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Music You You You You You You You Good evening everyone welcome to steadfast baptist church if you can all find your seats. We'll go ahead and get started Start this evening off in song number 33 when Christ the Lord is risen today song number 33 So three three Christ the Lord is risen today Oh Song number 33 on the second Oh Oh Oh Hey Oh Great seeing everybody. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer Heavenly Father we thank you for this day. We thank you for steadfast Baptist Church and everyone that's gathered Lord God We ask that you bless pastor Shelly with your Holy Spirit home to preach a edifying sermon Help us all to learn and to grow so we can walk out better Christians and we came in for your honor and glory It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen All right. Next up. We have song number 81 song number 81 when we see Christ Oh Oh When we see Oh Oh Jesus Just go When we see Jesus Christ Christ will see Jesus more When we see Christ One glimpse of his dear face All sorrow will be raised So greatly by the grace Till we see Christ Life's tables through the all schools forever pass We'll cross the great divine To glory safe and the heart the whole the crown The tempter will be banished We'll lay our burden down It will be worth it all When we see Jesus Christ Oh When we see Christ One glimpse of his dear face All sorrow will be raised So greatly by the grace Till we see Christ Great singing Thanks for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church If you didn't already get a bulletin I guess our ushers don't have one anyways so you're just stuck without a bulletin for some reason We'll work on getting that corrected Also we have on the front we have our Jonah chapter 2 verse 3 It's a little bit longer of a verse so anyone who can quote that can get an ice cream treat on the inside our service and soul winning times also our church stats On the right we have a list of expecting ladies and then down below is our prayer list. We'll go over that in just a moment On the back we have the note about our upcoming event So we have a Heritage of the Lord conference It's going to be October 4th through the 6th and we have a schedule that's listed down there below and we also have October 31st the end of the month a Texas chili cook off at 6pm November 16th is going to be the Miami Soul Winning Marathon and so if you'd like to participate or do that with us we'd love to have you out there Also on the inside our prayer list We've been praying for the Naims for their grandmother We've been praying for the Carlson's mother for health as well. Also been praying for Mrs. Miller's friend who has cancer We're praying for the Scotts parents health as well We've also been praying for the Garcia's daughter who's expecting We have the Foley's What is the month that your daughter is expecting? February Ok I just want to make sure Also we've been praying for the Guzman's father and then we've been praying for brother Jimmy for his sister-in-law who also has cancer that she's dealing with and then we're praying for the Illes family as well. So a lot of sickness, a lot of prayer requests there We'll just pray for our church family that's mentioned here as a group. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for St. Vast Baptist Church and thank you for these ladies who are expecting I pray that you just bless their pregnancies and bless their children. I pray that you also just help these family members and friends that are struggling with cancer and with illness and sickness I pray that you would just please give them recovery Please give them health. Please give them strength during this time of difficulty I pray that you just help them to also have peace during this troubleless time. I pray that you would just help our church family that needs favor with their travel, with their relationships and in their jobs. I pray that you would just be with them and please help them And I pray that those that are family and friends that need to hear the gospel that you would give us the opportunity, that you would soften their hearts that you would give us the boldness to preach and that you would help us to get them saved In Jesus' name we pray. Amen That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements. We'll go ahead and sing Psalm 67 in our separate handout We have an accompaniment book here Psalm 67, if you can sing it out nice and loud For the rich will eat us Alright, that's Psalm 67 It's a little bit low for me so I need you all to sing out really loud Let the people praise me, O God Let all the people praise me O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy For God will show judge the Lord Let the people praise me, O God Let all the people praise me O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy For God will show judge the Lord Let the people praise me, O God Let all the people praise me O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy For God will show judge the Lord Let the nations be glad and sing for joy For God will show judge the Lord Let the nations be glad and sing for joy For God will show judge the Lord Let the people praise me O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy Great, sing it As the offering plays are going around, would you please turn in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 Ecclesiastes chapter 7 Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 Ecclesiastes chapter number 7 shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her. Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account, which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not. One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found. Lo, this only have I found that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for Ecclesiastes 7. I pray that it be with Pastor Shelley, Lord, bless him, fill him with your Holy Spirit, help him to preach the message that we need to hear, and help us to apply that in our lives. Praise in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, first verse here in Ecclesiastes chapter seven says a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of one's birth. And when we kind of get into this section of the book of Ecclesiastes, the author is kind of making a similar statement and a lot of similar characteristics of what we see in the book of Proverbs. He's kind of just giving a lot of just general wisdom, some general proverbs that are described. And he's saying that it's better to have a good reputation than to have money, basically. Because he's saying a good name, a good name, it's not saying really, it's not talking about his actual name like Solomon or something like that. It's talking about the reputation associated with his name. It's basically just saying it's better to have a good reputation than it is to have precious ointment and the idea of having something that's very valuable, of great substance, having some possession. Really, you could just look at it as any possession, not even just money. Just, it's better to have a good reputation than it is to have a lot of money. Keep your finger here and go to Proverbs 16. We're gonna see something similar in the book of Proverbs. And really, this chapter is not much different than the book of Proverbs itself. The book of Proverbs, when you kind of first start out, a lot of the first few proverbs are telling like this story and this narrative. It gives you narratives and a lot of the verses connect. When you kind of get into the middle section of the book of Proverbs, it just gets to a point where almost every proverb is just like a standalone statement without much context relating to one another. Just a lot of just general wisdom, general ideas. Ecclesiastes chapter seven's pretty similar. And so this evening, I'm not gonna really be able to elaborate on every verse because it's just unrealistic. There's no way to elaborate on every single verse because it brings up so many different concepts. But some of them I do want to kind of pause and we'll compare and look at a few other places in scripture. Proverbs chapter 16 verse 19 brings up this concept. Pride goeth, let me make sure I'm having this right. 18, I said it wrong, sorry. Verse 19, better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud. So kind of a similar concept here is the idea of it's better to just basically have the right attitude than it is to have a lot of money, right? And this particular concept is saying it would be better to be a humble person that cares more about integrity and truth than it is someone that just cares about having money, having spoil, and being prideful. And so that's kind of similar in the same idea of having a good name as opposed to having some precious ointment or something like that. I want to go to one other place before we kind of dive into Ecclesiastes seven. Go to 1 Kings chapter four. Go to 1 Kings chapter number four. And I want to show you something about Solomon because Solomon is the author of the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. And something about Solomon specifically is the Bible talks about him in the book of Kings and how he had so much wisdom. It makes this interesting statement in verse 32. It says, and he spake 3,000 Proverbs and his songs were 1,005. Now some people have used this to kind of contradict the Bible or attack the Bible sometimes because if you just look at the book of Proverbs, Proverbs is 31 chapters. And again, I don't have the exact verse count, but it's about 30 verses each. You're looking at around 1,000 or less statements or verses in the book of Proverbs. But number one, this doesn't necessarily count as like each verse. Sometimes you could even maybe argue that some verses are including multiple quote Proverbs within themselves because they have two different comparisons. But I would also suggest this is that the book of Ecclesiastes contains a lot of Proverbs. And so you have Proverbs that are being brought up in Ecclesiastes chapter seven that we're going to be talking about. Those are also things that Solomon had said. And then additionally, I would say this, there could have been some general wisdom or Proverbs that Solomon said that just aren't recorded in the Bible because they're just not the word of God. And you know, I've heard lots of great phrases that I think are very biblical, at least they match with what the Bible teaches, but they're obviously not the Bible. So things like the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men did nothing. You know, that's a famous statement or quote that people say and it makes sense. One that I'm going to bring up here in a minute, but something that my boss always taught me and it's a great lesson. He says, pain teaches, pain teaches. And you know, that's not necessarily the word of God, but that concept is brought up in this particular chapter that we're going to be looking at. Go back to Ecclesiastes chapter seven. And he brings up in the latter part of this particular verse that the day of death than the day of one's birth, saying that the end is better than the birth. And it really is just kind of bringing up this idea of how something is better in the end than the beginning thereof. And that's kind of brought up in another passage and another place in the Bible. And so he's just kind of saying some things are better than another. And really what I would take from that concept is that it's kind of more important how you finish things than it is how you start things. Because you could start a lot of projects, you could start a lot of ideas, you could start on a good path, but it's not nearly as important as finishing certain tasks and certain projects and things that you do. And so it's more important to finish. You know, it's not necessarily important to start a family, it's important to finish a family, right? Not just important to start a sermon, it's good to finish a sermon, right? It's not important to just start things, it's good to start a marathon, it's more important to finish the marathon, isn't it? Because you could start a marathon running at a really good pace, but if you don't even finish, it doesn't even matter. Whereas the person that maybe was slower or didn't necessarily run as fast at the beginning, but they finished, that's technically better than the person that had started out real hot or started doing something but then didn't really finish. And you know, starting the gospel presentation's good, but it's more important to finish. And you know, in our lives, he's just basically saying it's gonna be better. One other way that you could look at this verse is this idea, you know, being born into this life is a blessing. And just being born in general is a blessing. Having life, having parents, having the ability to eat food and having free will and having all these different things. And you know, not everybody has the same life, not everybody has the same upbringing, not everybody has the same opportunities, but just in general, life is a blessing, it's a gift. But you know what's even better than this life is the next life. And so in a sense, you could look at this verse as saying when we die and we go to heaven and we're with the Lord Jesus Christ, that's gonna be even better than our start. Now of course, that's only in context for people that are saved, but we understand that for us that are saved, the death is gonna enter into a better state of life than we are currently. And so that's another way that you could kind of apply that verse for Christians and for us that are saved. The verse two says, it is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. So again, this section is kind of what I would summarize as my boss always would famously say, pain teaches that there's actually a benefit to sorrow, pain, suffering, woe, it actually makes you a better person. Whereas if you only have good in your life, if only everything works out, often it'll procure pride in your heart, pride in your mind. This is very much epitomized by high school when you see the most popular people, maybe the successful jock, the quarterback of the high school team is often a very prideful person because everything's just going well for them and they only have good. Whereas the person that actually has to go through a lot of suffering in their upbringing, often many cases will be a much better person. I think it's just beneficial and this is just my personal opinion. My personal opinion is that people are better off if they went in a steerage of their life where they were poor. That if there was just at least some stage in their life where they struggled financially or they didn't have much money, it typically is gonna help them just be a better person in the long run just because they kind of have like a reality check. People that have had a silver spoon in their mouth from birth and really have never had to suffer or budget or look at prices or any of this kind of stuff often don't have the same character and integrity as someone that's had to really struggle and think about their purchases and have to work really hard and had to suffer and had to go without and had to tell themselves no and had to go through all these problems. And I think that that's basically what's kind of being brought up in this text is the idea that in many cases, when you have suffering, when you have difficulty, it can build character in you as a person. Notice verse three says, "'Sorrow is better than laughter, "'for by the sadness of the countenance, "'the heart is made better.'" That's not my opinion. That's what the Bible's saying. The Bible's saying by the sadness of the countenance. What is the countenance? Countenance is just your face. But what does your face represent? Your face mostly represents your emotional state of being. And honestly, I've been wanting to preach a sermon for years on this, I just never have, but honestly, if you really study the Bible, it really talks a lot about your face and just how we can almost see what's going on inside of you based on your face alone. And if you're smiling, if based on your disposition, like we can kind of tell this person's happy, jovial, if they're kind of scowling, if they're looking a certain way, you can kind of tell they're upset, they're kind of mad. And you know, being married, it's very important to pay attention to the countenance of the face, okay? Because sometimes it's difficult to pay attention to how your wife's feeling based on her words alone. Often you kind of need those clues based on the face. Also, I saw someone say this and it was kind of funny, but there's this famous YouTuber, I think he's like the most popular one, it's called MrBeast. Who knows who I'm talking about? Okay, yeah, a lot of people know who MrBeast is. And someone said, this guy, there's something wrong with him. And I was like, okay, I'm just trying to listen to what he had to say. He said, there's something wrong with him because you can tell he's not a sincere person and he's always smiling. And he said, you know how you can know that he's not sincere? Is because when someone smiles sincerely, their eyes change, but when they don't change, it's fake. And so he's just like. And you're like, yeah, that's totally true. When someone just has a forced fake smile on their face, their eyes don't really change. But when you know you're smiling for a picture, like your eyes, you kind of squint, you can kind of see that little difference. It's on your face. You can tell a genuine smile from a fake fraudulent smile. And it's called Mormons, okay? It's also called the workers at Wells Fargo Bank, all right? And I'm not trying to slander all of them, but I'm just saying, I'm not even slandering them. I'm just trying to help you realize that they hate their job, okay? But they have to smile because if they don't smile, then you won't give them a 10 out of 10 on their customer view and they'll get fired. That's just how life works sometimes. You work for these places. I mean, am I supposed to believe that every Chick-fil-A person, it's their pleasure to serve me? Or do you think that they're told they have to say that, right? I mean, that would be a weird coincidence if they all said that awkward phrase that I've never heard anybody else say, right? So of course, there's many businesses and a lot of places where people kind of have to fake it. But in general also, you can kind of tell what's going on in someone's heart and mind based on just simply their face. You know, God looks at Cain and his countenance has fallen and he can tell there's something wrong with Cain. We look at Nehemiah. He said that he had never been sorrowful or sad in the presence of the king and the king had recognized that. And so he was immediately kind of caught off guard by Nehemiah, the countenance of his face and how it had changed. Sometimes the Bible talks about how someone's countenance had changed towards them. And it's basically, instead of looking to this person with pleasure and delight, they can kind of tell something's off. Girls are really good at this. And I'll just be honest, like they can often tell, like a girl give another girl a look and they just like instantly know it's like fight is on or something, you know? And it's just like, for guys, we just don't even know what's going on a lot of times. And I'm not saying that every guy's like that, but I'm just saying for the most part, we're not as perceptive in those areas as typically. We're not as trained. For some reason, women are very highly trained in this area, just naturally. Like, I don't know why it happens, but they can typically just tell, you know, all these different things. They can be like, this girl's mad at me. And you're just like, how do you even know that, right? And so, you know, but again, they're often right. I'm not saying like they're just making stuff up. They often kind of know because our faces carry a lot of information and we're very expressive. That's how God made us. In fact, that's typically the main part of the body that we all want to see on a regular basis. We want to see their face. You know, if a young guy was interested in a girl, it's like, he wants to see what her face looks like before he wants to see if he wants to go on the date, right? And it's an important aspect of that relationship because a face carries just so much value to it. And, you know, there's a big significance in the Bible about faces, not seeing God's face. Like if you see God's face, you would die. And there's this big, important aspect at the end of the Bible of actually seeing God's face because it's just an important thing. I believe it's a Solomon, I'm not sorry, I'm sorry. Absalom is very upset at one point in the Bible because he can't see his father's face. And, you know, it's just a big deal. Faces are a big deal in the Bible. And so it's bringing up the countenance, not because the face really matters, it's just the face is kind of a mirror into our soul. The face just gives us kind of an idea of what's going on inside somewhere. And it's saying by being sad, often, or having gone through sorrow, that will often cause your heart to be better because the more sorrow and the more suffering you go through, typically the more empathetic of a person you are. Empathy is the idea of thinking about how other people feel. That is what empathy is. If you don't have much empathy, you don't really care about other people's feelings. You don't really care about how other people are feeling in any kind of situation. You're very selfish, you're very narcissistic, you're just thinking about only yourself. And a godly attribute is one who's thinking of others. Caring about others, wanting to help others. And typically when we go through our own pain, our own suffering, our own woes, it helps us say, you know what, this person who's suffering, I kind of have an idea of how they probably feel. Because I've gone through something kind of like that. And because I didn't feel good, maybe I should be nice to that person. Maybe I should help that person. Maybe I should give grace unto that person. Whereas someone that's never really had much sorrow, not much hardship, they haven't gone through difficulty, they typically don't have much empathy, and therefore they're typically not as good of a person. And that's why I'm saying, when you go through difficulty, you go through problems, the Bible is just saying you're made a better person. And so this is what you should think. The next time you go through suffering or hardship, maybe you should thank God that he gave you an opportunity to be a better person. I've gone through some hardships. I think generally speaking, my life has been pretty easy, and I've had a really good life, a very blessed life in general. But I have gone through some difficult things, I've gone through some heartaches and some problems, and those few heartaches and problems, in hindsight now, I've thought about it a lot, and I think, you know what, I'm probably just a much better person having gone through some of these difficulties, some of the hard things that I've had to go through. And typically the people that are, some of the nicest people to meet are people that have gone through hardships, and then they've recovered. Now of course, some people can go through hardships and allow that to turn into bitterness, and they just become an old, bitter person, and then they're not very nice to be around. But hardships give you the opportunity to be a better person. Now you could allow those hardships to define you, and you could just be labeled as so-and-so hardship. You know, just say like, well, I'm just known as the person that lost my spouse, or lost my child, or I'm just, you know, I'm the divorced person, or I'm the ugly person, or I'm the unathletic person, or I'm the short person, or I'm the tall person, or I'm the whatever. Like they basically just pick a hard, I'm the poor person. I'm the person that failed. I'm the person that, you know, has a disability, or I'm the person that, whatever. Like anybody could just look at the hardships in their life and just say, I wanna be defined by that, and just allow myself to wallow in that. But rather what you should do is just say, you know what, this hardship God has given me just gives me an opportunity to be a better person, and I'm gonna go ahead and have a good attitude anyways, and move on, and then now you're probably gonna be a better person because of the hardships that you've gone through, because of the difficulties that you've gone through. Whereas the person who's never really had much difficulty, struggle, or problems in their life is gonna be a very prideful, narcissistic person that doesn't really care about others, and they're really not someone of much value. The Bible even says in verse four, the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. So a wise person is someone that is dealing with difficulty, dealing with problems. Says, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. People that don't have much wisdom are typically just partying, living it up, not dealing with problems, not addressing difficult situations. So again, life is hard. Life is difficult. Life has complications. And wise people will get into the nitty and gritty, deal with difficult problems, assess the issue, try to fix it, whereas a foolish person says, I only just wanna have fun and joy, so if this isn't fun and joy, I'm gonna ignore all that, and I'm just gonna go and do something that I like. You know, I mean, a lot of young people are doing this today. And I'm not picking on them because admittedly, I would have to say that being a young person, and when I say young person, I'm talking like teenage to young adult, is more difficult than it was when I was that age. The job market's more difficult. College has changed quite a bit. The dating scene has changed quite a bit. And I think for a lot of young people, instead of dealing with their situation, dealing with the circumstances of our culture, they just say, you know what, I'd rather just go play video games. I'd rather just go drink. I'd rather go just party. I'd rather just go have fun and just not worry about the fact that life's a little difficult right now. Whereas, I think what a lot of young people need to do is they need to say, you know what, yeah, it is harder to buy a house now. It is harder to get a good job. It is harder to find a spouse. And what they should do is they should just get to work. They should actually just say like, yeah, this isn't fun. Yeah, I don't like this. Yeah, I'm gonna have to suffer a little bit here. But you know what, I need to just do it anyways. I need to just do the hard job, get out there and work harder, learn more, talk to more people, try to win someone over. But don't give up on marriage. Don't give up on having a career. Don't give up on having to do the hard things. Don't give up on learning and think like, well, the last 10 years of public education was worthless because it was. Don't say like, well, then I'm not gonna learn. No, no, no. Go through the house of mourning and just say, you know what, I'm gonna still learn anyways. I'm gonna learn how to educate myself. I'm gonna learn how to read and write. I'm gonna learn the English language properly. So many young people cannot speak and communicate effectively. And they're gonna have to just wake up and realize, you know what, some bad things have happened. My circumstances aren't great, but I'm gonna just deal with the situation. And I'm gonna do something about it. I'm gonna actually fix it. That's the wise person. The fool just says, you know, let's just put all that on pause and just have fun anyways. But you know, they're not fixing their situation. They're not fixing the country. They're just ruining everything. And unfortunately, only the wise are gonna deal with difficult situations. You know, another thing you could say is remember a few years ago when our church specifically was going through a hard transition or we had to transition from a pastor. And you know, there was probably a lot of mourning for some people having to go through that situation and going through something difficult. But you know what, the fools just said like, nuts this, I'm done with church. The wise people said, you know what, this is uncomfortable. This isn't fun, but let's just deal with it. You know, I know people, they literally went to the hospital. They were so distressed and so upset about the whole situation. Just so much stress and problems. They just, they had to check into the hospital because it was like, they were like eating up about it. And it was like, was that hard? Yes, it was. Is it difficult? Is it difficult to have problems in these areas? Yes, it is. But you know what, the worst thing to do is just ignore it or just say it doesn't matter or just skirt away from difficult things. Because let me just tell you something, as a pastor, unfortunately, I see a lot of ugly, like a lot of ugly. And the last thing I wanna do as a pastor is be someone that just be like, well, that sucks for you, bye. You know, life is difficult. I mean, what part of the Bible is it filled with drama and ugly and weird stuff? I mean, there's some, I mean, the Bible is just filled with crazy stories. And you know, a lot of the great characters in the Bible and the people that we like, they just dealt with difficult situations. You know, I'm so glad that David didn't just say, oh, Goliath, that seems like a rough situation. Well, see you later, guys. Have fun with the raisins that I brought you. You know, David's like, hey, someone needs to kill this Goliath. Someone needs to deal with him. Like this issue isn't going away. This issue isn't gonna stop happening. Let's just deal with it. You know, is it not a fun situation? Yeah, it's not a fun situation. How about just David and Jonathan having to just deal with the situation that Saul hates David and is gonna kill David? That's not fun. But what if David just said like, well, I don't care, I'm just gonna go to the bar tonight. Well, then Saul would have found him at the bar and killed him. You know what? Saul and Jonathan met in the field. They mourned about it. They're frustrated about Saul. And you know what? David just dealt with it and left and had to be on the run for several years. But you know what? Praise God that David decided to do something about it so that years later he could come into the kingdom and restore the kingdom and have one of the greatest kingdoms ever on the planet and end up preparing for his son to build the temple and to have the prosperity that Solomon had. You know, we don't wanna be people that just shy away from difficulty, from problems, and just say I'm not gonna deal with it. Praise God for all the moms that have had a miscarriage and then still had kids after that. Because you know what? There's a lot, a lot, a lot of people that were born after a miscarriage. I am one of them. Who in here knows that they were born after a miscarriage? Oh yeah, see? Other people. My mom had a miscarriage early in the days. And you know what? I'm so glad that she didn't just buy that difficulty say, well, I'm done having children because I had a miscarriage. And look, having a miscarriage is very emotional. It's very upsetting. It's gonna be a time of mourning. It's gonna be a time of difficulty. You know what? Praise God that my mom still had me. I'm glad that I exist. And I guarantee there's a lot more people in this room and you don't even know it, that that is your situation. And so sometimes you just have to deal with difficult situations. Praise God for husbands and wives that have low spots in their marriage and they just deal with them as opposed to just giving up or stopping. You know, praise God that many people just don't give up on their difficult situations. You know, I'm sure there's people in this room that have been in low points and I'm glad you didn't give up on church. I'm glad that you still come to this church. You know, our church has had low spots, had difficulty, had controversy. I mean, if you wanna go to a drama-free church, this is not it. It's like never been that way and it appears like it's never going to be that way, okay? And I'm sorry because you know what? I don't really want drama. I'm kind of like the opposite. My family was a very dramatic family and I was always trying to tell everybody like, you're wrong, you're wrong, let's fix it. Let's be friends, let's be buddies. And that's still my personality today. But at the same time, you know what? I can't control everybody else and other people just love drama. They just love, love drama. And so they just wanna cause and stir up all this drama and then we have to deal with it. Of course, we could just put bare our head in the sand and say like, I don't wanna deal with anything. I don't wanna talk about anything. Let's just all show up and I'll preach. I'll tell everybody how to go to heaven every day. Let's just have a 15-minute service. I'll just tell you how to go to heaven, have an altar call and then we'll go home. And we just, anytime there's drama, we just won't talk about it. You won't know, nothing will be said. We'll just be like Dallas Bible Church where Steve Lawson is let go of the pastorate and we just say, he had an inappropriate relationship with a woman. What does that mean? What is that? You know, or like the churches I grew up in where literally, all of a sudden it'd be like, I haven't seen this pastor in like three months. What happened? It's like, no one knows. I went to a church where it was just like, just there was a pastor there and then all of a sudden there's not a pastor there. It was just like, we don't even know what happened. No one knows what happened. The youth program at the church that I grew up in would literally just shut down for months at a time with no explanation. It was just like, we're not having the youth program for the next six months. Okay, and then another youth pastor would come in for about a year and then it'd be like, just gone. And then it'd be like, okay, with no youth program again for a while and then be like, another youth pastor and then just gone. And it was just like, what's happening? The rapture only took them or what? Like, I don't get it. Okay, and see, this is what some people don't understand is that all churches are filled with drama. It's just that all these other churches just won't tell you anything, won't ever deal with it, just ignore everything and then they're just like, now we're having a movie series, watch the movie, shut up and just enjoy the movie series that we've prepared for you at the movies. And they just don't talk about anything. They don't talk about any kind of doctrine that'll piss anybody off. They don't say things that'll piss anybody off. And frankly speaking, if they even did, then they'll hire a bunch of lawyers to come in and tell them how to calm it down, okay? But that's not this church. It'll never be this church. And you know what? Sometimes this church will have a time of mourning. But you know what, it'll make us better. I guarantee that our church is a better church because of a lot of the drama and the issues and the problems that we've had. And I guarantee you as a person, you're a better person because of the difficulty and the problems that you've had. Why? Pain teaches. Pain teaches. And you know what, when your children go through difficulty, you need to take that as an opportunity to help them learn a lesson. When they have heartache, when they have difficulty, when they have problems, when whatever issues that they go through, sit them down and help them reflect on whatever they're going through, or once they've recovered, to realize like, hey, we probably learned something here. That's important. Look what it says in verse number six. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool. This also is vanity. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad, and a gift destroyeth the heart. Again, I don't have time to just do all these particular verses, but the Bible's warning about fools, it's warning about gifts. And you're like, what's wrong with a gift? Well, typically gifts in these contexts are talking about bribes. So it's simply instead of dealing with the situation appropriately, or making a good judgment, people allow gifts, money, or whatever to cloud their judgment. And they allow some financial motive to stop them from making the right decision. You know, we should always make the right decision no matter what financial consequences may occur. That was what we were talking about earlier in the book of Proverbs when we talked about, you know, it's better to be lowly and humble than dividing the spoil with the proud. You know, we'd be better off just making whatever's the right decision or having the right viewpoint than it is to just take money or have money cloud our thought process or our judgment. Verse eight, better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. And the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. So this is, again, reiterating the same thing that we just brought up earlier, that it's better to finish things. It's also important to be patient in life and allow things to take their time, take their course, before just being hasty in any decision that you make and any process that you're going in. You know, and again, sometimes you have to make quick decisions. So I don't wanna say that you don't need to make quick decisions. Obviously, if you're going down the highway and there's a fork in the road, you better make a quick decision, right? You better go right or left, okay? And in some cases, you know, if someone breaks into your house, that's a time to make a quick decision. And sometimes what's important is to just already know how to handle difficult situations. You say, hey, I already got my nine millimeter loaded up and I already got one in the chamber and I'm already ready to go. And if someone breaks in the house, I'm gonna deal with the situation. Or you could just know, hey, if I'm coming up to this fork, I already know I'm going left. So when that comes, you can just make that particular decision. The difficult parts of our life is when we haven't already cast a vision and we're not exactly sure where we would go in a particular scenario. Maybe something catches us off guard. But what we don't wanna do is in a situation where we haven't had the time to think it through, where we're not exactly sure what direction we wanna go, we don't wanna just instantly make a quick and hasty decision. We wanna make sure that we're thinking it through and we're gonna make a decision that we're gonna agree with later. Of course, if you make the wrong decision, you change your mind. We need to fix it, we wanna address it, but to have the least amount of damage, to make the least amount of changes in your life, we should already establish what the path we wanna go on. This is important for pastors. It's important for a pastor to already know the doctrine that he believes before he becomes a pastor. Like he should already know what he believes about the Trinity before he becomes a pastor. That's not like a doctrine you should just change on after becoming a pastor. Or like what Bible to use. There's pastors these days that are going into King James only Bible churches and then changing away from the King James Bible. You know what, that's, why are you signing up to be a King James only pastor and then changing that? Why are you setting out your doctrinal statement on who God is and then changing that? I mean, at least I would have respect for someone that would step down and then get reordained in whatever institution that teaches that, but to just keep pastoring when you're making radical doctrinal changes, radical on who God is, the Trinity, on Calvinism, on the end times. I mean, you know, this is someone that's carried about of every wind in doctrine. I cannot even imagine how you would feel. Can you imagine if I got up and said, hey guys, I'm sorry, I was wrong on Calvinism. I'm now 100% Calvinist. What in the world? How is that legitimate? But you know what, there's people like that, like Tyler Baker. Like Tyler Baker got up, he's changed his view on the Trinity supposedly. He's now Calvinist and now he's like post millennial, which is an extreme heresy if you really think about it because he's saying, think about this, he's already saying the Antichrist came, folks. He's already saying that we've gone through the thousand year reign of Christ. Like this isn't a light doctrine. This isn't like a minor thing. I mean, virtually all of evangelical churches in America are premillennial, folks. So to be post millennial is insane. It's crazy. It's lunacy. You know, we should make sure we know what we believe. And you know what, how about just be patient instead of letting your dad ordain you in six months before you figure out what you believe so that when you start pastoring, you can have a testimony of having believed the same things all the way through. But you know, it's interesting. It's like, why change on those things? Well, number one, nobody believes his version of the Trinity because it's stupid. So he's never gonna get an audience. And then secondly, he's not a very good preacher. So he's never gonna draw anybody from the new IB or even the new IB haters. You know what, there's a lot of weirdo Calvinists out there. So I guess he's just trying to appeal to that audience. And again, not someone that's very patient. We should be someone that's patient. And what's better is the end of the ministry than the beginning. You know, all of these weirdos, these Calvinists and these Catholic light individuals that love to talk about church fathers, you know they love the most? Saint Augustine. You know, one thing about Saint Augustine is he changed like all of his doctrine at the end of his ministry. Think about that. Think about like, I was a pastor for 50 years. And then in the last few years of my ministry, I realized everything I had taught was wrong. Like that would be weird. Now, I'll be honest with you, dude. I've been in a church where the pastor admitted that. I was in a church where a pastor said, for the last 30 years, I've been mixed up on the gospel. I was thinking like, what? He said that. He said he was mixed up on work salvation. And I was just like, did you just hear what you said out loud? Like it was weird. But it's just, you know, it's better to get things right and be patient and it's better to end than to just, let's get started pastoring and then I'll figure out what I believe later. It's like, that is not the way to live your life. You know, we need to figure out what we believe and what path to be on and to not change from that particular course of action. Says in verse nine, be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger rested in the bosom of fools. The Bible brings this up a lot of times and a lot of paces. Keep your finger, go to Proverbs 15. I want to look at a few verses here. Anger by our modern, our modern society hates the Bible, folks. Our modern society is not biblical. Do not base what you believe on the world, okay? Now here's the thing, that being said, anger can also be very bad still. But our world would say anger is always wrong. Like most of our society and most of our culture pretends like anger is just always bad, always wrong. That's not true. There is a time for righteous anger and there should be a lot of things that are making you upset right now in our culture, okay? So that's okay. But we don't want to be quick to anger and we don't want to act irrationally based on the anger that we feel inside. And most of the anger we probably feel is probably not correct. But we want to make sure. You know, the Bible said not to be hasty in thy spirit to be angry. You know, Jesus Christ, when he's seeing them buy and sell in the house of God, he doesn't immediately go in there and deal with the situation. He sits and thinks about it for a while, makes a small whip of cords, and then he goes in there and just, then he lets them have it. He was angry. Jesus looked on people with anger when he asked them, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? And they basically just didn't answer. They're just like, I don't want to say anything. And then he's just looking at them with anger. Okay, why? Because of how evil they had become as a culture and as a society, okay? And the Bible does warn us, though, that anger can be bad. Look at what it says in verse one. A soft answer, turn of the way wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. You know, someone's just making all these people upset all the time. And if every time someone goes online, they're just stirring up problems and just causing problems with everybody, maybe we should consider, like, what kind of words are they using? Do they ever have any empathy in their language? Or do they just slander a whole group whenever they speak? Like, even if there's a problem, isn't there, like, an appropriate way to handle that, and then, like, an inappropriate way to handle it? Imagine if there was someone out there that, you know, had a bad situation in their church, and, you know, you were thinking, like, well, I feel bad for those people. Or those people are probably going through a hard time. Or what if I just said, I bet a bunch of those people are a bunch of cult, Kool-Aid drinking weirdos whenever they're talking about a difficult situation. Doesn't seem like that person's being very sincere. It sounds like they're trying to stir up problems and stir up anger and cause issue. They're not very sincere in their application of what they're saying. And so, you know, we should be careful, because, what, a soft answer turns away wrath. You know, sometimes you can disagree with somebody, but you can do it in a way that doesn't upset them. Say, hey, you're in a bad spot, and I don't think you can necessarily see clearly, and I'm sure that this is difficult for you, and I'm sure that you're having a lot of, you know, different emotions here, and, you know, I just wanna help you. As opposed to just slandering you and railing on you and talking all this trash on you, that's not a very sincere approach to a difficult situation. And we wanna be careful when there's controversy, when there's issue, when people are upset, to choose our words carefully, and not necessarily try to make people more upset. When someone's upset at you, give them a soft answer. This should help in your marriage. You know, if you're upset with each other, sometimes you have to be careful what you say, because if you go evil for evil, railing for railing, it just never ends, does it? Verse 18, same chapter. A wrathful man stirreth up strife, but he that is slow to anger appeases strife. We should be people that are slow to anger. Is that something we always do? Probably not, but we should try to. Says in chapter 16, verse 32, he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh the city. You know, when we're upset about something, we should probably try our best to do nothing about it initially. Just let time go. And then here's how you tell. If you're still angry after a long time, then you know, okay, this might be something that just needs to be dealt with, right? But if your anger then subsides, then you realize, you know, it probably wasn't that big a deal. And this is like, when you're in a fight, and then you both just sit here like, why are we mad at each other? That wasn't the fight to have. Because you're like, you can't even remember why you're upset anymore. It probably just wasn't worth it, right? Whereas it's like, hey, we should still get mad about certain things in society. It's like, it doesn't matter how much time subsides, I'm still gonna be mad at pedophiles. I'm still gonna be mad at murder. I'm still gonna be mad at adultery. I'm still gonna be mad at like super, you know, super evil, wicked things that the Bible brings up. So it's not just saying like, well, if I just give you a little bit of space here, I probably won't care anymore. You know, no, there's some issues that just need to be dealt with, right? But at the same time, you know, just because someone cuts me off in traffic doesn't mean I need to respond immediately. You know, maybe I can just let it go and then I'll probably forget anyways. And then it's just, you know, I need to live my life not just being angry at everything that could make me mad. Look at chapter 27, verse four. I wanna look at one more here. The Bible says, wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy? You know, a lot of times where a lot of anger and wrath is coming from is from a place of envy. People envy certain situations, envy certain people, and so they stir up strife and they cause a lot of anger and a lot of wrath towards that individual just simply because they wish they were them. They hate us because they ain't us. That's typically, you know, the phrase that, that's my, you know, not in the Bible proverb, okay? There you go. Go back to Ecclesiastes chapter seven. It's like, why are girls sometimes just really mean to other girls? It's because they're envious of her. They're envious of her hair or her looks or her clothes or her boyfriend or whatever, her house or whatever. And it's so funny, because you'll literally not even have situations where a girl, she's like, she's got straight hair and she's mad at the girl that has curly hair. And then the girl with curly hair is mad at the girl with straight hair because she has straight hair and it's like, if we swapped bodies with y'all, y'all would still be mad at each other. Like, it just, sometimes people, they just get mad about things because they're just being selfish. They're just not really thinking clearly. And you know, we need to be careful with anger and not just getting angry at people, not just envying them. You know, we wanna make sure that we're not hasty in our spirit. Because why? Anger rests in the bosom of fools. If you're angry every day, you're kinda foolish. Like, that just shouldn't be the case. You just shouldn't be angry every day. If you're struggling with this every day, you're getting mad all the time, this is something you need to deal with. And typically, this is my suggestion, is you need to change your expectations on life. There may be something out there, like, maybe you get mad on your commute every day. Like, your commute just makes you mad. And look, traffic can be very frustrating. But you could just realize, it's bad traffic every single day. Why in the world am I getting mad about it when I know it's gonna happen? And it's like, is it because you're running late? Like, is it really the traffic's fault? Or are you kinda, it's kinda you? Or maybe you're mad about it, just change the time that you go or something, or just do something different. But just don't be angry all the time. And especially driving, folks, because look, people die in car accidents all the time. People hurt themselves in the car often. Driving is somewhat dangerous. You should not be driving angry all the time. So you could make bad decisions. And look, you could cut someone else off that's angry, and then they get out of the car and they hurt you. There's a lot of road rage accidents happening all the time. And so you should be careful how you carry yourself. And you shouldn't be walking around angry because someone else could be angry, and that's when there's a lot of conflict. I'm already just, I'm at peace. So if someone says something mean to me, someone's rude to me, I'm not on a hair trigger to just blow their head off or something. It's like, whatever. You can't even compare to the protesters at my church. They didn't even make me angry. In fact, honestly, I found them funny. I found them hilarious. They were a joke to me. And it's like, I don't wanna just chill up and just be angry all the time. That's just not how we should live our lives. We need to fix that. The Bible says in verse 10, "'Say not thou what is the cause "'that the former days are better than these, "'for that is not inquire wisely concerning this.' "'Don't think the past has been better. "'I could prove to you that it's not.'" Verse 11, "'Wisdom is good with an inheritance, "'and by it there is profit to them that see the Son, "'for wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense, "'but the excellency of knowledge is "'that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.'" So it's basically just saying, hey, having wisdom and inheritance, great. And in fact, being smart, good, having money, good, but technically, being smart is better. Why? Because you can get someone saved, right? You can actually give life with wisdom, not only just carnal things. Hey, you can give people everything they want carnally with money. You could also get them all that with wisdom, but there's something that you can do with wisdom that you can't do with money, and that's get someone into heaven with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that wisdom technically excels money in that particular concept. It's even better. Verse 13, "'Consider the work of God, "'for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked?'" Yeah, the reprobate doctrine, there you go. Verse 14, "'In the day of prosperity be joyful, "'but in the day of adversity consider, "'for God also hath set the one over against the other "'to the end that man should find nothing after him.'" It almost seems like what he's implying here is it's like God hits a reset button often on society, people, inheritances, and all these kind of stuff, so you never really have things just going in the same direction forever. It's kind of like the Tower of Babel a little bit. Like, he didn't allow mankind to just keep elevating in technology, kind of like dispersed everybody to slow things down or to reset. And it seems like God just kind of has this like resetting principle in general, and I think that's kind of what he's saying. So you could have parts of your life that were really joyful, prosperous, and then have low parts or lose a lot of stuff, and God's just hitting a reset button on your life, and you know, that's just how it works. Says, "'All things have I seen in the days of my vanity. "'There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, "'and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life "'in his wickedness.'" It's like, how old is Joe Biden gonna get? How old is George Soros gonna get? I mean, just look at our Congress. It's so old, and you're just thinking like, how long are these people gonna live? But then we see, I mean, there's been a lot of young ladies and young people that have been killed by migrants and by horrible accidents and just like, just seemingly innocent people just dying, and you know, I think everybody wants to just think like, oh, well, they must have been a bad person. That's not what the Bible teaches. And you know, I hope that God forbid, if anybody that was like a good person in our church died young, that you wouldn't just be like, I wonder what secret evil they had hiding. Because what does the Bible say? The Bible makes it pretty clear in verse 15, a just man that perisheth in his righteousness. That means that good people could die. What's some examples of this? How about Uriah? What did Uriah do wrong? Uriah loved the Lord, Uriah loved his wife, Uriah was a good guy, but David killed him through the hands of the enemy. What about Naboth? What did Naboth do? Go to 1 Kings chapter 21, go to 1 Kings chapter 21. Naboth is a good guy. Naboth has a vineyard. Naboth has great land. Naboth probably is a hard worker. Naboth loves the Bible and is not willing to transgress the Bible and just sell his inheritance to the king. And because of that, the king's wife, who's super evil and wicked, devises a plan, concocts a plan to kill Naboth, who's completely innocent, and is a good guy. I want to read one verse, look at verse number 10. This is Jezebel giving her idea of how to steal Naboth's land. And sent two men, sons of Belial before him, to bear witness against him, saying, thou didst blaspheme God and the king, and then carry him out and stone him that he may die. What does the Bible say? The Bible says that two reprobates, two sons of Belial, two Sodomites, lied about Naboth. And then as a result, Naboth was killed unjustly. Naboth did not do anything wrong. Naboth is being falsely accused here, and Naboth dies. You know what? Let this be a lesson that just because two people tell the same story doesn't mean it's true. That's not my opinion. That's the Bible. Now, some people get confused on this because they say, oh, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established. But here's what you don't understand what that's saying. What that's saying is you could never, ever rely on any statement by one person, period. If you only have one witness, you cannot rely on that. And when it's hearsay, you cannot rely on that. And praise God, our courts still uphold that principle. Because I'll tell you something. When someone is repeating another person, it's almost always wrong. It's almost always a little off. It's almost always worded a different way. And when you go from one person to another to another, I mean, it can change drastically. And often, this is what people say. Pastor, you need to throw this person out. I have five witnesses. I'm like, OK, well, let's talk to these five witnesses. And it's like, I'm like, hey, did you hear this? No, I heard it from Brother Sam. And I'm like, OK. And I go to the next one. Did you hear this? No, I heard it from Brother Sam. And then it's like, OK, did you hear this? No, I heard it from Brother Sam. And then I go to another person. No, I'm repeating this because I heard it from Brother Sam. So then there's really only one witness. And then you go to Brother Sam and you're like, did you see this? Well, no, I just kind of thought that's what happened. And then people are like, you didn't do anything with it. There was five witnesses. There was zero witnesses. You just don't understand what a witness is. A witness is someone that saw something. It's not something that you heard. It's something that you saw. You experienced it. You were there. That's what a witness is. When someone just repeats something that they hear that someone else experienced, that is not a witness. OK. If you only have one of those, even if they did see it, it's still not necessarily reliable. Then let's say you have two people. Just because you have two people telling the same story doesn't even mean it's true. You could have multiple people say something that's not true. Did you realize that? It's called first kings. I'm just telling you, this is an example where people conspire together or they lie or they tell the same story and it's not real. It happens all the time. You can have 10 people tell the same lie. Think about if we just lived our life this way. I've had two Mormons tell me what the Mormon doctrine is, so therefore it's all true. How about this? Oh, there was two witnesses on 9-11 of the official story. Must be true, right? I mean, let's apply your logic to every scenario that we know, right? I mean, are we just going to say, oh, two people said this, so therefore it must be true? That is not how truth works. But at the end of the day, if we're going to condemn somebody, you have to have a certain threshold, a certain cutoff, and say, look, if we have two reliable pieces of information and they're truthful, then it's capable. Then we're allowed to make a judgment based on that particular decision. But that doesn't even mean that it's necessary, always the right decision. There's been plenty of people that have gone to jail, to prison, been killed, executed, and then found out actually not all that information was true. There's been multiple times where people have lied. So we want to make sure that when we're investigating a scenario, we're considering all of these particular factors, and we're making sure that we're putting ourselves in the right situation. Because righteous people sometimes get condemned unjustly. Naboth, Uriah, how about Stephen? Stephen died as a young man. Does that mean that Stephen was wicked? No, Stephen was one of the greatest guys in the Bible. But he died young. So just because someone dies young doesn't mean that they're bad. And just because someone dies old doesn't mean that they were even good. I think that you have to realize something. God cares about one thing in this life. What is it? It's faith. We don't walk by sight. We walk by faith. And the reality is, if everything just lined up with your logic and your reasoning, then you wouldn't need faith, folks. Go back to Ecclesiastes 7. If it was just like, well, all the good people live to be 100, and all the terrible people die at 15, well, we wouldn't even have a bad world. Because they would all be dead already. We wouldn't have any George Soroses and Bill Clinton. They would never be the president. Because you have to be 35 to be the president. If they all died young, we would never have a wicked president ever. Do you realize that? You would never have a bad pastor. Because they wouldn't be old enough to get to that spot. God allows evil people to live really long lives, in many cases. And God allows a lot of evil in this world to test us, to trust. You know, the Bible tells us that God puts false prophets out there on purpose just to test you and see what's in your heart. I mean, think about this. God put a tree in the Garden of Eden that would kill them. Why? I mean, couldn't God have just not put the tree in the garden? I mean, just think with me logically for half a second. Did God have to put a tree in the garden that would kill them? Now, think about this. Not only did he put a tree in the garden that would kill them, it looked good. It was pleasant to the eyes. I mean, couldn't he put like a tree that's all black and moldy and this is like creepy? And it's like, no one wants to eat off of that thing. It was pleasant. It looked good. The Bible says when Eve looked at it, she desired it. She wanted it. Because sin looks good. Because God wants to actually test you and try you and see what you're like. And so sometimes we have to realize, just because something sounds good, looks good, we want it, whatever, or the circumstances appear a certain way, that doesn't make it right. There's only one thing that's right and it's this book. And we're supposed to judge everything based on this book. Not what society says, not what a multitude says, not what the appearance is, just whatever this says. That is the only thing that's right and wrong. And yet, most people don't read this ever. They have no idea what it says. Our culture hates it. And then everybody wants to be an expert. It's so funny to me how everybody's an expert on the Bible. Because it's just like, if I were to say like, hey, I need a heart transplant, people would be like, oh, you shouldn't go to the doctor. You should let me do that. Right? I mean, who in here is just thinking like, if I came up and you said like, don't go to the doctor for that, I got you. You'd be like, that sounds like a good idea. There's this random person. But for some reason, everybody's an expert on the Bible. It's like, how many times have you read that thing? Well, I haven't read it all. Sometimes I've read a verse here and there. I watched Joel Olsney on TV one time. It's like, oh, okay, please instruct me on the word of God now, since you don't even know. Or they'll tell you what the Greek means. And it's like, they can't even order a sandwich in Greek. It's just like, everybody's an expert on the Bible, but they haven't read it. They don't preach it. They don't deal with it. But then they want to tell you everything that it says. It's just like, it's nonsense, folks. We need to make sure that when we are judging a situation, it's not based on the appearance. What did Jesus say? Judge not according to the appearance. Judge righteous judgment. That was Jesus' commandment to us. So should I judge things based on the appearance or how I think they appear, or should I base them based on a clear investigation of what the Bible says? That's how I should judge them. Because if someone dies, I'm not gonna just instantly think that they're wicked. And I think most people do. Job's friends. I mean, just don't be Job's friends, folks. They were not the good guys. They just, oh, you must be a bad person. Look at all the bad stuff that's happened in your life. Lost all your kids, your wife's mad at you, lost your money, you must be a terrible person. And what does Job say? I haven't done anything wrong. They're like, whatever, you're evil, bro. You're terrible. And Job's thinking like, honestly, I haven't done anything wrong. What if we judge Job according to appearance? You know what, we'd all be wrong. What if we judge Naboth according to appearance? We'd all be wrong. You know what, a lot of people are quick to judge based on appearance, but you know what, sometimes you're wrong. What does the Bible say in verse 16? Be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise. Why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish. Why shouldest thou die before thy time? You know, we need to be careful that we balance ourselves with the responsibilities we have. I think, you know, be not over much wicked. It's just an idea I'm just throwing out there. Could be like, there's not really a main reason for, I think, a spiritual leader to want to become like a major influence in our politics right now, because it's like, it's so evil and so wicked that it's like, why would I want to step away from the spiritual importances that I have to go and be over all this wicked stuff and all this evil stuff? It's like, maybe I should just stay out of that. That would be just one idea or an application I think you could make there. It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this, yea, also from this withdraw not thy hand. For he that fearth God shall come forth of them. So I think this is just saying we need to just hang on. You know, we don't want to, whatever difficulties we're seeing or experiencing, we need to just hang on and just fear God, because the person that fears God and is right will end up coming out of the fire. Just do what's right, just hang on, don't give up. Be steadfast. Verse 19, wisdom strengthens the wise more than 10 mighty which are in the city. For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. That's an important verse. I actually quote that a lot in soul winning. You know, it's like, hey, nobody's perfect. Nobody does everything right. Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hath cursed others. You know, that's just a great principle. I preach sermons on that, but just because someone says something mean about you or bad about you, doesn't mean you have to always respond. Doesn't mean that you always have to deal with it. Of course, we all want to. And you know, I'm sure that in some cases, maybe even I have had to, you know, let things go and I didn't. But just generally speaking, we should try our best to just let some things go and even if someone says something wrong a little bit, not holding people accountable for everything they've said, everything they've done. Sometimes people just say dumb things and we should just, we should be a little bit more gracious and allow people to make mistakes, allow people to run their mouth occasionally and just kind of let it go. Of course, when it becomes pattern or it's somebody that, you know, saying something very serious, you may want to deal with that. I'm not trying to discount that. But we also need to be careful that we're not just holding everybody accountable for everything they've ever said because then you just won't have any friends. Then nobody, I mean, then we can't have a lot of friends. Then people won't get along very much. Sometimes we just have to let things go. And I always say this and I feel like this is my proof text because I say like, well, they didn't apologize, but can't you just let it go? Did this passage bring up forgiveness? Did it say, hey, after they've apologized and made it right and made restitution, now you can forgive them? Or is it just saying, just don't take heed onto all the words that are spoken? Just, you know what? Maybe they said something mean about you or ugly about you, but whatever. Just let it go this time. Just kind of don't hold a crudge just because of that one thing. I think that's important. It's an important lesson. Especially in marriage, especially in relationships, especially amongst brethren. You know, just don't hold people accountable for everything they say. Verse 23, all this have I proved by wisdom. I said I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out? I applied my heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. I believe the author is trying to tell us like, hey, I was trying to get wisdom and I still couldn't get it. Wisdom's too high for us. We can't understand everything. We'll never grasp everything. Sometimes we just have to realize that we have limited knowledge and that's okay. We have limited understanding and that's okay. Obviously the Bible commands us to get wisdom. I think we should always be on a pursuit of wisdom. We should just recognize that we'll never arrive. We'll never truly get to that point and we should always strive to be humble about the knowledge and the information that we have. Verse 26, and I find more bitter than death the woman. Now, men haters out there, this is their favorite verse and they just like stop reading and they don't read any other rest of the Bible. They just say like, they just like hate women. And look, I'm just gonna be honest. There are people in this world that hate women. There are people that make podcasts that just say I hate women. Their name's Nick Fuentes, okay? And it's weird, okay? That is dumb. When Adam saw Eve, he wasn't like I hate women. He was like, this is the greatest thing you've ever made. And that's what a normal man thinks. A normal man loves women, okay? The men of the Bible, they didn't have this woman hating problem. They had a they like women a little too much problem, okay? So you single guys out there, you need to get more liking women a little bit. Now don't go to Solomon, okay? Don't go that far. But at the end of the day, you should find a woman to like and to love. But there is some women that you should avoid. And that's what this is bringing up. It's not bringing up just women are bad, okay? And a lot of people want to just say women are terrible. I believe this is very clearly, when you compare other verses in the Bible, it's just talking about a bad woman. Why? Because notice it says, I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets. Not every single woman's heart is snares and nets, folks. It's describing a certain kind of woman. It's not just describing every woman, okay? It says, and her hands as bands, who pleaseth God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her. So good people can avoid this type of a woman. Bad people get entrapped by this kind of woman. Now keep your finger here. Go to Proverbs five for just a second. I'll try to hurry to finish with this chapter. It's got a lot of things in it, but look what it says in chapter five, verse one of Proverbs, my son, attend unto my wisdom and bow thine ear to my understanding, that thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman drop as in honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them. Hear me now, therefore, O you children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. So you could read verses all the way through this. Basically chapters five, six, and seven warn about the whorish woman, about the strange woman. Says that her ways are movable, meaning that she's unpredictable. She's unpredictable, and generally speaking, she just won't love anyone. And unfortunately, there are some women in this world that are just carried about with their emotions, and they'll move from one relationship to the next, and they'll never really settle down and love anybody, and they have bad choices in men, and their name is Taylor Swift, okay? So, you know, this is that woman, that her heart is snares and nets, and it's not the kind of woman, and of course, that means Travis Kelsey is not a wise person. And so he's being caught in this trap, in this web, by this particular woman, and they're both gonna hurt each other. It's not, you know, there's bad people in this world that you should avoid, and of course, it's not just men, there's also women, but at the end of the day, don't take Ecclesiastes seven to say like, women are just bad creatures or something. Women are just the same as men in a sense. There's good and bad on both sides. But again, this passage does bring up that maybe it's not always equivalent in a percentage perspective, because look what it says here. It says in verse number 27, behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one to find out the account, which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not. One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found. So it seems like the author's almost indicating that to find a kind of a godly guy or a guy that cares about the Bible or one that fears the Lord, is about one out of a thousand, which is pretty rare. But then he's almost saying like, even in a sampling of a thousand people, I may not even find a godly woman among a thousand. So that's just basically saying that women that are godly are very rare. Now, does that mean that they don't exist? No, it's not saying they don't exist, but the Bible does say a virtuous woman who can find. The Bible says that her price is far above rubies. And I believe that this church is filled with women that are the exception. You know what, praise God for them. And praise God for women that want to follow what the Bible says. Praise God for women that want to dress godly. Praise God for women that want to have a large family. Praise God for women that read their Bible. Praise God for women that wanna teach and educate their children. Praise God for women that are still cooking and cleaning. And you know what? It's hard. I'll just say like, the sacrifice to live a Christian life is more difficult for women than it is men for a day, because we're so feminist. Like there's been so many waves of feminism that have crept into our culture, and almost everyone is brainwashed. And I'm not even gonna bring up certain topics because you would all just be triggered and offended probably. But you just don't even understand what the world has been like historically. You don't understand biblical roles according to the Bible, because we just live in such an overly feminist culture and world and society. And because of that, a woman trying to serve God is much more difficult in general. And that's just my opinion, maybe you disagree. But like, as a guy, it's pretty easy for me to dress like a guy. You know, I don't have all these decisions. There's not a lot of skirts and dresses in the men's section that I have to avoid. You know what I mean? Whereas women dressing godly, I mean, they have all kinds of options out there that I would never want my daughter to wear. And again, it's not even just like the pants and stuff. I'm saying like, even the dresses and the skirts, they're very whorish, short skirts. I mean, to find just a normal, modest dress or a skirt is super hard. And it's not for a lack of shops. Women's clothing is like the vast majority of retail that exists. Let's go to the mall. It's gonna be women's clothes, women's clothes, women's clothes. Let's go to a department store. It's like the women's section have like three entire stories and then it's like this one tiny section for the men's clothes. It's like, that's just the reality. And then even with that much options, there's still almost less godly options for them somehow. It's that crazy. And of course, there's been so many inventions and creations to just stop women from being mothers and stop them from being wives. It's just like public school and just every invention to not have to cook and to clean and to do anything that's a wife's job. Now again, I'm not against you using services, products, technology and tools to make your job easier. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of women that are literally just hitting the eject seat on being a woman. It's just like, they're like, I wanna be a man. I wanna get a job and have a career and I'm not gonna raise my kids. That's the nanny. That's the babysitter. That's the public school. That's the television. And they basically substitute watching their kids. They don't educate their kids. They don't read the Bible with their kids. They don't take their kids to church. They don't even make the meals. That's what some food delivery is. That's what McDonald's is. That's what something in a can that I just pour it out and put in a bowl and put it in a microwave. You know, and it's like how many kids today are being raised where their mom is doing almost nothing that she would normally do? She's not making them food. She's not cleaning for them. She's not educating them. She's not doing anything. And so what are these women doing? Whatever they want. Just go on social media, go have fun, go shopping, get a job, basically everything else. And then all the women that are actually trying to be a mother, you kind of get tempted and enticed to want to have that life. Well, I just want to have 1.3 kids and go on vacations all the time and go shopping all the time and go out partying and just have fun and gallivanting on the town. But then the Bible says that that's not a godly attribute. Go over to First Timothy chapter five. I want to go to another place here. I am impressed by the women that want to serve God because it's difficult, it's hard, there's a lot of pressure, and you know what? Praise God for women that are willing to fulfill the role that God has created them to be. It's difficult, it's less than one out of 1,000. That's crazy. First Timothy chapter five verse 11. But the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith. And with all they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will, therefore, that the younger women marry bare children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan. The Bible says there's the temptation for women to be turned aside after Satan. So what is the cure? What helps women to not do this? By being busy doing other things. It's not a mindset. It's not an attitude. It's not having the right desires. It's just literally having busy work. And what is that busy work? Marrying, bearing children, guiding the house, that's what it is. And you can kind of tell the women that are busy versus the ones that are not. You can see the women that are online and they comment on every video and every post. It's like you're not busy. And again, I think that there's nothing wrong with social media. If you want to be social, have fun. If you want to talk to your friends, do it. You know, when you see this person just commenting on everything and posting on everything and just living on it, you're just kind of like, you're not busy. And then this is what they think. They're like, I can't stand all these kids because I can't catch every post. And it's like, that's a good thing. You know, this is really, you know, kids are really cramping my social media style. Praise God. Kids are really killing my social life. Good. You know, like, do you think I want my wife to get dressed all up and look real pretty and just go out on the town? No, because men will be wanting to talk to her. And I'll want to kill them, okay? You know, that's not, I don't want that. I want my wife to be hanging out with me. I want my wife to be at home. I want her to be married to me. You know, they always talk about the woman being the ball and chain. I want to be her ball and chain. I want her to gravitate and orbit around me. You know, the Bible describes men in the context of being kind of like the sun and, you know, women being, or sorry, the sun being like God, the earth being kind of like man and the moon being kind of like woman. Well, here's the thing about the moon. It goes around the, it goes around the earth. Its life is around that earth. Hey, you know what? You know, I want my wife, her life to evolve around me. Hey, you know what? That's marrying, bearing children and guiding the house. Because it's, you know, it's our marriage. It's my kids and it's my house. And she's taking care of all that stuff. And you know what? If you do all those things, you don't have time for all this other junk. But you know what? There is a lot of women that are toddlers and busybodies. And they just, what's a tatt? Just telling every drama and every situation and things that have nothing to do with them, talking about everybody else's problems, everybody else's issues. And what's a busybody? They're just concerned about everybody else and what they're doing. And it's, you know what? It's garbage and it's satanic. It's evil. There's nothing good about it. That's what the Bible says. That's not my personal opinion. That's the scripture. Some women are literally just doing Satan's bidding. And you say, who? Well, just go online and find the woman that's making the most posts and the most comments and whatever. And she is the most influenced by the devil right now. You know, the godly woman is meek and quiet. And it's very evident. It's very, very evident which one is which. Let's go back and we'll finish our chapter real quick. Sorry, I took a little time. I took a little break there. But I wanna make it clear that there are women that are problems, but not all women. And there's a lot of godly women. And you know what? Praise God for the godly women. And I think what's hard for y'all is when you're godly, you get looked over. So then there's that temptation to dress inappropriate, blow your mouth off, do something, because you want that attention. You know what? Just let yourself live by faith and not by sight. And realize all the attention that you're getting that's through blowing your mouth off and dressing inappropriately is bad attention anyways. It's not the kind of attention you want. He says in verse number 29, "'Lo, this only have I found that God hath made man upright, "'but they have sought out many inventions.'" So you know, another, this verse could be a whole sermon. But basically what I love about that verse is it proves Calvinism wrong. Because it's like God intended for everybody to be a good person and made them all right. And it's they that rebelled against him. Whereas Calvinism would literally teach that evil people were created by God to be evil. But God created people to be good and they just became evil on their own choice, by their own device. God didn't even create the devil to be bad. The devil rebelled. His angels, they rebelled. They were created to be good. They were created to be beautiful. But it was the pride that got into the devil's heart and lifted him up and by his own pride and by his own device and by his own rejection of the will of God in his life is why he became the wicked, evil person that he is. Obviously God already knew these things in advance and created hell and it was prepared for the devil and his angels. But he didn't create hell and create the devil bad. He created hell because he knew the devil was gonna turn bad. But he gave the devil opportunity to be good. He just knew what was gonna happen. And again, Calvinists can't wrap their mind around this. Mostly because most of them aren't saved. But additionally, they just don't understand the concept of free will. God gives you free will, folks. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. And God made you to be upright. God created you to worship him. God created you to go to church. God created you to read your Bible. God created you to honor your father and your mother. God created you to love your husband and to love your wife. God created you to love your brethren. God created you to go soul winning. God created you to dress godly. God created you to speak with wisdom. God created you to actually get wisdom on a regular basis. God created you to not sin. God created you to work hard all the days of your life. But you know what, it's up to you. What are you gonna do? And you know what? This book and a lot of these books give you a lot of wisdom on how to live your life. You know, some people do this. They read a proverb and a psalm every day. Or they might read something from Ecclesiastes. That's some good advice. Because there's a lot of good life advice in these chapters and the wisdom in these books. And we need to always calibrate our lives based on this book. Not just turning on the TV, reading the newspaper, asking our friends, or whatever. Because this world just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and worse. You need to just say like, what does this say though? And I'm gonna do whatever this says. Not just go whatever direction the world's pulling me in. Because we all get more left every single year. The Republicans are just getting a little bit more Democrat every year. And the Democrats are getting a little bit more Satanic every single year, okay? So if you just keep going down this track, pretty soon you'll wake up and you'll be like 20th wave of feminism. I mean, I don't even know what's left anymore. But it's just like, we need to stop the cycle. And just say, well, we're gonna be steadfast. We're gonna stick with the Bible. God created us to be upright. Let's not keep dreaming up evil. Let's just do whatever the Bible says. Oh, let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this chapter and for our church. I pray that you would help us to strive to have more wisdom. To appreciate the wisdom that you've already given us. That we wouldn't trust in ourselves. And no matter how weird or wicked the world gets, that we constantly recalibrate ourselves with the word of God. And that we would try to walk by faith and not by sight. Pray that you would help us all to have a humble attitude and embrace the sufferings that we have in our life and allow them to build more character and empathy. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right. For our last song, we go to song number 136. Master of the Tempest is Raging. Song number 136. Sing it out all together. Master, the tempest is raging. The billows are tossing high. The sky is o'er shadowed with blackness. No shelter or help is done. Where is hell not there? Where is hell not there? Where is hell not there? Where is hell not there? Where can we errage? How canst thou hide asleep? When they twirl in so madly is threatening the grave in the angry deep. The winds and the wind shall obey my will. Peace be spared. Whether the wrath of the storm tosses me, or demons, or men, or whatever it be, no water can swallow the shame where lies the master of ocean and earth and skies. They all shall sweetly obey my will, peace be still, peace be still. They all shall sweetly obey my will, peace be still. Master, with anguish of spirit, I bow in my creed today. The depths of my sad heart are troubled, awaken and save, I pray. Torments of sin and of anguish sweep for my sinking soul. And I perish, I perish, dear master, oh, hasten and take control. The waves and the waves shall obey my will, peace be still. Whether the wrath of the storm tosses me, or demons, or men, or whatever it be, no water can swallow the shame where lies the master of ocean and skies. The master of ocean and earth and skies. They all shall sweetly obey my will, peace be still, peace be still. They all shall sweetly obey my will, peace, peace be still. Master, the terror is over, the elements sweetly rest. Earth's sun in the calm lake is nearer, and heaven's within my breast. Vainger, oh blessed redeemer, leave me alone no more. And with joy I shall make the blessed harbor, and rest on the blissful shore. The waves and the waves shall obey my will, peace be still. Whether the wrath of the storm tosses me, or demons, or men, or whatever it be, no water can swallow the shame where lies the master of ocean and earth and skies. They all shall sweetly obey my will, peace be still, peace be still. They all shall sweetly obey my will, peace, peace be still. Great singing everybody. You are all dismissed.