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🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. We can go ahead and find our seats. We'll get started. And once we find a seat, go ahead and grab a hymnal. And for our first song, we'll start in song number 48. Song number 48, I'll be so glad, maybe a new song to some, familiar to some. Those that know it well, sing it out. Song number 48, we're going to do it two times. 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Song number 48, we're going to do it two times. Song number 48, I'll be so glad. 🎵Music🎵 🎵I'll be so glad when day is done🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵I'll be so glad when victory's won🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Jesus Christ. Amen, great singing. We're gonna go ahead and open up the service with a word of prayer. Lord we love you and we just thank you again for this church thank you for everybody here such a privilege and an honor to be in your house Lord we just ask that you fill us with your spirit and bless this church as we sing unto you and in Jesus name we pray amen. All right for our next song let's go to song number 207. Song number 207, Only a Sinner. Song number 207. This is my story, to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. This is my story, to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner, saved by grace. Once I was foolish and sinned from my heart, causing my footsteps from God to deform. Jesus have found me, have been my case. I now am a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. This is my story, to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner, saved by grace. Tears are the railing, no merit at eye. Mercy had saved me, or else I must die. Sin had alone me, fearing God's grace. But now I'm a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. This is my story, to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner, saved by grace. Suffer a sinner whose heart overflows, loving his Savior to tell what he knows. Once more to tell it, would I embrace? I'm only a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. This is my story, to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner, saved by grace. Good singing. If you need another bulletin, you can lift your hand nice and high. One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. Thanks for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. We're on Jonah chapter 2 as a memory verse. And then on the inside, we have our service soul winning times, our church stats. Make sure you're turning those into our new soul winning group. If you have any questions about that, you can ask one of our captains. If you're not sure who your captain is, you can ask me or one of our ushers and we can help point you in the right direction. On the right, we have the list of our expecting ladies, our prayer list. We'll go over that in just a moment. Upcoming events, we have tomorrow night is our Texas chili cook off. Just for an idea, who's planning on bringing a chili just so I have some kind of idea? Okay, great. And if you can try to get those by 5.30, that would really help, especially for the competition. You don't have to enter the competition. If you just want to bring chili, you can. Our rules are very simple, just no fillers. So just no beans, noodles or rice as far as the competition portion. If you want to bring your nasty garbage bean chili that's not going to be in the competition, you can of course do so and it will be the last one to be eaten. Sorry, that was harsh. Sometimes you need the hard truths of the Bible. I'm just kidding. Of course, you can bring that and I will not partake, but you can always do what you would like. We would love for you to visit. My wife's been making cornbread muffins, we have Fritos, we have cheese, and then if you'd like to also bring a dessert, you can. Also, if you'd like to bring cards or board game or something, we'll be fellowshipping. In fact, maybe about 20 or 30 minutes after the service, we'll try to make an announcement and if you guys can help us, we're going to try and bring a bunch of tables in here and just get it all set up this evening. So if you want to stick around and help us, we'll give you a few minutes to fellowship, but maybe about 20 or 30 minutes afterwards, we'll probably ask and see if people can help us just kind of transform our area into a nice fellowship area. And so looking forward to tomorrow night, and we'll even have some candy to throw at you kids, okay? So there you go. So you can have some candy tomorrow night as well. But we're looking forward to a time of fellowship tomorrow night and some Chex's chili. November 16th is the Miami Sloaning Marathon. Please pray for that. November 24th is the ordination service for Brother Oz in Oklahoma City. And really looking forward to this. Brother Oz is such a loyal, God-fearing, great preacher, great family. Really looking forward to what they're going to do there at Anchor Baptist Church up in Oklahoma. And so just definitely pray for them. And if you know him or if you have his information, contact him, encourage him. It definitely means a lot to know that you have people supporting you, and so we really look forward to that. On the back, it does have those notes that I just kind of brought up again. And so if you are curious about some of those details. Our prayer list, we've been praying for the Naim's grandmother, continue to pray for her vision, health, and salvation. We've been praying for the Carlson's mother's health as well. We've been praying for Ms. Miller's friend, his mother who unfortunately has cancer. We've been praying for the Scotts' parents for their health. We've been praying for the Garcia's for their daughter's pregnancy. We've been praying for Brother Foley for his fiancé and also for a co-worker. And they've had some positive news as far as their fiancé, so that's still going well. Continue to pray for them. We've been praying for his healing. I think he's doing better. Also, we've been praying for Brother Stewart for a sister-in-law who's also struggling with cancer. Continue to pray for Brother Rogers' mother who's having surgery on the first. We also have the FERS if you continue to pray for them for the passing away of their grandparents. So we'll just go ahead and say a quick word of prayer for those that were mentioned. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for our church, and thank you for all these ladies who are expecting. I pray that you please be with them and their pregnancies. I pray that you'd also bless our church family that's struggling with health. Please help those that are struggling with cancer and with these serious illnesses. I pray if possible you just give them a miracle, just give them full recovery. I pray that you just give them patience and give them peace during this time of tribulation. That you just help them, that you would comfort them. I pray that you would help us to be an encouragement and to bear one another's burdens in these situations. I pray that you would help us to bring the gospel to those that are still needing it, whether it be our friends or family members. I pray that you would just also give favor to our church family that needs it with their jobs or with their relationships. I pray that you would just be with those that have lost loved ones and you would comfort them. And I pray that you would just continue to use us as a bright and shining light in such a dark world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to go ahead and sing our psalm of the week, Psalm 147. It's in our special handouts. Psalm 147. Sing it out nice and loud. Psalm 147. All right, that was Psalm 147 in your special handout of your King James Bible. Psalm 147. To sing praises unto our God, for it is pleasant and praises complete. The Lord doth build up Jerusalem. He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars. He calleth them all, He calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power His understanding is in the hand. The land of the weak He casteth the wicked down to the ground. Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praise upon the heart, unto our God who covereth the heaven with clouds who prepareth. Great for the earth who maketh grass, grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young great his fish tried. He divided not in the strength of the horse, He taketh not pleasure in. The legs of the man, the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him in those that open His mercy. Praise the Lord of Jerusalem, praise thy God. Praise the Lord of Jerusalem, glory at the strength of the horse. All markets He hath blessed. I shall tread within Thee, naked beast, in the waters and fill it Thee. With the finest of the weak, sendeth forth His commandment, the honor of His birth runneth very swiftly. Giveth snow-like wool, He scattereth the waters high, like ashes, scattereth the wharf, like ashes. He casteth forth His life, like blood, souls who can stand before His hope. He senteth out His commandment, then He caused His wind to blow. And the mother's body showed with His word unto Jacob, His judges and His justice unto Israel. Now He hath not been sworn in, they should then ask for His judges, for they have not known Him, praise He the Lord. Great singing everybody, now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to the book of Ecclesiastes chapter number 11. That's the book of Ecclesiastes chapter number 11. Ecclesiastes chapter number 11, the Bible reads, Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight. For thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth. And if the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. For he that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand. For thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But if a man live many years and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes. But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for allowing us to be in church. Thank you for sending us to Baptist Church. Thank you for the King James Bible. I pray that you be with Pastor Shelley. Bless and fill him with your Holy Spirit, and help us to receive the sermon that you've laid on his heart. Praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So here in Ecclesiastes chapter 11, we're kind of getting close to the end of this particular book of the Bible, and he's giving us some more instructions that's just general wisdom. I think that Ecclesiastes has a lot of similarities to the book of Proverbs, where it's giving a lot of just general wisdom. There are some themes that we can kind of draw out from a few of these chapters, but this particular chapter is a pretty interesting chapter. It has a few different concepts that are pretty famous. This first verse is kind of an interesting, more famous section of Scripture, but it says, Now, this has kind of been a puzzling proverb or puzzling concept to a lot of different people. You could look it up online. Lots of different ideas. But I want to explain what I believe the Bible is clearly saying in this passage, and I think in order to understand spiritual truths, a lot of times it helps to try and understand maybe the carnal aspect that's being mentioned here. And so if we kind of really just think about this for just a second, casting bread upon the waters. Now, it's funny because I asked my wife. I said, What do you think that this is referring to? And she's like, It's just saying feed the ducks. And she was just joking with me, but it was just kind of funny. But obviously, this does have some kind of a significance, and sometimes when we think about a carnal truth, though, the carnal truth isn't always necessarily positive because if you were to take bread, if we think about bread, it's a finished product. Bread is something that's gone through a lot of different processes, and it's in a consumable form. It's essentially you've sowed wheat. It's grown up into wheat. Then you've harvested the wheat. You've turned it into grain. It's now flour. You've mixed it with other substances. Now you have. You've baked it, and it's become bread. Now it's a consumable product. So it's kind of at its final stage. And then water itself is not something that you sow anything into. Right? You're not going to plant things in water. You're not going to throw things in water and expect some kind of a yield or some kind of return. So I think what's kind of being illustrated here is the idea of taking a finished product and sowing it into something that will for sure yield no profit whatsoever. Okay? So if we kind of think about what's being illustrated here, it wouldn't make any logical sense to take bread and throw it into water and expect any positive result out of that. Whereas the opposite, when we think about like taking seed and sowing it into soil, that's what we would try to do to try and actually get some kind of a return, some kind of an investment. We're sowing into something that we believe will help us or benefit us. Whereas taking a finished product like bread and just throwing it into water will not benefit us. In fact, it will ruin the bread. If you throw bread into water, it's kind of ruined now. It's soggy. It's gross. It becomes inedible. It's kind of wasted in a sense. And what the Bible is saying here, cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find that for many days. He's saying there are decisions you can make that carnally cannot benefit you, that do not make sense whatsoever carnally, but in some way you're going to reap a benefit or a blessing out of this. Okay? Now he's not saying this in the sense that this will apply carnally. This is obviously a spiritual truth only. You cannot literally throw bread into water and expect to find it and it's going to help you in any way. Okay? But what we could do is we could potentially take a finished product in some way and somehow distribute it in a way that could never potentially benefit us and then somehow receive a blessing. What would be one application of this? This would be illustrated in the idea of giving money to the poor. Okay? And I think that that's one of the main applications that is being illustrated in this particular concept or in this particular idea. I want you to go to a lot of places. I want to really focus on this verse for a while. So I want to go to a lot of verses because I think this is an important concept. Go to Proverbs chapter 19. Go to Proverbs chapter 19. Think about this. Giving money to a poor person in a sense is a bad investment, carnally speaking. And by giving money to the poor, you're kind of giving them a finished product. Right? You go and you work, you labor, you pay taxes and you have to do all this stuff and now you get money and that's kind of the end result of your labor, of all your work. You have a finished product and then you're just handing it over to someone that's poor. Well, in a sense, it's almost like casting bread upon the waters in the sense that you're not really benefiting anything from this carnally. It doesn't make sense to lend money to poor people because they're very unlikely to pay you back. They don't have the ability to help you in any kind of way. And so in a sense, you're just kind of like, in a carnal sense, just throwing money away. You're just kind of destroying some finished product. But what the Bible teaches is that when you actually give money to the poor, you're going to reap some benefit from doing this, but it has to take faith. It takes faith in order to reap that particular benefit. Now, Proverbs 19, look what it says in verse 17. He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he hath given will he pay him again. So notice, actually by giving money to a poor person, you're somehow lending money to God and God says, well, I'll repay. Which, again, if you didn't believe the Bible, if you don't believe in God, this makes no sense whatsoever. And honestly, giving money to the poor, expecting something in return, is not worth it anyways because the Bible actually teaches that when you lend, you should be hoping for nothing in return and that that's actually how you get this kind of a blessing. We shouldn't be giving money thinking like, oh, now I hit the jackpot because I'm like, God's going to bless me or something like that. There is no guarantee or certainty about what happens in this life, but what we do know is that God will repay. It may not even be in this life. It could be in the next life. But we do know he will repay. But we also just know it's right to help and lend unto the poor and to cast thy bread upon the waters and that God has benefits to the people who bless the poor. Now, I don't want to just leave this hanging. That's why I want to look at a lot of verses about this subject. So let's look at a few more verses in Proverbs, and then I want to go to the New Testament on this subject as well. Look at chapter 14. But notice when you give money to the poor, you're lending to God. That takes faith. It takes faith to give money to somebody that you're never going to see that money back. You're never going to get repaid. You're never going to get any kind of carnal benefit out of it. But you're just trusting, you know what? God gave me that money in the first place, and if I give it to them, God's going to make sure I have what I need and he's going to take care of me, and I'm really lending it unto the Lord. I'm not just throwing money away. But it could look like you're just casting your bread upon the waters in a carnal sense. Proverbs 14, look at verse 21. The Bible says, He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth, but he that hath mercy on the poor, happiest he. The Bible actually says you can be happy by giving money to poor people. That's like a tangible benefit that'll just make you feel better when you just give money to somebody. That's why the Bible also talks about when you give, you shouldn't be giving grudgingly because then you're like ruining the entire benefit anyways. You should just be like, hey, this person needs help. I like this person. I want to help them. They're poor. Hey, I'm just going to help them. And then you can actually feel better about it. You know, we should live our lives seeing how we can help people, not hating people. We shouldn't spend our entire lives just focused on hating people. Notice what the Bible said in this particular verse, you know, verse 21. He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth. We shouldn't just go around hating people. We shouldn't just go around despising people. Like this is the bad way to live your life. We should not live our life being a hater. We should live our lives being someone that loves people and does good unto people and is focused on the people that we can build up and the people that we can do good unto, not the people we can hate on. Like that's just a bad way to live your life. And according to the Bible, you're sinning by just despising your neighbor anyways. Go over to Proverbs 22 for a moment. Go to Proverbs 22. Hey, we've all been poor at times probably. If you haven't, I don't know who you are. I don't know what your life's like. But most of us, we've probably had times when we've been down on our luck. We've needed money. We've needed a handout. We needed something. And you know what? It's really nice when you had somebody just there to help you, someone you could ask. And look, asking for money is probably one of the most embarrassing things to have to do. I hate asking for money. I don't want to ever do it. And frankly speaking, like the Bible talks about men just working with quietness anyways. So it's a biblical construct that men would just work. You know, sometimes people just need help. They need some extra encouragement or whatever. And it's always been nice. I remember my dad and my brother would make fun of me because when I was in college, I didn't have enough money to fill up my gas tank. Like, I would just put as much as I could. Like, I'd put 20 bucks in or 10 bucks or whatever. And so I would usually just put enough to just get through the week or something like that. Well, they were making fun of me in front of my grandpa. And my grandpa just whips out a couple hundred dollars and just hands it to me. He's just like, he's just like, hey, now you can fill up your gas tank. And I was just thinking, like, this is great. You know, like, they're making fun of me for being poor. But my grandpa, he's just like, you know what? Instead of making fun of my grandson, I'm just going to give him money. And you know what? I love my grandpa. You know, unfortunately, he passed away. But that was cool. And, you know, that made me feel better as a person. I didn't ask him for the money. He didn't have to give me the money. But you know what? He just thought, hey, instead of making fun of poor people, why don't we just help poor people? You know, why don't we just do good on the people that are down on their luck or don't have much? Again, I didn't have a job. I played golf. I was in college. It wasn't like I was lazy. It was just I didn't really have an opportunity to have much money, and he just helped me out. He blessed me. Proverbs 22, look at verse 9. He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed, for he giveth of his bread to the poor. Notice again, the person that's blessed is the person that's giving to poor people. And this just makes logical sense if you actually believe in God. Go to Proverbs 28. Go to Proverbs 28. Why? Because if God cares about poor people and you're a vessel to be used to bless poor people, then why would God not wanna keep blessing you? I mean, God's gonna wanna keep making sure that you're doing well and that you have financial means and that you're taken care of when you're taking care of other people. And so if you really want God to bless you, sometimes we gotta think about, like, are we helping? What are we doing with the stuff that God's given us? You know, you want more? Well, what are you doing with what God's already given you, and are you considering, you know, helping people when they have need? Proverbs 28, look at verse 27. He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack, but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. Now, again, what is the temptation to not wanna help somebody is that you're afraid you'll go without. You're afraid, hey, if I give money to this person, then I won't have money or I won't have what I need or I won't be able to take care of the things that I need to take care of or whatever the particular situation is, but notice what the Bible says. If you give unto the poor, you shall not lack, but if you hide your eyes, you shall have many a curse. So here's the thing. There's obviously more poor people in this world than you could ever even give a dime to, okay? We couldn't even give a dime to every single poor person that exists. We don't have that much money. We're not Elon Musk or something, okay? So it's not possible for you to just help all poor people or just help poor people all the time, and, you know, it's no blessing for you to go into the poor house and help poor people either, right? It's when you have extra, when you have abundance, when you have the ability, that's when you're gonna help poor people. Obviously, you know, you first put the oxygen mask on yourself and then you assist others around you, right? So obviously we're talking about situations where you have the ability, you have something, but hiding your eyes is the idea that you have some money, you don't have to have it, and you're aware of somebody that has a legitimate need or concern or has talked to you or whatever, and you could help that person, but instead you just, I kind of want to ignore their situation, I want to ignore their need for help, I want to ignore the people in my life, and I'm just gonna kind of pretend like they don't exist so that I don't have to feel like I should give them money. That's what the Bible is bringing up, and it's saying, hey, if you decide to just go ahead and just lend to the Lord, you're gonna be happy, you're gonna be blessed, you're not gonna lack. But here's the problem with God is He blesses you when you do right, and then He curses when you don't do right. So it's not even only like, hey, if I don't help this person, it's just, oops, not a big deal. What does the Bible say? He shall have many a curse. That's what the Bible says. So we should take this seriously, and what does the Bible say? Cast thy bread upon the waters. Sometimes you need to just take something that's a finished product, and yeah, it's not gonna bless you, it's not gonna help you, but that's just how God wants it to be. Look at Proverbs 29 verse 7 right there. Here's another thing to consider, though. The righteous consider it the cause of the poor, but the wicked regardeth not to know it. So we also should not just indiscriminately give money out to poor people. And the Bible has many caveats. This should be a whole sermon, honestly. I'm just trying to condense it quickly for this point because I think it's an important point. But the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 3, if a man would not work, neither should he eat. So the Bible's not saying giving money to the lazy. The Bible's not saying giving money to drug addicts. The Bible's not saying give money to people that are going to use it for wicked means. The Bible does not say to give it to people that are gonna do something bad with it, okay? But what would be somebody that would be poor would be somebody, hey, they're still working, they're still trying, they're still, you know, doing what's right, but they go on a hardship, they get sick, they have an injury, they have a problem. Maybe they're a widow, maybe they're an orphan. The Bible talks about people that are in bad situations, they're not bad people. You know, we shouldn't just give money to bad people. But there can be a good person that's poor. There's plenty of good people that are poor. And especially the brethren, especially God-theoring, soul-winning, fundamental Baptists, those are great people to help out. And honestly, I think the vast majority of giving and blessing the poor should probably be doing it to the people in your church. Obviously, you've got a really small church, you don't know that many people. Obviously, you can help some other people along the way. Hey, if you have a coworker that needs help, you can help that person. Family member, you can help your neighbor that's literally across the street or whatever. I'm not saying limit your charity and your benevolence to only people in the church, but I'm just saying, like, primarily, if I'm to give money to somebody that's poor, I'd rather give money to people in my church than anybody else. And then probably next would be, like, family members or coworkers or friends, or then, you know, maybe some people that are near me in my near proximity and everything like that. But in general, we should not hide our eyes, but we should consider the cause of the poor. Hey, are you poor because you just keep drinking alcohol all day and you won't get a job? I won't give you money. You know, when homeless derelicts ask me for money, you know what I say? I say, go to church and then we'll talk. Come to my church and then we'll talk. I say, hey, I help people in my church, but you know what, I'm not just gonna give money to some homeless derelict who refuses to work, who's just gonna spend that money on drugs and alcohol. That will not help him. And if you think that giving money to that person is helping him, you are deceived by the reason why people are homeless in America. People are not homeless in America just because, you know, they just have a bad luck or something. Now, again, maybe that has a little bit to do with it, but it's usually because they burned the bridges in their family, they won't take accountability for their actions, they won't work, they're doing drugs, they're doing alcohol, all kinds of stuff. And look, I've personally been involved with homeless shelters for years. I've gone to homeless shelters for years and preached to those people. I know what they're like, I know why they're there, and you know what, I preached them the gospel, I helped them, I did good on them. But you know what, I'm not going around giving them money because that's not what they need. In fact, it makes them worse and it makes them live in that lifestyle even longer. And you would actually be amazed at how much money some of these people actually get. It was weird, I don't think we should, I didn't really agree with this, but one of the people that worked in this homeless thing decided to pretend to be homeless for two weeks. So he went on undercover homeless mission and he went to this random place and did this. And I think even news reporters have done this. And I mean, they're making like 10 grand a week sometimes. But honestly, you say they're not actually making 10 grand a week, because think about it, the person that's going undercover is actually a hardworking person. So they're like hardworking while being homeless, so they're really raking it in. Whereas the homeless people, they're even lazy at asking for money, so they're not necessarily raking it. But I'm just saying, if you were just a professional homeless person, you could probably make a quarter million dollars a year. And I'm not giving any of you ideas, okay? Do not do this. I will have a problem with you. You'll have a problem with church, okay? I'm just telling you that it's like, this is not, the problem is not that they just need a little extra dough, because they could be a professional pain handler for a year and save up enough money to just buy a house. They'd probably be richer than us, you know, if they actually were diligent and hardworking. It's just they're lazy drug addicts, many of them are sodomites, many of them are just some of the most evil people you've ever met in your life, okay? And not all homeless people, it's about 20, 30% probably. But I'm just saying, I'm not just gonna indiscriminately give money to lazy derelicts or whatever. They'd be like, oh, where's your soup kitchen? I don't have one, okay? But again, people that want to come to church and wanna serve God and are down on their luck, yeah, we've helped them, our church has helped them, I've helped them, we should consider helping those people. But I'm not gonna help people that won't even show up for one church or something. I mean, think about it, if you were really on the street and you approached me and I said, hey, come to church, is that really that hard of an ask? I mean, we can get you an ice cream, we can get you some water, we can help you, there's lots of places that are hiring, people know how to get jobs, I mean, our church is a very friendly, charitable church. You could get back on your feet if you wanted to, if they don't want to, okay? So who are the type of people that wanna help? I wanna help people that are actually in a bad situation. They're actually still a normal person, hardworking, they love the Lord but they're just down on their luck, they had a sickness, they had an illness, they got laid off, they have some kind of a problem and you just wanna help that particular individual. They are a widow, they're poor, whatever their situation is, but what does the Bible say? The righteous consider it the cause of the poor. How can you interpret this verse versus just give money indiscriminately? What does the bad person do? They just give money out. They're called Democrats, okay? Democrats just have welfare programs and just give money out to people that don't actually deserve it, that shouldn't be getting handouts, shouldn't be getting money, that are even using the system to take advantage of it. They have tons of money that is coming in but it's off the books and yet they go and file for WIC, women, infant and children, or they file for government assistance or welfare or whatever and they just rip off the system and take advantage of the system and you know what? It's because the Democrats are not considering the cause of the poor. They're just indiscriminately giving out your money and you know why they're indiscriminately giving out your money? It's because they take a cut of all that money that's coming in that they supposedly give to the poor. It's not that they actually even care, they're just taxing you, taking 20, 50% of that off the top, giving it to themselves and then giving the rest out to buy votes and it's just a vicious system and they're not righteous. Okay? The righteous considers the cause of the poor and says, hey, what's going on? And frankly speaking, when you look in the Bible, how they actually help poor people is they didn't even give money out many times, they gave jobs out. They said, hey, go glean the corners of my field. Now, that's why I've explained this in the past too is, hey, maybe you give someone a job and you pay them way more than what the job's worth, but give them just a little bit of work just to make sure that they're not a derelict. Go over to Psalm 41, go to Psalm 41. I don't think it's right. You know, if it's an able-bodied man, they'll even feel better anyways if you just hire them to do something as opposed to just like... as opposed to just giving them free money. You know, even people that have needed stuff for the church, it's like, hey, we'll have, you know, clean the church or do some work or do something like that if they were, you know, impoverished and they needed something. It's like, hey, I'll pay you for some work, you know? Give them a job, give them an opportunity. You know, that's just a win for everybody, okay? Now, again, there could be some people, like an orphan. You don't necessarily force them to do work or whatever, but, you know, you could just help them or help widows or help somebody that's in need. But even the church itself is not allowed to help certain widows, is what the Bible says. I mean, have you ever thought about that? The Bible's like literally forbidding the church from giving out money to certain widows. You know, it's unscriptural and it's unbiblical for the church to just randomly give out money to people. Now, whether it's legal or not, I don't know. You know, that's, you know, for them to figure out. But you know what? It's unbiblical to just hand out money to individuals indiscriminately that are off limits according to the Bible, okay? And whether or not you think it's right, based on your perverted sense of justice, doesn't make it right, okay? The Bible's literally saying, hey, we should just give money to widows, certain widows. And some people do just give money to people. You know what? That's not the right thing to do with God's money, okay? We should consider the cause of the poor. And if you want to give out charity, let's make sure they actually are charitable. Like, should we really just give money to people that are making six figures and then call that charity? Like, is that biblical whatsoever? That doesn't even make sense, okay? And so whether or not it's real or legal or whatever, like, we should make sure that what we're doing matches what the Bible says, okay? And a righteous person considers the cause of the poor. An unrighteous person just indiscriminately gives money to people and even wicked people, okay? That doesn't make any sense. Look at Psalm 41, look at verse 1. Blessed is he that consider it the cause of the poor. Hey, that sounds like a familiar verse, doesn't it? Sounds like the Bible's saying a consistent thing. Hey, why are you giving money to this person? There should always be a legitimate reason why you're giving money to somebody, okay? Blessed is he that consider it the poor. The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, and he shall be blessed upon the earth and thou wilt not deliver him under the will of his enemies. So look, we should consider why they're poor and we should consider the poor in the sense that we should think about them. Here's an actual poor person. Let's give money to the poor person. And we all have limited resources, the church has limited resources, and we should use those limited resources for the people that need it the most, not just to gain advantage, not to do something weird or whatever. We should be considering what we're doing, and when you do so, what does the Bible say? The Lord will preserve you and keep you alive and will bless you, and I love this, and will not deliver him under the will of his enemies. There's a lot of enemies today. I don't want to be delivered to the will of my enemies. And you know, one of the things the Bible says is the way that I can preserve myself is literally helping poor people. That's what the Bible says. Now go over to Matthew chapter 6. Let's get a couple more caveats before we finish this point. And I know this is... I'm drawing out the first verse here, but I think since it's such a famous verse, and honestly, there's so many weird interpretations, Calvinist interpretations of this verse are bizarre, okay? And I don't want to poison your mind with even telling you what it is, but, you know, I wanted to get a good application from casting my bread upon the waters here, and I think that helping poor people is one of those particular applications. There could be other applications of this. Don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying this is only saying this. I think this is just a clear example. Matthew chapter 6, look at verse 1. Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise, you have no reward of your Father, which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. So the Bible's saying this, though. When we decide to help poor people, we shouldn't make a big deal about it. That's the spirit of giving. What would be making a big deal about it? Like putting it on YouTube. Like, hey, look, I gave this person a bunch of money. Hey, I helped this poor person, and I posted on Facebook. Hey, here's this big check that I gave to this poor person. The Bible says that person's a hypocrite. The Bible says that they're actually not even giving money because they actually care about the person. They're only doing it for the attention. They only want attention or views or likes or subscribers or whatever, and that's why they're doing it. If they saw this same person and there was not a camera filming, they would not actually give them money. They don't actually help poor people when no one's looking. They only help poor people when everyone's looking because they're just trying to buy attention, okay? And that's what the Bible's saying is wrong. It's saying it's not right to do. When someone is like this, they're not the good person. But, you know, of course, everybody looks at a church like ours or Baptist churches and look down on them like, well, why aren't you just giving money to people and telling everybody about it? Because the Bible says to not do that. The last thing I'm going to do is tell you when I help poor people because I don't want to lose my reward. I don't want God to say like, okay, well, this person thinking something positive of you is going to be your reward now, which, frankly speaking, you guys know Matthew 6, so if I brag to you about helping a poor person, you would think negatively about me, and I would lose my reward. So I would literally gain nothing. I'm definitely not going to tell you guys. You guys know that that wasn't even right, okay? I don't want to go around bragging to my church members that I gave money to a poor person because you'd be like, yeah, but what about Matthew 6, pastor? Like, isn't this saying not to talk about it? I mean, that would be the worst move, okay? The best move is just to not say anything about it. Now, of course, I don't think that you need to take this to some like extremely hyper literal sense that like, you know, the money has to fall out of the sky and no one can know that like it literally... Like, it's just basically saying you don't want it to be something you brag about or you're like making a big deal. If you can give it to them and they don't really know, that's the best. Even if you give it to them and they know, it's not a big deal, but at the same time, it's just you're not trying to tell others, like, hey, everybody, I'm going to give some money to Brother Sam over here. Just want to let you all know over here. Brother Sam, hey... Like, that would be weird, right? Hey, if you just came up to him and just said, hey, I wanted to give this to you, and you just move on. That's what the Bible is basically trying to say, okay? Just saying don't make a big deal about it. Don't tell other people. You're just helping people. And the more discretion, the better it is because it just proves that your heart was in it to help the person, not for attention. And not necessarily even for getting them on your side. You just genuinely wanted to help that particular individual, okay? That's what the spirit of giving should be like. So when we help somebody, we don't want to make a big deal about it. That's fake. Go to Luke chapter 14. Go to Luke chapter 14. And look, there's plenty of poor people. There's more poor people than you could ever give enough money to. So, you know, it's not saying, like, let's make sure to end poverty, world poverty. It can't happen. It literally could never happen. But when we have opportunities, when God presents people in our lives, when He presents situations, when it makes sense, God's touched your heart about a situation or a person or someone asked or whatever, we should make sure that we're not hiding our eyes, we're considering the cause, and we're using discretion when we do so, okay? What does it say in Luke chapter 14, verse 12? Then said he also to them that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee, for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. Now, this is probably one of the more extreme versions of what we're talking about here, but it's literally even saying, hey, maybe you should bless and give good food unto people that could never repay you, never bring you back to their house, never help you in any way. And he's even saying, you're only going to be rewarded at the judgment. So you're not even, he's like saying, this is literally casting your bread upon the waters. You're not going to get anything in return for this. But you will in the resurrection. You will, and so what does that take? It takes faith. Now, again, I want to make sure that, I don't think this, don't take this too literal again. I don't believe this is saying you can't have meals with your friends, okay? I'm not saying this means don't have good fellowship and don't hang out with friends and don't do these things. But it's just saying, don't think, though, by having dinner with your friends that you're getting any spiritual reward out of it. You're only going to get a spiritual reward out of blessing people and having fellowship and making meals for people that would not be able to actually recompense you, okay? And so, again, do we want to live all of our lives just carnally, or do we also want to at times make spiritual decisions and help people that are poor and can't necessarily recompense you? And that is what the Bible is saying here. Go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 11. So I hope that maybe with all of those verses we get a balanced view. And we have to be careful in any doctrine and any subject that we always have a balanced view of Scripture, that we're not just taking one of these verses and running with them, but we're considering all of them. We're considering, hey, we should help poor people, but we should consider why they're poor. When we do it, we should use discretion, and we should do it understanding that we're lending unto the Lord, that He's going to bless us, understanding that God's going to be mad if we never help anybody, if we're never generous with what He's given us, and that if you want God to bless you not only in this life and the next, we should always consider the poor. And I think that's what's being brought up here, Why? So, hey, you help somebody, God will help you later. God's going to take care of you later. That's a good application of this verse. Verse 2, This verse also kind of falls on the heels of this and I think gives us just a little bit more information. Give a portion of 7. This is what I always find when I read these. It's like, and also to 8. And I always get confused by this. I'm like, it's not like God forgot how to count or something. It's not like God was like, oh, I meant to say 8, and then He brought up 8. Who's ever wondered like why it says like also to 8 or like it just tags on more. You're just kind of like thinking like what is, but this is, you know, being around people that don't understand the Bible and hate the Bible and are dumb spiritually helps me understand these verses better because you know what He's doing? He's basically saying like He's not only helped 7 people. It's like somebody's going to take this so overly literal that it's going to be like, okay, I can only max out at helping 7 people. I mean, think about Peter and them. It's like forgiving thy brother like 7 times. It's like, no, no, it's 7 times 70. And then there's some people out there like, so it's max 490? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. It's like, hey, it's just saying let's help some people. And what would be a realistic, practical thing? Helping about 7 people. You know, helping about 7 people. But you know, don't be like, well, I've helped 7. I'm done. You know, if there was 8 people, let's just also help the 8th guy too. Don't get like super over-literal, but it's just saying like, hey, if you're going to help people, help 7 people. If you've got 7 people that need it, help all 7. If it happened to be just one more or one less, like, yeah, let's just help the 8th guy too. You know, it doesn't say help 1,000. It doesn't say give a portion to a million. It says, hey, give a portion to 7. Right? And then also, I mean, don't get so stingy that it's like, okay, I've maxed out at 7. I would actually even help the 8th too. Okay. So it's just kind of the spirit of the law that's being applied here. And he's saying, look, you don't know what's going to happen. When you have good, it's like you're not supposed to withhold good unto them to whom it is due when it is in thy power, thy hand to do it. So that's another proverb. It's like, hey, if you literally have the ability to help 7 people, do it now because you may not have that ability later. You don't know what evil's going to happen. You don't know when you're going to be in poverty and want yourself. So it's saying, hey, now while you have stuff, help people when you can. And then maybe you'll need the help. And then they'll need the help. Right? It's just saying, like, hey, when you have the ability, do it now because you don't know what's going to happen when Kamala becomes your president, okay? And I'm not saying she is. God forbid. I hope that she never is, okay? But you don't know. We don't know what evil is going to happen. And we don't know what's going to happen. So it's just like saying, bless people now. You could die tomorrow. You could lose all your money. You could lose your job. Your legs could break. You could go blind. I mean, how many of us are going to keep the exact same job if we go blind tomorrow? And then would you be the person that needs help? Would you be the person that needs someone to give a portion unto? Right? I mean, we never know what a day may bring. We never know what evil may come upon us. And so we want to be willing to be the person that's distributing generously. Hey, give a portion of seven. And hey, don't get technical on this. Even eight, okay? Even if it was one more. You know, if you have it, give it. Verse 3. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth. And if the tree fall toward the south or toward the north and the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. Now, this is a really interesting verse, too. One application or one idea is, number one, that nature has a particular course of action. Nature has its own system. When clouds get full, they're just going to rain. It's just going to happen. Okay? But then there's this other idea of, like, a tree falling. And it's saying if it's falling towards the south, that's where it's going to be. And you're kind of like, God, I feel like this is really simple. Right? I mean, who's reading this thing, like, that seems a little overly simple? But I think what he's trying to communicate and what this verse is actually helping us understand is that some things are going to happen, and they're inevitable, and you have to accept the inevitability of those realities. Like, what's reality? If a tree's falling, you're not going to stop that. You're not going to be able to get there and prevent that. Like, it's going to happen. And no matter what, it's going to fall in the direction that it was headed. And it's just like once a cloud gets full, there's no stopping it, it's going to rain. That's what happens. Once the cloud gets full, it's going to rain. It's just kind of like this. When a lady gets pregnant, birth's going to happen. Now is it going to happen exactly nine months later? We don't know. There's nothing that promises nine months. But you know what? I've never seen a woman pregnant 13 months, or 15 months, or whatever. Why? Eventually something's going to happen. And I think what the Bible is trying to help us understand is that some things are just going to happen. You cannot stop them. It's inevitable. Here's another one. Death. Death will happen. Here's another one. There will be an end times Babylon. There will be an Antichrist. And it even could be possible that America is that end times Babylon. Now, I lean towards that being a very likely scenario, a very likely reality. But if it is, you and I can't stop it. And some people get mad about that. They're mad that you're not trying to stop that from happening. But it's like, look, if a giant redwood tree was falling and I didn't want it to fall south, I'm not going to try and stop it. I'm not going to get underneath it and be like, no, I'm going to stop. I'm going to move out of the way and be like, dude, it's landing there. You know what I mean? I can't do anything about that. And if America is going to become Babylon, look, as much as I don't want that to happen or I don't like some of those things, I can't necessarily stop that. So what I have to do is I have to have the serenity to just accept things that I can't change. I have to accept the fact that, hey, if this cloud gets full, it's going to rain. If this tree is falling, it's falling. Hey, if this nation is going bad, this nation is going bad. I can't always get upset about the things that I can't control. And there are some people that obsess, obsess about things that they can't control, that they have no impact over, but they just sit here and whine and complain about things that are not something they can even change. And it's like, why? Why obsess about things that you can't change? Why get fixated on a tree falling to the south if that's where it's headed? Just let it fall. Just get over it, move on with your life, and focus on the things that you can't control. We should be people that are focused on the things that are in our power and in our control and not on the things that we have no control over whatsoever. Well, I don't want it to rain on this day. Stop it then, right? Get mad. Like, how many days have been spoiled because it rained on a day when you didn't want it to rain? Happens for people all the time. But you know what? You can't change it. Just suck it up, buttercup, and just get over it and move on with your life. Don't obsess about things that you cannot change. This is a bad habit. It's a bad idea. You know, there was something that really upset me. It was Slotsky's, okay? Who knows what I'm talking about? Slotsky's Restaurant, okay? They used to have this soup called the Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese Soup, and this was amazing. But then they got rid of it. And I'm a little bit bitter, okay? Let's be honest. You know what I'm not going to do? I'm not going to go on an endless campaign trail trashing Slotsky's because they got rid of this Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese Soup because I'm not going to be able to bring it back. And I would love to bring it back. If I could bring it back, I would. If I could help them, whatever, I would love to have it back. But you know what? I still even eat there, even though I'm mad about it. And you know what? I don't even go through the line. I'm like, you also get the soup back, you know. I just accept that they got rid of it. I don't know why. It was like their number one best-selling soup. It was on the menu every day. Everyone loved it. It was so great. It might have been because it was too popular that I had to get rid of it. I don't know what happened. It's kind of mind-boggling. I'm just thinking, like, why is your most popular item your discontinuing? I'm bitter, okay? I'm just being honest. I'm getting off my chest now. But you know what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to obsess about it every day of my life and talk about it all the time and get mad at them forever. It's not going to happen. It's over. It's done. I'm just going to move on. And you know what? I still like Slotskis because they still have good sandwiches. They still have some things that I can eat there. And you know what? I'm not just going to hate them forever for this decision I obviously don't agree with, okay? And you know what? I'm not going to go on an endless campaign trail going to the subway and being like, man, those Slotskis people. You know, it's just like move on with your life, okay? Accept things that you can't change. Look at verse 4. He that observed the wind shall not sow, and he that regarded the clouds shall not reap. Here's another thing. When people just get too cautious, you're just so afraid of what may happen in the future that you end up not doing anything. It's just like, well, I don't know. It could rain, but it may not. Well, the wind might blow. Well, it may not. Verse 5. As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who make it all. So verses 4, 5, and 6 kind of have this thought, but it's like don't be too cautious. Verse 5, you don't really understand how things work. Tell some doctors that. We need to tell some medical doctors and some scientists and stuff you don't understand how everything works. I mean, the Bible is literally almost pretty much explicitly saying that we as humans can't fully comprehend or understand all the science behind how bones are growing in the womb. Like, we don't really understand how all these processes work. We'll probably never understand them. And notice it says, even so thou knowest not the works of God who make it all. We can't understand how we get life from non-life. You can sit here and hypothesize all day long about spontaneous generation and all this garbage that pseudo-scientists will love to pontificate about. But let's just be real. We don't understand the miracles of God. Conception and birth and maturation and development and all these different things. I mean, it's just incredible. I mean, humans in general are just incredible beings. Because you think about like a superhero, and a superhero does certain things that are kind of cool. Like one of them, like Wolverine, can like heal himself. But think about it. We heal ourselves too. Just not exactly like some of the cartoons and stuff. But think about it. You get injured, your body literally heals itself. That's incredible. How in the world do we have a self-healing vessel that God has created that we can use? Like, that's a pretty incredible superpower that you can literally be injured or hurt and your body can literally heal itself and regrow skin and regrow hair and regrow all kinds of different things on the body. I mean, that's a pretty incredible process that we have in our bodies that we don't understand. We don't understand everything. We should sometimes also just accept the fact that we don't understand everything. Verse 6, In the morning, sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand. For thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. So this is kind of falling on the heels of 4, 5, and 6 here in the sense that, hey, don't be too cautious in the morning. Sow thy seed. And in the evening withhold not thine hand. Isn't that similar to even verse 1? Giving money, giving a portion to seven, also to eight, hey, cast thy bread upon the waters. The Bible's just basically saying, we need to do stuff. Don't just sit here and just sit on your golden chest, you know, Scrooge. We should be willing to do something with what God has given us. When God gives us seed, we need to sow it. When God gives us bread, we need to cast it upon the waters. Whatever God's given us to do, we need to try stuff. Do something. Look at chapter 9, verse 10. The Bible says, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whether thou goest. Hey, whatever God's giving you to do, do it. Try something. Hey, sow your seed. Start a business. You don't know if it'll be prosperous or not. I don't know. Hey, start a new friendship. You're like, I don't know if this person will be my friend. Okay, but you will not have friends by not trying. You won't have a successful business by never trying to have a business. How about dating? Well, I don't know if she likes me. But you won't get a wife unless you try to date someone. It's just saying, hey, sow thy seed. Try something. Just try a relationship. Try a new friendship. Try a business. How about this? Try a recipe. I've never made this meal. Okay, try it. Try to make a new thing. Try to do something. Like, we should just be willing to just try stuff and doing stuff. We don't know whether this will prosper. Either this or that. Whether this is gonna be good. A craft. How about this? How about soul winning? Just try it. And sometimes there's even people that you're like, hmm. But you just do it. Just try it. There's plenty of people that I've gotten saved that I literally just was like, I don't even wanna try and talk to. I don't even wanna try and talk to this person. But, you know, and then there's been other people that I thought like, this person looks like a good receptive person and not receptive whatsoever. And so what the Bible's saying is like, don't just try to always figure out how everything's gonna work out. Sometimes you just gotta do stuff. Sometimes you just gotta try stuff. Don't be just like, well, but I'm observing the wind and I'm observing the times and whatever. No, no. Just do stuff. Sometimes we just gotta do stuff. Don't just sit here and just plan your life to death. Don't just sit here and just sit and worry about everything, being too cautious. God just wants us to literally just start doing stuff. Just try friendships. Try recipes. Try soul winning. Try friendships. Try businesses. Try anything. Hey, you single guys? The worst thing that can happen is you stay single. Like you're already at this position that you're in. Like you can only go somewhere positive by talking to girls and trying to go on a date. You're like, well, I might lose some money. Well, cast thy bread upon the waters, okay? There's gonna be a lot of dates that you're like, that was a waste. I literally just wasted that bread. But you know what? That's how you get married. You just gotta try. Projects, just try. Every project you don't try is a failure. And look, sometimes we will fail. Okay, it's not saying you will for sure be successful. Sometimes some recipes fail. Indian food, fail, okay? That's just my personal opinion. All right. Sometimes the date, fail. Sometimes the business, fail. Sometimes the movie, it's a flop. Sometimes the church, it's a fail. Sometimes ordinations are a fail. Sometimes soul winning is a fail. Sometimes a mission trip's a fail. I mean, we don't want to be afraid of failure, though. We don't want to say like, okay, well, this one failed, so I'm done. No, no, no. Try again. Just keep sowing thy seed. Just don't withhold thine hand. Just keep going. You know, you may screw up here and there. You may have some failures, but you know what? Don't be afraid of success. Don't be afraid, like, I was trying to help someone with golf and I'm like, don't be afraid to hit a good shot. It's like, you know, don't be afraid to actually be successful. Do something. Try something. And you know what? If it's not that great, then take that opportunity to learn from it and do better the next time. And just keep going, keep going. Hey, try to preach a sermon, guys. Go to the preaching class or we do something. Try every sermon. If it's not great, try another one. Try again. Try to do something. We don't want to be a bunch of people that do nothing. In verse 7, Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But a man lived many years, and rejoiced in them all. Yet, let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many, all that cometh as vanity. So, you know, in verse 7, it kind of gives us a positive here. Truly the light is sweet. And, you know, light in general is great. We all love being able to see. Colors are beautiful. You know, as a man, I love getting to look at my wife. She's so beautiful. It's truly sweet. Landscapes and, you know, looking out in the horizon and looking at sunsets. There's so many beautiful things to behold and to see. My wife and I like looking at nice houses. We think that we find that something that's fun to look at. I like looking at golf courses. That's really attractive and beautiful to me. You know, people find all kinds of things. Some people find, you know, the deserts of the Middle East attractive. I don't know how, but I'm just kidding. Some people just find whatever, you know, sometimes beauty's in the eye of the beholder, okay? But I'm just saying, like, just seeing is beautiful. Some people think space is beautiful. They think the moon looks beautiful. They think that planets and stars, they look beautiful. And people find all kinds of fabrics and tapestries and children and playgrounds and flowers and bushes and animals. There's all kinds of things to see. And truly the light is sweet. Being blind is a curse. Being able to see is such a benefit. And it's a beauty to see the things of the sun and see, you know, what's going on in the earth. But even if you live a long time in your choice, remember sometimes, though, in verse 8, remember the days of darkness in the sense that not every day on earth is going to be good. You know, I talked to a guy this evening, how Saul went in, and he's like, and sometimes you get this response about hell. He's like, I feel like we're in hell right now. And it's like, look, there is suffering on earth. And this is why I try to level with people. When people give me that response, this is what I say. Well, there is bad days on earth, and there is suffering on earth. But hell is constant suffering. It is different. And we have to also have an approach that we realize there are going to be bad days on earth. But we don't want to allow that to discourage us from the sense that there still can be good days, too. We have to take a balanced approach. Some days are going to be good, some days are bad. When we have bad days, we need to remember, okay, hey, this is still the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it, number one. And number two, that sometimes it can turn for the better anyways. I want to go to Job chapter 2 for a moment. Go to Job chapter 2. I think that in some ways, we've all been tainted by the teachings of Joel Osteen and by prosperity preachers, which they kind of say and have this concept and this idea of, like, God wants you to live your best life now, or God only wants good, or if you believe and you get saved, you're going to only have a blessed life, good things, positive things. It's all good rainbows and unicorns or whatever. And I think all of us could be a little tainted by that viewpoint. But the reality is that God isn't going to give us only good days. Sometimes God's going to give us bad days. And in fact, many times the bad days are what define us as a person, determine what kind of character we have, and shape the outcome of our future. And the Bible says in Job chapter 2, look at verse 9, Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die. This is such a weird verse. Job has just lost everything. He's lost his children. He's lost his money. He's lost his health. And this is what's interesting, is his wife says, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Job, do you still think you're innocent? Job, do you still think you don't deserve all this? Job, are you going to still pretend like you're a good guy? But he's thinking, what did Job do that was wrong? It's like even his wife is just being like, look, obviously you've done something wrong here. Obviously you screwed up some way. Are you still going to pretend like you haven't done anything wrong, Job? But he hasn't. Why don't you just curse God and die? Are you going to continue to pretend like you're a good guy? Are you going to pretend to be a Christian? Are you going to pretend to be a God-fearing man? Why don't you just curse God and die? But you know what, even in all of his misery and woe and agony, he said, you know what, I haven't done anything wrong and God is still in control and you know what, I'm not going to curse God. I'm going to still do what's right no matter what's happening to me. And you know what, God takes glory and people that will do the right thing no matter what's happening to them. No matter what's happening to you, no matter what your circumstances, no matter what situation you find yourself in, retain thine integrity. If you're Joseph and you've been lied about and thrown in prison, retain thine integrity. If you lost your wife and your goods and your house and your family, retain thine integrity and do that which is right. Hey, if you lose your job, if you lose your house, you get in an accident, you lose your health, retain thine integrity and say, you know what, I'm still going to serve God. That's what Joe's message is. Hey, I'm still going to remember, hey, there's going to be dark days. Just accept right now, there will be dark days in my life but when I come across a dark day, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to retain my integrity. And what does he even respond in verse 10? But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. Now he didn't say she was foolish. He said, you're speaking like one of those dumb women, okay? One of those silly women. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God? And shall we not receive evil? And all this did not Job sin with his lips. Here's an important question. Will you receive evil of the Lord? Or will you only receive good? Hey, sometimes in our lives, we will receive evil. And here's the question, how will you respond when you have a dark day? How will you respond when you receive evil of the Lord? Will you retain thine integrity or will you get mad at God? Or will you curse God? Or will you turn on God? Or will you, well, you know what, I'm going to go to church as long as good things are happening to me but as soon as I have something bad happen to me, I'm out of church. I'm not going to read my Bible. I'm not going to serve God. You know, that's the bad attitude. The right attitude says, you know what, no matter what evil I receive, I'm still going to retain my integrity. I'm going to serve God. Go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 11. And that's building up to our ultimate message in the book of Ecclesiastes is that the whole duty of man is to fear God and to keep his commandments no matter what happens, good or bad. And in fact, God is testing Job and God will often test us not with blessing because it's real easy to praise God for blessing. It's not as easy to bless God with evil. It's not as easy to bless God when you're going through difficulty. It's not as easy to bless God when you're being persecuted for righteousness sake. It's not as easy to bless God when things are difficult, hard, and a problem. That's when it's really the test, do you actually love God? Because, you know, people are not tested on their love when things are going good. People are tested on their love when things are going bad. Do you love this person when it's not convenient to love them? When it's not popular to love them? When it doesn't look good? Right? It's not popular to like Job right now. He's got all kinds of problems. It's not popular to be on Job's side because he's got all kinds of issues. But you know what? It tests to see if you really love that person. Do you love your spouse when they're down, when they don't deserve it? Or do you only love them when they're doing good and they deserve it? Do you love church when things are going good? Or do you also love them when they're going bad? Do you read your Bible when things are good or when they're bad? This is how you test to see if someone actually loves. Hey, do you love your friends when it's a burden to you, or do you only love them when they're buying you stuff? That's not really a friend, is it? Not a good friend, at least. And we can see what people are really like when things are actually rough. You know, what if someone in this room did you bad, how would you respond to them? That tests if you love them. You know, what if I lied about you, or what if I did something to you, how would you respond? Well, that would test to see how you love me. That would test how you love other people. And you know, even if someone did something bad to you, you retaliating and harassing them doesn't show you really love that person. It doesn't show that you have really any grace. It's when someone does something evil or bad to you and you still are kind, you're still merciful, you still love them, you still do them right, that is the person that truly loves. Look at verse 9. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes. But know thou that for all these God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart and put away evil from thy flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity. Now, admittedly, the Bible pretty much just explicitly states that being young is better, in a sense. I mean, it's better to be having energy and in the prime of life. The Bible is saying, hey, rejoice. And you should realize that being young is a blessing. There is a special benefit to being young. And you only have a certain portion of your life. In some ways, some of the best parts of our life are the beginning. And so you should take advantage of that. Take advantage of your youth. Rejoice of thy youth. Rejoice when you have this time. This is the time to celebrate. This is the time to enjoy life. But at the same time, be careful of the decisions you're making because whatever you do in this time of youth, you will have to live with the consequences of that for the rest of your life. And he's saying in verse 10, therefore remove sorrow from thy heart and put away evil from thy flesh. What is he saying? He's saying that you should be careful of the decisions you make when you're young because if you don't and you make bad decisions, you're going to have a lot of sorrow in your heart for the rest of your life. And you could remove that sorrow by actually making good decisions when you're young and actually being diligent when you're young. You know, if you just go out and be a drunk whoremonger and you have bastard children and you have no career and you're just silly and lazy, well, you might enjoy that part of your drunken college rum-sringa, for lack of a better term. But you know what? You're going to suffer the consequences of that for the rest of your life. You're going to get all kinds of sorrow in your heart and all kinds of evil in your flesh from those bad decisions, from all the STDs and the bad relationships and the fact that you don't have a job, the fact that you don't have any money, the fact that nobody cares. There are a lot, a lot of young women who have ruined themselves in America. They have ruined themselves. They have lived a life of whoredom and debauchery and selfishness and they are now 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and nobody will marry them. Unless they may be made of radical change, they might. But I'm just saying, like, there are so many women who have just pretty much permanently destroyed themselves by making all kinds of horrible decisions, having all kinds of bastard children and all kinds of fornication where there's no guy that's like, yeah, let me please dedicate my life to you now. It's just not going to happen. And we are going to have in America a just giant amount of women that are going to suffer and have all kinds of sorrow in their heart for decades because of the horrible decisions they made in their youth. And a lot of the decisions they made, it was because they were silly. It was because they were foolish, because they were led astray, because they didn't have parents that loved them enough to tell them, to warn them. We had a society that enabled and fostered that rebellious spirit in their heart, and they've completely destroyed themselves. And it's dangerous. It's dangerous what society is happening. I mean, men, why do you think there are so many men importing women from foreign countries to be their wives? It's because the women here are ruining themselves and destroying themselves in many cases. There's nothing wrong with American women. There's nothing wrong with the people that are here. The problem is that they're destroying themselves. Many of them. Not all of them. And even young men. There's many young men that destroy themselves. Get thrown into jail for all kinds of crimes of stealing and theft and making bad decisions, getting on drugs. There are so many people in our society that have gotten on drugs and they permanently ruin themselves. They are addicted. They have almost no escape. They are permanently damaged and scarred by the decisions that they've made. And they have so much sorrow in their heart. Why do you think these people drink themselves drunk? They're trying to drink their sorrows away. They're trying to drink the pain of their hard life away. You know, people that are just fundamental Baptists reading the Bible, working their job, having kids, having a wife, they're not going home like, Man, I just need to drink a bunch of alcohol to poison my life away. They actually have happiness in their life. And it's like, Oh, y'all guys have no fun. You're a bunch of fuddy duddies. You don't go out to the bar. Look, these people are miserable. These people are miserable. And they have ruined their lives. They have ruined their marriages. They have ruined their children. They have ruined their minds. They have ruined their livers. They have destroyed themselves. Oh, you're just not any fun. No, no. They're not having fun. The overgrown 40-year-old still trying to go and have college parties or whatever, he is not having fun. He's just trying to distract himself from all the sorrow in his heart from having a miserable life. And they don't have money. I mean, yeah, there's exceptions. There's going to always be exceptions. The celebrities that sold their soul to the devil, literally, who, yeah, they're single, and they're like, Look, my life's so wonderful. I don't have kids. And I get to go vacation and travel and do all this fun stuff or whatever. They're still miserable anyways. Why do they kill themselves so often anyways? But even those exceptions don't prove the rule. The rule is when you live a hard life, there's going to be hard consequences. The way of transgressors is hard. Serving the Lord is a light burden. It's still a burden. It's a light yoke. It's not necessarily not a yoke. It's still a yoke. I mean, you still got to work. But you know what? It's way better than just destroying your youth on this cheap stuff. And we see so much of the youth destroying themselves. Do not do this. As a young person, you need to stay clean, sober, a virgin. You need to get a job. You need to work hard. As a young lady, you should only marry a young man that's going to work hard, that's clean, that's sober, that wants to marry you as a virgin. Because you know what? If he's not interested in dating you when you're a virgin, he won't want to stay with you. You want a guy that wants that. If the guy, and frankly speaking, every guy wants to marry a virgin, okay? Even the whoremongers of this world, the guys that have podcasts that have bragged about sleeping with thousands of women, they say they want a virgin, okay? Every guy wants that. So if you say, hey, I'm going to be a virgin my wedding night and he's not interested in marrying you, he was never going to marry you. That's not a guy you want to date. You want to stay away from that individual. And look, as these young women are constantly destroying themselves, let us learn through their bad example. And look, I'm not mad at them. I don't hate them. I would love to give them counsel and try to help encourage them to get it right. I'm just saying there's so many women on the path of destruction, so many young men on the path of destruction today, and it's just sad to see people destroying themselves. Also, be careful you marry anyways. That can be a path of destruction. Get to know them. Know what they're like. Know what they're into. Make sure you're a match. There's been people that have dated for weeks and gotten married, and it's worked out. That is not my recommendation. I do not recommend that. I dated my wife for five years. I also don't recommend that. I think that there's a sweet spot between five days and five years. But at the same time, I'm saying you'd probably be better off getting to know the person pretty well before you dedicate 70 years of your life to them. Or 50 years, or however long you live. You want to be careful, and you want to make sure there's a person. I'll say this. I knew who my wife was when we got married. Yeah, maybe five years wasn't the right move, but I did know a lot. I knew that she loved kids. I knew that she didn't believe in divorce, period. I knew that she loved the Lord. I knew what it was like to fight. We had our share of disagreements when we were dating, so I knew that we could handle conflict, okay? And you want to be careful, because look, some people, they get into the wrong relationship, and it's a train wreck for the rest of their life. It seems like when you're young, you don't want to wait and stuff, but take your time, get to know the person. As parents, please get to know your in-laws, your kids, the son-in-law and the daughter-in-law. Get to know them, please. Please go soul hunting with them, at least, or talk to them about salvation and talking about the Bible and make sure they actually like your kids and stuff like that. Please do this, because, you know, it breaks my heart and it hurts my heart when I hear about people that have problems, and I don't want that to happen. And, you know, it's going to happen. Sometimes there's going to be bad situations that happen. Nothing's perfect. Nobody's ever going to for sure always marry the right person, but at the end of the day, you know, we want to do the best that we can. We have to be careful, because some decisions we make, we have to suffer the consequences for the rest of our life. So be careful as a young person. Be careful of the decisions that you make. And you know what? You'll never regret being spiritual, but you will regret the carnal, selfish decisions that we make. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this wisdom that you've given us in this chapter. I pray that we wouldn't be afraid to try things, that we would go out there, that we would be willing to distribute and that we would trust in you and trust in your Word. And I pray that these young people, that they would realize the blessing they have of youth, but they would take their lives seriously. They would take the decisions that they make seriously and that they would realize that some of the decisions they make will have life-altering consequences. I pray that you would just continue to give our church wisdom. You'd bless us, that you'd help us to be used of you and that we wouldn't only rejoice in the good days. We'd also receive the evil, but that we would continue to be a bright and shining light for your Son's name. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, in closing, let's go to song number 210. Song number 210, Wonderful Grace of Jesus. Greater than all my sins, How shall my tongue be spry'd? Where shall my tongue be spry'd? Where shall my tongue be spry'd? Where shall my tongue be spry'd? Where shall my tongue be spry'd? Where shall its praise begin? Taking away my burden, setting my spirit free, For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me. Wonderful, the matchless grace of Jesus, Deeper than the mighty chronic sea, Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a mountain, All sufficient grace for even me. Broader than the scope of my transgressions, Greater form than all my sin and shame, O magnify the precious name of Jesus, praise His name. Wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching to all the lost, By it I have been pardoned, saved to the utter ghost. Chains have been torn asunder, giving me liberty, For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me. Wonderful, the matchless grace of Jesus, Deeper than the mighty chronic sea, Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a mountain, All sufficient grace for even me. Broader than the scope of my transgressions, Greater form than all my sin and shame, O magnify the precious name of Jesus, praise His name. Wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching the most devout, By its transforming power, making Him God's dear child, Purchasing peace and heaven for all eternity, And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me. Wonderful, the matchless grace of Jesus, Deeper than the mighty crawling sea, Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a mountain, All sufficient grace for even me. Broader than the scope of my transgressions, Greater form than all my sin and shame, O magnify the precious name of Jesus, praise His name.