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Music You You You You You You You Everybody singing out together on the first Trusting in his grace Oh Are you walking daily by the same or side are you Rest each moment Oh Oh Are you Lay aside Oh Great singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer Lord. We love you We just thank you again for steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for everybody You're glad to gather here and sing unto you We just ask that you fill us all with your spirit help us sing praises unto you loudly and bless this church And it's in Jesus name. We pray. Amen All right for our next song. Let's go to song number 56 Song number 56 When we all get to heaven song number 56 Everybody's singing out Jesus We'll see When Oh Trusting Just one Oh Oh Oh Thanks for coming to steadfast Baptist Church if you need a bulletin you can lift up your hand nice and high real quick on the inside we have our Service times on the front. We did have our Bible memory passage. So we're getting close to wrapping up Psalm 59 Anyone 18 or under can quote it this Evening you can get a special ice cream treat and we've got some some different ice cream in there So, I don't know you might want some all right also on the inside We have the the stats there. Make sure you're sitting that in your tribe captains on the right is the list of our expecting ladies I'm gonna go to the back before we go through our prayer list on the back We have the upcoming events this Sunday brother Salvador Alvarez is gonna be Having his ordination service for pure words Baptist Church and we're going to be Having him become the pastor of that church and to take on that church fully and so it's an exciting transition If you are able to pray for him, we please do so is anybody planning on going? I think a few people are planning on going. Okay, great. So and then for the faithful few that are here We'll definitely still be having services excited for that On September 8th, dr. Phil Stringer is gonna be preaching for us here. And so make sure if you can please attend both services He's really knowledgeable on the Kings James Bible issue and it'll be a blessing to have him come and preach to us about that He preached a sermon on that issue in the past and he's actually got all kinds of different information and so he usually kind of preaches on new stuff and some Topics that you probably haven't heard so I highly encourage you to participate in both those services October 4th of the 6th our heritage of the Lord conference. It's gonna be that Friday Saturday Sunday The there's gonna be activities throughout that entire weekend Also the evening service. We're gonna have pastor Bruce Mejia and pastor Anderson. They're gonna be preaching that evening Saturday morning, we have our kids annual spelling bee. And so if you'd like to participate I believe it's ages 5 through 15 There's three different age groups if they'd like to participate and we usually hand out prizes to first and second place in all of those categories but even if you don't place it's still just a good exercise to work on learning how to spell and some Just getting up public speaking and everything like that and we've always had really good participation And I hope that people will continue because I really enjoy it and we make all the moms extremely nervous and that's just fun. So also, October 31st is gonna be our Texas chili cook-off and we'd like to invite you to come and participate with us It's a Thursday this year. And so we'll be opening up the church around five o'clock And if you can bring your chili by six, you can enter it into our competition So we have a competition every year and we reward The top places for that. I of course it will be judged And so if you don't like being judged then you can go hide in a closet somewhere I don't know. But of course, we'll have our traditional Texas chili rules. No beans. No fillers anything like that. So We like to actually meet and this church and so And again, some people get offended by that I don't even know why it seems so weird to think like you have to have beans and chili or something like that, but I've known a lot of people come to me privately and they're like, okay It is better without the beans, you know And it's it's like they're Nicodemus on this issue or something and they come to me by night and they're like look pastor Shelley I know that you're right on this issue, but I'm nervous. It's okay. You can come out in the public You can get baptized with all of us All right, and so Texas chili cook-off, even if you just want to come and hang out and eat some chili It's a great time of fellowship. And so we invite you to do that play some games also down below we have the Congratulations to the Campbell's on the birth of Sakari love who was born on the 19th at 2 18 a.m 9 pounds 14 ounces 20 inches long 21 inches long. Congratulations to them And we'll kind of walk through our prayer list just as a quick reminder We've been praying for the names for their grandmother for her visions out health and salvation for the Carlson's mother. Also, mr Becca we've been praying for the Millers a cup a friend and the friend's mother who are both unfortunately struggling with cancer We've been praying for the Scott's nephew Mark, we've also been praying for the Garcia's daughter who's pregnant which is exciting We've been praying for brother Sam and his fiancee We've been praying for brother Guzman's mother and also he had an additional prayer request there for Pastor, dr. Gomez and So we're praying for his health also praying for the Lugo's for health praying for miss weathers is a daughter Holly Also praying for brother Billy He had a couple prayer requests in here for a friend and a co-worker and then another friend so if you can try to pray for those who are mentioned or bullets in through the week and We'll say a quick word of prayer as a church family now Thank Heavenly Father so much for our church and for all these ladies who are expecting I pray that you just please be with them During their pregnancies and please help them and their children's development. Give them a timely birth. I pray that you'd also bless these Friends and family members and church members are struggling with health or with sickness or cancer illness I pray if possible that you could just bless them with health. Please give them just a full recovery Please be with them during this difficult time if needed. Please just give them a miracle Those who are just sick and need to just be recovered I pray you to give them a speedy recovery So then get back in church I prayed that you would give favor unto our church members who need that for their jobs and for their relationships I also pray that you would just bless our upcoming Ordination in Houston that you would bless past the coming pastor Salvador Alvarez that you bless him and his family That you'd give them strength and wisdom that you would knit the hearts of those people down there to their pastor and That you would continue to use pure as Baptist Church in a great way To get many people saved and turn many people to serving you and I pray that you just continue to bless all those in Houston and those members have been faithful and to give them just a special just a special favor So that they could continue to be a bright shining light in Jesus name we pray. Amen We're gonna sing our psalm of the week psalm 150 if you have your special handouts or you could use a King James Bible, but it's better with the handout psalm 150 All right, that was psalm chapter 150 psalm 150 You know, well sing it out real loud Praise ye the Lord Praise God in his sanctuary Praise him in the firmament of his power Praise him for his mighty acts Praise him according to his excellent greatness Praise him with the Sound of the trumpet Praise him with the Saltry and warm Praise him with the timbrel and dance Praise him with stringed instruments And organs Praise him upon The loud cymbals Praise him upon The high sounding cymbals Let everything that hath breath Praise the Lord Praise ye the Lord Praise God the Father Praise God the Son Praise God the Holy Ghost Praise God in three Bless us Great singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around Go ahead and turn in your Bibles tonight to the book of Ecclesiastes chapter number three That's Ecclesiastes chapter number three Great singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around Ecclesiastes Chapter number three The Bible reads to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven a time to be born and a time to die a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted a time to kill and a time to heal that which was planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to rend and a time to sew. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. a time of war, and a time of peace. What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth? I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful in his time. Also, he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work of God, the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor. It is the gift of God. I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it, and God doeth it that man should fear before him. That which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been, and God requireth that which is past. And moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there, and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts, even one thing befalleth them. As the one dieth, so dieth the other. Yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast, for all is vanity. All go unto one place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his portion. For who shall bring him to see what shall be after him? Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this chapter of the Bible, Lord, and I just pray that you bless Pastor Shelley, Lord, fill him with your Holy Spirit as he preaches unto us. Let us have soft and tender hearts, Lord, to receive your word and make applicable changes in our lives. Pray us in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 is making a little bit of a transition here in the first two chapters. It really emphasizes the idea of the vanity of our carnal lives and how, in a sense, everything that we accomplish, carnally speaking, doesn't really have any eternal value, and that's kind of being hammered through chapters 1 and 2. And in chapter 3, there's a little bit of kind of just a transition here with this this thought of, to everything there is a season, and I think that sometimes what the author is doing in the book of Ecclesiastes is he's establishing things that are simply true and then drawing points from that. And so as we kind of enter into this first part of chapter number 3, he's just simply stating things that are just a general wisdom or a general truth. And he's just saying that everything that happens in this world has some purpose, even if it's good or bad, and that there really should be a balance to our lives. If there was one word I could use to describe chapter 3, it's really that of just balance. And unfortunately, our world today is very imbalanced and they kind of lean in a certain direction. I would say most of Christianity today kind of leaves, leans in a like overly positive direction and kind of only focuses on the good side of the equation, instead of actually being a little bit balanced and realizing there is both good and bad, and there's blessing and there's cursing, and it kind of goes through all these different scenarios. But generally speaking, we're going to talk a lot about just balance here in these these first few verses, and also the fact that there's just all these things are going to happen. It says in verse 1, to everything there's a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. That's inevitable for all of us. If you are here, you are born. And unfortunately, you're going to die. That's just the facts of life. At some point, there was a time where you're born. At some point in time, there's a time where you will die. And these things are going to happen to every single person. Also, it doesn't necessarily have to just, when we understand this chapter, it doesn't have to just be in relation to us as a person. It's really just talking about life circumstances, because there's not only just birth as far as a physical human birth, there's also birth in a kind of an abstract form, such as maybe the birth of a business, and the death of a business, the birth of a church, the death of a church. There's all kinds of different things that we could talk about when we talk about a birth. It's basically just talking about the start of something and the end of something. And in our lives, we are going to experience many times where there's the start of something, the genesis of something, the birth of something, and we're going to experience the death of different things. And they all have their time, they all have their place, they all have their purposes, and we have to just recognize that we can't necessarily only focus on one. We should have a healthy balance of both. And churches that are healthy, they have both. When a church only doesn't have one, they're kind of imbalanced, potentially, right? And even for us, you could argue that our church is a little bit imbalanced, because we're pretty much just popping out the births, but we haven't really had the deaths in the same ratio. And so we're missing a certain demographic of our church. Our church, generally speaking, misses a little bit of an elder population. You know, our church is kind of over-represented in youth. And that's not to say that that's necessarily, like, we're not doing anything wrong. It's just that that's what's happening, right? And so sometimes we could maybe even have an imbalanced view on life, because we aren't experiencing as many funerals as we are as many births. And really, they should almost be somewhat equivalent in an idealistic situation. You're going to kind of be replacing. Now, for the most part, God has created life to have more births than deaths, because of the fact that we're supposed to be multiplying. So in some sense, we should always probably have a little bit more birth. But there's a lot of churches out there that are having funeral after funeral, but they're not having birth after birth. And you know what? That's a very unhealthy church. It's an unhealthy church when it's not experiencing both those processes. And you know, praise God. God has been blessing our church with all kinds of births, and we haven't had very many funerals. And you know, funerals have their place, but also births have their place as well. And so we want to make sure that we're thinking about these things. And you know, we should be cognizant of both events. You know, I don't necessarily personally like funerals. I pretty much only go to the ones I have to. But you know, I think that going to funerals is still a good thing. And it's a good thing to even take children to, and just help them recognize and help us all realize death is inevitable. Death will happen. And sometimes, you know, births and deaths can have a major impact on someone's life. Sometimes people, once they experience the death of a loved one, or they experience the birth of a loved one, it can radically change their outlook on life, and it can cause them to take life more seriously. I know for me personally, I took life a lot more seriously with the birth of my first child. And you know, sometimes, you know, even with death, it can cause someone to think, wow, I really need to think about the fact that I am gonna die one day, or I'm gonna lose people in my life, and I need to be careful with the decisions that I make. And it is something that's going to happen. Whether you like these things or not, these things are a reality. He says this also, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. You know, of course, it's pretty clear and pretty easy to first initially think of this in like a carnal sense. So we think about planting and plucking up, thinking about produce, right? We plant crops, we plant vegetables, we plant trees, we plant all these different things. And sometimes you even need to pluck things up like roots of weeds. Oh, man, you really want to get the roots of a weed so that it doesn't grow back. I have a section in my front yard where I have some bushes and some mulch, but weeds will creep up through that mulch, and it just looks ugly as sin. And it's frustrating because if you really want to get it out there, you got to get that weed. You know, you want to get dandelions. What you don't want is your kids to pick up all the dandelions and blow them all over your yard. Because then you'll just have even more dandelions, right? You want to get them before they turn white. When they're the yellow, you pluck them up so they don't flower and then germinate all their seed everywhere and, or not germinate, but just spread all their seed everywhere. You know, that's when you want to get that plucked up. Because if you don't pluck up the dandelions, if you don't pluck up the weeds, they can grow fast and they can multiply fast. And so it's important if you love a garden, if you love your yard, if you love these things, that sometimes plucking up hazardous plants, dangerous plants, weed-type plants, you want to get those rooted out of there so as to not cause damage to the lawn or to choke out the lawn. And you know, the Bible even talks about this in a spiritual sense, right? Where sometimes you can have things choking the Word, and it'd be important to pluck those things out of our lives. Also, there's the idea of planting. How about planting a seed of the Gospel? When you go out soul-winning. You know, I love getting people saved. I'll just be honest with you, it's the best part of soul-winning. The best part of soul-winning is someone that's super receptive, wants to hear, and you get them saved, and not only that, they're even appreciative, right? They're even like, thank you, I needed that, they're excited about the things of God. That's the best part of soul-winning. You know, some parts of soul-winning are not getting people saved. Some parts of soul-winning are also planting a seed. Just so that person maybe will be receptive later, or maybe get saved later. And so I always want to try and make sure that I have a good encounter at every door. Even if I don't get the person saved. And I feel like sometimes, and I'm not trying to criticize any person, but I think sometimes people are so zealous to get someone saved, that instead of kind of planting a good seed and leaving a good taste in people's mouth, they're like a little pushy about trying to get someone saved, and they don't necessarily plant, in my mind, a very good seed. And so, you know, to me, if the person's, it's pretty obvious that they're not interested, like they're closing the door on you, or you know, they're walking away, or they're just saying things that are kind of evident of like, I'm busy, I don't want to talk right now. Then I just try to emphasize something that's not, it's clear to them, I'm not going to waste any more of the time. Hey, we'll go, but hey, check, look on the back of this invitation. There's a QR code, just scan it when you get a few minutes, and you know, just check out that video. You know, or hey, can I just leave you with one verse? You know, that's a great way to leave on the foot. I've had a lot of people say, I don't have time. Can I give you one verse? And most people say sure. And then I just give them a verse, I make it clear what I said, and then I'm like, here on the back of this card, here's where you can watch the 10, a 10 minute video that was exactly what I was going to show you. And so that way I'm just planting that seed, because not all of soul winning is going to reap. Some, some soul winning, some preaching the gospel is just simply just planting that seed. And since we love the reaping, we should realize the reason why we're reaping is often probably because other people had planted some seeds, and some other people had watered on that seed a little bit, and made it really ripe, so that when we came along, we got them saved. So we can pay it forward in a sense, and we plant some really good seeds, so that maybe the next person that comes along can then get that joy of harvesting that crop. And you know, so the Bible literally says that, you know, the person that planted the seed is going to be rejoicing in heaven with us that reaped. You know, so we often are entering into other men's labors. It's almost non-existent that you knock on someone's door, and they say, I've never heard anything in the Bible. I don't know, I've never heard of Jesus, I've never heard of God, I've never heard of anything, and you have to start from scratch. It almost never happens. Pretty much all of us are already entering in the labor of the fact that the Bible is the word of God, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Trinity, even that Jesus died on the cross in many cases. I mean, most people, they're really close, especially in America. In America, a lot of people that are going to get saved are already so close. It's because people are planting some good seeds along the way. And despite whatever false church or false prophet they were listening to most of their life, there was some people in there sneaking in some good stuff every once in a while, and planting some good seeds. And you know, we want to be those people that are getting in there, and just planting a little bit, and watering a little bit, and always leaving people with a good taste in their mouth. Now look, if they're a child molesting pedophile freak, I don't care how you leave them, all right? That's up to you to decide. But I'm just saying, for 99% of people, let's leave them with a good taste in their mouth. And the only other exception, you know, I say as far as soul winning, I also don't want to plant a bad seed, though. And what I mean by that is sometimes I've heard people leave people on a foot that I'm thinking like, I think that person's worse off than you than before. And it's rare, but it's kind of when they knock on someone's door, they're Catholic, and they say, what do you have to do to be saved? And they're like, you know, faith and works. And they're like, well, actually, it's easier than that. It's just by believing, and they're like, oh, well, I already did that. And then they're like, I got to go, bye. And then they just leave, and I'm thinking like, that person's confused still. Like, if I always just make it clear to the person at the door, I say, well, the Bible says something different, because the Bible says you can't believe both. You have to only believe one. So that way they're not thinking like, I'm good. Because I think for a lot of Catholics, I'm just saying from a lot of experience, in their mind, they think when you say it's by faith, this is what they hear. I have $20 to buy a sandwich, and you're telling me it's only $10, so I got it covered. You know, they think like, I got $10 of faith and $10 of works, and you're saying it's only $10, that's even better than I thought before, rather than that's not what we're trying to communicate at all. We're trying to say, actually, it's a free sandwich, and if you try to pay, they won't give it to you. That's what we're really trying to communicate. Okay, and in fact, you don't even have $20. You're in $20 in debt. Okay, and the sandwich costs us a trillion. So like, but good news, it's been paid for, and they'll give it to you for free. If you try to pay for it, they're going to arrest you and throw you in jail. All right, you know, that's the real scenario that we're kind of describing, and I'm just saying, like, I just don't want to leave somebody on a bad foot. I want to plant a good seed, and you know, that good seed hopefully was a pleasant experience, but even if that seed was just simply, hey, you're headed for hell, you need to make a change, even if they don't like that, at least that was a good seed, because it got them thinking, and you know, of course, I want them to be having a pleasant experience if possible, but I want them to also recognize that they're not saved if necessary, okay? Another part of this time is it now says in verse 3, a time to kill and a time to heal. This would cause a lot of people to get upset, because frankly speaking, a lot of people today don't even believe in the death penalty anymore, which is kind of just sad, but you know what, there is a time to kill. There's a time to kill. One of those is the death penalty. You know what another one of those is? If someone invades your home at night, if someone comes into your house at night, it is a time to kill, okay? You are 007, you have a license to kill in the state of Texas, and you need to exercise that right. If you see someone causing harm to a child in a, you know, fornication way, it's a time to kill, okay? In the state of Texas, you can use up to lethal force to stop an adult from hurting a child in that way, and I will always think it was necessary, okay? Additionally, you know, there's a few other scenarios where you may have a legitimate situation where it's a time to kill. If your life is threatened or other people's lives are threatened in the state of Texas, praise God, you still have the right to defend yourself and defend others, and it could be a time to kill. Now, it's not a time to murder. There's never a time to murder, and this is where people get confused, because they'll try to make the Bible have contradictions, and they'll say, oh, thou shalt not kill, and you believe in the death penalty. Well, there's a difference between someone being executed properly or defending yourself and murdering somebody, and the Bible explains this. It's the intent behind the decision. If you had guile towards them in the past, and they're being killed innocently. If they're being killed innocently, when someone is being killed in a just way, well, then it's not murder, it's just the proper slaying, the proper execution of a person. Murder would be the unlawful and unjust slaying of a person, and of course, we don't believe in that. We never have advocated that for any person, yet our church is considered a very violent, hateful, terroristic church. I mean, I'm labeled as a terrorist online, all this different stuff, banned from all these things. Oh, you're so violent. I've had people tell me, you know, employers and different individuals saying, like, you're so violent, and I'm just thinking, like, who have I violated? Number one, who in my church has violated someone? You know, it's like, I must be the worst preacher if I'm up here advocating. I'm telling you all to constantly murder and violate people, and you'll never do it. You'd think I'd get mad at some point, right? Like, why haven't you killed somebody by now? Like, what are you doing? What are you waiting for? Right? I mean, you would think if we were just these violent maniacs that are just on a hair trigger after a decade, something would have happened. But you know why nothing has happened? Because we don't believe that. And I don't preach that. OK, and you know what? I hope to God that we never even have to even defend ourselves, just because I'm sure it would be twisted in some way to make it seem like we weren't defending ourselves. But you know what? Praise God. He's kept us safe so far, and we haven't had to do that. But you know what? If someone comes into this building or someone enters into our home or does something that's not there, I'm ready to kill. And you know what? You should be too. I think every man should be armed and ready to kill. You've already decided, you already have it purposed in your heart, that if someone were to threaten your family or to threaten the house of God in a way that warrants the time to kill, you're ready to act. And unfortunately, in most situations, these things happen in seconds. You don't have all this time. It's not like, let's call the cops and see what's going on. The cops come up after the fact to clean up the situation. They're typically not involved in the actual situation. And a lot of times it takes only seconds for a situation to escalate to a deadly situation. That's why it's important to already be prepared, be trained. I think anybody that has a firearm, you better train with that. You better put practice rounds through that. You better know exactly how to use it. You better keep it safe. But at the same time, you also better be ready to use it. And only in the situations where it's needful. And you should plan those things. You should think about them. You should understand how and when you're going to use them. You know, as a church, we have a safety team. We talk about these things. We plan these things. We know that we have a special procedure of how we would operate under those circumstances. And I think your business should be that way. Your home should be that way. Everything should be that way because you know what? Sometimes there's a time to kill. And my family is too important for me to be a lazy, slothful coward and not be willing and ready to defend them. And you know what? We shouldn't be that in church either. We shouldn't be lazy and slothful and ill-prepared and just allow sheep to be slaughtered. But rather we should be diligent shepherds and diligent watchmen that are ready to defend the flock and ready to protect because sometimes there's a time to kill. And you know what? This message is not being preached very much in this world because the many churches today are trying to tell you you need to love predators and love wolves and love freaks and invite weirdos in. You know, churches have been victimized. And I'm not trying to blame the church in any way. But some churches, they have bad principles. They bring in all these homeless people and derelicts and drug addicts and weirdos. They don't really exercise church discipline. And you know, the Bible makes it clear that if a man won't work, neither should he eat. And unfortunately, we've seen, even in our area, churches that were feeding these homeless derelict weirdos. And then when they said no, when they finally cut them off, then he comes in and shoots the church up. And you know, it's a sad thing. And you kind of sometimes wonder, like, your church is harsh. Like, how dare you not feed these people and give them money and just give them whatever they want and help them buy drugs and alcohol and everything like that. But you know what? Sometimes you're kept safe from these things and you didn't even realize it. Whereas the places that are housing these stray cats and stray dogs, you know, sometimes they bite and sometimes they have rabies. And so you have to be careful. My parents always taught me this. They said a stray dog or cat, if you feed it, it won't go away. Don't feed stray cats and stray dogs. OK. You just tell them to go away. And one time I made the mistake. This is my mistake. But there was a cat that was a stray cat. And I thought it'd be funny to throw the stray cat in my backyard with all my dogs. OK. Now, I'm not I'm not proud of this moment. OK. I'm trying to teach you a lesson. OK. What I should have done is ignore the stray cat. OK. But I picked up and about, you know, two seconds before I about hatched my plan, the cat figured out what my plan was. And then he scratched my arm up so bad getting away from me because he knew that his life was in danger. And so basically all that happened is that this cat shredded up my arm and ran away. And he's safe, folks. OK. No cats were injured in this story. My arm was injured. All right. Bad idea. OK. But here's the thing. I should have just left that stupid cat alone. And sometimes I think people just think they don't realize, like, there's some people that you just need to leave alone. You know, and I reaped what I sowed, you know, right. I wanted to cause harm to this cat for no reason. And then I got injured, you know, as a stupid it was a stupid idea. And so I'm not going to do it anymore. But I just want you to be careful about certain people, because some people it's a time to kill. Now, there's some people there's a time to heal. Who would be the people? The broken hearted. You know, the Bible talks about Jesus Christ healing the broken hearted. You know, we have to we have to consider the cause of the poor is what the Bible says. You know, a righteous man is going to consider the cause of the poor. The wicked doesn't consider this. So they give money to drug addicts and derelicts and weirdos. Whereas we as God's people, sometimes we should heal the wounded, the less fortunate, people that have problems. We should figure out, like, why? Why is it that this person has problems? Right. And we should be there to help heal them and help give them medicine and take care of them. You know, there are some people in this world that are sick and we should offer them healing. Right. I mean, people that have cancer, people that are struggling with leukemia. Praise God we have hospitals in this world. And you know what? Isn't it interesting that almost every hospital in America is like based on a Christian organization? Isn't that weird? Why isn't it all these like Muslim hospitals and atheist hospital? I mean, where's all the atheist hospitals today? Right. The Flying Spaghetti Monster Hospital. The Joe Biden Hospital, whatever. It's like usually either a Catholic or a Christian institution that's actually trying to have hospitals. And of course, you know, the more Baptist or the more Christian, usually the better the hospitals do. I'm just going to throw it out there. Some of the other hospitals, they don't even have the same viewpoints and outlook on life and medicine. So I'm just throwing that out there for what it's worth. But we need to heal some of these people. When people have AIDS because they're a faggot, that's a time to kill, not a time to heal. And isn't so funny, we spend so much money and research on trying to cure incurable diseases that God never intended to cure and won't be cured because they're misapplying. It's not a time to heal. It was a time to kill. Okay. In that particular situation. And so some situations you kind of have to decide, is this a heal or this is a kill? Right. And it's sad that in our world, there's so many euthanasia programs where they have elderly people that should be taken care of and given healing to. But they're like, they're a burden on society, so we'll kill them. But then they're trying to give drugs and prolong the lives of sodomites in those same countries. And it's like, no, no, let's take the drugs from them and give them to the elderly and sustain their life. And let's kill all the sodomites in that particular area. And so I don't like that. Okay. We just don't like the Bible because the Bible says we should be balanced. Sometimes it's kill. Sometimes it's heal. Some people say, like, I just only want to heal. Yeah, but here's the thing. By healing the wrong people, you end up killing innocent people. By healing the rapists and healing the murderers and healing the predators and the sodomites. I mean, you don't want to heal the wolf if you love the sheep. You want to kill the wolf and you want to heal the sheep. And that's why we have to, you know, really consider the cause of the poor, consider what's going on with people. It also says in verse three, there's a time to break down and a time to build up. There's a time to break down the house of the sodomites, right? And there's a time to build up things like the church. And you know what? My goal and vision, I have a big vision and a big goal to keep building the church of God. And we want to keep, you know, building these things up. What should be broken down is places like Gateway, though. And strongholds and Pentecostalism and false doctrine and all these different wicked things that are in the world. We want to break those down, but we need to build other things up. You know, sometimes we even have personal habits in our life. You might have a personal habit that you need to break down. And then you have other habits that you need to build up, that you need to start encouraging. And so we need to think about all the different processes that are going on in our life. Don't be Joel Osteen and get his book and it's only going to be healing, building up, positive. You know, sometimes there's times to break things down, destroy, kill. We want to make sure that we have a healthy balance and a healthy view that not everything's good. Bad things need to be destroyed. Bad things need to be killed. Bad things need to die. Good things need to be built up. Good things need to be healed. And we need to make sure that we're always balancing our lives and we're not just focusing on one or the other. They were kind of having a balanced view of trying to get both. First four says there's a time to weep and a time to laugh. You know, we could weep for the lost. I mean, the Bible brings this up about, you know, he that soweth in tears. And what is that context? That context is the idea that most people aren't going to heaven. That should cause us to feel sad. There is a time to weep for the lost and feel bad about the gospel not getting out there to everyone. And there's a time to laugh. What is the time to laugh when we get together and we have fellowship? You know, there's a we need both. We need a time where we feel sad for the loss and we're motivated to go preach the gospel. And then we need time to enjoy with each other's company and the fellowship and the laugh and have a good time. We need both in our lives. We can't just have the laughter and the fellowship because then heaven won't be as full and the church won't be as full. You know, we need to also weep and consider those that are lost. Also in this verse, it gets a little bit more dramatic, but it says that there's a time to mourn and a time to dance. Mourning, in my mind, expresses even more sadness. You know, the mourning that you'd have for a loved one when they perish and even sometimes a grievous death. Some deaths aren't that bad. You know, if you have an elder or someone that's very old and they're sickly and they're saved, many times it's kind of exciting. Like, okay, yay, they finally, now they're on their way to heaven. They're not hurting anymore. And it's kind of a joyous death. Or maybe even a martyr's death could have some aspect of a positive spin on it. But generally speaking, all death is going to be mournful to some degree. And then there's sometimes where there's unexpected death. There's death of a child. There's death of a loved one. Here's a reality. If you try to be biblical and you try to have a lot of children, you try to be fruitful and multiply, it's almost just a guaranteed fact that you'll probably have at least one miscarriage. The statistics are crazy. I didn't know anything about this, but when I started, like, looking it up and researching, the statistics on miscarriage are super, super high. The chances of you trying to be fruitful and multiply and just having lots of children and never having a miscarriage are probably impossible. And so, you know, I want people to realize that that is just inevitable in many cases so that people don't feel like they've done something wrong or they're a bad person or God's mad at them. In some cases, it's just the facts of life. And I'm not saying that I like it. It's obviously a negative thing. It's not fun. I know most people in this room have had a miscarriage. Our families had that. I'm sure lots of people have experienced that. And you know what? It's sad. It can be difficult. It's a time of mourning. But, you know, what's good is to heal from that and to realize, you know what? The children that I do have are such a blessing and it's worth it to sometimes go through those difficult times in life and to go through those losses and go through those sufferings. And people that have a lot of children, I guarantee they probably had a few losses along the way. And you know what's good about that? One day we'll get to see them again in heaven. And so, you know, even the untimely birth of a woman is better than a reprobate. So, you know, and Job even said his life sucks so bad at one point. He thought, he was like, I would have felt better, you know, just being an untimely birth. Like my life is so rough right now. And so, you know, it's not for not. It's not completely in vain, even that particular situation. And here's another thing. I think personally that loss gives you better moral character. I think it makes you a better person. I think that people that have gone through losses and had struggles like this are much better people. They're so much more empathetic. They become a lot more loving. And it typically helps them appreciate the things that they do have in their life that much more. And so honestly, God can still use the suffering and the difficulty in the morning that we have in our lives to make us better people. And to help us to come alongside others when they go through suffering, when they go through loss and to be that shoulder to cry on, to be that person to help them heal from their own loss. Because loss is a part of life. Mourning is part of life. And, you know, we're supposed to mourn with them that mourn and weep with them that weep. And we're supposed to condescend to men of low estate and we're supposed to match emotion at times. And you know what? As a man, it's hard for me to express the same emotion as my wife. Like, I'm not the same as her and I don't automatically have the same feelings as she does. And especially if there was loss, if there was a time of difficulty, I'm the type of person that I would almost just move on instantly and have kind of a very limited emotional experience. Because I can just move on very easily. But I think that it's appropriate sometimes, you know, as a man, even if you're like me, it's really easy for you to move on or compartmentalize or whatever to still take a little bit of time and mourn with your wife. Mourn with your spouse. Take the time or if it's not even just your wife, your father, your mother, your brother, your sister with other people, even if you're not necessarily feeling that direct emotion, sometimes you need to just try to match the emotion of the person you're comforting and allow them to go through that experience and not necessarily just force them to have your opinion. You know, sometimes when we're raising sons, we want them to toughen up. Right. And that's great. I hope you do that. Right. I don't want my boys to be criers about everything and cry about not getting their favorite ice cream and where they get to sit in the car and all this stuff. It's like, get over it. Right. They they nick their knee. It's like, stop crying. Right. But we don't necessarily treat our wives like that. Sometimes our wives, we need to allow them to have these emotions and to feel mourning and feel lost and to try to understand and empathize with their emotion and with their loss. And it can be difficult. Ladies, I'll just be honest with you. Men don't think the same way as you. So try to give them grace in this area if they don't. But I'm trying to encourage both parties. You know, that's a good part of marriage is sometimes you don't feel the same way, but you try to. And that's what empathy is. It's when you try to put yourself in their position and you try to think about their emotion and you try to help them in their situation. And I believe that all loss should have some time of mourning. Eventually, we should also move on. We don't want to only focus on mourning. We also want to go back to the laughter. We want to go back to the fellowship. But we need both and have both are healthy. It's like this world, someone will lose a loved one and then the doctor will immediately prescribe antidepressants or something. And it's like, no. It's okay that they're sad. It's like someone lost their spouse of 20 years and they're not over it after a few weeks. They don't need drugs. They don't need some psychiatric help or something like that because they're still sad. It's normal to have a time of mourning. And we should allow people to mourn and to recognize that it's okay. That it's normal. Hey, you lose your parent, you should be mourning for a while. It's normal. It's healthy. It's healthy to feel that way for a while. It's not always healthy to just immediately move on. There is a time to mourn. And if we were to lose someone precious unto us or special, we need to take the time to mourn. I like the funeral. We need the funeral. We need that time to come together and be sad and mourn and get it out so that we can then heal and move on. You need proper mourning when you have lost so that you can then move on. When you have difficult, bad situations, sometimes it's best, let's just deal with all the situation, get it all cleaned up, fixed up, figure out what's going on, be sad, and then now we can move on. Because if you don't address it, sometimes it lingers, turns into bitterness. It's a wound that grows an infection in a sense. And so we don't want that. We want that proper time of sadness and mourning. There's a lot of wisdom that you can find in these books. I'm going to kind of speed up through some of these other ones so I can get through the end of this chapter. But it also says in verse 5, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. You know, I think about casting away stones. I think about breaking up foul ground because you can't plant in an area when it has a lot of stones. So we may want to get those stones and clear them out of the area, cast them away, so that we can plant and have fertile crop. We gather stones together. That's a picture to me in the Bible of an altar. When you think about it, you gather and you heap all these stones together so that you can sacrifice under the Lord. There's a lot of reasons why you could do these things, but I'm just giving you a couple examples for all of these. It also says to embrace and to refrain from embracing. A time to embrace is when you're married. A time to not embrace is when you're not married. And especially if you're married, but the other person you're not married to. That's a time to not embrace them. And the Bible warns about this. Keep your finger here. Go to Proverbs chapter 5 for a moment. Go to Proverbs chapter 5. We need to learn that sometimes there's a time to refrain from embracing. The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 5, look what it says in verse number 20. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger? So the Bible is asking this rhetorical question, but it's saying, why would you do this? This will destroy your life. You know what? Adultery and fornication has ruined so many people's lives. And we need to learn how there's a time to embrace and there's a time to refrain from embracing. And you need to be very careful as a married man to not allow yourself to be in a situation where this could even happen. And this is the problem. Once you start going down a path of embracing, it's very difficult to get off of that path. That's why the Bible says that you can't hold coals of fire and not get burned, in a sense. So you need to really stay away from embracing. Even in the dating phase, you have to be careful about this, because once you start going down a certain path, it leads to too much. And it's too difficult to come away from that. So there's a time to embrace, there's a time to refrain from embracing. This can be applied in a lot of different contexts, but I thought that was a good one to bring up. If you go back to Ecclesiastes chapter number 3, we'll also see in verse number 6, it says a time to get and a time to lose. You know, there's a time to get eternal life, and there's a time to lose your life for the gospel's sake. It says also in verse 6, a time to keep and a time to cast away. There's a time to keep repentant Christians in the church, and there's a time to cast away heretics out of the church. It says in verse 7, a time to rend and a time to sow. There's a time to rend a dirty garment. The Bible talks about if there was a garment, and it had some kind of infection in it, you would rend that part of the garment out, toss it in the fire. And there's also a time when you have a garment that's torn, and you would sew it back together, and you would repair and heal that particular garment. It says also there's a time to keep silence and a time to speak. Hey, in church, it's a time for women to keep silence. We shouldn't have women pastors in this world. And you know what? The preacher, he needs to speak. And what's so frustrating to me is how many preachers today are speaking without saying anything. They're just filling the air with noise, and they just use great, swelling words of vanity. But they don't make anything clear. They don't bring up any applications. They never use the word fag, and it's like, well, they don't want to offend anybody. But you know, it's nice to actually get some application, and it's nice when you know what the preacher is saying. I'm just so sick of all the pseudo-intellectual pastors and teachers in this world who just use so much flowery language, and they just won't tell you what they believe. They won't just explain it in plain, simple language. They use obscure, confusing language because they want to hide and conceal what they actually believe. Because when you boil it down, they believe in works. When they boil it down, they believe that they deny the Trinity, or they deny that Jesus is really the God, or they deny the Word of God. And if they boiled it down and made it in simple terms, you would recognize this is a bad person. So that's why they have to dance it and cloud it up with all this fancy theological terminology. They have to tell you that they're a, I'm a five-point Calvinist. What that really means is, I'm an idiot, okay? Frankly speaking. And I'm a cult follower. You know, Calvinism is really simple because they pretty much just deny and reject the two things that make God who God is. Because if you think about what's the difference between our abilities and God's abilities. Now again, there's a lot, but I'm just saying from a creative perspective, God can do two things that we can't, that are really distinct. Number one, he can create life from non-life. And number two, God can grant free will. Calvinists strip both of those properties away from God and make him a human creator. And they try to box him in a wisdom that's a man's wisdom that strips both of these things away. And it's just so frustrating. And they get opportunities to preach and speak all the time and they say nothing. They sit here and they cloud all this weird language. But it's like, what's the difference between me creating a robot that has human flesh, looks and sounds just like us, that's a complete AI robot that has no soul, and what the Calvinists believe we are? There is no distinction. And that's not life. If I can just get a bunch of material and put it together that acts and moves like us, but has no soul, it's not alive. Life has free will. That's what life is. And the reason we even have life is because we have free will. And that's what makes God so amazing, is that he can accomplish all of his will while simultaneously giving us free will. That makes it so much more important. It's like the Democrats, if they could win election without cheating, that would be more impressive. It's not that impressive when you win an election by cheating. What's impressive is when you win an election and you allow the other side to do whatever they want. That's what's actually impressive. What's impressive is when you go out and compete in a sporting event and you allow the other person to behave and act however they want. Rather than being a robot under your control and under your command, that's not that impressive. It's like it's not as impressive to win a video game when playing the computer. What's impressive is playing the video game and winning against a person. And it's always been that way. Why? Because a person is more intelligent than AI. A person is more intelligent than a robot. And a person has free will, which we can never truly emulate with a computer. Computers operate on patterns. Computers operate on patterns. Humans do not operate on patterns. If you've ever been married, you'll know real soon your wife doesn't operate on a pattern. It is random. And it makes no sense. And there is no way that you could ever program a woman. God didn't even, he was just like, I just took a rib and I don't even know what happened. Okay, no I'm just kidding. He's like, it's crazy, okay. Unpredictable. And that's what makes us human. That's what makes us special. And you know what, that's what makes God's love towards us special. And that's why he even wants us to be with him is because we really have free will. Otherwise he could just have a bunch of animals and rocks and trees or whatever, hanging out with him in the universe, being robots for him. But you know what, humans are not robots. We have free will. It's that clear, it's that simple. And what's so frustrating is how so many people are just preaching lies today, and how few preachers are taking their opportunity to speak and actually preach what the Bible says. It's frustrating how dark our world is getting and how sinful and evil and wicked our world is getting, and people aren't using their opportunity to preach, speak, and say something. This is a time to say something. I mean we still have free speech. They could take that away from us. They could make it a lot harder to speak the truth. And you know there's a lot of countries and places in this world, we have to be very careful. What they preach, what they say, what they do. And you know what, us that actually have an opportunity to speak, it's a time to speak. And you know what's a time to speak is now when you have an opportunity to get someone saved, because at the great white throne judgment, you're not going to get there and be able to preach the gospel and get people saved. And you know what, your family members and your friends and your neighbors and all of this world, this is the time to speak and to preach the gospel. Hey, there is a time to be silent. But you know what, the time to speak is also now and is a time to preach the gospel. And it's frustrating how many Christians are silent today. It's frustrating how many Christians are not willing to get up and speak the truth and to speak what the gospel says and to get people saved. And we need more people, more preachers, more of the word of God going out, not less. We need more men to preach and to speak the word of God and to put these false teachers to silence. You know what, one of the commandments that was given to Timothy and to Titus was to basically shut the mouths of them, all these false teachers and these false prophets. Do you know how you do that? By preaching the truth. By exposing them in their tracks. By showing how their arguments are foolish. We should be earnestly contending for the faith and put to silence all the lies and all the heresy. Because you know what, I don't care if you're not even very good at contending. When you have the truth on your side, you just win. I've done a few debates and online discussions and stuff like that and I don't even think that I'm really that great at debating. But the one thing I do have is I have the King James Bible and I have the truth on my side. And so even if I'm not that great, I'm just going to win so hard because the Bible and the truth are so great. Just like when I see people going out and knocking on doors and they're an awkward, weird person that's not good at preaching very much and they get somebody saved. And I'm just thinking like, wow, the Gospel's really powerful. Because you are not that great at this. But you just changed, like this person has been a Catholic for 20 or 30 years of their life and in 10 minutes of awkward weirdness, you got them saved. That should just show you how great the Gospel is. It should just show you how you don't even have to be that great at arguing. People are like, I'm afraid of giving the Gospel. You shouldn't be afraid because this is so good. This is so good and the truth is so appealing and it cuts through so many lies. It's a two-edged sword. It just slices through all the lies. You should just feel confident in this, not in your own ability. I'm not that great of a salesman. I don't have great sales pitch. I'm not that attractive to look at. But you know what I have? As I have the Gospel, I have the Word of God in my hand. And you know what? That is what really gets people saved. I personally hate sales. I've done a lot of sales in my life and I hate it. But you know what? I love soul winning. Because it's different because the Word of God is so powerful. And you know what? I really believe in the message. Sometimes I've sold products that I'm like, I don't even want you to get this. But you know, it's like, I got to just do my job, right? But you know what? I want everybody to get the Gospel. Now, it also says here in verse number 8, there's a time to love and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace. This verse, just every liberal's head would explode. Now they love the first part, but you know what? They love evil. They love wickedness in many cases. You know what we should do? We should love our neighbor and we should hate reprobates. And you know what? We should also hate people that are rapists and people that have committed capital offenses and we should put them to death. We should hate wickedness and evil and child molesters. And it's so awkward to me to see so many Christians out there saying, we need to love pedophiles and love child molesters. I saw some stupid TED Talk where some girl's getting up and saying, we need to love pedophiles because they're people too. No, they're dogs. And there's a time to kill. There's no, I have zero love for child molesters. And I never will. It's frustrating. There's a time to war. There's also a time of peace. We don't necessarily have to war physically, but we can war spiritually. In the past, especially in the Old Testament, there was a lot of time for war. And even today, I still believe there is a time for physical war, but it's mostly in the context of us defending ourselves and protecting ourselves from invaders and evil people. But you know what? We're also experiencing an invasion spiritually right now where a lot of false prophets and false teachers and false doctrines are invading Christianity, invading our country, invading our neighborhoods. And we need to war against them with the words of God. We need to war against them with movies like The Sodomite Deception. We need to war against them. And you know what? Warfare is ugly. It's like, oh, sometimes when I hand that out or show that, people get upset. Well, you know what? War is ugly sometimes. But you know what? Praise God. I guarantee there's somebody out there that appreciates it. I'm sure somebody woke up. I'm sure somebody decided not to allow their child to get molested by some freak. And you know what? It's all worth it. It's all worth it. And we should continually war and war a good warfare and fight the good fight and earnestly contend for the faith. And we should put on the whole armor of God. And we should try to stand against the wiles of the devil. And of course, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. But you know what? There are rulers of the darkness of this world that we're constantly contending with. And we should be warring. You know, it's like, oh, your church is constantly under attack and there's all these things going on. Yeah, because we're in a war. Where are you at? Are you a coward? Why are you hiding? Why are you not being attacked? There's so many enemies in this country. If you're not being attacked, it's because you're not fighting. Because if you pop your head up, you've got a bunch of people that will shoot at you. You've got a bunch of people that will shoot arrows at you and attack you. And of course, I've got that helmet of salvation, so nuts to you. You know, you need Trump to turn his head. I don't even have to turn my head. He can just ricochet off my helmet. I've got the breastplate of righteousness. I've got the shield of faith. I mean, I'm ready to go. I've got my feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And you know what? I've got a two-edged sword, which is the word of God in my hand. And I'm not only going to play defense, I'm going to play offense. And I'm going to slay things. And you know what? We should all be that way. We should all be going out there and fighting. We need to do these things. There is a time to war. And you know what? There's also a time of peace. When I come in here, I'm not trying to fight you guys. I'm not trying to slay any of you. And of course, when we talk about Christians and babes in Christ, we don't want to war against them. We want to be peaceful, peaceable unto them. And we should seek for peace. And even people that are Catholic, people that are Episcopalian, people that are deceived and confused, I don't want to war against them. Sometimes I'm going to come unto them and be peaceful unto them. You know, there's individuals online and prominent figures and different people that are not Baptist, not saved, even screwed up on things. And I don't want to just sit here and attack those people, necessarily. You know, I want to attack false prophets, don't hear me wrong. But there's plenty of people that are prominent, high up, and they're confused, they're misled, they're deceived. And you know, I think we should come to them peaceably, too. Some people don't get that. We have a show, The Baptist Bias, and I like the opportunity to have some fun. Sometimes we just have fun. I like to have fun and be comedic. But, you know, a lot of part of the show and a lot of part of why I do that ministry is I'm trying to reach people that are not like us. And I'm not going to just walk up to them and be like, you know, you're dressed wrong, your career's wrong, your hair's wrong, your face is wrong. You know, it's like I'm going to come under them and try to find agreement and common ground and try to win them over first before I offer them a lot of correction. Because, you know, frankly speaking, it doesn't really matter if I get a woman to stop wearing pants if she goes to hell. Did you realize that? It doesn't matter if I get a woman to start staying home if she still goes to hell. What's more important is they get saved. Like, our goal should be, like, save first. Now, once they're saved, yeah, let's teach them some things in the Bible and let's try to get them more edified and walking with Christ more. But, you know, when they're not saved, I'm not really going after them that hard. Some leaders of false prophets and false teachers, yeah, we'll go after them hard. But, you know, for the vast majority of people, we should be really peaceable, kind, gentle, long-suffering. I'm so glad that God is like that towards us. And we should try to exhibit the same attitudes and the same spirit towards those people as well. The Bible says in verse number 9, What prophet hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? This is just saying, like, what's the benefit of working? Verse 9, or verse 10, I'm sorry. I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. So, he's saying, like, what's the point of laboring? It's like all this work and it's all this travail. Travail is like pain, discomfort, grief associated with all of the labor and God has asked us to work. Six days shalt thou labor. God wants us to travail. You know, men travail, you know, basically six days a week and then women have a great travail, you know, after nine months. But, you know what, we're both called to travail. We both have work. We both have intense labor. We both have things that we have to do. And part of life is work. Part of life is difficult. Part of life is this thing. And he's asking, like, what's the point? Verse 11, he hath made everything beautiful in his time. Also he hath set the world in their hearts so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Everything, you know, is beautiful in his time. I don't think we want to take that verse and run with it and go too far with this verse. But it's just generally speaking that, in a sense, everything has a certain beauty to it. Now, that doesn't mean that everything is beautiful. It means that everything has a beauty to it. Now, it could be corrupted. It could be defiled. It could be perverted. It could be destroyed. And then it would lose its beauty. But, you know, everything is created and set up to have a certain level of beauty. And, you know, it's kind of interesting. Generally speaking, pretty much all kids are cute. It's just kind of a weird thing. And then you grow up and you're kind of ugly. And it's kind of weird. But it's like one of those things. And it's like everything was kind of beautiful. And especially people that live a hard life, you know. And the less you take care of yourself, if you don't groom yourself, if you're not physically healthy, if you're not exercising, if you're not doing things properly with your body, a lot of times you can lose some of that beauty that you have. But generally speaking, you know, God made us as beautiful creatures and we have a certain beauty to us. And, you know, when we look at other creatures, we feel that way. And when we look at all the different creatures, they all look weird in their own way, but they're all still kind of cool. You know, it's like the zebras, cool with the stripes. You know, and the horse and the mule and the donkey and all these different creatures, they have their own uniqueness. And it's not like usually you look at it and it's like, well, this one's ugly and this one's not. Now, unfortunately, through selected breeding, we have a lot of ugly dog breeds. But if it wasn't for human intervention, all the dogs would probably be good-looking dogs, okay? Because natural selection would weed out all the rats that we have that are called dogs today, okay? Those things would not exist. It's only through selected breeding. And in some cases, humans do this, too, where we have selected breeding and it looks really bad. It's called Jews, all right? That's a different sermon for you. But if you're Jewish, I'm not mad at you. But your nose gives you away, all right? Now, look at verse number 12. It says, I know that there's no good in them, but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life. So he's just basically saying, man inherently is sinful. We're not really good creatures. And the only thing that we really have is to just enjoy what we have, do the best we can, enjoy what we have. In verse 11, I didn't really touch on it, but one thing that I would like to kick into Calvinist pants again is just the idea that he says, he set the world in their hearts so that no man can find out the work that God made from the beginning to the end. It's so funny how these people like to philosophize and try to tell me everything about God. And like, I'm a master of divinity, and we've figured out divine simplicity. We've figured out how to explain all the things of God. You're never going to explain everything. You can't understand everything. You finally come to realization when you see, like, I can't understand everything. That's the ultimate level of knowledge. The ultimate level of knowledge is not understanding everything. It's understanding that you can't understand everything. That's the ultimate level of knowledge that you're going to get to. That's the pinnacle of the knowledge as a man that we're going to ever achieve, is recognizing I don't understand everything. The people that think that they understand everything are still really far away from actually having very much wisdom. They're very prideful, usually very carnal, and they usually have very little actual knowledge and wisdom. The more you learn, the more you typically realize how little you actually know. It would be kind of like any profession, too, especially computer programming or software. When you start out, you feel like you don't know anything, and then you start learning a few things, and you're like, oh, I kind of understand this. But then you start realizing, wow, there's more information than I could ever know or learn when it comes to computer programming or software or this particular industry. I mean, it's infinite, the amount of knowledge that could possibly be learned. And that's the same even with language. That's the same with every field of study, medicine, engineering, just being a homemaker, just learning how to cook. I mean, even just learning how to cook, there's an infinite amount of knowledge that you could possibly possess, and understanding how to cook and recipes and all the different intricacies that go along with cooking and prep work. And we just have to realize that God, like the things that God has created, we'll never fully grasp all of them. We'll never understand everything about genetics and DNA and gravity and how the universe works. You know, we can only speculate, and we look through a glass darkly, and we should really understand that this is the ultimate wisdom we should be studying. If you really want to spend a lot of time learning, this is where we should be going for the majority of our learning, not trying to figure out the secrets of the universe because you'll never get there. You'll never get there, and a lot of times, those people trying to study those secrets are learning things that are dumb anyways, that are false anyways. He says in verse 13, And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor, and it is the gift of God. I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it, and God doeth it that men should fear before him. You know, the thing is that God said, or what God has done that you can't do anything about, it's the Bible. When God's word says something, it will happen exactly like it said. And we even have the book of Revelation. It hasn't happened, most of it, and it's going to happen exactly like that. You can't stop it. And God's doing this to try and make you fear and realize you need to fear God because whatever he says will happen. God is not mocked. Whatsoever man soweth that shall also reap. Verse 15, That which is to be hath already been, and God requireth that which is past. This is similar to what it said in chapter 1. There's no new thing under the sun. Everything that's happened now is happening in the past, and what's happened in the past is going to happen in the future. And then notice it says, And God requireth that which is past. I think what that really means in the phrase, it's kind of just talking about how we live our lives based on the commandments that he's already given us. Like, he's requiring us to follow these commandments. He doesn't have to print out a fresh copy for each one of us when we get born. Like, I know I told everybody else to do this, but now you also need to do this. It's like, no. He's already told everybody what to do, and we just have to do it. And I think this is hard for some people because in the Old Testament, it's like God gave the Old Testament law, but then several generations later, it's like, look, the commandments didn't change. He's still requiring you to do what he commanded in the Old Testament. And it's like, we're not supposed to keep reinventing the church. We do exactly what it says in 1 Timothy. It's not like, well, in the past, it was just men that were pastors. Now we're gonna try something new. No, no, no. We're still doing that which was acquired, which was in the past. We're supposed to be old-fashioned in that way. You know, we try to be a traditionalist. We're gonna sing the old-fashioned hymns and the old King James Bible, and we're gonna have the same values as our fathers, and we're gonna stick to that which is required of us, which was from the past. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. Christianity's already been established. We're gonna do exactly what he said. Verse 16. And more of our soul unto the Son, the place of judgment, the witness was there, and the place of righteousness, that iniquity is there. This will also tell you every man's a sinner. And the most righteous person you could possibly think of or ever find, if we were to examine his life, there's iniquity there. And so that's why you never put your trust in a man. Always put your trust in Christ and in the Word of God only, and we don't follow a man, we follow Christ. Now we follow men as they follow Christ, but we're ultimately following Christ. He's the ultimate leader. And if one were to fall by the wayside, well, we're still going in the same direction, and we're still following Christ. And we have to recognize that even the best of us, there's still iniquity there. Solomon, the best of them, there was iniquity there. David, the best, iniquity there. Moses, iniquity there. Everybody had problems. Everybody had issues. And it's not like, oh, well, those guys had problems. No, pastors today. Whatever pastor you like, there's iniquity there. Whatever righteous judge is out there, there's iniquity somewhere there. And you know what? God's gonna judge all of us. That's what he's gonna say in the next verse. I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. Obviously, the righteous and the wicked here are denoting the saved and the unsaved because the righteous sounds like, why would they be judged? They're righteous. They're perfect, right? But the righteous aren't perfect either. And we have sinned, and you know what? Just because you're saved doesn't mean you're gonna escape the judgment of God. You just won't go to hell. You can still be harshly judged by God, and we have to be careful and recognize that just because you're saved, you're not escaping any judgment. Verse 17, I said in my heart, I'm sorry, verse 18, I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them and that they might see that they themselves are beasts, for that which befall the sons of men befall the beasts. Everyone befalleth them. Even one thing befalleth them. As the one die, so die at the other. They have but one breath, so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast for all his vanity. All go unto one place. All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who know the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth down through the earth? Wherefore art perceived? There is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his portion, for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him? Now, this is what's interesting. Even though humans are way better than animals, from a carnalistic perspective, those who are not saved especially, if you think about this, their lives, after a certain amount of time, have no significance, just the same as any dog. If we think about, let's just go back a thousand years. A thousand years. All the people that were living a thousand years ago that are dead, it's no different than whatever pets they had. It's literally, like, we have no idea who they were, whether, we don't know the pets, and we don't know the person. It literally doesn't even matter at all. The only thing that mattered is then what he brings up in the second distinction is how the spirit of the man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward. And, of course, this is not, um, this is kind of tricky language if you think about it, but it's almost like a double meaning, I believe. Because, first of all, it can't mean every man because not every man goes up. Not every man gets saved. But I think it's just trying to note that some men's souls will go up, but animals' souls go down. And essentially, just in whatever capacity that they have a spirit, it just kind of dissolves or goes away or goes down. I don't know exactly what happens. Ask God about it. I'm not going to pretend like I know. But I do know this. The animal spirits aren't going up. I'm sorry. They're not going to heaven. I know they say all dogs go to heaven. They don't. None, actually. All of them go down. That doesn't mean they go to hell. I'm not saying they go to hell, but I'm just saying that they, I believe they just essentially, in a sense, perish. And it's kind of just saying like, if you think about it, it's like the burial process. But in another sense, those who are unsaved are like the beasts and their spirits go down, don't they? And if you think about it, some unsaved people even described as brute beasts who are made to be taken and destroyed. And it's like our spirits go up and their spirits go down. And it's a sad reality. But he's saying in verse 22, Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his portion. This is the key phrase, for who shall bring him to see what shall be after. After you die, it's done. You don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what's going to happen after we die. So we should only really be focused in on the things that we can accomplish now that we're alive for. And it's not that I don't have plans for my future, because I do, but I'm not guaranteed that future. So what I need to do is I need to think about the present. And we as Christians need to live in the present. And the Bible brings up the idea in Ephesians and Colossians that we need to be redeeming the time because the days are evil. At some point, which none of us know, we will perish and die. And so what we need to do is we need to be really, really focused on our present. And in a carnal way and a spiritual way. First I want to explain the carnal way. Time is so short. Stop having a bad attitude. You know, just get over things. And I used to struggle with this when I was young. Sometimes I would feel sorry for myself. My brothers and sisters, they would pick on me, or they'd be mean to me, or they wouldn't let me play games. And my family was really big into playing games, and I was like five, six, seven. They didn't want to let me play because I was a kid. And I was an annoying kid, too. I'm just going to be honest with you, all right? So sometimes they wouldn't want me to play with them or whatever, and I would just go and cry and feel sad for myself. But then I started realizing, like, I'm the only one suffering. You know, when you're having a bad attitude or you're not being positive about your life, you're like the only one that's really suffering. And so we need to just realize, like, time is short. God's only given us a limited amount of time, and we're supposed to be rejoicing in the portion that he's given us. We're supposed to work in the portion that he's given us. And you know what? Life's not fair. Get over it and enjoy what God has given you. And frankly speaking, life's not fair. You're way better off than most people are. I don't care who you are. Your life is so much better. You don't live in India. You don't live in North Korea. You don't live in China. You don't live in Africa. Like, you don't live in Lagos, where their water source is black water, and it's not because it tastes good. I mean, you don't even recognize, like, you are such a privileged person. We are all spoiled brats in many cases, and we don't even recognize what we have. You know, women today, they can complain about anything. And it's not just women. It's all times. They can always complain. But I'm just like, do you even realize what women had to go through at any other time in history? It's like you have a washing machine and a microwave and ovens and grocery delivery, and you have people making all your own clothes and the clothes for your kids for you, and you have cars and air conditioning, and you have midwives and you have phones and you have all this stuff, and it's like yet they can somehow find a way to complain about it and get mad about it and not enjoy their life. And it's just like women in the past are walking miles to go get buckets of water to come back and hand scrub clothes. I'm not even joking. And like they're like thinking, I broke a fingernail. You know, it's just like, come on. Talk about first world problems. I mean, today's world, you just have it so good, and we have so much opportunity. We live in America, the greatest nation in the world to live right now. This is the best place. And then you live in Texas, one of the greatest states. And then you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth part of that state. I mean, we're way better than El Paso, folks, okay? We're way better than certain areas of Texas. I mean, you're living in the cream of the crop at one of the greatest times with so much technology. Soul winning here is amazing. Go with us. Let's go to Shure Foundation. Let's go to Washington. Let's go to Canada, and let's try to go soul winning, and then you'll realize how good you have it here. Let's go to all kinds of parts of the world, and you'll realize how good you have it. You have such a great in like every category, because of course we go to Africa where the soul winning's great, but then the food and the housing and all the other stuff suck. It's like you have everything here. You have great food, great housing, great people, great church, great soul winning, great everything, and yet we can find a way to complain It's shame on us. We should be enjoying and rejoicing in the portion that God has given us, and we should be working so hard, because we have so much opportunity. You know what? You should be working so hard to make money in this country, because you could make tons of money and use it in all kinds of ways. You could have nice things today. I mean, the reason why people don't have good jobs and don't have good money is because they're lazy in America, frankly speaking. It's either you're too lazy to work hard or you're too lazy to learn, because if you're willing to put in the time, effort, and energy, you can make good money in America right now. You can have things that you need, the things that you want, and the only reason you don't is because you're lazy, and it's because people today are just complaining and lazy, and they're not taking advantage of all the opportunities God has set before us. I mean, God has given all of us the ten talents, folks. I mean, you read that parable, us as Americans, us as steadfast Baptist church members, we've been handed ten talents, and the question is, what are you doing with those ten talents? You know, we should be putting all of those talents to use and redeeming the time, especially spiritually. We have so much opportunity to get people saved and to build an amazing church and to build amazing families and to have great jobs and to have nice houses and to change this nation for the better. But people are just so lazy, and they're not taking advantage of what God's given us, because when you die, it's over, and you have no idea what's going to happen. We need to live in the present and take advantage of the opportunities that we have, and we need to work. We need to work, and you know what? We also need to enjoy. Everything that you accomplish, enjoy it. Stop having a bad attitude. Enjoy those kids. Enjoy those toddlers. Enjoy that job that you have. Enjoy the heat when you go out there soul-winning. Enjoy the black neighborhood. Enjoy steadfast Baptist church. Enjoy the protesters. Enjoy the sodomite deception. Enjoy everything that you have. That's what God's given you. And you know what? One day it'll be gone, and it'll be over. This is our time to enjoy. This is our time to get to work. This is our time to take advantage of what we have, because at some point, it's over, and then it's done. And you know what? I think that God is going to give us and extend our lives the more that we're enjoying and using what we have. And if we're complaining, and we're not taking advantage of what we have, I think we put ourselves at risk that God might say, fine, I'll give it to someone else. You're not going to use that talent? Fine. I'll just take it away from you, and I'll give it to someone. I'll give it to the guy that has 10 already. He's like, he's already got 10. It's like, you're going to give Pastor Shelley even more? Yes, he is. You're going to give Step Past Baptist Church even more? Yes, he is. You know why? Because they're using those 10 talents. He's like, well, that's not fair. Well, that's just how it works. And you know what? Praise God that he's blessed us so much and given us so much favor. Let's use it. Let's recognize that we've been blessed. Let's admit that we've been blessed so that we take advantage of it, rather than having this poor attitude of thinking like, my life's so bad. Stop complaining. You are a brat if you're complaining. And you kids, you stop complaining. When your parents put food on the table, you say thank you. And you eat it, and you appreciate what you have, because you don't even realize how good you have it. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us so much and blessing our church so much and allowing us to live in such a great area and have so many great opportunities. I pray that we wouldn't become complacent. I pray that we wouldn't be having a negative and a bad attitude, but rather we would have a positive attitude. And we recognize that we have so many opportunities and privileges before us. I pray that you would help motivate us to take advantage of them, to redeem the time. And thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to even enjoy them. And I have pleasure. I pray that we would rejoice in those things. I pray that you would help us to be balanced Christians and to fully take advantage of what we have for your honor and for your glory. And so in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. In closing, let's go to song number 119. Song number 119. Until the storm passes by. Song 119. Everybody sing it out real loud on the first. In the dark of the midnight I have my heart in my place While the storm howls above me And there's no hiding place Mid the crash of the thunder Precious Lord, hear my cry Keep me safe till the storm passes by Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds the warm Till the clouds fall forever from the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of the air Keep me safe till the storm passes by Many times, Satan whispers There is no need to try For there's no end of sorrow There's no hope by and by But I know thou art with me And tomorrow I'll rise Where the storm is never gone Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds the warm Till the clouds fall forever from the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of the air Keep me safe till the storm passes by When the long night is ended And the storms come to war Let me stand in my presence On that high, peaceful shore In that land where the darkness Never comes, Lord, may I Dwell with thee when the storm passes by When the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds the warm Till the clouds fall forever From the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of the air Keep me safe till the storm passes by Great singing, everybody. We're all dismissed. Thank you for watching!