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

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 you you you you you you you you you no disappointment in heaven you you you Let's sing it out in the first. There's no disappointments in prayer. No hearing in sorrow of pain. No hearts that are bleeding in romance. No song of life heard refrained. No clouds for earthly horizons. Will never appear in the sky. For all is some sight in gladness. Will never stop for a sigh. In the path that beautiful sea. My heart is prepared for its own. Where all the redeemable ages. See glory around the white moon. Sometime the world will sing for heaven. And the boys and men shall be gone. One joy there will be when you see. You will see in that beautiful city of gold. Where there will be battle for our country. And those faces will never come to you. Our gardens will never grow from there. But all will be famous and new. But never be hungry or thirsty. Nor ancient poverty there. For all those bounties of heaven. His sanctified children will share. Not a doubt will that beautiful sea. By the Lord as we pray for his own. Where all the redeemable ages. See glory around the white moon. Sometime the world will sing for heaven. And the boys and men shall be gone. One joy there will be when I see. In that beautiful city of gold. Don't ever be afraid from the door knob. No fear for the train in the sky. No praise for the hillsides of glory. For there we shall never go die. The Lord will be up there forever. Transformed in our moment of time. In order the city lives like this. The stars of the sun shall shine. By and by for that beautiful sea. By the Lord as we pray for his own. Where all the redeemable ages. See glory around the white moon. Sometime the world will sing for heaven. And the boys and men shall be gone. One joy there will be when I see. In that beautiful city of gold. Amen. All right. Great singing. It's good to have you all here with us at Strong Old Baptist Church this Sunday morning. This time we'll go through our announcements. If you don't have a bulletin, you can slip your hand up real high. We'll make sure that we get one out to you. And if you'd open up to the first page, you'll see our service time is listed there. Sunday morning at 1030. Sunday evening 5 o'clock. Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. We're going to be in Psalm 71 this week. We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there. As well as the salvation and baptisms for the month of September. As well as for the year. Let's go ahead and count up. If you have any salvation to report for the week, just slip your hand up real quick. We'll get those counted up. What day, sir? Not last Monday, but the Monday. Prior? Okay. Amen. Anyone else have anything to report for the week? Or prior? Alright, very good. Very good. Keep up the good work. Preach in the Gospel. We've got the offering totals that's down there at the bottom of the page. Before we go any further with the prayer requests and stuff, I just want to make another mention of all of the stuff that we have out in this room on a table, under the table, around that table. There's a bunch of things that have been donated that are there for the taking. And after both services today, anything that's left here is going to be moved along to another facility to give that stuff out. If there's anything here that you think you'd like, go through that stuff and check it out and help yourself to the items that are on that table. And like I said, under that table, there's just a bunch of things that have been brought here. Also, you might notice that we have new chairs in the auditorium. And I didn't really know that this was going to happen until Thursday. So, Leslie found a really good deal on these. And I'll tell the story once so that everyone can hear it and you know how it all came to be. She found on Marketplace this nice deal for these chairs that were very lightly used. And we have a lot of them, about 350, 349 to be exact. More than we need, for sure. But it was a really good deal and they were getting a lot of offers for other things and people wanting to split them up. So, I just offered to buy the whole lot since it's way, way, way, way cheaper than getting them new. And it was a lot, you know, just tremendously cheaper. It was a really good deal. So, I think it was a good addition. I've been hearing positive feedback on that. And I picked them, we picked them up from Kingdom Hall. So, if you're wondering where they came from, I told Brother Jess, I was like, don't ask. But that's, so I said, yeah, you know, these chairs have never been in front of good preaching. But, you know, it's about to change. But, yeah, so we've got these here. And I don't have it written in the bulletin, but we do have a use for the extra chairs also. We should have an extra use soon. We're actually planning on a church plant, a new church plant for Strong World Baptist Church. So, that has been in the works and I've been talking. There's a few people who've been kind of aware of what's been going on. But I haven't really been talking much about it at all. Because it's still in the very, very early preliminary stages and trying to just figure out how we're going to do everything. So, we don't have all the details yet. I don't like speaking about things too far in advance without having things more settled. But this is one of those things that I figured I need to announce it anyways. Because we need to figure out about how many people are going to be showing up to this new plant. Because we're looking at procuring a space to meet at. And we need to know how many people are going to be there as much as we possibly can. So, that is one of the primary reasons also for the trying to keep our spending under control is the new plant. So, it's going to be, we're going to be covering all the cost of a new church facility. So, everything that goes along with that, so the chairs, song books, Bibles, you know, everything to furnish a new space in another location. Paying the bills, paying the rent, we need to probably pay about three months rent up front. That's normally how it works with the commercial industry. So, there's just a lot of things that we need to have ready to go with our finances. So, that is what we're focused on and that's what we've been thinking about. And that's what we're planning on doing. And you're saying, well Pastor Burns, you haven't said where yet. So, Greenville, South Carolina is the place that we are looking to plant the church. It's going to be the easiest for us to maintain that location with the people we currently have here. And it's going to be awesome. There's a lot of people that I think will have an impact on, I've talked to people that are maybe planning on moving. But, I wanted to let people know as well that this is an option if you live anywhere near that area. That hopefully this will allow people to come to church maybe more regularly or whatever to go to that new plant that we're going to be doing there. So, I already know we've had lots and lots and lots of people in South Carolina have been showing up to our soul winning events and things like that. Not just the people who come to our church right now, but even more people that will live in a radius of that area that we might be able to get to come faithfully. So, I'm going to be making a video pretty soon about this in order to get feedback and see how many people are planning on attending that church. And if you are here and you think that you would be regularly attending a plant in Greenville, if you'd like to do that let me know. And give me an idea, say well I still want to come here, but I want to go there. You know, give me an idea because we do need to plan on the facility size. So, we don't have a definite location yet. There's a lot of things we don't have definite yet, but we will be able to support that with preachers. We will be able to support that completely. So, that's the goal, that's the mission, and I think it's the right time to pull the trigger on this. So, that's what's in the works, that's what's in the plan. So, if you're wondering already, you know, Pastor Burns, why did you get 350 chairs? We can't fit 350 chairs in here. Well, that's part of the reason too. So, we've got extra chairs, I'm hoping to be able to fill a space of maybe 100 in a new church plant and be able to send 100 chairs off there. And then 250 here makes a lot of sense. So, that's part of the thinking. I figured now is just as good a time as any to kind of let you know about what plans are in the works. So, pray about that, be in prayer for the church plant and that, you know, God will guide us. It was between, you know, we've been looking at South Carolina, been looking at Alabama, because there's a lot of people in both of those states that are looking for a church and I know would attend a church that's like ours. So, but that's the plan, all right. And if you have any questions, you can talk to me about it after service. And when I make the video, share that information as much as possible, try to get it out there. If you know people personally, if you have family, friends, coworkers, or people that you think that would be interested in attending a church in that area, let them know about it, ask them about it, try to see if you can get some good feedback to help us make a good decision on the space. Because when we rent a space, typically they want three to five years in a contract. So, we want to get the right size up front. We're going to commit to that amount of time for renting a space. So, anyhow, if you have anything that you think would be valuable information for us in this planning, please talk to me as well after the service. But just wanted to throw that out there. It's what we I've been working on this for a while and we are getting closer to the stage of being able to pull trigger and actually move forward on it. But if you want if you think about a time frame, I don't know if it would even happen before the end of this year. But sometime within the next year, it's very safe to say that this will get up and off the ground. Christmas time is a hard time to get things going just for many reasons. And I don't necessarily see things happening before that. It's going to take a while to get everything up and running. But maybe early next year would be a very good, reasonable time to expect to have a plant up and running. So, Brother Carter is going to be heading up the ministry over there. He's going to be the primary person responsible for the things that are going on over there. And of course, it'll still be strong old Baptist Church. So I'm the pastor over. I'll be ultimately responsible for everything that goes on there. And we're planning right now that the midweek service would be on a Thursday instead of a Wednesday. So it provides an opportunity to be able to hold both services on different days. So anyhow, that's what's going on. That's all the information I have. If you're going to try to dig for more information, there really isn't any at this point because, like I said, it's early stages. So we're still trying to figure it all out. But I want to get the word out and I want people to start to be aware that this is something that we're planning, especially to get back in touch with us. So anyhow, let's continue on with our regularly scheduled program here in the bulletin with the prayer requests. So, of course, continue to pray for everyone here on the list. We've got many ladies here that are that are with child. We've got an estimated delivery date for Miss Courtney Taylor, Mrs. Courtney Taylor, which is March 30th. So that's good news there. Pray for her and of course, all the other ladies. And then let's see what other updates we have. Pray for Mrs. Gonzalez, who's continuing to get go and see doctors and get get a full understanding of what's going on so they could properly diagnose and treat the issues that's going on there. So that's just a slow process, but continue to pray for for her and her health and that everything will go well. And then we also are adding Miss Courtney Taylor's dad. His name is Jason to the list. He had a mini stroke and about two weeks ago and he is still feeling the effects of that. It wasn't a full stroke, so he doesn't have paralysis, but he has more difficulty on one side of his body, which is typical of having a stroke. So it's not full paralysis, which is good, but it's still a lot of difficulty in moving his limbs on one side of his body. So pray that that he will fully recover from that and also pray that that God will soften his heart. He doesn't have a testimony of salvation, so pray that God will help provide a time that will be available where he can hear the gospel without interruption and distraction and that his heart will be softened, especially with circumstances as they are. These are great opportunities when people have significant events, especially medical events in their life, to be humbled, to be open and receptive to hearing the word of God. So just pray that things will go well on that front. Also, down at the bottom of the page, churches and pastors are praying for First Works Baptist Church. Pastor Bruce Mejia, pray for him, pray for his family, pray for the church, pray that everything will go well in their ministry. Are there any other updates to anyone who is on the prayer list as of right now? Yes, ma'am. So Bobby got admitted into the hospital last week. He had a stroke. Oh, he had a stroke. And then they got thinner and then they were feeding him because he's pregnant with me. So he's in... So he had an aneurysm. He had a stroke and an aneurysm. Yeah, so she said that he can really breathe. I can't remember if he said right or left. One side again. Is he paralyzed? He can't move? On one side? And he's still getting chemo or not now because of this? But he's in very bad condition. Very bad condition. So if you weren't able to hear, Bobby Levy, who has stage four cancer, now also just had a stroke. And the blood thinning medication that they give you when you have a stroke, because a stroke is like a blood clot in your brain that stops the oxygen flow and the blood flow to part of your brain, they give you the blood thinner so that it doesn't clot up, but then the blood thinners then caused an aneurysm. So he was bleeding on the brain and now he's in the hospital and not doing well. In one of his arms he's not able to move. So a very difficult situation there on top of having cancer. So of course they would have to stop the chemotherapy treatment that he's been receiving to get healthier, to even be able to withstand that. So obviously it's a very dire situation for him. Pray for him, pray for his family, pray for healing there as well. Appreciate the update. Does anyone else have any other updates for people who are on the prayer list today? All right. Well, obviously a lot of really important things to pray about here. Please bring these home with you. Take a picture of it on your phone and remember to pray for people on our list here. On the next page we've got our September challenge, which is church attendance challenge. And I'll tell you what, a lot of people already failed this challenge because we had like half the people in the evening service that were in the morning service. Now I'm hoping you just went somewhere else, but I'm doubting that that's the case. So moving forward, try to put this challenge to heart. Even if you missed a service, try to make it to all the services. It is important. Church is important. And see if you could make it. Obviously I know things happen. Don't say, hey, it's a church challenge. So you start coming all sick and then getting everyone else sick at church. Please don't do that. I'll give you a full exemption if you are ill that you can still say that you completed this challenge even though you're not here if you're sick. I'll give you a sick note, a doctor's note, right? And you have a valid excuse for that. So obviously there's other reasons why people get excused too. The whole point is putting a priority on church attendance in your life. So try to make that important for you, especially those that don't live near here and you travel because you love our church and you want to be here. It's still important to get into a church locally. If you can't make the drive here, great. We love having you here. Appreciate you being here. But if you're not able to make drives on different various days and stuff, still try to find a local assembly. It really is important to be around God's people. So make that a priority in your life. We've got the Bible memory passage there. Week two of Hebrews 10 verses one through twenty two upcoming birthdays and anniversaries are listed there. I got you in there. I guess I couldn't find the bulletin again. And I was like, I know the 17th, but I verified I was able to listen to announcements from last week. But but I got I got it all squared away. Am I missing anyone else for the month of September who doesn't have the name listed here for birthday anniversary? All right. Then the upcoming events are listed down there at the bottom of the page. So take note of October 6, our next homeschool field trip. I kind of got it listed right there in the middle. It's at Science Center, Fernbank Science Center. So we do we have the sign up sheet for this one? Yes, it's up here. So I move this over because we kind of use some extra space for the chairs. So we've got more things up here. We'll do we're definitely going to do some more reorganizing of different furniture in the auditorium. But right now, if you want to sign up for that homeschool field trip, it's it's up here at the front. And let's see, the rest of the events are all listed there. If you want to get your site reserved for the camp, please go to that website and do so. That's going to be a huge relief for me and being able to organize this. If you use that website instead of contacting me directly, please sign up on that site. That's about it for our announcement. So I'm going to turn the service back over to brother Peter, who will lead us in our next song. Got it together. It's all number 59. All right, let's say this on the first. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Now, one of the things you might notice in both of these passages, it's talking about salvation. It's talking about, hey, let's reason together about you being saved. Or let's give an answer, give a reason of the hope that's within you, that hope being your salvation, right? And turn, if you will, to Colossians chapter four. And really, the problem comes in with the approach, with how these things are dealt with, where with modern apologetics, it just kind of turns into an exercise of academia, which is never going to save. So what I mean by that is people debating or having an argument, and one person wins a debate over another person because they were able to out-logic them or outsmart them or provide some other, like, that never results in people getting saved. Like, that's not how people get saved according to the scripture. And approaching things just from a mental aspect is also not salvation, no matter how much you can prove about events that happened, about history, about the Bible, about the Word of God, about all these proofs from the Word of God, no matter how much you can prove all those things, salvation is still a faith, okay? And something that can be proven completely does not require faith. If you can make a full, airtight seal just, okay, this is, here's all the proof, here's all the proof that God, here's all the proof of this, you have to take it by faith. I'm not saying there's no evidence, I'm not saying there's no, it's not, we don't have an unreasonable faith, right? It's reasonable that these things are real and they're true, but you could never, ever fully just prove the things that you need to believe to be saved. You just, you can't do it. It's impossible. How do you prove the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, I mean, you could rely on other testimony and eyewitnesses and things like that, but that's not proof, right? It's believing an account. It's believing what the Word of God says, and that's what faith is, right? It's trusting, it's putting our faith in that. Now, in Colossians 4, verse 5, the Bible says, Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be all way with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. And look, we ought to know how to answer every man. Again, that's a good thing, having a knowledge of Scripture, a knowledge of doctrine, a knowledge of the Bible. But flip back, if you would, to chapter 2. You're in Colossians 4, just flip back to chapter 2. This is one of the warnings that I would have for people who get really wrapped up in apologetics. Starting in verse number 6, the Bible reads, As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving, beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. So it's warning, hey, watch out for being spoiled, being ruined, through philosophy and vain deceit. Now, philosophy is something that really came into being with the Greeks or the Romans, like back in ancient times. And turn, if you would, to 1 Corinthians 1. Because this comes up, and it's very similar. Apologetics is like taking the spiritual things of God and making them after the world's example. It's like Bible college. It's like so many other areas where people are taking the things of God and trying to make them more worldly. Like there's no institutions in the Bible of Christian school and Bible colleges and all this other stuff. We see men of God being taught and trained by other men of God, that we see an apprenticeship going on with people in the ministry and serving other men of God in getting their training that way. We see churches spawning other churches. We see these patterns within Scripture, but we never see the stuff that's being taught in modern times in the Bible. We're striving to do things biblically. So similarly, we'd never see, for example, Jesus or the apostles having this philosophical argument with people and debating people and having these discussions that you'll find are exercised in Christian apologetics and dealing things on a really high philosophical level. It just doesn't happen. And hopefully this will help you as we go through this to get back because it's easy to slip in. The more study you do, and look, I have caught myself. That's one reason why I like this sermon so much because I've caught myself. The more you learn and the more you study, it can be easy to slip into a mindset where everything just becomes trying to prove everything and be really smart about it and use wisdom of words when it comes to preaching the gospel to people, trying to get people saved. And we need to ground ourselves in what the Bible says about preaching the gospel and how it really is going to work for us and not add too much of our own ideas and smarts onto the simple gospel of Jesus Christ because it really isn't that hard. And you think about the hardest things it was for the disciples. For example, when the disciples wanted to cast out a devil and they couldn't do it, did Jesus say, well, you can't do that because you just need to learn a lot more and you need to be able to present the command in such a way and use these proper words. Jesus said, this cometh not by prayer and fasting. It's just more the power of God that you need, not your own worldly wisdom, not to be trained in these certain ways to be able to finally be able to do that, no. And this is why I believe that as it's every believer's job to preach the gospel, you don't need to go through a whole bunch of training before you could go out and start preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. You don't need to go through all these classes and learn all these things. And I will say this, you can improve on being able to lead people to Christ by just learning more about the Bible in general, being more comfortable with presenting things to help people understand, being a good teacher. But it's not going to be found in going back through this whole step of philosophical questions trying to reason with people all the way to the point of like, I'm trying to think of, you know, you think about even with atheists and stuff, because I've done this before, trying to say, okay, well, if God exists, then, you know, and trying to use a lot of deductive reasoning and logic to try to bring it from point A to point B to point C to point D. But that never works. But the Bible tells us what works. And let's look down here in Scripture. You're in 1 Corinthians 1. I'm just going to read for you from Romans 1, 16. The Bible says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, The just shall live by faith. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. That's where the power lies. It's in the gospel. It's not in your own wisdom and how great you are with all of your knowledge and all of your skill. No, the power of God is in the gospel. That's where the power lies. That is where truly you're going to get, and it's from faith to faith. You're going to have believers who already believe the Word filled with the Holy Ghost preaching unto people that are lost to be able to receive that gospel and then put their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ themselves. It's not from a classroom lecture. Look down in verse number 17 of 1 Corinthians 1. The Bible says, For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words. He's very specific. Look, Christ didn't send me to baptize, but you know what He did do? He sent me to preach the gospel. He sent me to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words. You don't need to be this great wordsmith. You don't need to come up with all these fancy things to preach the gospel. Look, it's very simple. I don't have to wow you and talk about my exegesis of this passage and the hermeneutics and then try to show you how we're really here in this culture. Look, you don't need the wisdom of words. Just preach the gospel. Not with wisdom of words. That's the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. See, when you start taking it away from the cross of Christ. Look, the cross of Christ is a simple message. You're a sinner. Jesus paid the price when He died on that cross. You deserve to pay the price. He did it for you. He died on that cross for you. His soul descended into hell. Three days later, He rose again from the dead, conquered death and hell, paid for your sins. You know you're a sinner. So you don't need to go in depth with people on all these concepts and just go in like really deep into it. Look, everyone knows you're a sinner and everyone, these fools that say in their heart that there is no God, they still know that there's a God. So you don't need to waste all this time trying to convince them that there is a God. They know there's a God. So you know what you need to do? You just need to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You don't have to go through all this wisdom of words to convince people of things. Just preach Christ crucified. Now look, that's to the unbeliever, to the lost. We're going to keep reading this passage. I mean, this passage is great. Chapter 1 and chapter 2 goes into this really in depth. But this is what I like to say too. You know, sometimes these apologetic things, they can have some value, but more so to the believer than the unbeliever. Getting more solidified and really dialed into doctrines and things like that, but these aren't the big deep conversations that you're going to be having with someone who needs to get saved. And that's why I titled this You Christian Apologetics Don't Save. We use that for salvation. We don't dig into all this stuff to try to, oh, appoint someone here and they could go through this 100-part series on why they should believe in Jesus. You're just going to confuse things. You're going too deep, man. You're making it complicated. Verse 18 says, For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. Again, just emphasizing the power of God there. And look, when it comes to preaching the Gospel, you need the power of God for someone to get saved. It does not lie in the wisdom of words of the theologian with all the degrees. Their words do not have the power to save. That is not the power of God. The power of God is in the Word of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and, I'm like, I've got an extra page missing here. My verse cut off in the middle. And it's written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Notice how in the, you know, you have to understand, it's going to be going back and forth with wise and wisdom here. There's a godly wisdom and there's a wisdom of the world, right? So you just have to discern by the context which one he's referring to because it's not always spelling it out. When it's talking about here, when it says where is the wise, that's talking about the wise of the world. That's not talking about the wise of God. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe, right? These people are supposed to be really educated and you look at the Pharisees and the scribes of the times of Jesus day, especially it gives you an understanding of who these, you know, these are the people who are focused on their education and taught in that and looking down upon the blue-collared workers like the apostles, right? The disciples that were fishermen and publicans and sinners and everything or whatever. You know, they're looking down on these people or even Jesus Christ. Well, how does this man know how to write? How does he even know anything? So that's where the wise of the world, where the Pharisees, the scribes, right? Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Does that sound like a really good, the disputer? The arguer, right? And then it says, hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It's the wisdom of this world that actually draws people away from God instead of to God. Look at that. It says the world by wisdom knew not God. And isn't that what the world today is teaching? In their evolution and all the godless theories of how we even got here and why we're here and everything about our so-called science is going to tell you So that's the wisdom of this world, and that's causing people to not know God. It says for after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that belief. So how did God choose to save the unbelievers? Preaching. Not academia. Preaching. Preaching. So when you preach the gospel, you're not debating, you're not arguing, you're preaching. Now obviously you can have a discussion with someone, but this is not an exercise. And let's see if we can both come to the truth together. No, you're preaching the gospel, man. You already know the truth. It's already been revealed unto you. Now we're preaching it to people that need to hear the truth. And this is the boldness that we need with the power of God to help people get saved. And I'll tell you, I've noticed this even in my own soul, because I'm always trying to make things different, do things different, and try different approaches and stuff, and I think that's great. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but you need to be able to recognize, hey, man, maybe I'm starting to make things a little bit too complicated here, or maybe I'm trying to use too much smarts and intelligence and go down these logic trails. Let's keep it simple. Let's preach Jesus Christ and the cross and Him crucified and get people to believe that, because that's what they need to do to be saved anyways, and leave it more in the power of God and His Word than in our own wisdom of words. I just love that verse. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. Why does it say foolishness of preaching? Preaching isn't foolishness, but in the world's eyes it is. The world's going to look at this as foolishness. But that's what God chose. See, the apologeticist is going to say, well, no, the world's not going to respect that, because that's foolishness to them. So here's what we need to do. We need to make it so that they respect by going through all of these steps and everything, but that's not going to work. That doesn't work. The Bible doesn't say to start going and doing things this way and not preaching. It pleased God. God made God happy to use preaching, because if people are just going to keep trusting in their wisdom, they're not going to just trust in the Lord. Like, if you can just, in their mind, just get people to follow a path logically, that still doesn't even mean they're going to get saved. They have to call upon the name of the Lord. They have to, like, put their trust in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, not just follow some logical steps of why this makes sense. Verse 22, for the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. So if the Jews require a sign, does that mean, well, then I guess we just have to do everything we can to present all these signs unto the Jews to get them to believe? No? It's tough on them if they're requiring a sign, because they're not getting that sign. Similarly, the Greeks seek after wisdom. Well, it's tough on you then if you're requiring wisdom, because you're not getting wisdom. You're getting preaching. Verse 13, but we preach Christ crucified. Jews want a sign. Greeks want wisdom. But you know what we're doing? We're preaching Christ crucified. Under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, this is what the apostles are doing. This is what the apostles do. Paul's saying, hey, look, this is what we do. That's what they want, and this is what we're giving them. And this is the biblical way of doing things. Unto the Jews, a stumbling block. You know what? Yeah, it is a stumbling block unto them. But they need to humble themselves and believe the preaching of the cross of Christ. And they're not getting their sign. And unto the Greeks, foolishness. Yeah, the people, oh, oh, oh, you're so foolish. You fools are preaching. They're going to do that to their own demise. But we're not going to, you know, God doesn't cater the way that He gets people saved to every single individual. Now, we do try to become all things to all men, right? And try to reach them where they're at. Yes. But that's not the same as changing than how we go soul-winning, right? We want to relate to people where they're at. That's what it means, becoming all things to all men that by all means save some, right? You're trying to find some common ground to talk to them, but you're still preaching the gospel to them. You're still preaching Christ crucified. That doesn't change. Verse 24, But unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, there it is again, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. I mean, shouldn't this be enough to say, look, get over yourself and your own wisdom. And try to use wisdom of men, God's foolishness is greater than the greatest wisdom of men. For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. So you notice there's not a lot of these people getting saved. You don't really see a lot of these really wise people that just have all this knowledge, all the world's wisdom. You don't see a lot of them getting saved. And what's funny, the irony is that they're the ones that say, oh, you ignorant little, you backwards, redneck, ignorant Christians, you don't know anything, you're so foolish. And they're so puffed up and they think they're so wise in this world. But they're the foolish ones. They're the fools. They need to humble themselves and get the wisdom of God and not put their trust in the wisdom of this world. And this is what I'm saying. So with those people, you don't just get in this whole intellectual conversation because all you're doing is just going to be trying to convince them using wisdom of words and the intellectual wisdom of this world. But that's not what they need and that's not going to convince them. Following the path of the world is just going to keep bringing up worldly results. Do things the way the scripture says to do them. And see modern apologists, they'll take the first Peter 3.15 and then just run with that and say, well, we just have to have an answer for every man, so here's what we're going to do, and just come up with this whole thing. But it's like, look, if you want to reach the lost, it's actually spelled out really in detail. You don't need to just run with one verse. I mean, you've got chapters and chapters and chapters devoted to doing this. Verse 27, But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. We don't get the glory, and if you think that you're going to use all your fantastic wisdom of words and special knowledge to get people saved, you're taken away from the glory of the gospel of Christ. Go to chapter 2, verse number 1, the Bible says, And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom. Again, just reiterating, look, when I came to you, I didn't have excellency of speech. He didn't have all these grand things to say and all these profound statements. It wasn't like he's this great order, or he's got all this wisdom that he's going to wow the people with, declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Again, he's just saying, I didn't care about any of this other stuff, I didn't go in-depth on any other topics, any other doctrines, any other teachings, anything to show my great wisdom, we're talking about Jesus Christ and him crucified. And he focused on that at the first, because they were unsaved. Later on, as we'll see even from Scripture, yeah, then you go into more deeper topics and go into more wisdom and things like that, but when you're trying to get people saved, it's simple. The gospel is simple. Verse 3, And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom. He's not using man's wisdom to preach the gospel. I mean, how many times does this have to be reiterated? Don't think that you have to have all of man's wisdom to be able to preach the gospel to people or to get people saved. You don't. You need to know the gospel and use the Word of God and the wisdom of God, not your own wisdom, to just preach the gospel. Look, the message is already there. It's already written for us. It's already been presented to us. There's nothing you can add to make the gospel any better, and I hope you're not trying to add anything to change it. All we try to do is help people understand it, but the message is there. The message is clear. The message is simple, and that's what we have to preach. And people are always looking for, and I understand why, and I'm not trying to tear people down for saying this, but wait, how do you give the gospel to this person or this person? How do you give the gospel to atheists? How do you give the gospel to Pentecostals? How do you give the gospel to Jehovah's Witnesses? How do you give the gospel to... There's these little nuances in what they believe, but you know what they need to hear? They need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. They need to hear Him crucified. They need to hear about the resurrection. The gospel is the same for every person, and at the end of the day, let's let the Word of God have the power and let them believe that. That's what they have to trust. Every single person of every false religion needs to put their trust in the same gospel, the same gospel. Again, there's the nuances of, like, well, you want to make sure with some of them that they do have the right Jesus, right? That they're believing in the Son of God, God incarnate, okay, like the cults that don't believe that. You have to have the right Savior. So there's these details that could be helpful to know, hey, just so you know, they actually, you know, the Jesus they're talking about is just a different Jesus. But even still, normally that stuff comes up just through preaching the gospel anyways because in your gospel presentation, you should be talking about who Jesus is in the Bible. So if you have a decent gospel presentation where you're using enough Scripture to show people the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, the things that people believe falsely should become apparent and made known. It's kind of my point, right? So you don't have to really worry about changing the way you say anything. The thing that, here's one thing that I change if I know I'm talking to Jehovah's Witness, and it's just this, it's the question where many people will follow the pattern of if you were to die today, do you know for sure that you're going to heaven? I change that to just say, hey, if you die today, do you know for sure that you're saved? There's only reason for that. I'm not trying to use man's wisdom to outsmart them. It's just so that I can preach the gospel to them. Because if you start talking about heaven, they're going to say, well, there's only 144,000 that go to heaven, and I can't know you're going to heaven. You get off on this whole other thing that I'm not there to talk about. I'm just trying to preach the gospel as they can hear the gospel and get saved. So I don't want to use, so those are the types of things, yeah, you know, it's good to know a little bit more and that can help you in the future. So that you can just get into the gospel. Because you want to get into the gospel with people as much as possible and not get sidetracked on all of these other issues. You know, with people who have other religions, especially like a Muslim or whoever, they'll say, well, hey, can I just tell you what I believe about the, you know, just let me give you an opportunity just to tell you this. Can I just tell you this? Can I share this with you? Even if people say, no, I'm a devout whatever, like, well, can I just share this with you? Just preach Christ and Him crucified, right? That should be what we're trying to do all the time. You don't have to outsmart them and tell them why everything that they're believing is wrong and everything else. Just get the opportunity to preach the gospel. That's the main objective. The power is in the word of God. Preach the gospel. That's how God chose for people to get saved. Again, your own intellectual man's wisdom, that's not going to save people. Let's keep reading here in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. I think I read half of verse 4. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. It's not man's wisdom, it's power. Demonstration of the spirit. He's working with the spirit, and it's the power of God unto salvation. It's the word of God. It's the preaching of the cross. That's where the power comes from, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. We don't want people trusting in that wisdom and like, oh, I learned something. I'm really smart now because of this, and that's how I know I'm saved or whatever. You've proven to them that Jesus Christ is real. Oh, so he's real, you know. No, they've got, it's got to be the power of God. Where they're trusting in a savior that saves them. Not mentally assenting to something being true. And if you just are using man's wisdom, you might get people to assent, to agree that there are certain set of facts that are true, but that doesn't save people. And get that, you know, you can say, I believe that Jesus is real. I believe he died on the cross. I believe he rose again from the dead. I believe salvation is by grace through faith. You can say those things and not reject them. I said those things as a Presbyterian. If you ask me about any one of those things, if I thought those were facts, if I thought those were true, I would say yes, and I was not saved. I didn't reject any of it. I was taught about Jesus Christ. Accepted that. I was taught about his sinless life. I accepted that. I was taught that he was God in the flesh. I accepted that. I was taught that salvation is by grace through faith alone. I didn't fully understand that, but I just accepted that as a true factual statement. I accepted that Jesus Christ also died on the cross in order to pay the penalty for our sin, and I also accepted the fact that he rose again from the dead. I accepted all those as facts, as being true. I did not think any of those statements were false, but I was not saved. It was just accepting something as fact up here. I didn't put my trust in the Savior. The power of God is what was needed, right, and the preaching of the cross and him crucified and understanding the gospel to trust Jesus. Trust him personally as the Savior to save you. You cannot trust in just the wisdom of the world or in this type of a wisdom, right, the wisdom of men. It's a power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect. People who are already saved. People who have already been cleansed and made whole. Yeah, that's great to preach wisdom there. Get people learning a lot more and the deep things of God and go through these exercises, and you can teach a lot and understand a lot that way. It says, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught. So we dig deeper and preach wisdom to those that are perfect, but we still don't just go into the wisdom of this world. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I have not seen nor you heard, neither have entered in the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him, even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. And this is explaining that the only way we know the things of God is by his Holy Spirit. That's how we know. We learn through the spiritual thing. The Bible is a spiritual book. We need a spiritual understanding, and we need the Holy Spirit going out with us when we preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because the natural man doesn't receive those things. As we're going to see here in a couple verses. Look at verse 13. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth. It's like how many times does the Bible have to say we're not using the words that man's wisdom teaches? It is wrought throughout these two chapters like when you preach the Gospel. Foolishness of preaching. Not wisdom of words. You don't need to have fancy words. You don't have to speak really well and all this other stuff and use your well. My superior intellect is going to... No! No. Your superior intellect is not going to save anybody. It's not. The power of God is going to save people. And if you're born again, you've got the spirit of God within you. The message has already been printed. It's already there. Go forth and preach that message and trust in that and get people to trust in that message. Right? Just preach that to them. Focus on that. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, that he himself is judge of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. Flip over, if you would, to 1 Timothy 6. I just want to point this out. Now, we're going to look at two references, three references actually, that are all found in the Pastoral Epistles. So, the Pastoral Epistles, 1 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Okay, people who were pastors and the Apostle Paul is giving them instructions specifically as elders, as pastors. Interesting to see that they specifically are being told to avoid certain things. Look at chapter 6 of 1 Timothy and verse 20. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. So, he tells them to avoid the vain babblings. He tells them to avoid the oppositions of science, falsely so called. He doesn't say answer everything that they have to say. He just says avoid it. Do I have to answer every single thing that the falsely so called science is going to say about the Bible? No, you don't. In fact, you can just avoid it because it's going to be a waste of your time. Because the people that want to argue about all those things are going to keep arguing with you no matter what you show them. Because it's not the wisdom of the world. Even though the wisdom is going to say, no, look, this did happen this way. You're wrong about this. And the evidence can show and support biblical accounts of everything because the Bible is true. But if you go down that way of thinking and you go through that arguing and people want to bring up science that's falsely so called because they're coming up with these bad conclusions on their bad science, you will never win. It's just going to be a waste of time. It's vain. Preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You don't have to. And that's where people get stuck is getting involved in these debates and arguments and things. And it's like, look, you are just wasting your time. Don't waste your time with those people. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2, you want to flip a couple pages over, forward your Bible. 2 Timothy 2, verse 23, another admonition to Timothy. But foolish and unlearned questions, avoid. The foolish questions, the unlearned ignorant questions. But you have to have an answer for every man. I have an answer, but it's not always prudent to give them the answer. Here he's saying avoid it. Don't get wrapped up in it. Don't get sucked into all these stupid questions. Just avoid it. Foolish questions, unlearned questions, avoid knowing that they do gender stripes because all you're going to do then is argue or debate. And people want to get all into these debates, debates, debates, debates, debates. Look, man, that's not what we're called to do. It's not. It's a waste of time. It's not going to save, a debate's not going to save anybody. Preaching Christ in Him crucified, power of God, that's what's going to save people. Debates don't. And the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves. You're not arguing. You're instructing. So people that have these backwards ideas, what are you doing? You're preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. You're going to preach the truth to them. If God put adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. We just give them the truth from God's Word. The people who are unsaved, they just need to hear about the gospel. That's what they need to hear. They don't need to hear all the underlying things to get to that point. Just preach the gospel to them. Maybe they'll accept the truth and hear the Word of God, the powerful Word of God, and it'll pierce through their hearts to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and just be like, that's the truth. I just got hit with the dose of the truth and recognize that and accept it. I don't know about you, but when my salvation came, just because I realized I needed the Savior. At that moment, I'm just like, man, I need to get saved. It was not a process of, well, you need to understand this and this and this about God and have this whole long formulation. I just finally got to the point where I'm like, man, I need to get saved. Does anyone here have a really different testimony from coming to the realization that just like, man, I just need to get saved? I know Brother Keith, he's told me his testimony before. He's just like, man, Jesus saved me. That's it. You just get to that point. You're like, man, I need to know. And some people are a little bit different if someone's helping you or guiding you through that process by sitting you down and explaining the Word of God. Really nice. We get a nice presentation, whereas other people may not have had quite the ease, I suppose, of something like that. Either way, though, you're coming to that realization on your own that you know you need to be saved and you're trusting the Savior. And I've never seen it happen where you start going in depth on all these other philosophical arguments and all these other wisdom of man to get somebody saved. And look, I've tried it. I've talked, I've spent time with atheists going, hey, look, man, talking about the birds and the bees, like literal birds and bees, like ecosystem, explaining that these things can't just happen on their own. These have to happen simultaneously. And trying to reason and say this process, that evolution that you're taught cannot happen the way that it was, it just doesn't work. I mean, just use some kind of, and try to reason and use the wisdom. Man's wisdom. And I've never, never let anyone to Christ using that method, ever. And you know why I've done that? I'm confessing my thoughts to you right now. You know why I've done that? Because I think, you know what, I'm someone who's learned a lot of science. I've gained all this wisdom. And I've had people tell me, I've preached the gospel to you before, like, oh, but you're a computer scientist and you know all this stuff. How is it that you believe the Bible? Right? Because it's contradictory to them. And here I am thinking that I could use this whole knowledge of all the science I've learned and everything else and everything I've studied to try to convince people and it doesn't work. And it's not because it's not true. It just doesn't work with them. Because I'm using the wrong method. Because if you want to get through to people, you've just got to preach the gospel to them. Yeah, sorry, I'm going like this to a thought in my head that I don't want to get into right now because I'm running out of time. Flip over if you go to Titus chapter 3. It's one more admonition to avoid things. And it's basically, you know, the same thing. But we see this three times. Apostle Paul is admonishing Timothy, hey, avoid this stuff. Avoid the foolish questions. Avoid the ignorant questions. Avoid it. We don't need to get in fights and stripes and debates. In meekness, just instruct those that oppose themselves. If God put adventure, we'll give them repentance, acknowledging the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. Just help them to get out of that mess. Titus 3 verse 9, the Bible reads, but avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law for they're unprofitable and vain. You know, again, if people want to argue about the Old Testament law and all this other stuff, like, don't waste your time. You can have an answer for all those things, but you don't have to answer all those things. You don't have to explain why God does everything that he does. Like, you just need to hear the gospel and get saved, buddy. And then verse 10 says, a man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject. So know when it's time to call it quits, too. Obviously, you're going to give people an opportunity. You can answer a question or two, be like, okay, here. Yeah, okay, but here, let me preach the gospel. And then it's just like they're just not receiving it. Then it's time to be done. It's not time to continue and do this huge, long series with them and get them on all of the wisdom of man to get them to see the truth. Just reject them, knowing that he that is such as subverted in sin is being condemned of himself. Nothing that you do through your own wisdom is going to get people saved. It's the power of God. It's the gospel. It's the preaching of the cross and Christ crucified. It's that simple. So hopefully, you know, as you go out, the Bible says, you know, so in faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the what? The word of God. That's where salvation comes from. That's how people get saved. That's where their faith is going to come from. It's coming from the word of God, not your wisdom. The Bible says in Hebrews 11, faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is the evidence itself. If you could prove everything, like I said, then you wouldn't need faith. So don't get sucked into trying to use man's wisdom, the wisdom of this world, to do all of this logic of walking through. And it's not that I think, you know, there's nothing wrong with logic. Like reasonable things are good. But trying to apply the philosophy of Socrates and Plato and these other philosophers to the Bible is folly. It's foolishness. You're trying to adapt and use the way of the world with the things of God when God's saying, hey, preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. I think the apostle Paul got some pretty good results. I think there were churches started for people who believed the gospel because when he showed up, that's all he cared about and that's what he wanted to make sure he got across to them. And when we go out and win souls, focus on just preaching the gospel to them. Don't get sidetracked in all these other areas. You're going to end up wasting your time. Remember that the gospel is the power of God and the salvation. Focus on Jesus. He gets the glory. Hey, increase your wisdom and your understanding absolutely. And we ought to be able to give a reason of the hope that is in you. You're circling back to 1 Peter 3, but you know how you give an answer to the hope that's in you? Because Jesus Christ died on the cross and paid for my sins and rose again from the dead. That's the answer of the hope that's in me. It's the gospel. That's where they get their whole apologetics from. 1 Peter 3. The answer is the hope of the gospel. That's the answer you need to give people. Simple, right? Let's not confound it with man's wisdom. Let's just use the foolishness of preaching because that's what God wants to use and that's what pleases God and that's what works. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for giving us the great opportunity to preach Your Word, to preach the truth. I pray that you would please help us to just stay focused on the simplicity of the gospel, the simplicity as in Christ, dear Lord, and that we could just go forward and preach Your Word boldly and not rely on our own wisdom, but just on the simplicity of the gospel, that we could preach Jesus Christ and crucify, dear Lord. Help us to just help instruct people in meekness and show them the truth and the gospel, Lord, that they could get saved and just, Lord, help us as we continue to grow and understand more to not get too lifted up or proud in our own minds, especially when it comes to increasing knowledge, dear Lord, but that we can keep that in check and continually humble ourselves that we could just focus on preaching Your Word and, Lord, preaching it with authority and in the power of God because we know that it's true and it's not up for debate or question. It is what it is and people can either accept it or not. Lord, help us to make the best use of our time, redeeming the time because the days are evil, Lord, while we go out and preach the gospel. We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. We're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Would you please lead us? All right, church, if you can open up your handles. Song number 149. Song 149, Trust in Jesus. Song 149. All right, let's sing this out in the verse. All right, let's sing this out in the verse. All right, let's sing this out. All right, let's sing this out. Trust in Jesus, that is all. On the last. Trust in him, the last shall pass. Trust in him, till earth he pass. Till with faith the jest were born. Trust in Jesus, that is all. Trust in him, the world will smile. Trusting as the days abide. Trusting him, whatever befall. Trust in Jesus, that is all. Amen, church. Great singing. Thank you so much for coming, you guys. Thank you.