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All right, folks, welcome to Pure Words Baptist Church. We're going to go ahead and get started this evening. If you would, grab your white handout. Our first song tonight is going to be Psalm 150 in the white handout. Psalm 150, 1-5-0 in your white handout. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet, Praise Him with the sultry hand of the harpsichord, Praise Him with the tickle and dance, Praise Him with spring instruments and rings, Praise Him upon the loud cymbals, Praise Him upon the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, Praise Him on the high sounding cymbals, God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, that Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations, Let the people praise Thee, O God, Let all the people praise Thee, O let the nations be glad, and seek for joy, for thou shalt judge the people Righteously and governed the nations upon earth, the nations upon earth see love Let the people praise thee, O God Let all the people praise thee, O let the nations be glad, and seek for joy Then shall the earth yield her in praise And God, even our own God, shall bless us, God shall bless us in all the ends Of the earth shall fear him, let the people praise thee, O God Let all the people praise thee, O let the nations be glad, and seek for joy We need a bulletin, we have one over the cabinet On the inside we have our service and soul winning times As well as regional soul winning times and church stats Is there any reporting for soul winning for the last few days to report? I know we had two for salvation tonight, anything outside of that? Alright, keep up the good work on soul winning Also on the right we have our list of expecting ladies Continue to be in prayer for them As well as we have our upcoming events Our chili cook-off, October 31st And make sure you bring a chili if you'd like to enter into a competition We'll have a good time of fellowship And we'll keep the beans out of it this time, alright? No beans, alright? Hey, you can bring, I'll say this You can bring bean chili There's no problem, you just can't win the competition Now, we're saving you the embarrassment of getting last place anyways By not allowing you into the competition But, you of course can bring it and people can eat it And get their fill You know, I'm sure all the good chilis will get eaten really quickly So it'd be nice to have some You know, basically make the statement of the wedding The person who's over the wedding, true, in the Bible Where he says, you know, you first give that what's good And then bring out that which is worse later That's kind of what you'd be doing with the chilis So, also Thanksgiving, instead of having our normal service on Thursday I'm just moving it to Tuesday that week We'll have a dessert fellowship So if you want to bring a dessert We'll just, dessert of choice And we'll just have services on Tuesday So everything will be the exact same As far as time, we'll still meet at 7pm And we'll have our normal regular schedule service And we'll have some dessert afterwards And so that way you can still fellowship with your family Or hang out on Thanksgiving, doing whatever you'd like So, also December 33rd is a Thursday And we're going to have our Christmas candlelight service then We're definitely going to be doing Christmas caroling again this year too I just need to figure out exactly what date It'll be in December The good thing about Houston is you can pretty much go anytime in December And it's not a big deal So, usually it's pretty good weather here in December And so it's a lot of fun And I really encourage you to come and participate We do have a prayer request If you'd please pray for brother Edward Gomino's health Specifically his leg and foot But brother Samson, give me an update Said that he'd gotten a little bit of good news From the doctors that maybe the antibodies That they were giving him were helping And so we'll continue to pray for him And then hope that he'll recover fully That's pretty much all that we have for announcements We'll just go ahead and go to our third song, 183 Oh how I love Jesus, 183 I do have a couple guests with me I have brother Dylan and brother Ben with me Because we're working on a documentary On another documentary on the King James Bible And so we went up to Faithful Word yesterday And we did some interviews with Pastor Anderson And the Bible Museum there And so hopefully we'll get a lot of work done in the next few months And I'm planning on preaching a sermon here To add into the film And we're trying to make, we're trying to work on a documentary That'll be a pure words publication Pure words documentary And so I'm really excited about that And hopefully we'll get that done sooner than later If it takes a while you can blame Ben Okay, so that's the specific person you can blame But other than that, I'm really excited Let's sing our third song, 183 Oh how I love Jesus All right, 183 Oh how I love Jesus 183, we'll sing there starting on the first verse There is a name I love to hear I love to sing it's worth It sounds like music in my ear The sweetest name on earth Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus Because he first loved me It tells me of a savior's love Who died to set me free It tells me of his precious blood The sinner's perfect plea Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus Because he first loved me It tells me what my father had In store for every day And though I tread a dark sun path Healed sunshine all the way Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus Because he first loved me It tells of one whose loving heart Can feel my deepest love Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus Oh how I love Jesus Because he first loved me Amen, good singing this song Because he first loved me Amen, good singing this evening If you would, grab your Bibles Turn to Acts chapter number 20 Acts chapter number 20 We'll have Brother Sam read for us Follow along if you would While the offering plates are passed around Alright, we're here again Acts chapter number 20 We'll read this chapter together as always If you would, find your places Acts chapter number 20 And follow along with me here The Bible reads in verse 1 After the uproar was ceased Paul called unto him the disciples And embraced them And departed for it to go into Macedonia And when he had gone over those parts And had given them much exhortation He came into grief They are both three months And when the Jews laid weight for him As he was about to sail into Syria He proposed to return through Macedonia And there accompanied him into Asia Asopodar of Virea And of the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Secundus And Gaius of Derbe And Timotheus And of Asia Tychaeus and Trophimus These going before tarried for us at Troas And we sailed away from Philippi After the days of unleavened bread And came unto them of Troas In five days For we abode seven days And upon the first day of the week When the disciples came together To break bread Paul preached unto them Ready to part on the morrow And continued in his speech until midnight There were many likes in the upper chamber Where they were gathered together There set in a window a certain young man Named Eutychus Being fallen into a deep sleep And as Paul was long preaching He sunk down with sleep And fell down from the third loft And was taken up dead Paul went down and fell on him And embraced him Said trouble not yourself For his life is in him When he therefore came up again And had broken bread and eaten And talked a long while Even till break of day So he departed They brought the young man alive And were not a little comforted And we went before him to ship And sailed unto Asos There intending to take in Paul For so he had appointed Minding himself to go afoot And when he met with us at Asos We took him in and came to Mydalene And we sailed then And came the next day Over against Toa And the next day We arrived at Samul And tarried at Trogillium And the next day we came to Miletus For Paul had determined to sail to Ephesus Because he would not Spend the time in Asia For he hated It was possible for him to be at Jerusalem For the day of Pentecost And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus And called the elders of the church And when they would come to him He said unto them Ye know from the first day that I came Into Asia After what manner I have been with you At all seasons Serving the Lord with all humility of mine And with many tears and temptations Which befell me by the lying weight of the Jews And how I kept back nothing That was profitable unto you But have showed you and have taught you Publicly and from house to house Testifying both to the Jews And also to the Greeks Repentance towards God And faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ And now behold I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem Not knowing the things that shall befall me there Save that the Holy Ghost Witnesses in every city Saying that bonds and afflictions abide me But none of these things move me These are kind of my life dear unto myself So that I might finish my course With joy and the ministry Which I have received of the Lord Jesus To testify the gospel Of the grace of God And now behold I know that ye all Among whom I have gone preaching The kingdom of God shall see my face No more Wherefore I take you to record this day That I am pure From the blood of all men For I have not shunned to declare Unto you all the counsel of God Take heed therefore unto yourselves And to all the flock Over thee which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers To feed the church of God Which he hath purchased with his own blood For I know this That after my departing shall grievous wolves Enter in among you Not sparing the flock Also of yourselves shall men arise Speaking perverse things To draw away disciples after them Therefore watch and remember That by the face of three years I cease not to warn everyone Night and day with tears And now brother I commend you to God And to the word of his grace Which is able to build you up And to give you an inheritance Among all them which are sanctified I have coveted no man's silver Nor gold or apparel Yea, ye yourselves know That these hands have ministered Unto my necessities And to them that were with me I have showed you all things How that so laboring Ye ought to support the weak More blessed to give than to receive And when he had thus spoken He kneeled down and prayed with them all And they all wept sore and fell On Paul's neck and kissed him Thawing most of all for the words which he spake That they should see his Face no more And they accompanied him unto the ship By a head for a quick word of prayer Heavenly Father, we thank you so much tonight Father, first of all for the salvation We achieved today and thank you for giving us Salvation Amen. Amen. We're here in Acts chapter number 20 and we're doing a Bible study Through the book of Acts And in chapter number 19 There had been a big stir in Ephesus. You have to remember that there was A lot of people that were upset Because they were afraid they were going to lose Their great goddess Diana. Great is Diana Of the Ephesians. You know they were Screaming and yelling and it Starts off here in verse number 1 It says, and after the upper were Ceased. So essentially after everybody Calm down. But again what's our Setting? Ephesus. Right? We're still in Ephesus. That's where Paul has been In chapter number 19. We're still here in chapter Number 20. He called unto him the Disciples and embraced them to depart For to go into Macedonia And when he had gone over those parts And had given them much exhortation He came into Greece. And so We have here him talking to the Disciples in Ephesus And the Bible describes it in verse number 2 As much exhortation. Now What is exhortation? If you just look it up in the dictionary it says To urge by strong Often stirring Argument, admonition Advice, or appeal. So according to the dictionary And I think that's a really good Way of wording it. It's essentially Preaching. Exhort Preaching. Now preaching Can be all manner of subjects Topics, emotions, and Anything. So exhortation is not Necessarily locked into a particular Emotion or a particular Type of preaching. But it's Essentially doing something with urgency. A lot of times people describe Preaching as being bombastic. What is bombastic? You know bombastic Little bit of a negative term but It's basically just saying It seems like you overemphasize Or you try to make something more important Than it really is. But I Don't love that criticism because here's the thing I cannot overemphasize The importance of God's word. You can't urge the word of God More than necessary Because it is very necessary It is a very urgent Message. It is a very important Message. And I don't think you can Over-dramaticize the importance Of God's word, His commandments, The instructions that come from the Bible And so to me if anybody actually believes The Bible or is wanting to communicate The correct message It's going to be done with a sense of urgency It's going to be done with much exhortation Meaning I like preaching Where the person seems like they actually care You know I'm not interested in this kind of You know Ben Stein Style of preaching where it's Dry eyes Let's turn in our Bible to Acts Chapter 20 now Anybody care anymore You know it's like no we should actually Have a little bit of dynamic When it comes to our preaching We should care and really you know some people Ask like how do I become a dynamic Creature Here's the key Care Just believe what the Bible actually says You know if you actually care if you actually have some Love in your heart towards the word of God If you actually think it is important It's going to be dynamic Because everyone's dynamic If your kid was drowning in a pool You'd be screaming and it'd be real dynamic You know if you were on fire you'd be screaming It'd be real dynamic Everybody can be dynamic It's that they just don't care is the reason why They're not dynamic And often people that are fake They try to seem dynamic But there's something off about it It's because it's insincere it's not genuine And we don't want to force dynamics We want to yell just to yell We want to yell because we think it's important to say loudly You know it's something that we actually believe in We actually care And so exhortation is really important And we want to be a part of a church We want to be a part of a group that exhorts one another You know when we go out soul winning There should be a little bit of exhortation In your soul winning You should have a sense of urgency When you're there at the door Because this might be this person's last time to hear the gospel There might not be another time Where someone's going to knock on their door And give them an opportunity to go to heaven or hell You know make sure that they have Hey this is your window of opportunity buddy You know believe it now You know the Bible doesn't say today is the day of salvation It says now Because now is the day of salvation Now is the accepted time I mean so there's never more important time than now According to the Bible Do you think that's urgent When someone says now I mean if your boss said hey I want you to get this done Now! Does that sound like it's urgent? It sounds like it's urgent to me When it comes to the word of God God uses words like now Choose you this day He doesn't say go home Ask the wife Get a permission slip Make sure you can come back and serve God this week No he says choose you this day whom you're going to serve The Bible speaks in urgent terms It says your life is but a vapor It passes away Make sure that we're willing to preach with urgency With exhortation We should have some care When we're talking to this person thinking this might be their last time I might be this person's last hope You know and with that type of mentality You're going to put in more effort You're going to care a little bit more You're going to compel them to come in You're not just going to be like Joy hell buddy Now obviously Some people have this cavalier attitude With someone that's like a known reprobate But this is a weird attitude to have You know we shouldn't have this type of attitude That's just like who cares You know they didn't like me They didn't want to be nice to me or whatever Look if someone's mean to me at the door But I can get them saved I want to get them saved If someone's not that interested But I can get them saved I want to get them saved If someone's a little inconvenienced By me preaching them the gospel I want them to get saved I'm going to put a little bit of pressure on them It's called confrontational soul winning We're confronting them with the gospel We're confronting them with this message We're exhorting them And look not just salvation The exhortation is also done to the disciples Saying you guys need to serve God You need to get right with the Lord You need to take the Christian life seriously And so when it comes to the Christian life We need to live our lives like Paul Where we're giving much exhortation You know we have a sense of urgency We have a message that we believe is actually important And it comes with actually Having strong faith in the Lord And believing the things that he said Look at verse 3 And there are both three months And when the Jews laid weight for him As he was about to sail into Syria He purposed to return through Macedonia And there accompanied him in Asia Soapator of Berea And of the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Segundus And Gaius of Derbe And of Asia Tychicus and Trophimus Now this is an interesting list And I think why God included this Is because Notice he picks up a companion Like he has more companions than he started Right it's like Paul and Silas And then later Paul and Barnabas And then it's Paul and Silas So we kind of see Paul kind of shifting As far as who he's initially going out with But here he has a lot more companions He's picking people up along the way But notice each one of these is from a different place It's Soapator of Berea Right And then it says of the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Segundus And then Gaius of Derbe And Timotheus And of Asia Tychicus and Trophimus This I believe is mentioned here To help you realize that You know you may not get Everyone in that whole area saved But there might be a really good Disciple there Or not everybody might come to church But there might be a really good disciple in this area And it's more important to just keep going with your message And reaching the people that are really interested And getting them on your team Than just saying You know what I'm locked in a derby Because if you're locked in a derby You may only have Gaius You may never meet Soapator You may never meet Timotheus You never meet Take a kiss And I like this I focus and try to put attention To the people that care Rather than the ones that don't You know And let's just keep going wherever we can go And spreading the gospel And worrying about You know Going to new areas And reaching new people Because you know what You can take a horse to water But you can't force him to drink And you know I don't want to waste my life Forcing horses to drink water That they're not interested in drinking I'd rather try and get new horses That are going to go ahead and drink anyways I'd rather go and find sheep That are actually interested in following a shepherd Rather than trying to get a goat And herd them into the church house You know what I mean And so like our ministry If you notice It's not really big on follow up It's bigger on what? Soul winning Now for lots of reasons First of all soul winning is the first works It's the most important works But additionally I'd rather meet Just get more and more people exposed To the truth Like the truth Because the more people you're exposed to Whoever's going to actually end up following the truth You don't have to worry about They're going to follow the truth So just keep going to new areas And new places And reaching new people And you'll eventually rack up Someone from Maria And someone from Derby And someone from Beaumont Right And someone from Cyprus And someone from Richardson And someone from Houston proper You know You kind of got all these different areas Of a church Rather than just saying You know what We're locked into the zip code right here You know I want that zip code I want that zip code But that's what most churches do don't they Isn't most churches The majority of the churches In that zip code In that area They don't have a large group of people I mean I think we probably have more distance Traveling to this church Than churches that are running Two or three times the number of people If you just add up all the distance That are going on Why? Because it's more important to get quality Than quantity It's more important to just reach the world With the gospel Than to just focus in on people that are not that interested And you know what Paul's ministry Is a ministry of just trying to get as much Exposure as possible And notice that that exposure Is going to reach good people And so I believe in our lifetime We should do the same You know Some people would say Why do you go to Waco For a small town soul winning Why do you go to college station Why do you go to Shreveport Because we want to get as much exposure As we possibly can Yeah we could just do only soul winning Right around our church couldn't we I mean there's still plenty of places Around this church And churches in Dallas where we're That we haven't even reached But I think it's better To just constantly cast out our net And try to expose ourselves To as many new people as we possibly can And reach new areas And try to get what People from Berea People of the Thessalonians People of Derby And get people from all over the world Fortunately we have the internet To do that for us Don't we I mean the internet's a great tool You know it's benefited And profited a lot of fruit And you get all these people From all these different areas Look at what it says in verse five These going before tarried for us at Troas And we sailed away from Philippi After the days of unleavened bread And came unto them to Troas In five days Where he abode seven days And upon the first day of the week When the disciples came together To break bread Paul preached unto them Ready to depart on the morrow And continued his speech Until midnight Now in verse seven It's probably the strongest verse There's other verses That we could point to and look at But it's probably one of the strongest verses To indicate why church is actually held on Sunday Now you know you could argue The stronger point would be the fact That Jesus rose again on the dead Or rose again from the dead On the first day of the week But as a picture of Christians Actually meeting on the first day of the week We have this verse here Notice it says And upon the first day of the week When the disciples came together To break bread So it's kind of connecting The first day of the week As when the disciples would come together And what happens He preaches Right Now I guess if we're going to follow this model though I'm going to have to preach until midnight I'm joking Okay But Don't get mad at my long sermons Because Paul preached until midnight Alright So if you want to make really You know A big deal about preaching for a long time I'll start following this model Alright But again I think it's better To preach longer sermons And to give more exposure to the word of God And to help people To help people actually have a real attention span If you think back in the old days Or you study about history And things like that Preachers would preach two to three hour sermons You know There was a lot Longer sermons in the past And you say Why? They didn't have TV They didn't have radio They weren't going to go to listen To Alex Jones on the way home Okay They weren't going to listen to Some news radio show They didn't have the newspaper They didn't have all these things So they came to the church They came here You know To learn something They're interested in the things of God And you know what I preach against a lot of things Some of those would be TV Movies A lot of these things that are worldly today Because they influence you They affect you They cause problems When you're just constantly soaking in The world's filth It warps your mentality It warps your perspective It makes you think about things That you wouldn't normally think about You get concerned with things That you wouldn't normally be concerned with And really ultimately It affects you You know Be not deceived Evil communications corrupt good manners Is what the Bible teaches And so we have to be careful What we listen to What we look at What we pay attention to And so I'd rather My children grow up Where the majority of their entertainment As it were Is the word of God being preached Not Nickelodeon Not Bugs Bunny Not And look That's probably the mild stuff I don't even know what it is today You know Now all of a sudden Superman's supposed to be a faggot Right What kind of I don't even know what kind of filth I know that the TV show Arthur When we were doing research On the sodomite deception Arthur had gay characters in it You know A lot of cartoons are introducing these LGBTQ characters They're introducing all kinds of adult themes You know Most cartoons are introducing the idea Of boyfriend and girlfriend And people living together And all kinds of weird dynamics And all kinds of weird situations That kids didn't even think about Kids aren't even interested in And I want to plant those ideas And those thoughts into my child's mind You know what I like to plant in their mind The word of God You know what I like to plant in their mind Hearing a sermon being preached And think about this blessing You know when you go out to a restaurant to eat You probably sit there for an hour, hour and a half So don't you want the church service To be about an hour, hour and a half So your kids get used to being patient And still And behaving themselves So you can enjoy your children in other settings In other areas of life You know We could just come here And I could just read you one verse And we could just go home You know I think the goal of coming to church And hearing the Bible preached Is to hear the whole Bible preached And if you're going to hear the whole Bible preached That takes a long time It would take a lot of effort I mean There's what 1189 chapters I believe In the Bible I mean that's a lot Of verses And some chapters are long I mean Psalms 119 There's no way you're going to preach that in one sermon There's no way you're going to preach certain chapters of the Bible In one sitting In one time setting And there's a lot of stuff we can constantly dig out of the word of God And I believe that God wants us to study the entire Bible I think God wants the church to preach the entire Bible And if God wants that then we need to have A setting We need to have a plan Where we're going to actually do that And notice Paul I mean They're not afraid They're not like Hey will you just stop preaching already When are we going to eat again You know Or like When are we going to have some fun here Or whatever No fun for them is hearing Paul preach I mean this is the apostle Paul And when the apostle Paul is preaching You're just like I just don't want this sermon to be over You know I just keep preaching You know And whenever someone is actually preaching a good sermon I often think like I don't want the sermon to end When someone is preaching a bad sermon I want it to end immediately You know So it really depends on the content doesn't it How about this movies I remember I've watched a lot of movies in my past But there would be movies I'm watching And I'm like really enjoying it And I'm kind of like I hope this movie is long Like I hope this movie is going to keep going Or you know You're kind of disappointed when it's over Because it's like It's kind of a bummer It's kind of a let down after a movie And that's how I feel like movies are like candy bars Or something Where it's like It's a high while you're eating it But as soon as it's over It's kind of a downer And it's like Movies are like that You like watch the movie And then you're just kind of like Oh I live in real life now You know Like I have to go back to the real world Biden is still my president You know Like And a lot of movies They end at a happy ending And then you're like Biden is still my president You know I'm scared But at the end of the day You know I don't think there's anything wrong with long sermons In fact If I had to pick I would say But At the end of the day The most important thing in a sermon Is preaching the truth Having You know The content Be Accurate According to The word of God Now let's keep going It says in verse 8 And there were many lights In the upper chamber Where they were gathered together And there sat in a window A certain young man Named Eutychus Being fallen into a deep sleep And as Paul was long preaching He sunk down with sleep And fell down from the third loft And was taken up dead Paul went down and fell on him And embracing him said Trouble not yourselves For his life is in him When he therefore was come up again And had broken bread and eaten And talked a long while Even till break of day So he departed Now He's preaching so long People are falling asleep And then dying Okay So again Long sermon Now I think there's a little bit of Symbolism here Because the Bible often And I'm not going to turn To all these different places Because this is a long chapter But If you study a lot of End times Bible prophecy The Bible is constantly Reiterating this one phrase Watch Watch Watch Now a watch in the Bible Is an interesting position When people would sleep at night It's dangerous right And today you have things like Brinks home security Or you have a dog Or something like that And they still use dogs And things like that But they also had a watch And what a watchman would do Or what the watch would Purpose was Is in the night While people are sleeping They're awake And he's looking for enemies He's looking for trouble He's looking for problems So if there's something that's Bad He'll alert everybody That's sleeping Wake them up And they can basically evade Or be ready to defend themselves Against some kind of an evil And so when it comes to the End times We're supposed to be watching We're supposed to be paying Attention to what's going on And the symbolism is If the watchman falls asleep What happens? Everyone dies Because you basically Are not avoiding any of the evil That's coming upon you Some kind of problem's Going to happen to you And here's the thing Paul's preaching for a long time Remember? So the longer the preaching goes What happens? The sleepier you get The more tired you get The more difficult The more you have to kind of Endure a little bit Or you're maybe a little bit Faint And so it's kind of a picture Of how I believe You know as we're getting To the end times You know it might be easy To be kind of faint Of the hard work Of serving God You know the persecution's Going to ramp up Towards the end times It's going to get more difficult It's going to be more problematic But Jesus is saying Stay awake Watch Think about the disciples That are away with Jesus There in the time of temptation There where he's trying to pray In the garden of Gethsemane What happens? All the disciples fall asleep And he's asking them to watch A little while with them Meaning you know when we get To the intense times We don't want to fall asleep We don't want to quit We want to stay awake We want to keep watching Lest we fall asleep And fall out the window and die And you know what Christians That stop paying attention They stop staying awake They stop fighting They often will be destroyed By falling asleep By you know basically Not paying attention And so it's important That even though You have to endure a long time Even though you have to go Through some difficulty We want to stay awake We want to be sober We want to be watching We want to be paying attention So as we don't fall out the window So as we don't fall by the wayside So as we don't slip And go into you know A different bad situation But even if you do We're still getting resurrected Right? So it didn't turn out that bad For you to guess It was kind of a cool story Right? Hopefully his you know neck And face still look the same Afterwards but I don't know At least he got back up Right? Now it's funny because As soon as they get back in And think about this You just killed somebody Because you were preaching So long When did you think like Alright now I'm done talking Right? But then notice what it says When they come back in In verse 11 And when he therefore Was come up again And had broken bread and eaten And talked a long while Even till the break of day So he departed So it's like after the longest Sermon ever Someone even died Then they come back in And then they fellowship even longer All the way until the morning basically Now what this tells me Is that Christian fellowship Enjoys hanging out with each other Doesn't it? Amen They stay up in the wee hours Of the night talking Because it's just so much fun To be around brothers and sisters In Christ It's so much fun To be around the men of God And preachers And you know what I notice this is a really common theme In new IFB churches That people love to talk About the Bible They love to fellowship They love to hang out They'll even go into the wee hours Of the night Because there's just nothing Like reviving your spirit With being around brothers And sisters in Christ Nothing like being around people That are sane There's nothing like being around people That are logical That don't, you know Haven't fallen for all the goofy weirdness That's going on in our world today It's nice to be around some normal You know God fearing people today That are dressed normal Look normal Speak normal They have cognitive thinking You know You don't have to explain things to them Like they're a toddler Or a child You know It's enjoyable It's enjoyable fellowship And notice They're not drinking alcohol To have a good time They're not going to the bar To have a good time No, you know what It enthralled them You know what's so exciting to them You know what kept them up all night The word of God The Bible Preaching Being around God's people You know I don't need We don't need all that other junk All that other junk is not satisfying It's not fun You don't leave with a good feeling You leave empty Whenever you leave God's fellowship You feel full You say Man that was really good Man that makes me feel even better Man that makes me feel capable To take on the next day And to go on the next week You know To get out there That's why you can't rival Christian fellowship Nothing's better It says in verse number 12 And they brought the young man alive And were not a little comforted I love that They were not a little comforted Meaning what You know These type of events These type of scenarios These type of days Are going to be memories for a lifetime And You're going to have your spirit revived To a point where you can go and face Evil You can face adversity You just fellowship with the apostle Paul You just saw Uticus die And come back up You know You just heard some of the greatest preaching You've ever heard in your entire life These are going to be Life changing moments This encounter Was a life altering encounter for Uticus It was a life altering encounter For the disciples For these young ministers For these young Christians For these young disciples That have been in the presence of Paul And that have heard his preaching And to fellowship with them It was going to help carry them through The rest of their lives They weren't just a little comforted It wasn't just like Oh that was kind of nice No this was a big boost To their spiritual journey This was a big boost to their spiritual walk And you know what Never underestimate church Never underestimate being around God's people Never underestimate soul winning Never underestimate hearing a sermon on a Friday night Or on a Saturday On a special night On a special service Because you never know When that one night is going to happen Where Uticus falls out the window You never know When Paul is going to come into town You never know When you're going to have that great night of fellowship You never know When that sermon is going to hit you just right And it's going to have a spark in you That's going to change the rest of your life And I've seen people That I was concerned About the direction they were headed in their life But somehow Through hard preaching Somehow through the power of the word of God It's like something changed about them And I don't know when it was I don't know what happened I don't even know if they know what happened I don't even know at what point They could really say like It was that moment It was that sermon But I know that it happened By being around God's people I know that it happened by being in church I know that it happened by hearing the word of God being preached I know that it happened by reading the Bible I know it happened It was a spiritual miracle A seed that was planted into their heart And we need to never underestimate The spiritual seeds that are being planted in us When we come to church When we hear the Bible being preached When we have a chance to be In the fellowship with God's people And so we need to never underestimate We need to never underestimate the importance Of having Christian fellowship And the Bible talks about in Hebrews chapter number 10 A warning to those that would not fellowship together Forsaking the assembling of themselves together As the manner of some is And so the Bible warns that we're not supposed to do that The Bible says that we're supposed to do it so much the more As you see the day approaching Meaning it's even more important to go to church in 2021 Than it was in 2022 It's even more important to go to church on Thursday night It's even more important to come to church this Sunday And then you know what? After the Sunday morning service You know what's even more important than that? Sunday night service You know what's even more important than that Sunday night service? The next Thursday service Every single service is more important than the last one That's what the Bible teaches And so it's important to just keep serving God And keep getting plugged in And guess what? You won't be a little comforted It won't just be a little It wasn't just a little You'll be having your spirit revived Look at verse 13 And we went before the ship And sailed to Assos There intending to take in Paul For so he had appointed Minding himself to go afoot And when he met with us at Assos We took him in and came to Midilene And we sailed thence And came the next day over against Chios And the next day we arrived at Samos And tarried at Trogillium And the next day we came to Miletus For Paul had determined a cell by Ephesus So he started in Ephesus But he's kind of just making like one last hurrah real quick To just kind of like say bye to everybody And check on everybody Now he's kind of full circle of Ephesus But he would not spend time Spend the time in Asia free-hasted So he's not like sticking around He's just kind of like wham bam Quick trips I know what that's like Quick trips But it says free-hasted for If it were possible for him to be at Jerusalem The day of Pentecost So he really wants to make it back to Jerusalem On the day of Pentecost I don't know exact reason Possibly just because A lot of people are going to be there You know that's kind of a typical time When a lot of Jews are traveling to there You know he often Has a soft spot for Jews Wants them to be saved He wants to have a lot of exposure And preach to a lot of people So maybe that's his purpose I don't know But he's decided he really wants to make it back Before Pentecost So that's why he's kind of having a hasty journey here It says in verse 17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus And called the elders of the church And when they were come to him He said unto them Ye know from the first day that I came into Asia After what manner I have been with you at all seasons Serving the Lord of all humility of mine And with many tears and temptations Which befell me by the laying in wait of the Jews And I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you But have showed you and taught you publicly And from house to house Testifying both to the Jews And also to the Greeks Repentance toward God And faith for our Lord Jesus Christ Now again he doesn't necessarily enter into Ephesus He's just kind of going near it He's calling for those that are in Ephesus To come to him to Miletus So he's basically saying he's in Miletus He's like hey I'm nearby Why don't you guys just come over here and let's talk And he sends for the elders of the church Now the elder would be synonymous in our Bible In this chapter it's with overseer But other places would be pastor or a bishop So you kind of have like four different terms in the Bible That are real similar as far as a title is concerned An elder, an overseer, a pastor or a bishop Now all those terms can also be used in other contexts In other methods The word elder can mean a couple different things It could mean someone who's older If it's used in context with another noun Or it could simply be a title of a pastor Or an elder, overseer Something that we would see mentioned here Here it's very clearly talking about the pastors The leaders of the church that are coming It describes them in a later verse as the overseers Verse 28 It said over the which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers Okay so calling the leaders of the church This makes sense right He's leading, he's checking on the leaders of the church Instructing them again And he's telling them that He's instructing them to serve the Lord And he's telling them that he served the Lord with all humility of mind And I think in verse 19 this is a really interesting thought It's something that he's bringing up He says it with many tears And you know You have to realize that Paul went through a lot of difficulty Went through a lot of struggle And I think he just He's looking at his like old self in a sense Like he's looking at himself when he was younger Cause you know he's gone through the gamut He's gone and he served the Lord for a long period of time He's gone through all these churches He's seen what ugly is like when it comes to you know The Jews and people that are the enemies of the Lord And people that are going to attack him and all the evil that happened So he's kind of looking at them and he's like You know he's tiered He's got a lot of tears And I think it's probably also From the fact that the apostle Paul's a little hard headed Through his ministry He's constantly trying to get the Jews saved But they're not interested And then he's like I'm not going to preach to you Jews again And then like later he does this again And he's like no I'm not going to preach to you Jews again And then he has to do it again And so I think he had to learn a lot of hard lessons He went through a lot of evil He went through a lot of persecutions And so he's trying to warn them and he's just very sincere He's just saying look guys This is real Persecution's real Bad stuff's going to happen to you And you know when you're telling someone that something bad's going to happen to them that you care about It draws a normal emotional response with some tears You know you look at them and you know You don't want bad things to happen to your kids You don't want bad things to happen to your family You don't want bad things to happen to the people that you're training or teaching And so to him it's kind of this tearful You know emotional situation And he's explaining to them look There's been many times that I've You know taught you with tears Because I just realized You're going to go through some hard stuff Like I did You know it brings an emotional response It's easier for you to suffer Than for someone else to suffer that you care about That's why the Bible illustrates the greatest love of the Father Sacrificing no son Because while it would be horrible and awful to have to sacrifice yourself It's even more tear jerking and more emotional To have to sacrifice your child You know sacrifice someone else And see them go through the evil and go through the pain and the suffering And so I think the Apostle Paul Just genuinely cared about people You know you can really feel that in the scriptures You can really sense that through his language Through his actions Through the things that he's doing And because of his great love for the disciples And for these people He's very teary eyed At thinking about other people hurting Other people suffering Other people not getting the message Other people being heartbroken Because he realizes you know what's going to happen Some of these people are going to get killed They're going to get stoned Worse than that They're going to have people betray them Backstab them You know their friends That they thought they were friends Are just going to totally just get Judas to them And beyond that there's going to be innocent Poor families and widows and children That just evil wicked people are going to come And just prey upon And just rabid And hurt And just destroy I mean probably one of the most evil things That you can ever watch Or look at today Is abortion videos Or abortion photos today I mean those things Any normal person Seeing that kind of stuff I mean just instant tears Or just it's an emotional response I mean it's so horrifying And to the Apostle Paul He's thinking that from a spiritual perspective Of seeing like spiritual abortion Where predators come in And they just destroy little innocent babes And cry spiritually And they just tear them apart And just hurt and harm them And rip them from the womb That was protecting them And you know what That's the kind of evil That the Apostle Paul is aware of He's thinking of And the reason why I think that Is because of what he's going to say in a few moments What he's going to say in the next few chapters I mean he's like Look guys this is real Look you want to be a leader of a church Realize there's a lot of real stuff that's going to happen Some dangerous stuff that's going to happen And what the Apostle Paul is saying Is reminding them how he taught He taught them publicly Beware of the preacher that doesn't preach publicly That doesn't teach you doctrines publicly That's afraid of public criticism That's afraid of people knowing what they believe Hiding their material Hiding what they have to say Hiding dissent Hiding you know When the Apostle Paul went into an area He would contend with the Jews publicly He wasn't saying like Delete comment Hide the comments I don't care what you have to say No he would confound the Jews No he would show them There's foolishness and there's stupidity Openly among the people He wasn't afraid of dissenting opinion People that are afraid of dissenting opinion are wrong Because when you're right You're not afraid of dissenting opinion Because you know there's nothing they can say against the truth You know they can't gain say the truth there Because you've already laid a rock solid foundation You know the Bible's not afraid of lies The Bible's not afraid of what criticism people are going to throw at it Because it's always going to stand the test of time It's always going to stand up to scrutiny The truth fears no investigation Because the truth can't change It's the truth You know what's afraid of scrutiny? Lies You know it's afraid of scrutiny dishonesty You know it's afraid of scrutiny cockroaches And the apostle Paul had a mission from God to preach the truth Therefore he taught it publicly from house to house And he testified both to the Jews and also the Greeks He also didn't shy away from who he preached to Even knowing that the Jews aren't even that receptive Even knowing that the Jews aren't even that interested He taught them And you know what he made it clear how to get saved Repentance toward God Meaning don't believe in anything else Put all your faith in God And specifically Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ Right? If you're going to repent You've got to turn And what are you turning towards? Jesus Christ Meaning you're putting your faith in Jesus Christ And when he's going out to preach No one's believing in Jesus Christ really I mean the vast majority of everyone's trusting in themselves Their works A false religion Idols Something else So those that are believing in idols The Greeks They have to reject the idols Repent And put their faith in Jesus Christ The Jews They're believing in their works So what do they have to do? They have to repent Of their works Repent from trusting in how good a person they are Repent from the repenting of their sin And decide to put all their faith Towards Jesus Christ and what he did for them His death barrel And resurrection Verse 22 it says And now behold I go bound in the spirit of Jerusalem Not knowing the things that shall befall me there Say that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every city Saying that bonds and afflictions abide me So in verses 22 and 23 he's basically saying I gotta go to Jerusalem I really feel compelled to do it And I don't know what's gonna happen But I do know that the Holy Ghost told me No matter where I go I'm gonna suffer persecution That's what he's basically saying He's like I don't know how I'm gonna get persecuted I don't know how I'm gonna suffer I don't know what bad thing's gonna happen to me I just know something bad's gonna happen to me And he's like Well how do you know something bad's gonna happen to me? Well he's like Well he did say every city Now that makes me think of verses you know Yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution So you know what that tells me No matter what city you go and start a church in You will be persecuted You know some people are like Well I wanna go to the city that loves Jesus That doesn't exist Well I wanna plant a church here cause then I won't suffer Wrong You know some people will be like Oh we're in the city that's got the persecution We're in California We're on the front lines Oh okay And they'll be like Texas is you know where it's safe It doesn't feel that safe I'm just being honest You know when you're being sued by everybody And you get everybody attacking you Look I feel like I have more enemies than I can count In the bible belt you know In Texas you know Where it's the land you know it's the promised land or whatever Look it doesn't matter where you plant a church It doesn't matter where you try to serve god Don't think like well I wanna plant a church Where I won't be persecuted Not gonna happen Every city Yay and all that will have godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution You know here's the question Are you godly? Because it doesn't matter what city you're in It just matters how godly you are And you say well why am I not being persecuted I'm in a really wicked city It's because you're just not godly You're not a light You know the cockroaches aren't gonna turn The light out when the light's not on You know when you're like mainly pairing You just turn the light out It's like you're not gonna get persecuted Because there's nothing to persecute You're just fitting in with the world now You're just hiding it under a bushel I don't even think the guy's saved But I'm just saying even if you were saved And you hide your light under a bushel Of course you're not gonna get persecuted And look we don't need another church In Houston or in Texas That's just gonna put a bushel on top of their church And hide it No we need churches to take the bushel Off of the church And shine the light of the glorious gospel of Christ To shine the truths of the word of God To preach upon the housetops To make it manifest what God has declared And you know what when you do that You will be persecuted That's why they don't do it They literally will hide what they preach They'll hide what they teach Or they won't preach certain parts of the Bible They won't preach unpopular truths of the day And you ask them why not Well I don't want protesters Well I don't want people to leave my church Well I don't want someone to call me and be angry I don't want someone to leave me a bad Google review Right? I mean literally They honestly would be worried about that They'd be upset You know you might even get fired If you preach a sermon at some of these churches And someone left a bad Google review You know you offend the wrong deacon You offend the wrong family You offend the wrong person in some church You know some big tither or something like that You know God forbid you'd actually step on someone's toes once in a while You'd get the wrong Betty upset You know butch Betty Who's gonna come down there and she's gonna tell the pastor Like did he know what he preached? And it's like yeah It was about you You're wrong sit down and shut up I mean men We don't have men of God in this world today That are willing to stand up and preach the Bible And tell it as it is But you know what we need more of that We need more churches to stand up And say you know what All I know is I'm gonna be afflicted I don't know how But it's gonna happen And let me say this I'm not looking for it I don't want it I'm not interested in it And all the problems that I have I never saw coming I'm not like Well this is definitely gonna happen Cause if I knew it was gonna happen I would've done a lot of things different to prevent the damage I would've changed some of my courses of action But I know this As long as I continue to preach the word of God As long as we continue to go soul winning As long as we're baptizing people As long as I'm preaching through any part of the Bible Popular or unpopular Someone's gonna persecute us Someone's gonna afflict us Something bad's gonna happen There's gonna be some kind of evil You're gonna have to go through adversity You're gonna have to go through difficulty It's just a lock step guarantee And that's why the apostle Paul's warning these guys Cause he's not thinking like You guys are good y'all are in Ephesus No I already know every city Cause Paul went to every city He already planted the church in every city He's already like look guys You're in trouble I've been here I've done that And in fact he didn't even return to the city Cause the last time he came Everybody went into the theater and was screaming For hours they were so mad Right? He already knows they have a big fight He already knows there's gonna be a big struggle And look The devil is real His tears are real And when you go to fight When you go to battle There is gonna be opposition Look at what it says in verse 24 But none of these things move me You know what that sounds like? Steadfast You know what that sounds? Unmovable Hey always abounding in the work of the Lord Right? So the apostle Paul says You know what? I know I'm gonna suffer I know evil's gonna happen I know it's gonna hurt But you know what? I'm gonna do it anyways It's not gonna stop me It's not gonna change my course of action Look at this phrase Neither count I my life dear unto myself So that I may finish So I might finish my course with joy in the ministry Which I have received of the Lord Jesus To testify the gospel To the grace of God That's a powerful phrase Neither count I my life dear unto myself How many people could honestly even say that? And that's a And then look The apostle Paul is under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost I believe he meant that He literally had gotten to a point where the thought of dying did not scare him It was not gonna stop him from doing what was right It was not gonna stop him from preaching the gospel It wasn't gonna stop him from trying to give the gospel to someone It wasn't gonna stop him from doing God's commandments Following the word of God He said look I'm gonna finish I don't care I don't care if it kills me He's like that might be how I'm supposed to finish He just says I'm gonna finish I'm not gonna move I know I'm gonna get hurt I know I'm gonna be afflicted I know evil's gonna happen to me But I'm ready for it And you know that's what we need Christians to say today in their heart We need Christians to say in their heart Hey I know I'm gonna go through problems Hey I know it's gonna hurt Hey I know evil's gonna happen But I'm gonna do it I'm just ready to do it It makes me think of Marines You know Marines No one's gonna join the Marine Corps thinking like it's gonna be fun Going through training is gonna be fun They hurt you on purpose You know brother Segura We were fellowshiping with him We were talking with him And he's telling us about some of the training he went through And he was saying they pepper spray them on purpose Just to get them used to being pepper sprayed And he said it was like the worst thing he's ever gone through Or one of the worst things he's ever gone through He said it's like getting handfuls of sand And like throwing it into your eyes And he said unless you like wash that thing out with water I mean you're never gonna really receive any kind of relief anytime soon He said even after you wash it out It's still hours of pain and torture and suffering He said he thought he was gonna die He said he had to run an obstacle course with pepper spray in their eyes And as soon as he was done he's like medic medic And look brother Segura is a tough guy Like if there's anybody that I'm thinking like this guy's tough And this guy can handle himself It's brother Segura So if he's saying it's bad I'm thinking like I don't know I don't want to do it You know I don't want to go through that But he's already assigned his heart You know what I'm here I'm gonna be a marine I'm in the army I'm gonna go through the training Whatever it takes I'm not gonna count my life dear unto myself And you know we need Christians today to take Christianity that seriously So you know what I'm in it to win it Whatever it looks like no matter how ugly it gets No matter how much it hurts Let's do it You know who also had that attitude? Jesus Cause Jesus didn't count his life dear unto himself He put it on a cross didn't he And that's the example that we have for ourselves And what we should be willing to do Now I want to keep reading We're supposed to die daily we're supposed to be a living sacrifice There's a lot of other verses I could go to let's keep reading though The Bible says in verse number 25 And now behold I know that ye all Among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God To see my face no more Wherefore I take you to record this day That I am pure from the blood of all men For I have not shunned to declare unto you All the counsel of God You know what possible Paul preached to them? Leviticus 2013 Deuteronomy 23 17 and 18 You know he preached Romans 1 Obviously he wrote it He didn't shun to declare all the counsel of God He preached everything and you know what What did God preach the whole Bible today? Not just the fun parts all of it Every single piece he's not going to shun anything And what is shunning? Isn't shunning basically saying that you're embarrassed by someone? Or it's making them embarrassed If you're kind of shunning someone you're kind of saying like You have disdain towards them Contempt towards them You look down upon them You look disfavorably towards them You think of them as being something not worthy Of your time, effort, energy I don't want to look at you I don't even want to talk about you You're just shunning them It's utter contempt And think what the context is He's not shunning what? The Bible But there's preachers today that are shunning the Bible They look at certain verses with contempt They look at certain sections of the Bible as it being embarrassing Like they're embarrassed that certain parts of the Bible exist or something They think that it's like I don't like that chapter I don't want to look at that But you know what's embarrassing? Them It's embarrassing when a person Who claims to be a man of God is embarrassed of the Bible Who shuns parts of the Bible Who hides parts of the Word of God And the doctrine of Jesus Christ You know we shouldn't be embarrassed of anything in the Bible We should love the Bible Great peace have they which love thy law And nothing shall offend them is what the Bible says You know what? We need some men to love the Bible today And the worst person to get up and shun the Word of God is the pastor Is the preacher Is the man of God Say you know what? I don't like that section Well you know what? God doesn't like you then And whatever your problems are Because if you're ashamed of Christ and his words He's going to be ashamed of you You know what? And we should never be ashamed of anything in our Bible No matter what the world thinks No matter what kind of persecution comes to you Now let's keep reading here Let's read verse number 28 It says So they're not supposed to shun the Word of God They're supposed to feed the flock with the Word of God Right? And you know 1 Peter 5 Great passage on the elders The apostle Peter is telling him he's an elder He's telling the other elders to feed the Church of God You know Jesus, that's the commandment he gave to Peter After the resurrection Feed my lambs Feed my sheep You know lambs, the children The baby lambs The baby sheep And then not just the baby sheep, the sheep And notice that the pastor preaches to what? The children and the adults It's not like children's church And then the adult church pastor He's the lambs and of the sheep He's supposed to feed all of them And you know what? Pastors should consider that children are in their services And preach things for the children too Embrace them and encourage them and exhort them And you know what? We need to take care Of the Church of God as pastors and preachers And if you get an opportunity to preach the Bible Even if you're not a pastor Your goal should be to feed the flock Not to feed your subscribers on YouTube Not to feed yourself But to feed them And to pour unto them You know it makes me think of something Keep your finger and go to Proverbs 31 for a moment Feeding someone else Is a very selfless action Feeding yourself Is a very selfish action And when it comes to feeding others The person that I think of immediately Is a mother Is a wife Because one of the roles One of the job duties of a wife Is to be a keeper at home And the Bible has a great passage On women and wives and mothers Proverbs 31 You kind of have the proverbial woman The Proverbs 31 woman As some people describe her Look at one of the things that she's described as doing In verse 15 She rises also while it is yet night And gives meat to her household And a portion to her maidens So you know what? She rises up really early And what is she really thinking? I need to feed other people I need to make food for other people I need to prepare substance For other people And she's concerned with the needs of others Just as a pastor is supposed to have the same Earnest care and desire For his congregants And you say what's a good way to do that? Why don't you rise up early And start preparing the food That you're going to deliver Unto your congregation Unto the people that you want to care for Rather than feeding yourself Being a prince who rises up early to feed himself You're rising up early to feed others Just like a woman would do for her household Not only that in verse 20 It says that she stretches out her hand to the poor Yea, she reaches forth her hands in the needy So notice she's not only caring for her household And those close to her She cares about other people too Emphasizing the preacher shouldn't just care for his flock But even stretching his hand out to the poor Preaching the gospel to the poor Going out to the needy Going to the highways and hedges And compelling them to come in That his house may be filled And so we need to realize that the job of a preacher Is to feed other people It's about other people It's not about you It's not about your own pride and selfish ambition But what's the problem? What's the problem? A lot of people that are preachers today are after one thing And it's themselves Go back if you would to Acts chapter 20 And look at this what he says in verse 29 now He says in verse 29 For I know this That after my departing Shall grievous wolves enter in among you Not sparing the flock Now I want to focus on one thing That I think a lot of people don't really think about But notice what he says in verse 29 Verse 29 After my departing When the cat's away The mice will play You know I think about this passage Strong leadership really deterred A lot of wolves didn't it Because he's saying hey I know when I leave That's when a bunch of grievous wolves Are going to end up showing up But he's like I realize that without a really strong Presence without someone there You know leading the flock Really laying down strong doctrine Grievous wolves are going to enter in Why? Because he was planning a church and then would leave And then when he would leave he'd have to write letters back And say like these guys are bozos Kick those losers out And you know you have to realize In our situation Pure Words Baptist Church Steadfast Baptist Church we've got church plants Where you know the pastor Is honestly divided In his time He's divided in his observance He's divided in his ability to you know Be everywhere at the same time What could happen is grievous wolves will enter in When the pastor doesn't show up And look I've had churches Where certain people will only show up To church when I'm not there And I'm not joking Like if they knew I was out of town They'd show up to church But if I'm in town they'd never show up to church And I couldn't get a hold of them They'll ignore my calls But they'll be there if I'm gone they'll be there But if I'm there they're never there And end up they're a wolf Ends up they're a complete railer They're a wicked person they're an evil person And look it happens That's why it's important to realize You know if the strong leader's not there It's an opportunity And a lot of times wicked people come out of the woodwork Evil people try to show up And they'll try to get plugged in And they'll try to take over And they'll try to assert their dominance Or their position of authority And you know the apostle Paul is saying look when I'm gone I know for a fact a lot of these wicked people Are going to see this as an opportunity And they're going to enter in And they will not spare the flock Meaning what? They have no mercy They will literally destroy people's lives They will lie about people hurt people And have no conscience That's their whole goal in fact Why would a wolf join a flock of sheep? He doesn't want to become a sheep Look it's not that he's a trans sheepist or something He's not trying to become a sheep You know what I think I'm really a sheep in a wolf's body Bah I'm going to start becoming a sheep Bah He wants to eat the sheep His whole goal is to destroy sheep And you say why do people come into churches Where they hate the pastor Because they want to destroy somebody in the room Because they want to destroy the pastor They want to destroy the church They want to destroy those ministries That's the whole point of the wolf The thief cometh not but for to steal Kill and destroy And you know what there's a lot of wicked people today That are wanting to do this Now of course where are the wolves going to enter? Into a flock of sheep You know where a wolf is not going to enter? A pack of goats A pack of wolves A pack of bears A pack of lions A pack of vultures He's going where the sheep are So some people act like A steadfast Baptist church Why do these churches always have these weirdos Coming in? Because there's sheep in the room Because there's actual genuine God-fearing, God-loving Christians, sons and daughters of God There So that's why the wolves are attracted to it They're not attracted to Lakewood Because there isn't any sheep there They're not as attracted to the Catholic church They're not as attracted to all these other places Because there's not very many sheep there There are sheep there But you know what the sheep are? It's just the little children That haven't been corrupted yet And so once they've devoured all them Then they try to find a new place where there's a lot of sheep They try to find a new location Where they can come in and creep in Why do all these rep rates work in the children's ministry? In the nursery? In these type of areas? Because they want to destroy sheep Because they're after sheep That's their modus operandi You know when's the last time You saw one of these queer Affeminate child ministers say You know what? I think I'm going to work with the elders The elderly I want to have an elderly ministry You know you never see these child molesting Pedophile, freak, faggot, infiltrators They never have like a nursing home ministry They never work with the elders Who are they always going to work with? Children aren't they? Why? Because they're after lambs They're after sheep. They want to hurt and destroy That's their whole intention That's their whole goal He says this in verse 30 Also of your own selves Shall minimize speaking perverse things To draw away disciples after them Not only are weirdos and freaks going to come in He says some of you guys are bozos Some of you guys are Perverts Now what's a pervert? What is to pervert? When you look up in the dictionary it says this To cause the turn away from what is right Proper or good Someone's headed towards that which is right Someone's headed towards that which is good And someone takes them on They're on the right course And they go the wrong way Someone says hey I think this is the exit And you end up taking that exit It's the wrong exit Brother Dylan told me this evening He perverted the right way I was headed the right way And he's like I think this is the exit And I was like you know what I'll take that But you know we have people Even of our own selves Speaking perverse things Drawing away That's what he did Now I'm not saying he's this chapter Here's other definitions of pervert To corrupt morally To interpret incorrectly Misconstrue or distort You know the dictionary I think all three of these apply in multiple contexts I think the word pervert is used in all three of these contexts But think about the third one To interpret incorrectly Someone preaching anything in the Bible To interpret incorrectly Is perverting it Now perversion we often think of The most extreme version of perversion But perversion can be any deterioration Or any you know basically shifting Or any kind of movement away from that Which is right Getting away in any kind of level And there's going to be a lot of people That end up perverting What's the goal? Drawing away And not just drawing away So again we have to think about All the motives that are attached here Why would someone pervert the word of God? To draw someone After themselves For pride To have their own following To be lifted up That's the whole goal of someone to pervert something Now I want to go to a few more verses here And I promise you Eutycus isn't going to die this evening Go to Exodus 23 But that's just because we don't have a Eutycus The rest of you just don't stand near the window Alright? No I'm just kidding Exodus chapter number 23 Let's think about this word pervert And get some Bible here Exodus 23 look at verse 8 And thou shalt take no gift For the gift blinded the wise And perverted the words of the righteous So saying even little things Just a little gift Can end up perverting someone's judgment Can end up perverting someone that's going On the right path And so we need to realize that perversion Happens to all degrees It's not just like To the worst level It's sometimes even just little things Just taking a little bit off course Just corrupting your judgment just a little bit Interpreting things a little bit wrong Just misconstruing things just a tad Go to Proverbs chapter number 4 Go to Proverbs in the middle of your Bible And let's look at a few different Proverbs here And I would say this Someone perverting the Scriptures Often times is always going to be With the same agenda of just simply They just want to gather a following They just want to gather some kind of A group of people that Cling to them because You know whenever you pervert the Scriptures You're kind of the guru You're the cult leader You're the only one that can come up with that Because it didn't come from the Bible It came from you So you kind of have this specialness about you You know you're unique You know you've got the goods On how to deliver the Scripture And the special interpretation And the special way to serve God You know what? No prophecy came by the will of man Right? Prophecy came in old time Not by the will of man Right? Holy men of God spake as they're moved by the Holy Ghost It's not a private interpretation Meaning that I can sit by myself And read the Bible And come to all the same conclusions As another Christian sitting And reading the Bible on their own You cannot come to the same conclusions That I'm making from the Bible alone You should not believe it You should only believe things That you can say You know what? I see why he believes that Because that's what the Bible's saying Because that's what the Bible is clearly being interpreted as Proverbs chapter 4, look at verse 24 Put away from thee a froward mouth And perverse lips Put far from thee So notice it correlates someone that's froward With someone that's perverse Someone that's corrupting, misinterpreting things Is often a froward person Froward means you're just against things You're just always kind of contrary It's always side to be difficult You're just kind of a difficult person to work with And you know what? That's a bad attribute Go to Proverbs chapter 12 Being a disagreeable person Just wanting to disagree just to disagree Wanting to always be on the other side of an issue That's what a froward person is like And they are constantly perverting things And essentially someone has a right judgment about something And you come to the opposite conclusion What you're trying to do is you're being froward Now you're being contrary By being froward You're causing people to second guess their original judgment The righteous judgment That which is correct Now you're trying to say like Well I don't know about that Well you know Are you sure that's okay? Yea hath God said? You know they're trying to put doubt Being a froward person You know Adam and Eve Stay away from the tree In the midst of the garden Did God really say that? And it's like Let's go walk over there Let's go look at it now It kind of looks good It's not that bad I'm sure The devil has good intentions here He wants me to be wise That's what he said I mean he told me he's looking out for me He's on my team He's on my side He told me I'm a great person Of course he did The flattering devil that he is But what is he doing? He's perverting what God said He's twisting what God said He's misinterpreting what God said Because God said in the day that you eat thereof You shall surely die And the devil's like You shall not surely die What is he doing? Perverting it Being froward Being against it And causing you to pervert your judgment Pervert your direction You're supposed to stay away from that person Someone that has that perverted tongue Stay away from them Because they're going to pervert you Because they're going to cause you to slip To fall To second guess Righteous judgment Proverbs 12 verse 8 A man shall be commended according to his wisdom But he that is of a perverse heart Shall be despised You should despise someone that has a perverted mouth That's constantly trying to get you off of that Which is right Pervert your judgment Look at chapter 15 verse number 4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life But perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit You know when someone's just a froward When someone just says something that's a little off or perverted It just feels gross You just kind of You're just like Ugh Why do you say that? You know people say things or do things that are just not right It's just like Ugh You get this weird feeling You get that gut feeling It just feels bad You just kind of You're just like gross Whereas when someone says something that's true When someone says something that's right in the Bible It feels good You know you're sitting in church And a preacher gets up and reads the word of God And it's just that verse that you needed It just You have this great feeling You know when someone explains something that you never could put your grasp on You never could word it right It just feels good You know when someone says something's off You're like Ugh You get that weird feeling So don't Second guess intuition that God gave you God gave you the intuition to say like There's something always off with Here's my example Elihu Every time I'd read Elihu it hurt I'm just being honest I would read I was like Ow That just hurt me It just felt gross Like there was I couldn't put a word I couldn't understand why I didn't know what was going on I can't tangibly explain The feeling I had All I know is it just felt gross the whole time And you know sometimes when I hear preachers preach And I just feel really gross the whole time Even though I can't put my finger on exactly what happened You need to be careful You need to say like There's something wrong here Because the right spirit feels good And the wrong spirit is going to feel bad Now I'm not trying to say just tuster feelings Obviously we put all of our trust in the word of God But God gave you his Holy Spirit God has the Holy Spirit inside of you And you know what When someone's grieving that Holy Spirit inside of you You need to pay attention to it You need to say like Okay there's something wrong here And once you identify what they're saying is not Lining up with the Bible I need to stay away from this perverted tongue I need to stay away from this froward mouth But David's not going to suffer a froward mouth He's not going to be around these type of people Wicked people Look at Proverbs chapter 17 verse 20 Proverbs 17 verse 20 He that hath a froward heart findeth no good And he that hath a perverse tongue falleth in mischief And these people always have problems They're always having issues Go if you would to 1 Timothy chapter number 6 1 Timothy chapter number 6 I want to go through a few more verses here quickly 1 Timothy chapter number 6 And look at verse number 3 The Bible says If any man teach otherwise And consent not to wholesome words Even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ And the doctrine which is according to godliness He is proud Knowing nothing But doting about questions and strifes of words Whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds And destitute of the truth Supposing that gain is godliness From such withdrawal thyself Now look at the clumping of wording here in verse number 4 Someone who's proud But they actually don't know anything They're actually not that knowledgeable They actually don't have a lot of intelligence But they love to dote about questions and strifes They love to be cute in their phrases In their words They have these cool little slogans And everything like that But they don't actually really mean anything They don't actually have any really substance to them And notice what's also attached to this person Some envy They envy that person that has what? Real knowledge The person that has what? Wholesome words And specifically that's what it even means The words of our Lord Jesus Christ Meaning Leviticus 2013 is wholesome words Because of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Meaning Romans 1 are wholesome words So you know what? Someone doesn't like the wholesome words I'm like, you're proud You're a prideful person You don't like Leviticus 2013? You're proud And you don't know anything And your little cute sayings I don't like that That doesn't mean anything to me And notice they're just envious And they cause strife And they end up railing And then they have a lot of evil surmising They end up projecting a lot of evil on people Because there's evil in their heart I wonder if you can think of some people That fit this description What is it? Perverse disputings Of men of corrupt minds They don't understand the truth And they think that gain is godliness Someone that's fallen into this trap Someone that's not hearkening to the Bible Someone that's forward Someone that's perverting You want to stay away from that person Withdraw yourself from that person Get away from that person Go to Jude chapter number 1 obviously Go to Jude 1 look at verse 16 If you can find another chapter I'll let you read it Jude look at verse 16 The Bible says That's a really interesting section of scripture And you think about it Who's it really bringing up? Well in verse 11 It said perish from the gainsaying of Kor Kor is a perfect example of this And in Numbers what happens? He speaks against Moses and Aaron And they're described as murmuring Against them Saying oh you guys take too much upon yourselves We're all holy Why don't you give us some of the authority Why don't you give us some of the power Why don't you give us some of the subscribers Why do you hog all the subscribers Why do you scrub You have all the attention You know when you preach a sermon Everybody listens to your sermon Why don't you give me some of the subscribers Why don't you give me some of the people But what is it? They're always complaining aren't they? They're always murmuring And they're only concerned about themselves And they speak these great swelling words These are a flattery language And they have men's persons in admiration But only for one reason, advantage So as soon as they no longer feel like they need That advantage or they want to take advantage They stop admiring that person And it's super weird When you act like you just love Somebody and oh man I just love This guy, I just love His preaching and he's changed my life And he's so wonderful and amazing But as soon as you stop feeling like there's an advantage You're just like I like this guy's mean jerk Unsensitive, venomous Oh this guy's so venomous and unmerciful And just the worst person This is what the Bible's saying That person's a bad person And notice this verse 19 These be they who separate themselves You don't even have to kick them out You don't have to stop being their friend They'll stop being your friend They'll say like I don't want anything to do with you guys I'm walking away I'm done with you You know, you just are You are as holy as I am Stand by thyself for I am holier than thou art What do they do? They're separating themselves They're standing by themselves Why? They're sensual And notice this not having the spirit They don't have the spirit And having not the spirit is what the Bible clearly says And look, Korah Was famous in the congregation He was of renown People looked at this guy like I like Korah Go Korah But Korah's of the devil And you say well how? Well he separated himself He said he's better And look, you know what he doesn't like? Aaron Why do you not like Aaron? You know what's weird to me? When people don't like Aaron's It's weird to me when people don't like Moses Especially when they've known Moses When they've known Aaron They've seen Aaron They were delivered from Egypt By Moses and Aaron And you'll see people that say I'm out of the Pentecostal church I got saved by this person This person led me by the hand This person gave me all this great doctrine And it's like why are you taking all this upon yourself? Oh look at Moses Then they're against Moses and Aaron? You're like what's wrong with you? You know I get that people aren't going to like each other But when you don't like Aaron There's something wrong with you When you don't like Moses there's something wrong with you When you don't like some of the greatest men The greatest men of your generation The greatest men of God The men that are changing the world for the gospel People that are changing people's lives And the ones that you even would attribute Changing your life It's bizarre It's weird my friend And you say who is this? This makes me think of ex nui veers There's so many pastors Who attach themselves To great men Moses and Aaron's Just because they want to take advantage of these men They're freeloaders And they'll even admit I changed all my doctrine Because of these guys I loved all their movies And they truly did They changed everything But then all of a sudden they start separating themselves And they're all sensual And they're a complainer and they're a murmur And they have to just go off into the wilderness By themselves And it's like What's the problem? The problem is Acts chapter 20 That they're speaking perverse things to draw away disciples After themselves That they didn't like Moses and Aaron getting the attention That they were getting They wanted the attention They wanted, because they were prideful For people to follow them And to be lifted up And because they wanted to lift themselves up They ended up getting debased They ended up going straight down to the pit Is what happened They ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit And they ended up going straight down to the pit You know what, there's a lot of people that want to make us a cult Why? So then they can be the leader So then they can be the next person to rise up And have all this following Because they're not content with their local flock Why would you want it to be a denomination? Why have a denomination? Because you don't want to just influence your church You want to influence another church And when you have a denomination, what happens? People get risen up And they have multiple churches, multiple denominations Looking to that person, following that person So that's what they want They want to influence more people They're not content with whatever flock God's given them They want to have more Because they've already destroyed or damaged or harmed whatever they have And they're just looking for more New sheep, new lambs to hurt, damage, corrupt, influence and pervert That was the whole goal They're saying perverted things to draw away disciples after themselves It's just a prideful, weird attitude And they want to draw people away from who? Paul Isn't it interesting? Paul reached all of these people Yet they want them to turn on Paul They were reached by Paul Everyone was reached They're reached by Paul? Their converts were reached by Paul But who do they want to turn them away from? Paul You know what it makes me think of? My sending pastor, Pastor Steven Anderson Because there will be literally pastors and churches where it's like we were all reached by this person But now we have to turn away from this person And it's like, you're an idiot You're a complete fool You don't even see what you're doing And it's funny because they also want to turn away from the doctrine that Paul gave Because by speaking perverse things they're drawing away from what? The doctrine So they have to make perversions of the doctrine Yet they end up keeping 99% of the doctrine that was delivered to them Isn't that interesting? It's funny how these people, they're still like Well obviously we're King James only And we're soul winning And we're family integrated And we're post-Trib pre-wrath And we realize that Zionism is a joke And it's like, hey you brought me 99% of the way here You know what, I can't be your friend because of the .01% You know, because I'm different a little bit I slightly disagree on a particular interpretation or something And look, let's be honest My sending pastor and I don't agree 100% There's some things that we just don't see eye to eye on in the Bible It's fine He could be wrong, I could be wrong It doesn't really bother me What bothers me is when people put beans and chili Some of my other friends We don't agree 100% I don't know of a pastor that me and him are just like Yep, 100% No, I think it's plausible There's nothing wrong with that if that was true You know, I think that people in my church and me Probably agree really similar You know, once they get the chili doctrine right But on core doctrines we believe the same We have fellowship, we have fun And you know, there's nothing wrong with having a little bit of variation There's nothing wrong with challenging one another With the scriptures There's nothing wrong with having disagreements But these people aren't just disagreeing to disagree They're not walking away to walk away Look, you know it says to have no fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness That's not Pastor Anderson That's not Pastor Jimenez You can't point to those scriptures A man that isn't heretic They're not heretics You're the freak You're the weirdo You're the person that's separating themselves Why? Because you don't have the spirit Because if you have the spirit you would never separate from Paul If you had the spirit you wouldn't separate from the doctrine And when people start doing it to themselves You have to wonder what's really going on Paul already told us They're prideful, they don't really know anything They're just drawing people away after themselves And they're going to come to naught Because when you pervert from the right way You're going to fall into a ditch You need to stay on the right path In the right way So you don't lead others into the ditch with you either And so it's important to, you know, pay attention To the preacher, to the pastor The direction he's headed, to where he's taking you Let's finish this chapter real quick, ok? I don't want to have to preach it again next week But there's so much good stuff in this I mean, I can preach till midnight, alright? But I'm not going to, because I've got to get home It says this Verse 31 Therefore watch Hey, Eutychus, watch, right? And remember that by the space of three years I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears Now, brethren, I commend you to God And to the word of His grace Which is able to build you up And to give you inheritance among all them which are sanctified I have coveted no man's silver, gold, or apparel Yea, ye yourselves know That these hands have ministered on my necessities And to them that were with me I have showed you all things How that so laboring you ought to support the weak And remember the words of the Lord Jesus How He said it's more blessed to give Than to receive And when He had thus spoken He kneeled down and prayed with them all And they all wept sore And fell on Paul's neck and kissed him Sorry most of all for the words which he spake That they should see his face no more And they accompanied him into the ship So I think there's two important aspects that we learn in this chapter Number one is that we need to be concerned with others more than ourselves It's more blessed to give than to receive Don't we see that emphasized with the pastors and the preachers? Feed the flock Care about others You know, think about other people The Apostle Paul going to all and traveling across the whole world Not counting his life dear unto himself What is he doing? He's giving of himself He's sacrificing of himself He's laying himself down Just like Jesus Christ did You know, and that's what a true leader That's what a true pastor's motive should be Is to give of himself Not to see what he can take And secondly Is that we need to watch We need to watch those that are feeding us You know, be careful what you're eating Right? Be diligent To study and pay attention What someone's putting in front of you that you're consuming Because everything you consume will affect you You know, just like food You can't just eat junk food and it won't affect you It's going to add weight It's going to cause problems to you, right? You are what you eat Physically and spiritually That's why it's important to constantly watch And pay attention to the leaders And if there's a bad shepherd If there's a shepherd starting to feed you junk You need to just say like I need to stay away from that person And go find a shepherd that's going to feed me The word of God Let's go some prayer Thank you Heavenly Father for this great chapter For the example that you set with the Apostle Paul I pray that we as a congregation would be concerned with other people That just as a caring wife and mother would feed her family And look after the household That we also would look after the spiritual things That even trusted us with You know, our families and preaching the gospel And the church of God And I pray that we'd all be watchful That we pay attention to what's going on in our surroundings And that we would look out for the froward tongue We'd look out for the perverse tongue For people that are serving themselves rather than serving others And that we would stay away from such people So as to be protected from the grievous wolves That inevitably want to destroy God's people And in Jesus' name we pray, amen Alright, we'll go to our last hymn for the evening If you would turn in your hymnal to 173 Hymn number 173, 173, Love Lifted Me Easy to remember, 173, Love Lifted Me Alright, 173 starting there on the first verse I was sinking deep in sin Far from the peaceful shore Buried deeply, stained within Seeking to rise no more But the master of the sea Heard my despairing cry From the waters lifted me Now safe am I Love lifted me Love lifted me When nothing else could help Love lifted me Love lifted me Love lifted me When nothing else could help Love lifted me Alright, so on that technically I think there are Sometimes people add a formata Or add a formata which is where you slow down But it is technically straight Love lifted me So we'll sing on the second I'm used to singing it that way and that's how it's written So I'm going to continue to do that But if someone else wants to lead it a different way They're more than welcome to Number two, I know some people do I'm throwing a little bit of shade Number two, 173 starting on the second And we'll sing it through without the formata All my heart to him I give Ever to him I'll cling In his blessed presence live Ever his praises sing Love so mighty and so true Merits my soul's best songs Faithful loving service to him belongs Love lifted me Love lifted me When nothing else could help Love lifted me Love lifted me Love lifted me When nothing else could help Love lifted me Souls in danger look above Jesus completely saves He will lift you by his love Out of the angry waves He's the master of the sea Billows his will obey He your savior wants to be Be saved today Love lifted me Love lifted me When nothing else could help Love lifted me Love lifted me Love lifted me When nothing else could help Love lifted me Amen, and with that you are dismissed Good singing this evening Thank you for watching