a day's going to bring forth. Don't just think you've got it all figured out and you just know exactly how everything is going to go. You don't know how it's going to go. It's why we need to keep relying on the Lord, keep putting our faith in Him and keep trusting Him to see us through because we don't know how it's all going to be. The Bible says this, go to now ye that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Now, there's nothing inherently sinful about going into a city to go live somewhere for a year and do some trading and make some money. But here, what's He warning them? He's saying, I already think you've got this all figured out. Verse 14 says, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. Now, you're talking about the next year and you're already talking about these things as if it's already done, a done deal. You don't know what's going to be on the morrow for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away for that ye ought to say. So here's the correction, right? They're just saying, oh man, yep, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go here, I'm going to work like that and I'm going to make this money and I'm good. You need a correction in your train of thought there. You don't know that you're going to do all of those things. You don't know that things are going to work out the way that you think they're going to work out. You don't know that. You don't know what a day is going to bring forth. You ought to say, if it's God's will, if the Lord will, we shall live, right? If it's God's will for me to still be alive tomorrow, then we can live and do this or that. See, it's not bad to plan, it's not bad to strategize, it's not bad to prepare for things and do all the planning, but you have to recognize God first in all of it and stop just being so lifted up into thinking that, well, I just got this all figured out. And look, we're all capable of doing this, and I'd say this, as you get more mature in your Christianity, the easier it is to fall into this just, it's just going to go this way and this is what's going to happen, you get used to it. The routine things, you could easily just take it for granted, like it's just nothing, and we really need to bring ourselves back into the mindset of going, okay God, if it's your will, this is what we're going to do. I mean, think about it, and for many of us too, I know for myself for sure, but for many of us, you know, like I, me, nor my kids have to worry, like right now, we haven't had to for a while, have to worry about like, where's our next meal coming from? It's not even a thought, I mean, we've got, we've got like multiple refrigerators with food stocked and a pantry, and you know, it's just like, it's just there, and it's been there, and that's when it becomes really easy to just forget that like, look, we need to be praying to God daily, and just seeking his mercy, and seeking his guidance and his direction, and saying, thank you, thank you for blessing me, thank you for bringing me to where I am now, thank you for all you've given me, and here's what I'm going to do, you give me another day on this earth, Lord, this is what and putting the emphasis back on seeking God first every day, and seeking his will to be done, and not just assuming all of that stuff is just going to be taken care of tomorrow. You don't know what's going to be taken care of tomorrow. You don't know. Lots of things change overnight. I mean, even Babylon, right? That great city, the Bible talks about that great Babylon, and how all the merchants of the earth, and they're making all this money, and all this wealth, what happens? How long does it take? One hour. That's right. One hour. Babylon is brought to nothing. I mean, these boats are in route. They've been going, you know, these companies have been planning all of their profits and everything, and had their 10-year schedule going out, and oh man, Babylon's bringing us 40%, 50% of our, you know, all of our income, all of our profits. We're gearing everything around Babylon, around Amazon. I mean, this is where we're putting everything. Here's where we're seeing our return. One hour. One hour, Google. One hour, Amazon. Hey, look, it could happen. These giants, the tech giants or the military giants. All it takes. When you realize that God is in charge, when you realize that God is almighty, yeah, that's all it does, that's all it does take is one hour. You ought to say, if the Lord will, shall live and do this or that, verse 16, but now ye rejoice in your boastings. Isn't that kind of interesting, too? He uses the same word, boastings. In 1 Kings 20, 11, let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. But now ye rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. What's the boasting? Oh man, yeah, I'm gonna go and do this and I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna get this money. You haven't even done it yet. You're boasting, like the guy that's already finished the battle, you haven't even started yet. You're boasting about how you're gonna do all this stuff, you haven't even started yet. And the thing that just circles back to the front of my mind, hey, don't be boasting about how this church plan's gonna go, it hasn't even started yet. Right, so let's not get just on our heels. Let's not just think, oh yeah, it's all just gonna be great and just moving on all right to the next church plan or something. Hold on a second. We've got a lot of work to do. There's a lot of things that need to be done. And who knows how this is actually gonna turn out. So, we're not gonna slack in any area, we're gonna work on it really hard, as if we don't know about anybody that wants to attend. And we're gonna put forth that effort the same effort that we should, no matter what we think might happen, no matter how much success we think it might get, we're just gonna work at it super hard as a church plan deserves, as a soul winning effort goes, as trying to disciple people and get people baptized and serve your Lord. We're just gonna work as hard as it's gonna take, no matter where that would be, to do that job. And not start to get an attitude, especially a boastful attitude, before it's even done. And like I said, there's many applications, this is kind of in my mind as I'm thinking about this sermon, preparing for it, probably because I have a lot of involvement here as well. I wanna make sure that I'm not doing anything foolish and get slack or lazy, but this is a great truth for everybody to learn in any endeavor, in everything that we do in life, spiritual and non-spiritual alike. I mean, we see some examples here of things that really aren't even spiritual about just like making money and stuff. Look, seek God's will first. Hey, do you still want me to be around here, God, because this is what I'm planning on doing, I'd like to do this. Will you let me do this? Last place I want you to turn, Psalm 118. Oh, and that last verse there in James 4, I don't think I read verse 17. You keep going to Psalm 118. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Just don't forget about that, by the way. You know what's right, you know to do good, and you don't do it, that's a sin. By the way, just as a side note, this is also a great verse to explain to people that want to think that their good works pay for what they've done wrong, pay for their sins. There's people that have the mindset of thinking if I do more good than evil, it's going to pay for what I've done wrong. This clearly is going to show you that verse, your good works cannot pay for something you've done bad when that literally is the requirement and the minimum. The good that you do, hey, you know you're supposed to do good? When you don't do it, that sin, you're not going above and beyond anything. Congratulations, by doing all this good, you've met the minimum. You have no extra left over to apply towards your sin debt. There's none. That's what a lot of people need to get through their heads when it comes to the gospel and salvation. Take note of James 4.17. It's a great verse to add to your repertoire of verses when you explain things to people and let them know, especially if someone's just kind of hung up on that and you just sort of think that my good outweighs my bad. It doesn't. It can't. Because if you don't do good, that's a sin. I didn't fornicate. I didn't commit adultery. I didn't do these things that would cause me to sin. It's like, yeah, okay, but did you believe in the Lord? That's a good thing to ask. Did you do unto your neighbor as you'd have do unto you? Did you do any of these good things that the Bible is teaching that we need to do? Okay, if you've ever just not done that, then you've sinned. So whatever good things you think you've done to help people out, the money you've given to feed the poor, did you ever see someone that was in need and didn't give them, you know what I mean? There's all these different ways where you could just say, okay, well then you sinned. You sinned. You sinned. You sinned. You sinned. See the problem? The bottom line here, we see the boasting before things are done. We can't trust in our own might. We can't trust in our own abilities. We can't get into this mindset. The braggadocious mindset, the mindset that's already full of ourselves thinking that of course this is going to happen because I'm so great and I'm so mighty and I've done this before and I know all about it. That's the proud mindset. Our own abilities, our own victories, our own experience to brag of the things we haven't even done yet. We can't do that. But we can always have the confidence in the Lord to fight for us and to be our savior in his battles. So there's an overconfidence when your confidence is in yourself and what you know and what you think you can do, right? You could be overconfident. Ben Haydad was overconfident in his abilities because he just totally discounted the Lord. In James, there's an overconfidence and I'm going to go here and I'm going to buy and sell and get gain or whatever. Why? Because you're discounting the Lord. But you can have full confidence that's not proud, that's not high-minded when your confidence is in the Lord for the battle to deliver you. For example, the children of Israel being delivered from Ben Haydad. When God says, hey, I'm going to save you, you can have full confidence in that. And that's not being overconfident. That's being confident in the Lord, which there's no such thing as being overconfident in the Lord. Psalm 118, verse number 6, the Bible says, the Lord is on my side, I will not fear. What can man do unto me? That's not an overconfident attitude, that's just confidence in the Lord. The Lord taketh my part with them that help me, therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. See, I'm not putting my confidence in man, I'm not putting my confidence in me, I'm not putting my confidence in the kings, and King Ben Haydad, and any other king, and anyone else. I'm putting my confidence in the Lord. All nations compass me about, but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them. And look, this is not the same as someone boasting himself of him that doesn't gird his stuff as the guy that's already done, right? He's not making this claim, it's God's going to win the victory. Because God can win the victory every single time, and if we're just seeking His will, then look, I'm just going to trust in Him. All nations compass me about, but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them. They compass me about, yea, they compass me about, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They compass me about like bees, they are quenched as the fire of thorns, for in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. The key difference there in the name of the Lord, God's will, His power, His might, His victory, His battle, He's going to be victorious every time. When we lose sight of that and think it's my strength, my experience, my spirituality, my greatness, you might be setting yourself up to fail and be humbled and brought down where God wants you to realize, hold on a second there buddy, it's not you. You're boasting a little bit too much. Don't think that you just got this all on your own, because you don't. Trust in the Lord. Keep seeking God, seek His will, every day. We can have full confidence and we can have full confidence in a church plant. It ain't done yet, but we're going to put our confidence in the Lord and trust God and say, God, there's a lot of people here. God, I know you want these people saved. God, you've got a lot of laborers. You've got a lot of people who are willing to work. God, bring us all together. God, make this work. God, show us the right way. God, lead us to the right place. God, help us to do this in your time. And when we keep that mindset, it will work. There will be the victory, because God will bring the victory. Not us. Not our own intelligence, not our own smarts, not our own spirituality, but God. That's the confidence we need. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the great wisdom, these great truths we can learn from the Bible. I pray that you please help us to maintain the right attitude, the right heart, the right spirit, dear Lord, where we would not ever get caught up, maybe even just in autopilot and think that things are all just going to continue today and tomorrow as they have been yesterday, dear Lord, but that we would seek you fresh, seek you new every single day, seek your will, keep our trust in you and in your Word, dear Lord, and just pray that you would use us and help us to do great things to magnify your name, not our own, and Lord, it's a reminder that we need to have so that we don't fall into that trap of being lofty or high-minded in our own abilities. Lord, we thank you for the wisdom that you provide to us. Help us to learn more every day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we're going to sing one last song, before we're dismissed this evening. Brother Will, will you please lead us? Turn to song 4-10. Song 4-10. Song 4-10. On the first. That overcomes the world. Faith is the victory. Faith is the victory. Oh, glorious victory. That overcomes the world. His banner over us is love, our sword, the Word of God. We tread the road, the saints above, the shouts of try and try. By faith they like a world with breaths that honor every field. The faith by which they conquer death is still our shining shield. Faith is the victory. Faith is the victory. Oh, glorious victory. That overcomes the world. On every hand, the full we find drawn up in dread or rain. When tents of ease be left behind and awkward to the fray. Salvation's helmet on each hand with truth altered about. The earth shall tremble beneath our tread and echo with our shout. Faith is the victory. Faith is the victory. Oh, glorious victory. That overcomes the world. To him, that overcomes the foe. By rain that shall be built before the angels he shall know. His name confessed in heaven and onward from the hills of life. Our hearts, the love of flame will vanquish all the hosts of night. In Jesus' conquering name. Faith is the victory. Faith is the victory. Oh, glorious victory. That overcomes the world.