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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Would you like to have a hymnal there in your seat somewhere? Or close by it? Song number 86 in the garden. Song number 86. Alright church, let's sing this out on the first. It's still on the roses And the voice I hear Falling on my ear The Son of God Disposes And he walks with me And he talks with me And he tells me I am his own And the joy we share As we tarry there Another has ever known He speaks and the sound Of his voice Is so sweet The birds Watch their singing And the melody That he gave to me Within my heart Is ringing And he walks With me And he talks With me And he tells me I am his own And the joy we share As we tarry There Another Has ever Known On the last I stay in the garden With him Though the night Around me We fall In But he makes me go Through the voice Of woe And his voice To me Is calling And he walks With me And he talks With me And he tells me I am his own And the joy we share As we tarry there Another Has ever Known Song 188, The Love of God Song 188 Right church, let's sing this out on the first The love of God Is greater far Than time or pen Can ever tell It goes beyond The highest The highest Gone The highest star And reaches to The lowest hell The guilty pair Fell dealt with care God gave his son To win His erring child He reconciled And pardoned from His sin Oh love of God How rich and pure How measureless And strong It shall forever More endure The saints and angels Song When holy time Shall pass away And earthly Froams and kingdoms Fall When men who hear Refuse to pray On rocks and hills And mountains call God's love so sure Shall still endure All measureless And strong Redeeming grace To Adam's grace The saints and angels Song Oh love of God How rich and pure How measureless And strong It shall forever More endure The saints and angels Song Could be with thee The oceans failed And were the skies Of parts been made Were every storm On earth a quill And every wind A scribe by trade To mind the love Of God above Would drain the oceans Dry But could the scroll Contain the whole Those stretched from sky To sky Oh love of God How rich and pure How measureless And strong It shall forever More endure The saints and angels Song Amen. All right. Great singing this morning. At this time we're going to go through our announcements. If you do not have a bulletin passed out to you, just slip your hand up real high and we'll make sure that we get one out to you. And if you open up to the first page, you'll see our service times listed there as always. Sunday morning at 1030 Sunday afternoon. Again at 4 p.m. and Wednesday night at 7 is our Bible study. We're going to be in Isaiah chapter 41 this week. We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there as well as the salvation and baptism for the month of January as well as for the year. And just remember if you want to go out soul winning with us this afternoon, come and see me right after the church service. And brother Jesse, I'm actually going to have you help because things get kind of hectic after the church service. You know we've got plenty of maps, right? We're going to go back to doing what we've been doing on the neighborhoods. We've got the filing system in the office of the completed, partially completed and brand new maps for soul winning. So make sure if you don't get a chance to talk to me about going on soul winning today that you talk with brother Jesse and we get paired up before or right after church is what's going to happen. If you want to go soul winning with us, we get paired up and then people depart, go to lunch, do whatever you want and then we're going to meet back up on site at about 1.30. So that's the plan for soul winning this afternoon. We've got the offering total through the month of January listed down there at the bottom. Let's go ahead and count up with any salvations to report for the week that haven't been reported yet. Anybody have anyone saved? Yes sir. Friday. Very good. Anybody else? Alright. So continuing on here, the prayer request, we have a couple additions for those of you in the WhatsApp group for prayers, you recognize Leon Matthews, we've been praying for him previously and unfortunately he's had another accident, another fall. He's back home now, right? Oh, he's not back home. He went back, so he had been released and then went back. What's the latest then with him? Do you know, I mean is there any... So he was having a lot of pain, so they went and took him back. But he's stable as far as you know at the hospital. So that's brother Devin's grandfather, so pray for him and his grandmother, different sides of the... Right. Just waiting for surgery, surgery date. Push it back, yeah. Okay. Right. Well, we'll leave her on the list. That she could be well. Doris Rogers, pray that she'll be well because she had a surgery planned and everything will go well with that and that God will guide her through that with her health and then we also added Emily's stepsister back onto the list. She's been having more problems with addictions, so just pray that she'll be able to overcome that and that she'll turn and just turn to the Lord for all of her strength and guidance and healing with that. So let's continue on with the announcements. We're in the month of January. It could be the end of January. It's going to be here before you know it. Hopefully you've been keeping up with the church challenge to read the entire New Testament in the month of January. It is a bit of a challenge but maybe it's not quite as hard as you thought. Hopefully there's a lot of people doing this. I think there's a lot of people participating in this. Nine chapters a day it may seem like a lot, especially if you don't normally read a lot, but it's really not that bad. It's something that's very doable. Even my children are doing it. The ones that can't read are doing it through audio. It's not that hard. The key is doing it every day. You just have to remember to always stay up on it. Always make sure you make the time to do your Bible reading. You make sure you make the time to do your Bible reading. It's a piece of cake. We will be offering prizes for that. And speaking of prizes, I have the Psalm 150 prizes up here. I got a whole variety of things. I don't want to cover everything because I only got one or two of everything. Most of it's camping so we got that camping trip coming up which by the way, before I even get into the prizes, May 9th through the 14th is our camping trip. I just got another update that Pastor Jimenez has confirmed that he's going to be here as well. He's going to be here in the earlier part of the week. Pastor Shelley, Pastor Anderson are going to be here in the later part of the week. We've got Pastor Thompson is going to be there all week. Pastor Williams from Sword of the Spirit Baptist Church, he's going to be there all week. And I'm just waiting on a couple more people to know for sure if they're coming. It's a great lineup. We have the whole campsite essentially booked. We've got it all reserved. So if you want to join us on the camping trip, it doesn't cost you anything to get the campsite. I just need your information. There's a sign up sheet over by the flowers on that table over there. You can reserve a spot for yourself. Even if you're just visiting the church, you're welcome to join us. But if you're putting your name on that, I want you to be pretty confident that you're going because we're going to be reserving the spots. I really want to try to get as close to 100% of people who tell me they're going to come actually show up and come and use the space. It's a big investment, but it's going to be awesome, so you don't want to miss that. Which is one of the reasons why the camping trip coming up, I have kind of a camping theme for a lot of the prizes. If you memorize Psalm 150 in the timeline you were supposed to do it, we gave you two weeks to memorize Psalm 150, then you get any one of these prizes, and if you're not into camping that much, we got you some chocolates and there's all kinds of stuff up here. There's these things make, if you got campfire, they make the fire burn a different color. These are pretty, these are really cool. We've been doing these the past couple years just with my family. There's different, even if you don't take these camping, there's a little multiple spice, little spice thing here, some magnesium, fire starters, first aid kits, magnifying glass, and again, you don't need this for camping either, but it's a little LED light with a magnifying glass, paracord, little fire starters that'll help you get charcoal or wood burning just by staying lit, even if it's wet. Towels, camp towels, and then these things are pretty cool too. These are little cast iron skillets for making doughnuts. So it comes with a little pack to make four doughnuts, so we got two of these as well. So, if you memorized, oh and then there's some tent stakes, if you got a tent and you get the cheap little plastic things, there's four of these here, get the corners down at least with something that's solid and then we got the Scotchgard for weatherproofing your tent. And then this stuff is awesome too, by the way. Repel, this is no DEET free, but it actually works. I stand by this stuff. If you have, if mosquitoes love you like they love me, you're probably gonna want some of that. So, if you memorized all of Psalm 150, you completed it, you could come on up and run up here as fast as you can and get whatever you want, since it's not, you know, not everyone's getting the same thing, come on up and get your prize, don't be shy, come on. Look, a lot of people raise their hand like no one's standing up. I know we had at least a dozen people that did Psalm 150, so come on up grab something. I know, it's such a tough choice, isn't it? Well, I guess I see what I should've got more of. We got a bunch of sweet toots here. There's more adults getting candy than kids. I thought we were gonna be like, man, now I feel, I spend a lot of time going through and picking out all this stuff that nobody wants. We'll just get candy next time for everybody. Thanks, brother Devin. Thanks. I built that one up. It wasn't any candy last time. Yeah, that's right, you were last. There was no candy, no chocolate, so that's what you get for being slow. You gotta carry a baby. All right. Nothing to get too excited about. These are all like, not very expensive prizes, obviously, but kind of fun. So we've got a bunch left. We'll probably be doing another shorter verse, another passage before a camping trip. Right now, we're going to be doing Right now, we're working on Hebrews chapter one. So you can see we're getting close to halfway through this one. We're on week three of seven, so if you're able to memorize all of Hebrews chapter one and you're able to quote it out loud to someone else, they can check your work. Make sure you're doing it word perfect. If you're able to do that, then you will earn a prize for memorizing Hebrews one as well. We do that with all of our Bible memory passages that we do. You can commit to memory and we'll give you a prize for doing so. We've got some more people back. It's good to see people back in church. Some sickness has been going around the past month. Is there anyone that's here that I still owe a prize to? If you could just slip up your hand because I've got the rest of the prize there. I kind of filled up the table with the little prizes. Is there anyone that I owe from going all the way back to bringing a visitor to church or doing Romans chapter four or any of those other things. You probably know if you completed it. I just want to make sure I got everyone. I think I got everybody covered, but if there's anyone, speak now, forever hold your peace because I'm probably not going to be bringing it up again. Very good. I need to make good on those promises of getting these prizes out to you. I think we're covered on that. Upcoming events. I got our next men's preaching class scheduled for February 19th. We had one yesterday. It was great. I heard some great preaching. If you're interested in learning how to preach and learning skills, we do this typically on Saturdays. We do the same time every week or every time we do this. We do it roughly once a month or every other month. They'll be at 10 o'clock. We did this two years ago. We didn't do it last year, but a birthday bash. We're renting out. The date is subject to change because I needed to call them. The website is not a very good website. I tried to do it and reserve it online. It just simply wasn't working properly to give us the discount because we're a church with the church rate. I actually have to call someone. I'm going to call someone tomorrow and try to make sure that this date is confirmed. We're looking to get at Roads Jordan Park. If you have been with us for a while, the boxing ring and there's that nice lake there and everything. That's the same place. We're trying to do the same setup that we did a couple years ago. We're going to be doing that on March 12th is the plan. Try to keep that Saturday available. We'll be looking forward to having that. Basically, we have a lot of birthdays. We list them here. You can see them listed down at the bottom of the page. All the upcoming birthdays. We pick one day and we're just going to celebrate that for the whole year for everybody's birthday. It's just kind of a fun event. Of course, everything that we do here is free of charge. We'd love to see you out for that. Also, I didn't put it in here this week, but the Saturday before Easter we're going to be doing a soul winning marathon. I don't know if there's a mega marathon going on, but normally that's the day they do it, but we're going to be doing our next soul winning marathon on that day. I haven't decided exactly where we're going to do it. I want to do something a little bit southern Georgia, but I also want to go to Alabama. We also want to go and do a South Carolina trip this year too. Those are the three places that I've got in mind for hitting this year for our soul winning marathons. It's going to be one of those three places. That's going to be scheduled for the date April 16th. I'll take your word for it. I know it's right around 16th, 19th, somewhere around that time range. That's Saturday we'll be doing that. I'll have that listed in Bolton next week. Lots of birthdays coming up. Don't worry if your birthday is in February and you're not listed here. You don't see your name because we've got a ton of birthdays in February. I'm just waiting another week so we could remove some of these January birthdays to make room for the February birthdays because it's such a long list. We have a disproportionate amount of people in our church have birthdays in February. Happy birthday. Everyone's got a birthday coming up this week. That is about it for our announcement. I'm going to ask Brother Peter if he can come up and he'll lead us in our next song. Church, if you don't want to be here, notice the song number 332. Song 332, Channels Only. Song 332. On the first. On the second. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. On the third. If you can open up your Bibles to the book of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. That's 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And as we do customary here at Stronghold Baptist Church we're going to read the entire chapter. I'm going to ask brother Jesse if you can please do that for us. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 the Bible reads. Oftentimes when I prepare sermons there's a kind of crossover and I want to make sure I teach things fully so it requires a little bit more time. We started in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and we're going to really get going with that because everything I just said is all just groundwork because I haven't really stepped on your toes yet, not even a little bit. You know when the toe-stepping starts it's when you get specific on things. And I'll tell you right now, we need a lot more of that from churches today of spelling things out and making it absolutely abundantly clear so there is no confusion about things. We teach in abstractions and vagueness and just, oh, be good and do good and even just obey God. You know, look, we need a lot more spelled out and just clearly pointed out and say, look, this is how you do that. I could just sit up and say, well, we need to be holy because God's holy. Well, what exactly does that mean? Well, thankfully the Bible spells it out for us. Look at verse number 1 in the 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 where we started reading before I came up here and started preaching. Verse number 1, furthermore then, we beseech you brethren and exhort you by the Lord Jesus that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God so ye would abound more and more. And right off the bat we see, what do we see happening? Teachers, apostles, disciples teaching churches how to walk, what to do. They say, look, we've taught you the right things from the Bible and you need to be doing that. And there's a growing number of people when we go out and talk to people out soul winning and talking about the door where people say, oh, I don't need some man telling me what to do. I don't need to go to church. I don't need, you know, this is a preacher yelling at me and telling me what to do. Look, this is the biblical model and this is what people need. And if you are full of yourself and too haughty and can't handle it, then there's nobody that's going to be able to help you. You need to get yourself right and humbled before God before anyone can help you in your walk with God. But this is exactly what the apostles were doing and this is what they're instructing them. This is what's recorded in Holy Scriptures. You have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God so ye would abound more and more. Verse number two, for ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. Well, I thought that we didn't have to follow commandments because we're free under grace, right? Well, maybe you're just not understanding something when you read the book of Galatians that just because we're free from the curse of the law doesn't mean that there's just no commandments for us to follow them. But again, I'm going to get into that more in depth this evening, so come back for that this afternoon. Especially for those of you that are visiting, you know, we have three different service times, but it's not like it's three of the exact same service every single time. We've got different preaching tonight than we have this morning, so come on back. We'd love to have you back out with us this afternoon. So, they're given commandments, right? And he's reminding them of the commandments that they gave them by the Lord Jesus. Under the authority and direction of the Lord Jesus Christ, they received those commandments. Verse three, for this is the will of God, even your sanctification, being sanctified. I thought we already were sanctified. Yes, we're sanctified through the blood of Jesus Christ, but there's two different types of sanctification. There's the sanctification of your soul spirit, right? That you're saved 100% and forgiven from your sins in the eternal sense that you'll never end up going to hell and you have a home in heaven. That's one sense, but then there's the second sense of why you're living in this life. Why you still have the sinful flesh with you and you have to walk in the spirit every day and your spirit and your flesh are warring against each other. This is why we're admonished over and over and over again in Scripture that, look, we need to be sanctified. You need to walk in the spirit so you don't obey the lust of the flesh because it's not going to just happen automatically. You need to choose every single day that you're going to do what's right. This is the will of God, even your sanctification. And then he clarifies that and makes it a little bit more specific. What are we talking about here in this context? That you should abstain from fornication. Well, now we're getting a little bit more direct. And I'll tell you what, yes, we live in a stinking, wicked, dark culture where fornication is the norm and kids just, they see it in movies, they hear it in the music, and they're brought up just thinking that it's normal for everybody to just go out and sew their wild oats and just have these relationships outside of marriage and everybody does it and that's just what people do and just be safe when you do it. Look, that's garbage. It's the philosophy of man. The Bible calls it wickedness. The Bible calls it sin. It's fornication. God wants you sanctified that you should abstain from fornication. In the Bible, we're going to get into this, how much the Bible warns against fornication. Now, look, if you've committed this sin in the past, there is nothing that you can do to take it back. So the point of preaching this way is not to rub your nose in something that you've done a long time ago. Look, if you've repented and you're not doing any more, then great, right? I mean, that's all you can do. You can't undo what's done, which is why it's so important to get this preaching before it happens because you can't undo the past. And, man, I could keep going on and on just about fornication alone, but I want to get to some other things, and this is still a big part. There's a lot more scripture we want to look at, but how damaging fornication is. It truly is damaging, especially if you want to get married and have a spouse that you could make a vow to that you're going to stay with each other until death do us part and be able to be pure and have that gift of being able to be the only people that you've ever been with is one another. And a lot of people, I mean, younger people don't understand this, but I'm telling you, I'm telling you, listen to the Bible, listen to the Word of God. Flee fornication. Stay as far away from it as possible. And there is every excuse in their heaven for people to go out and commit fornication. Well, we're in love. Well, we're going to get married. I don't know how many times I've heard and seen now people say, well, we're going to get married, and then they don't. They do the act thinking, well, we're going to get married, and then what happens? Oh, something came up. We broke up, and now you've given your virginity away to someone that's not your wife, that's not your husband. Not to mention every other possible consequence that goes along with committing fornication. Diseases, bastard children. If you're going to be sanctified, you need to abstain from fornication. Verse number four, look at this. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor. What's he talking about your vessel? Your body. You need to learn how to possess your vessel in sanctification and honor. You need to be honorable in all that you do and everything that you do with your body because your body is not your own, but you are bought with a price. You accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. You accepted that blood payment that he made for you on the cross. He saved your soul, but guess what? You belong to him. Of course we all have free will in the sense that we have decisions to make, but God tells you how to make those decisions. It's up to us to actually do it, but he gives you commandments, and we need to follow them, and we need to obey him, and if we don't, shame on us. Anybody who's not going to possess their vessel in sanctification and honor. Verse five, not in the lust of concupiscence, even as a Gentile, which no, not God. Why? God wants you to be different from the world. Different, sanctified, holy, set apart. Your life ought to be a testimony to the saving grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Your entire life ought to be. Now we don't just leave it at that and say, well, there's no need to preach the gospel to anyone because it's just my life. But it all should work together. All of it. The way you live, the Bible calls that conversation. Your conversation, the way that you live, the way that you act, the way that you talk to people, the way that you possess your vessel in sanctification and honor, as well as preaching the word of God. It all works together because you think about it. Nobody wants to listen to a stinking hypocrite. Now, to some degree, every single one of us is a hypocrite just because we're all sinners. I get consent to the law that it's good and say, hey, look, the law is good. I don't make the law bad, but I do fail sometimes. So when I fail, hey, I still say the law is right. I'll still preach the law is right, this is right, even though I may fail. But the more of those failings and the more sin that you have, it's going to drive people to even question, do you really believe this? I mean, if you're out getting drunk, sleeping around, doing drugs, doing all these various sins, all the things that the Bible condemns and condemns strongly if you're doing all these things, do you really expect someone to believe you when you start talking about the Bible to them? Verse 6, that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter, because that the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. Wow, we find that again in the New Testament. God has called us unto holiness, not uncleanness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit. You know, the people that hate this preaching, the people that hate hearing about holiness and fornication, you don't despise man, because these are God's commands. You despise the Bible. You despise God. You could try to misplace the direction or the object of your anger, and you could try to say it's on me, and go ahead, you can put it on me if you want, if that makes you feel better, but you know it's not going to change the word of God. Flip forward to 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy chapter 2, we're going to start looking in verse number 19. The Bible reads, Nevertheless, the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Depart from iniquity? I thought we didn't have to worry about the law. Look, what does the Bible say? And people believe in this hyper-grace movement. They must not read the Bible. You cherry-pick your verse of the day. They maybe read a couple of Psalms or something, and then they just don't read the Bible, because this is found all throughout Scripture. What did Jesus say to the woman taking adultery? Go and sin no more. He told her to sin no more. Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity, but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor. So what is explaining to us here is that there may be a lot of people who are saved. Now, overall, in the global sense, there's few people who are saved. The Bible teaches us that, that there's not that many people who are saved. But as far as just sheer numbers, even if it's a small percentage, a small percentage still is a lot of people in the sense of total numbers. Like 1%, even, of billions of people is still a lot of people. And obviously, I don't know what the percentage of people who are saved, my point is, you could still have few that are saved in a grand sense, but still have a lot of people. And when you have a great house and you think of all the people who've ever lived, they've gotten saved, you know, there's some vessels of gold and of silver, there's some people who know how to possess their vessels in honor and sanctity, but then there's going to be others that, they're not so honorable. Right? Now look, how is that possible? Because salvation has nothing to do with your obedience to the law. Because you're going to get some people that get saved, and they are not going to want to get the sin out of their life, they're going to be choked by the cares of this world, they're going to let other things come between them and God. It doesn't make them unsaved. But it means that they're not possessing their vessels in honor, and if we automatically did when you get saved, then why would we even be told to possess your vessel and sanctity in honor? Why would you be told to be sanctified? Why would we even have all these instructions to do this if it happened automatically? My friends, it doesn't. It doesn't just automatically happen with salvation. Verse 21, If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. Is it your desire in your heart to serve God? Do you want to do good works for the Lord? Well, the Bible says here, if you purge yourself, purge yourself of the sins, get the wickedness out of your life, then you could be a vessel unto honor. Know how to possess your vessel, and then you'll be meet or ready for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. You could have a desire to serve God, but you need to do it the right way. You need to start listening to God to actually have that happen. And God doesn't look at your desire and just treat it as if you did the things that you want to do. You actually have to do them. So when you're standing at the judgment seat of Christ, which, by the way, is only for saved people, that's not the great white throne judgment. Don't get the two confused. There's two different judgment seats. There's one where God judges the damned, where God judges the dead, which is more towards the end of the book of Revelation, but then there's the judgment seat of Christ, which is where we are going to receive, all the saints are going to receive, rewards based on what you did with your life, where God is going to reward you for doing good, for anything that had eternal value, you actually get rewarded for that, further demonstrating that your good works has nothing to do with your salvation because God's paying you, He's given you the salvation for free, now anything good that you do to serve Him, He's going to pay you for. He's going to reward you for. Well, if you say, Well, God, I really wanted to serve you. Well, yeah, anyone who's born of God, that spirit's going to want to do good. But it's still your choice to walk in the spirit or walk in the flesh. And then as we're talking about holiness here in 2 Timothy now, look at what the next thing is in verse 22. Flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Turn with you to 1 Corinthians 6. That word flee. Where do we normally commonly hear flee outside of church in the world today? Probably if you're watching, like, cops or something, right? What is it? A criminal, they're fleeing from the police. So what are they doing? Man, they're hightailing out of there. You watch a police chase, the suspect is fleeing. They are trying to get out of dodge. They don't want to get caught. So they are doing their best efforts, hopping fences, and they're fleeing. That's what it means to flee. Okay, so you get that picture in your head. Now, the Bible tells us to flee youthful lusts, and in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 18, the Bible says flee fornication. Flee fornication. If the Bible tells you to flee fornication, does that mean, well, let me just see how close I could get to committing fornication without actually committing fornication? No. No. If you do that, you're a fool. Don't play with the fire. Flee fornication. Make the rules for yourself to say, I am not going to get anywhere close to fornication. I am not going to make allowances for my flesh, make provision for my flesh to sin. How does that work? Well, one, I'm never going to be alone in a room with someone of the opposite gender that I'm not married to and just be behind closed doors and just off somewhere. No. Flee fornication. Flee fornication. Verse 18, flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committed fornication sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own, for ye are bought with the price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. You're saved, you're born again. The Holy Ghost is within you. God sees everything that you do because God is in you. As a born-again believer, don't quench the spirit when your flesh is enticing you to do something because it's going to feel really good, because I like that feeling, because I want that. The Holy Ghost is with you and do not defile your body through fornication because your body is not your own. It is the temple, the residing place of the Holy Ghost. And when you join yourself and become one flesh with someone else, guess what, the Holy Ghost is right there with you. I already was alluding to it making references to these verses, but you need to stop and think are you bringing dishonor to God through the actions that you take with your body? Now, in the context and the primary purpose is always talking about fornication, but there's obviously other things that we could be doing to our bodies that are sinful and we're defiling the temple of our bodies. Look, if God wants you to be sanctified, do you think he wants you defiling that temple with a whole bunch of tattoos? Tatten up yourself and making a whole bunch of marks on your body, which the Bible says not to print marks on your body in the Old Testament and the book of Leviticus says not to print marks. Do you think God wants you inhaling a bunch of carcinogenic smoke that's going to give you cancer and is going to destroy your body before you could live out the full extent of your life, whatever God's going to grant you? But no, I'm going to destroy it early. Do you think God wants you ingesting poisons, drugs, alcohol, damaging your body, damaging your liver? Do you think God wants you indulging, overindulging in just a whole bunch of food and getting fat and clogging your arteries and doing, you know, all this other stuff to defile your body? Okay, look, there's many ways to defile your body. God wants us separate. He doesn't want you looking like the world. He doesn't want you acting like the world. He wants you to possess your vessel in sanctity and honor and treat it serious. And if you struggle in any of these areas, any sin that you struggle with, I'm going to tell you this, don't make a provision for the flesh. If you're already aware, Elizabeth, if you're already aware that you will probably be tempted with something, you already know it, maybe it's something you've already committed and you're more likely to commit, maybe there's instances that you go through on a daily basis and you know, man, every time I put myself here, bad things happen, every time I listen to this, every time I watch this, every time, you know, whatever the case may be, whenever I get in this situation, usually it's whenever I get all by myself, you think you can start getting away with stuff, you start, you know, when there's no other people around to help keep you accountable, thank you, to help keep you accountable when no one else is around, those are the most likely times for any sin to take place. I mean, even stealing, right? They go out at night, they don't want to be seen by anybody, right? People plan to do bad things. Obviously, I would hope that nobody here is planning on doing bad things, planning on sinning. Usually, Christians catch themselves in sin, but I'll tell you what, this concept of, oh, well, I mean, I don't know, it just kind of happened, you've allowed that to happen. Don't disown the responsibility. The Bible warns us about making provision for the flesh in Romans 13. Turn, if you would, to 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. Romans 13, 12 says, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. We need to be putting on the armor of light. We need to be walking in the Spirit. We need to be getting closer to Jesus. We need to put on the Lord Jesus Christ every day and not make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. Making provision means you already know that something may happen. Don't put yourself I brought up before. You know, my wife and I have a lot of rules for ourself and for my household. You make the rules up for yourself and your household because that's under your authority. I can tell you what we do because I don't want to make provision for the flesh. Now, look, neither my wife or I have any desire to want to be unfaithful to each other or anything like that, but we know this. We know that the sinful flesh, there's nothing new under the sun and that many, many people have already been tempted by their flesh and have committed horrible sins and we don't want that to happen. We want to be able to flee adultery, fornication. We don't want that to ever happen in our lives, so we made some rules saying, you know what, we're never going to be having these close friendships and private conversations with people of the opposite gender. Why? Because that's how these things start. Because I know that's how they start, so we're not going to be opening up the door even a little bit. You say, well, President Bush, what's wrong with having a friend? There's nothing wrong with having a friend, but you know what, my marriage is way more valuable than even just having some friend. Why do I need a friend? I have a friend. I found my friend for life. I don't need another friend. There's so many things that you can do. And look, I'm not going to tell you that I was always perfect in my decision making in the past, but I could tell you this much is that the Bible is true. So my failings or shortcomings that I may have done in the past, most people don't even know, thank God, you know, all of my list of sins that I've committed in the past, but that doesn't, you know, that doesn't make, undo what's right for you and for everyone right now. What is right? How do you need to be possessing your vessel in sanctity and honor? So we make up these rules. We're not going to have these close friendships. I'm not going to be texting some woman and just going back and forth, and look, and for anyone who wants to know, this is why, if you have any problems here, I love trying to help people in church, especially as a pastor, but don't expect there to be, especially if there's a woman or a single woman or something in this church, look, if there's a married woman, talk to your husband. The husband is a spiritual leader in the home. If you have questions, ask your husband at home. We're going to get, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. That's coming up. But if you're single or whatever, I want to be able to help, but we're not going to be sitting down in my office and closing the door and having some private conversation. If we're going to have a private conversation, my wife's going to be there with. That's as private as I get. But usually what I'm going to do is be just out in the open, and yes, we don't have to be, you know, it's not like everyone has to gather around, but the conversation it's had is still going to be in public where if someone were to walk up, there's nothing weird going on. But anyways, these are some of the things you have to think about and not allow for the provision to even be there. Not allow for any inappropriate relationships to start taking place. Stop putting yourself in those positions. First Thessalonians, chapter number five, the Bible says in verse 19, quench not the spirit. That's one of the first things that you're going to be doing if you know you're getting into a bad situation and the Holy Spirit's going to be telling you, hey, you shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be doing this. Don't quench the spirit. Quenching means you're putting that out. There's a fire inside of you. You've got a fire inside of you telling you, don't do this, listen. If that fire's the Holy Spirit going, you know you're doing wrong, you know you're heading in a way, but your flesh is just kind of driving you, stop. Don't quench the spirit. It is possible to quench the spirit. Don't think that, the spirit's going to help you, guide you, but you choose whether or not you're going to listen to the spirit or not. Despise not prophesying. Don't hate the preaching. Don't hate the preaching. Accept it. Whatever's right in the word of God. Again, if you got something, you don't like my rule, fine. You make your own rule. I just want you thinking about, and I've got a lot more rules, by the way, in my house. I'm not just going to list all of them off right now. You think about the rules that are going to make sense for you to avoid getting yourself in a situation that's going to bring dishonor under the name of Christ. Prove all things, verse 21, hold fast to that which is good, verse 22, abstain from all appearance of evil. God wants us holy. God wants us saved. I say, but I'm not doing anything wrong. You know what? God doesn't want it looking like you're doing something wrong. Oh, I want to go see my girlfriend. I'm going to spend the night at her house. We're not doing anything. But you know what? If someone sees you walk into someone else's house, and you don't leave until the morning, look, that's the appearance of evil. Let me just spell it out for you. That is the appearance of evil, even if nothing happens. You ought to be living holy and sanctified and righteously and not even giving opportunity for those that hate the gospel, that hate God, to use something against you because it appears you're doing evil. God wants you so far set apart from that, that you don't even have the appearance of evil. And you know, as a believer, I'm also not going to allow for other believers to have an occasion to stumble in their flesh either. I'm not going to be an enabler. I'm not going to encourage that behavior. I'm not going to allow that to happen. So go back to the rules within my house. If I've got, you know, a younger couple that want to come over and spend time and hang out, you better believe that I'm not going to let them be anywhere alone behind closed doors in my household. Never going to happen. You're crazy if you think that I would ever let anything like that happen, and you ought not let that happen either. My children, they're not dating age yet. When they start growing up and they start getting interested in boys or girls, whatever, not whatever. Boys are interested in girls. The girls are interested in boys. It's crazy I shouldn't even have to say that, right? When they get to that age, you better believe there's going to be rules. You better believe that my daughters, and my sons, okay? I'm not, you know, there is a double standard to some sense because I'm responsible for the purity of my daughters and my children, but I'm not going to get all that. That's a whole other sermon. I don't have the time to just get into all the details. Either way, sons and daughters, they are not going to be left alone to hang out in their rooms with anyone of the opposite gender. It's never going to happen. I'm not even the one in that situation, but you know what? I'm not going to allow for that to happen. Romans 14 verse 12, the Bible says, so then every one of us shall give account for himself to God. I have to give an account to myself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. Now obviously as a parent, you shouldn't be putting stumbling blocks in front of your children, but this is talking about more than just parenting. It's talking about believers and your brothers and sisters in Christ. Well, as a father, if your children are saved, guess what? They're your brother in Christ or your sister in Christ. It still is applicable. And no matter what the situation is, we need to make sure that even though you may not be in that situation, you're not going to be putting a stumbling block in front of someone else and making allowances for things to happen that ought not to be happening. I'm not going to have booze on hand at my house and say, well, I don't drink. Right? Because those of you that know me know I made a vow that I'm never going to touch alcohol again, and I've kept that vow to this day. But I'm never going to do that. The Bible teaches us, first of all, not to even look. Upon the line, when it's read in Proverbs chapter 23, don't even look on it, let alone have it in your house. But I'm not going to have booze on hand at my house. We have a get-together, gathering, party. Well, I don't drink, but they do, so I'm just going to make sure. Look, no. Don't you give an occasion for them to stumble and put a stumbling block in their path? It's not good for me, but here you go. Which, by the way, and we're not, holiness can cover every manner of sin. I don't believe it's right for Christians to be putting evil, wicked things in front of their eyes, so the Hollywood movies and all the programming that's out there from Hollywood, we ought not to be watching that, just like we ought not to be listening to all the stinking sodomites and perverts and the rock and roll to all the other world's garbage music that all has a message, by the way. It's all teaching you, whether you realize it or not, what you're thinking. Oh, this just sounds kind of fun. It just kind of makes me happy. Listen to what they're saying. In fact, don't listen to what they're saying. Get rid of it, because they try to use the music and use the melodies as a vehicle to insert their thoughts into your mind. Pastor Burns, you're like a conspiracy theorist, you're crazy. Call me whatever you want. I know that's true. You listen to some of my sermons on music and the world's music, and you'll start to see maybe a little bit more about how powerful it really is. But my point with that was I'm not going to take that, and once I come to the realization, you know what, I shouldn't be watching this, I shouldn't be listening to this. I'm not going to then take that and say, well, but I spend a lot of money on this, so here, I'm going to sell this to you. Why wouldn't you do that? I mean, you invested so much, well, you need to get that money back, right? No. Because I'm not going to take something that I think is wicked and wrong and that nobody should be watching and giving that to anybody just to make a buck. Which is why when I got rid of, when I came to the realization that the music I was listening to was bad and the movies I was watching were bad, not right away, it took a minute, but when I made the decision to say, you know what, I'm done with this, because I learned it was bad before I got rid of it all. When I got rid of it, I took a hammer and a chisel and destroyed it, because I didn't even want to throw it in the trash thinking, well, what if someone takes it out of the trash? And I recommend you doing the same thing. If you've got something sinful in your life, and maybe you hadn't known about it before, maybe you have, regardless when you know about it, make the decision to say, you know what, I'm not going to allow this in my house. I'm not going to have, one, an occasion for me to stumble and fall and get into this stuff, and two, I'm not going to put it in front of anyone else either. If it's bad for me, it's bad for you. If it's bad, if the Bible says it's bad, that's bad for everybody. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 5. Good night. Alright, this is going to be a two-parter. I'm not going to keep you here all morning. I've got a lot more to go. We're like just getting close to the halfway point, and I'm not going to keep you here all morning. We'll just reconvene in the afternoon, but we are going to get partially through Ephesians chapter 5, okay, because this is important. It still ties in perfectly with everything else. This is kind of a transition from the next major point I wanted to make. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 1. Bob reads, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling saver. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints. Are you a saint? Are you sanctified in the blood of Christ? Look, there are certain things they ought not to be even named among you. We ought to have standards as believers saying it is never going to be even mentioned that I'm in fornication, or uncleanness, or covetousness, and I'm just wrapped up in being covetous, being unclean, fornicating, and then he continues on here, look, neither filthiness nor foolish talking just saying a bunch of stupid things. Okay, watch your mouth, which is a whole nother sermon. All the sins that stem from what you say, there is a lot of sin that comes out of people's mouths, whether it be gossiping, busybodies, false accusing, railing, lying, just blasphemy, right? You go on and on and on down the list of all the damage and harm that comes, even just foolish talking, just saying stupid things. Okay, Christians ought not to be known as people who just say stupid, just a bunch of stupid things. You need to learn to get a filter on your mouth before you open up and start talking. How about this, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. You know, life is not just a big joke. The Bible tells us over and over again to be sober. Sober means serious. It does not mean you could never laugh. It does not mean you could never tell a joke. But this is talking about people who are just like the jester, the clown, right? You need to take life seriously because it is serious. Yes, it's okay to laugh. Yes, it's okay to blow off some steam every now and then. But you know what? Let's walk, as the Bible says here, we're going to see as children of light. Let's keep reading, verse number five. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater. Aren't those the very first three things that we saw in verse number three? Fornication, uncleanness, covetousness. This ye know in verse five, that no whoremonger, unclean person, nor covetous man whose idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Don't be like the unsaved world. Don't be like them. They don't have an inheritance. Let no man deceive you, verse six, with vain words. For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. Look, these are the reasons why God's wrath gets poured out. It's for these reasons. You're saying don't be partakers with them because guess what? I mean, if God's pouring out his wrath because of all these things, what's he going to do to you? Verse eight. For ye were sometimes darkness. There's the analogy. Look, I know. You were sometimes darkness. We've all been darkness at some point in the past. But now are ye light in the Lord. But now you're saved. Now you're saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, so now you need to walk as children of light. Get the sin, the garbage out of your life. Don't defile your body through fornication, covetous, even just being covetous. Again, that's something that the world's going to teach you that, oh, it's not that big of a deal. Most people, when you describe covetousness to them, unless you're reading the Bible or going to church, you probably won't even realize that that's actually a sin and it's a very dangerous sin. Covetousness, for those of you who don't know, is desiring to have things that you can't have. It's a very simple definition when you're covetous of something. Now, there's many ways you can be covetous. Probably the easiest way people think of covetousness is you don't have money and you want to have more money. I don't have this boat, but I want to have that boat. I don't have enough money to buy myself a luxury car or a bigger house or whatever, right? All these different things, these things that cost money. I don't have those things, but I really want them and you're thinking on those things and just wanting and desiring and just wishing you had them. You're looking at what other people have and going, oh, man, that must be nice. I wish I had that. That is covetousness. But this is being sold to you on the TV. They've got the shows and I don't know what all the new ones are, but when they show off people's houses, right? Was it MTV Cribs? What's that? HGTV? I don't know, but when they're showing you stuff that's like, hey, look at all this and people watch it because it's like, oh, man, I wish I had that. Now, look, you could tell me, well, there's a valid reason where I'm not covetous. Fine, I don't care. I'm talking about covetousness right now, right? If you're not being covetous towards something, honestly, then great. But most people will look at something and desire to have it and want it. If you can't have it, that's covetousness. Now, there's nothing wrong with setting a goal and saying, you know what? I can do this. If I work this much and I put this much away and I can buy this, that's not covetousness. Right? Planning for something that you don't have but you're able to achieve it if you do certain things, that's not being covetous. Covetousness is just desiring to have all these things that you can't have. If you think about something outside of money, right, outside of physical objects you could buy, what about someone else's spouse or someone else's family, someone else's kids? Oh, man, I wish I had that. Well, you can't have that. Well, that's covetousness. It takes many forms. It's just anything that you can't have. Oh, man, that woman's so beautiful. She married to someone else. So that means you can't have her. So if you start desiring someone else's wife, guess what? You're being covetous. We need to walk as children of life, whoremongers, unclean person, covetous man. God's wrath is going to be poured out because of all that. How ought you to be walking as a child of God? We need to take heed to the Word of God and treat it seriously, and going back, closing on fornication because I'm not going to get into the rest of my sermon now. I've already decided. What happened? There's an incident in the Old Testament. Those of you who read your Bible, the matter of Baal Peor. Does anyone know what happened in the matter of Baal Peor? The children of Israel were coming out of the wilderness. They're wandering around and who remembers this story, the story of Balaam, Balaam's ass, because this all happened at the same time. Balaam was this false prophet that was called on by a king to curse the children of Israel in the wilderness because he was scared. He was worried that they were going to come and destroy him so he's going, you know what, I'm going to need you to curse these people. So he goes out, and as he's traveling, his ass hits his ass to keep going. There's an angel standing in a way that's about to kill him, and that whole story, and the ass actually speaks to him like he hears the donkey speaking with a man's voice and all this other stuff. That's that story, but what was going on then, he doesn't curse them. He actually blesses them, but then after that, the Bible says that he taught Israel, he still ended up cursing them through his teachings because he taught them to commit fornication, that it was basically okay for them to commit fornication with the Moabites, right? With Moab. So many of the people then were taking wives and committing fornication with the Moabites, which was not allowed. It was against the law of God, and because of their fornication, I think it was 75,000 people died in the wilderness because of the fornication. Those things are written for our admonition that you can see the gravity and seriousness of a sin like that, regardless of what the world is telling you, what the world thinks, and what's going on around you, and what your flesh is telling you. Please take heed to the word of God and flee and set up the barriers and set up the boundaries and set up the boundaries for your children and don't allow an opportunity for the flesh to gain hold. Spotlights, I have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we love you. God, we thank you so much for your word. I pray that you would please help us all. God, we struggle with sin because we're living in this flesh, but I pray that you would help us to overcome that through the Spirit, that we know that your word says that if we walk in the flesh, if we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. One of the best ways for us, Lord, we know this, to be able to avoid the temptations of our flesh is to be walking in the Spirit. Lord, help us to have the strength to overcome our flesh that we can do the things and occupy our time so we don't have the idle time, occupy our time doing good things, having a plan for our day every day and not just going on a whim of whatever comes up, Lord, but that we could schedule ourselves so that we know that we're not going to put ourselves in bad situations. Lord, please help us to be sober and to be cognizant of the seriousness of these sins, Lord, and that we could learn how to possess our vessels in sanctification and in honor. God, we love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed. Brother Peter, will you please lead us in our last song? All right, church, if you can grab your hymnals and open up the song number 390. Song number 390, Have I Done My Best for Jesus. Song 390. All right, church, let's sing this song of the first. I wonder have I done my best for Jesus Who died upon the cool tree To think of His great sacrifice and Calvary I know my Lord expects the best from me How many are the lost that I have lived in How many are the chained I've held to free I wonder have I done my best for Jesus When He has done so much for me The hours I have wasted are so many The hours I've spent for twice so few Because of all my lack of love for Jesus I wonder if this part is breaking too How many are the lost that I have lived in How many are the chained I've held to free I wonder have I done my best for Jesus When He has done so much for me I wonder have I cared enough for others Or have I let them die alone I might have helped a wanderer to the Savior The seed of precious life I might have sown How many are the lost that I have lived in How many are the chained I've held to free I wonder have I done my best for Jesus When He has done so much for me No longer will I stay within the valley I'll climb to mountain heights of blood The world is dying down for want of someone To tell them of the Savior's precious love How many are the lost that I have lived in How many are the chained I've held to free I wonder have I done my best for Jesus When He has done so much for me I wonder have I done my best for Jesus When He has done so much for me I wonder have I done my best for Jesus When He has done so much for me I wonder have I done my best for Jesus Thank you for watching!