(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

. All right, I'll try to get them, I'll try to get them. Thanks. It's all good. Good afternoon, everybody. It's great to see everybody here tonight. If we can go ahead and find our seats, we will get started. And once you find a seat, go ahead and grab a hymnal. And we will go to song number 38. Great song about the coming resurrection, song number 38. Hallelujah. We shall rise. Song number 38. This song only sounds good if you're singing it real loud. Song 38, everybody sing it out on the first. In the resurrection morning, when the trump of God shall sound, we shall rise, we shall rise. When the saints will come rejoicing and no tears will e'er be found, we shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise in the resurrection morning. When death's prison bars are broken, we shall rise in the resurrection morning. What a meaning it will be. We shall rise, we shall rise when our fathers and our mothers and our loved ones we shall see. We shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise in the resurrection morning. When death's prison bars are broken, we shall rise, we shall rise in the resurrection morning. Blessed thought it is to be, we shall rise, I shall see my blessed Savior who so freely died for me. We shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise in the resurrection morning. When death's prison bars are broken, we shall rise in the resurrection morning. We shall meet him in the air, we shall rise, we shall rise and be carried up to glory to our home so bright and fair. We shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise, we shall rise in the resurrection morning. We shall rise, we shall rise. Great singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer. Lord, we love you and we just thank you so much for this church again. We thank you for everything you do for us, Lord, blessing us in all the ways you have. And thank you for the soul winning that was done today. We just ask that you bless this church, bless everybody in it, and help us be filled with your spirit today. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, for our next song, we will go to song number 61. Song number 61. Song number 61. We'll never say goodbye in glory. Song number 61. Everybody sing it out real loud in the first. We say goodbye in parting with loved ones here below. We always hope to meet again as on our way we go. But oft our hearts are grieving for those we never meet. We'll say goodbye in sorrow when we meet at Jesus' feet. We'll never say goodbye in glory in the morning over yonder. We'll never say goodbye in glory. We'll never say goodbye up there. Our children leave the home nest for school or wedding bells. For country's call or mission field may take them far as well. Now wedding bells are happy and God's way always bright. And absent ones will greet them in the city always bright. We'll never say goodbye in glory. We'll never say goodbye in glory. We'll never say goodbye up there. We greet and part with dear ones. We say hello goodbye and letters bind our fellowship. We miss them though we try to feel them always near us. But parting days are ended when we meet them in the air. We'll never say goodbye in glory in the morning over yonder. We'll never say goodbye in glory. We'll never say goodbye up there. Oh happy glad homecoming with Jesus in the sky. For sometimes he seems far away though always if we try. We find him near to help us his spirit dwells within. But only perfect union when we have an enter in. We'll never say goodbye in glory in the morning over yonder. We'll never say goodbye in glory. We'll never say goodbye up there. Great singing everybody. Thanks for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not already get a bulletin and you would like one, just slip your hand up real quick. One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. On the front we are on our Bible memory passage, Jonah 2 verse 10. So we're on the last verse of the entire chapter. If you can quote the entire chapter you can receive a prize as well as any kids that can quote this at our midweek service will get an ice cream treat. Inside is our service times, soul winning times. We have a Spanish service at 9 a.m. and so you can encourage people to visit that service. That would be great if they only speak Spanish. And also down below we have our church stats. If you have any soul winning to report you can put that in our church group. If you have maps make sure you're marking through those. You can put them in the done bin if they are completed or you can give them back to me, brother, for somebody and we'll make sure to put them in the right bins as well for you. On the right we have a list of several expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for them. Also we have our prayer list. We have, you can email us, SteadfastBaptistKJV at gmail.com and we add those. One thing to note, we've been praying for the Scott's parents but I talked with Mr. Scott today and he said that he had been seriously diagnosed with some of the illness that he has and so just really put him in your prayer list for a couple of the issues that he's having and we'll try to update our bulletin on that. Also on the back we have a note about a turkey bowl and I think I misremembered. I thought we did earlier this year but I think we just did it last year around the same time. But we're going to try and do this again where we just go out and have some flag football with family and we, Brother Marcel is going to help lead this but I think we're going to kind of have a younger division first game. So I think it's about like six to 13. Is that correct? And then maybe just an adult game but we'll let some of the older teenagers play with us as well. And so we'll have probably a couple games. Of course visitors and spectators are welcome to come hang out the park. There's probably also a playground somewhere around there if you'd like to hang out with us. Other upcoming events. We have the Miami Sloanie Marathon. Again, the details are on that sheet. If you want to know, we have a Friday afternoon and then a Saturday soul winning opportunity. If you are planning on going, please let me know. We've been trying to get people to be able to house together and carpool and stuff. So we'd like to be able to help you if you're planning on coming. November 24th is an ordination in Oklahoma City for Brother Dylan Os as pastor and it's going to be a new church, Anchor Baptist Church. And boy, he's already way ahead of us because he's got ABC. You know, it's just such a good name. And so it's been so easy. And so really, really excited for their church and for the future with them. Brother Os is such a great preacher and he's always been the best preacher that we've had by far all the time that he was here. And so I really look forward to what the Lord's going to do with him. And so really excited about Brother Os. Also, December 6th is our ladies' Christmas party. All ladies are invited to attend and it's a full dinner. Everything's free, of course. We'd love for you to attend that. December 7th was that turkey bowl. December 9th is our Christmas caroling. So we'll meet and go out caroling for an hour or so. And we'll probably just maybe do a combined effort to make some cookies to hand out to doors as we go. And of course, like I said, you know, we go soul-wanting in the ghetto. We go Christmas caroling in the rich neighborhoods, okay? So just FYI. Honestly, it's a lot of fun. And tons of people always tell me, they say like, wow, that was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. And so, and there's usually enough people that even if you're terrible at singing, you know, we don't notice that much. So there you go. December 25th, Christmas cookie bake-off. We'd love for you to participate in that. That's usually a huge hit. And it's the one time our church gets to actually vote on anything. So if you said like, I missed the election, this is your opportunity to vote, okay? Women and children and everybody get to vote. And so we get that out of our system and then start the new year, all right? January 1st, men's preaching night and pizza. So lots of different events there. And then of course, we'll have a lot of other events for the new year. Our soul-winning instruction went pretty well this Saturday. And so we'll probably bring that back a couple of different times a year and just do some extra effort on that. We'll have lots of soul-winning marathons as far as small town, stuff like that. Some people have been asking me about missions trips and stuff like that. I don't have anything scheduled. If I did, I would tell you. It's mostly just timing and money. So just trying to figure that out. Because we're not doing our normal Spanish one normally in the fall, I'm gonna probably prioritize that and see if we can do it again early at the beginning of next year. But as soon as I figure that out or we have the appropriate funds and stuff, we'll get that scheduled. And I think we're gonna try and do a Macallan, Reynosa one this time. And it's sad for my heart because I love La Consarilla, but La Fogada is also excellent, okay? So there's always great food that we can go to. And the thing about Reynosa is it's actually more populous. So there's a lot more people that are there. And so it'll be good to go there because I just feel like it'll be all new people. With the Macallan and Matamoros, we've been hitting it a lot. And so it'll probably be good to give a break, try to go and do the Reynosa, Macallan area. And they're both great. I highly encourage if you ever get an opportunity. It's crazy how receptive people get once you cross that border. But for some reason, it actually makes a huge difference. And the people that have gone on those trips can tell you. It's a lot of fun going on them. So if you speak Spanish or if you are thinking about learning Spanish, I highly encourage you to because there's a great opportunity to get a lot of people saved in Spanish. And even if you're kind of a gringo like me, you can still get some low hanging fruit saved. Today, the apartment complex we went to is all Spanish. And so praise the Lord that I'm still able to stumble through the gospel in Spanish. But I really encourage you guys, if you're gonna ever learn a foreign language, Spanish is the one you got to do. We have a great Spanish service that you can learn more and grow. We've got a lot of Spanish soul-winning opportunities here in the area. Plus there's gonna be Spanish missions trips and things like that in the future. So we also have Spanish Bibles. So you can use those to read and study and use. And we really want to encourage you to use that Spanish that you have, okay? That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements. We're gonna go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 149. It's in our special handout. So it's not in the hymn book, but it is in those white little special accompaniment books. So if you can use that, you could use a King James Bible, but it's usually a little bit easier if you use the sheet music. So we'll go ahead and sing Psalm 149. All right, that was Psalm 149. It goes that note well, sing it out real loud. All right, sing it out in the first. Praise ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song and His praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in Him that made Him. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise His name in the news. Let them sing praises unto Him with the temple and harp. For the Lord taketh pleasure in His people. He will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory. Let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with betters of iron to execute upon them the judgment written this honor of all His saints. Praise ye the Lord. Great singing, everybody. Now as offering plates for being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy, chapter 4. It's the book of 2 Timothy, chapter number 4. It's the book of 2 Timothy, chapter number 4. 2 Timothy, chapter number 4, the Bible reads, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom. Preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned into fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of evangelists, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all of them also that love is appearing. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me, for Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica, crescents to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry. And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus, the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee and the books, but especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works, of whom be thou where also. For he hath greatly withstood our words. At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me into his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Salute Prisca and Aquila in the household of Onesiphorus. Arastus abode at Corinth, but Trumphamus have I left, at my lead I'm sick. Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greet thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for all the people that were saved today. I pray that you be with Pastor Shelley. Bless him, fill him with your Holy Spirit, help him to preach your word unto us, and help us to receive it with an open heart. Praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. The title of my sermon this evening is this, How to Preach a Good Sermon. How to Preach a Good Sermon. Now, I want everybody to still pay attention, because it still applies to every single person, whether you're ever going to preach or not, and this is an important lesson to learn from the Bible. But I have three simple points that I want to explain this evening on how to preach a good sermon. And the first one is that we want all of our sermons to be based on a clear statement in the Bible. You want every single sermon to be based on a clear statement in the Bible, just like this sermon. Now, what does the Bible say in verse 2? Preach the word. When preachers get an opportunity to preach the Bible, they need to do something. Preach the Bible. They need to preach the word. That should be obvious. That should be super clear. But unfortunately today, a lot of sermons today are not based on the Bible, and they don't have a clear verse from the Bible. People get up and they just tell their opinions, their stories, their ideas. They have a preconceived idea, and then come to the Bible to try and figure out how to twist scripture to their own idea, as opposed to saying, what does the Bible say, and then extrapolating something from the text. And we need people to preach the word. What does it say? Preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season. Reprieve, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering. Notice this. And doctrine. We need to be preaching the doctrines of the Bible and preaching the beliefs of the Bible. The majority of what's coming across a pulpit should just be explicitly what the Bible is saying. You know, an application is that people all in the room will all come up with their own applications and own opinions and own ideas. You know, that's a really good sermon. Is when you're hearing the word of God being preached and something's pricking your heart that's convicting you and you're coming up with all kinds of different scenarios and applications and life situations that apply to the word of God being preached without the preacher having even happened to explicitly mention that. Now, of course, I'm not saying that preachers are limited to only using the words literally of the Bible. Of course, we need to expound upon the Bible and we need to explain it. And I'm going to get to that point in a moment. But we need to make sure that when you're preaching a sermon, when you have an opportunity to preach the word of God, that you're basing the premise of your sermon on a clear statement in the Bible. That's why I always start my sermon. I mean, if you listen to any of my preaching, you'll pretty much always notice this pattern. I start with clear verses and I prove exactly the point I want to make for the rest of my sermon at the very beginning of the sermon. And that is a good way to preach sermons is to start by proving what the Bible says and then extrapolating from there so that we know that we're based on a serm, solid foundation. Now, if you look at chapter 3 just above in verse 16 and 17, it says this, All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for a proof for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. So the only thing we really even need is scripture anyways. That's what the Bible says. Notice all scripture is given by inspiration of God and notice it's profitable for doctrine. So I'm supposed to preach the word and we're supposed to preach doctrine. Where do we get doctrine from? From all scripture. That's where we get our doctrine. That's where we get the Bible. That's where we get our beliefs. And we should all be challenged by what the Bible says. The Bible makes it clear to trust not in our own heart and our own mind. We're supposed to trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on thine understanding and all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths with the Bible says. The only way for that verse to be true is for you to have an authority and you say this is right no matter what my opinion is. And then you challenge yourself with the word of God. And when you go to a church, you should be challenged by the word of God, not by man's opinion, not by what somebody thinks, but what the Bible says. Now, if you look at back at chapter four in verse three now, it says this, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts, shall they heed to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. So notice what is the opposite or what is the contrast to people preaching the word. It's people preaching the lusts of their own hearts, preaching their own ideas, preaching their own opinions. And look, you go to many churches a day and you're going to hear opinion, opinion, opinion. Here's what I read in this book, this book, this book. Here's the stories that I want to tell you and then personal anecdotes and they won't preach the Bible. And you know what, that's what's wrong with America. That's what's wrong with Christianity is people are not preaching the word and people are not hearing what the word of God says. What will fix men and what will fix our country is faith, but faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Our faith stands in the word of God and we need preachers to preach the word. You want to know why people aren't getting saved today? Because no one's going out and preaching the word of God. People are going out and preaching their testimony. Well, let me tell you, I gave up drinking and I gave smoking. That doesn't get anybody saved because repenting of sins doesn't save anybody anyways. You know what saves somebody? Preaching the word and the clear statements of the Bible, like John 3 16, that's what saves people. And let me tell you something, if you want to change people's lives for the better, if you want to see growth in a church, it's going to come from preaching the word and preaching the Bible. People think like, oh, well, the way you grow church is by being a great orator, yelling, screaming. Look, I yell and scream so I get it, but that's not how you grow a church. Joel Osteen will sometimes yell. You want to talk about a yeller? How about Steven Furtick? That guy will get up and scream and yell more than I can even imagine. But you know what he screams? I'm God almighty. That doesn't grow a church. When you get up there and someone's literally teaching the most blasphemous thing I've ever heard. So it's not about screaming. It's not about yelling. It's not about being a great orator. It's not about the vocabulary you use. You know what it is? It's if you're preaching the word or not. And the word of God is what changes people's lives. The word of God is that two-edged sword that can come in and dice and figure out everything that's going on, the secrets of the heart and the mind, and it can actually convict people to make a change. Look at Titus chapter one, verse nine. Let's prove this even more that we need a clear statement. Titus one, verse nine. The Bible says, holding fast the faithful word as he had been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. What is it that convinces people it's sound doctrine? What is sound doctrine? It's coming from all scripture. So when we preach, we need to preach the word of God. We need to preach sound doctrine. And that's what will convince the gainsayer. That's what will actually change people's lives and change people's hearts. And you want to know what great preaching is? It's saying what the Bible says. You don't have better ideas than the Bible. Not only do you not have better ideas than the Bible, you didn't think of something that God forgot. Man, I'm sick and tired of people preaching things that the Bible doesn't talk about. And look, I'll tell you, the Bible covers every scenario. It covers every kind of major issue. But yeah, there are nuances. Yeah, there are things that the Bible isn't really clear on. Yeah, there's things the Bible's not touching much. But you know what? Let's not worry about that. You know what we should worry about? What the Bible's hammering. You know what we should worry about? What the Bible says over and over and over again. You know what you should base most of your sermons on? Things the Bible's bringing up 50 times, 100 times, 500 times. Those are the things that you should be preaching. Those are the things you should be focused on, instead of just inventing ideas that are not in the text. And look, there's so many preachers today that want to preach a clickbait sermon, want to preach something cool, preach something trendy. And all they're saying is, I want attention. We don't need any more preachers that are striving for attention. We need preachers that are willing to say what the Bible says, period. Whether that shrinks the church, grows the church, doesn't really matter. You just preach the Bible. And look, I have never been preaching sermons to try and grow this church. I'm preaching whatever I think the Bible's just saying. And frankly speaking, there's been plenty of times where I've looked at a sermon and thought like, we might lose people after this sermon. Some sermons were even designed to try and lose people, OK? But at the end of the day, not because I want to lose people, I just want to say what the Bible says. And you know what? I'll be honest with you, there's plenty of sermons that I don't even really want to preach. I'm just saying, in my carnal flesh, in my own mind, there are times when I get to certain topics in the Bible or certain subjects that maybe is just kind of boring to me, or maybe I'm just not that into, or maybe I'm just I don't even know how, I don't know how I feel about that, but it's just like, but that's the Bible. And then I have to basically crucify flesh, and I have to say, you know what? Whatever the Bible says is right. And usually by the time I start preaching, I start enjoying it again. But I'm just saying, I'm just being honest with you, there's plenty of sermons that I'm just not that into. And probably the one that I always bring up, but this one is the one that's the hardest for me to preach is on tithing. And the reason why is because I grew up in a church that that is the only sermon that they preached. So it just kind of like has like ruined me mentally because it was just like, literally every single sermon was on tithing. And it's like, everything's about the building project and everything's about tithing and just everything's about giving money. And look, I have no problem with tithing, I tithe. In fact, they would teach this double tithing. Okay, who's heard this kind of a doctrine, okay? They would say like, at first you tithe, but then you graduate to a higher level where you start double tithing. And then there was this one guy who literally came and preached at church and he says, I've been tithing 90% now. So he's like bragging about how he's like, hopefully some of y'all can get to my level where I'm tithing 90%. And this is what's so funny is the word tithe means 10. I'm giving 90% of 10. It's like, what? I mean, if you don't even know what the word tithe means, because tithing is limited to 10%. You literally cannot double tithe. It's not possible. The max you can tithe is 10%, okay? Now, if you give above 10%, that's called a free will offering. And look, there's nothing wrong with free will offerings, but it's not tithing. It's not commanded. It's not biblical. It's not what the Bible says. And I'm just trying to say this because I frankly speaking just don't even like the topic because I've been heard so much trash about it for years that it just bothers me, okay? Now, personally, I always tithe. I never had a problem with it. I think it's great. We need to preach it. I get really animated when I preach this sermon, but I'm just saying personally, I just don't like that topic. But you know what? It's not for me to say, well, I don't like this topic, so I'm not gonna preach it. It's not something that I enjoy as much. You know, some preachers may not like in times, but you know what? Preach in times. Some preachers may not like Job, preach Job. Some preachers may not like preaching on marriage or not like preaching on family or might not like preaching on soul winning or might not preaching on all kinds of stuff, but you know what? Preach in anyways. Hey, there's a lot of preachers that want to preach on Sodomites. You know what? They need to preach on that. They need to preach Genesis 19. Hey, there's a lot of uncomfortable stories in the Bible. There's a lot of awkward things in the Bible. There's things in the Bible that say that if you have a stubborn rebellious son that you're supposed to put him to death. That'll get people mad at you. I mean, I preached that sermon and I just thought nothing about it. And then like just all these articles and people attacking me and getting mad at me, twisting what I said, taking out of context, saying that I just want to kill every video game addict or something. And it's just like, of course I don't want to do that. That's weird. But you know what? We got to preach the Bible and we have to preach the uncomfortable, gnarly parts of the Bible. We got to preach the good parts of the Bible. All of it. We also don't want to get to a point where we only preach the bad parts. I think some people could even get to that point. And I've noticed a lot of immature preachers. Every sermon is an attack sermon. Like every sermon is just a negative sermon, attack sermon, or preaching against something. You know, we need to make sure that we're also preaching for things like preaching for the King James Bible, for soul winning, for the lost, for love, for grace, for charity. I mean, there's a lot of things to preach for. Edification, building up, helping people. Like we should have a lot of those sermons. And then we should also have sometimes preaching against people, sometimes preaching against sin, doctrines and things like that. We want to be balanced in our preaching. But you know how you balance yourself? Preach the word. The Bible will have the right balance and whatever balance the Bible's in, match that balance, but make sure you're preaching what the Bible says. Titus chapter two verse one says this, but speak the other things which become sound doctrine. Whatever you say should match the clear statements that you've made and so that it becomes sound doctrine. Verse number eight. Sound speaks that cannot be condemned that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed having no evil thing to say of you. Meaning when you preach something, no one could say, well, that's not what the Bible says. And this is what's interesting. When you preach what the Bible says and people don't like it, then they have some other excuse. Oh, you're preaching about me. Okay, but was it true? Or they'll say, oh, you're a cult. And it's like, okay, well, how are you a cult? And it's just like, cult. And this is what I've learned is that when people don't like what you believe and they're done arguing, they just throw that word out because it's a conversation ender. It is not a legitimate argument whatsoever. It's a conversation ender because you can't convince them and they don't have to argue anymore. So it's just the conversation ender and they just throw it out there because they know they're wrong and they know they can't defend their position. So it's just cult. So they can just end the conversation. But they have no evil thing to say. They can't explain why it's a cult. They're not like, well, you all moved to South America and you drank poison Kool-Aid. That would be a legitimate accusation. They can't say like, oh, you're calling Pastor Shelley and asking him what color car you should buy. And if you do that, I'm gonna tell you, I don't care and hang up. Okay, so I really, really don't care whatsoever. But at the end of the day, no, there is no such thing as a cult here. But that's what people wanna say because they just want to end the conversation. They can't defend their position. And you're gonna have opposition. But notice it's a sound speech that cannot be condemned. But they can't necessarily say, oh, you said this, but the Bible doesn't. We wanna make sure that if someone's mad, they're mad because of what the Bible says, not because of what we said. We wanna make sure that what we say is what the Bible is saying. And if you don't like the Bible, that's not my fault. I didn't write the Bible. Go to 1 Timothy 4, go to 1 Timothy 4. How to preach a good sermon? You want a clear statement based on the Bible. What clear statements have we already used? Preach the word. Sound speech that cannot be condemned. You know, holding fast the faithful word. I mean, we're just showing verse after verse, all scriptures given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine. I mean, we're just showing verse after verse talking about preaching the word. 1 Timothy 4 verse 13 says this, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine, neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them for in doing this thou shalt will save thyself and them that hear thee. Now notice that the admonition to young Timothy here is to meditate upon these things. What is he meditating upon? Well, notice in verse 13 again, attendance to reading, to exhortation, and doctrine. What is Timothy supposed to be focused in on? Reading the Bible and preaching the doctrines of the Bible. Why? That his profiting may appear to all and that he's not going to just save himself. He's going to save all those that hear him. Why? Because he's supposed to preach the word. And here's the thing. The apostle said something interesting. Peter and John said, we cannot but help but speak the things which we've seen and heard. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh is what the Bible says. And whatever's going in is going to come out. And if you just sit here and just, oh, I'm just watching TV, listening to music, reading worldly books, you know what's going to come out? TV, music, and worldly books. Or some people, the only thing that's going in is just their own thoughts. They're just such a conceited, selfish, narcissistic person that all they do is dream up inventions in their mind all day long. And then that's the only thing that comes out. It's just they want to hear the desires of their heart come out. And they're just basically explaining to you nonsense, nothing because they're not even educated. You know, someone like this, like Kamala Harris, who literally has nothing important to say. She can only say what the teleprompter says. And then as soon as she has no teleprompter, wow, dangerous. You know, then it's just like, well, we're going to do things with the stuff whenever stuff happens, and we'll be unburdened by the things that have been. And you listen to these preachers today and they say absolutely nothing while speaking. You know why? Because they don't know anything. So they have nothing interesting to say. Jordan Peterson has nothing interesting to say. He's a pseudo-intellectual. Ravi Zacharias, nothing interesting to say. And yet some people, not only do they not learn anything, they read books by these people. They read these self-help books and these gurus all day long, and they read absolutely nothing and learn how to speak like them so they can sound like a pseudo-intellectual, but they still have no message to preach. It's the guy who ran without a message and he comes under the king. He's like, hey, what happened to Absalom? I don't know. Well, step aside. Let someone that actually knows what happened to Absalom give the message. And you know what? I don't have some message that is private to me. I just have this. And my job as a preacher and every preacher is deliver whatever this says. This is the message that God wants us to deliver. And you know what? That is what's going to save people. That's what we should meditate upon. That's what's going to help people, not me coming up with my own ideas and my own thoughts. That's why it's also important that a church, you know, we're a fundamental Baptist church with core doctrines. You know, when we start new churches or we have evangelists or we have people going out, you shouldn't be getting a new message. They should be saying the exact same things that we're saying. It should be a copy and paste job at the end of the day. Why? Because it's the same Bible, the same doctrine, the same beliefs. But you know, some people, they don't want to copy and paste because they want special recognition. They want to look better than other people. So they have to have all this variance and come up with new stuff and new junk and try to be like, look at me. I want attention. But you know what? We shouldn't be going around looking for attention. We should preach what the Bible says. Preach the word. And that's how you can tell that they're not good sermons because they're just preaching whatever they want. Go to Matthew 28, go to Matthew 28. You know, an example of this was this weirdo called Tyler Doka. And some people know who that is, but this weirdo tried to act like he was a fundamental Baptist, but he wasn't very good at preaching. And what I've noticed is people that aren't very good at preaching, they don't get attention. It's a weird phenomenon. People that suck at preaching, no one listens to their sermons. And people that are not good at preaching what the Bible says and not good at explaining things, nobody cares what they have to say. So in an effort to actually get attention, they just say wild, crazy things or just attack people. That's the only way they can get any kind of attention. And this guy, not getting attention because he doesn't know the Bible, isn't even saved, but he gets up and he preaches a sermon on the earth being flat. And I remember just how he opened the line. He said, today's going to be a big day for y'all. And it's just like, you could just see the pride just oozing out of this guy's heart of just how he's thinking like, I have this secret hidden wisdom that nobody else has. And y'all are so lucky and so fortunate for me to deliver this unto you. But it's like, that should not be the attitude of fundamental Baptist preachers. We should be digging out new things from the old store, new things out of the old back, new things out of the old King James Bible, not a new doctrine, a new way of looking at the same doctrine. The doctrines are already established, folks. We already have the King James Bible. We already have salvation by faith. We already have baptism by immersion. We already have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the blessed Trinity. We already know the great truths of the Bible as far as a big picture, the core doctrines. We shouldn't be getting new core doctrines every week. That is scary. That is dangerous. Okay. But yeah, sometimes we can find new ways of teaching the same thing. We can come up with just new metaphors or analogies or learning a passage a little deeper or another way to look at Jesus from the scriptures. But you know what? That newness takes a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of study. It takes being filled with the Holy Spirit. And in fact, I will just say this. Coming up with new things from the Bible is limited to the Holy Ghost allowing you to have that. Because there has been so many times where I've read passages in the Bible and I didn't understand it, just so many times, just read it over and over, wanting to understand it, and it just didn't click. And then there's been times where I'm not even trying. And then just randomly, it's like the Holy Ghost is just explaining a passage to me with comparing spiritual to spiritual. And I'm just like, wow, I don't deserve that. I didn't do anything to get that. I'm not even special. It's just the Holy Ghost just giving me the opportunity to just know whatever this Bible is saying here. And I'm just saying like, it's not me. It's the Holy Ghost deciding to just bless people and give people knowledge. And let me tell you something. The more you read, the more you study, the more you separate yourself, the more you're right with God, the more Holy Ghost will just bless you with that. But you know what? It's not just going to happen automatic. And it's not going to come from the carnal mind. It comes from people that are praying and seeking the Lord and preaching what the Bible says. And the more you preach the Bible, the more you memorize the Bible, the more the Holy Ghost has to work with and the more you'll figure out over time. But you know what? I don't get these special understandings of the Bible that often. It happens every once in a while, but it's not even planned necessarily. It just happens when it happens. And you know what? Praise God, he's helped me to understand all kinds of passages I never understood. I never understood the book of Esther. And then later, God helped me understand that book. I never really understood a lot of things in Job. And then there was this bozo at our church that was just a weirdo. And it was like a lie who just clicked all of a sudden. I was just like, wow, I've never understood a lie who and now I understand a lie who. And there's just been so many life experiences too that you sometimes have to go through in order to understand the Bible. But what we need to do is we need to just preach the word and trust the process that when you preach the word, when you're not trying to do anything special, when you're not trying to do anything outside of what God just said, he will then just at his discretion, just be like, hey, here's a nugget. Hey, here's something special. Hey, here's that passage you've been wanting to understand. I'm finally ready to let you understand it. But you know, what people do is they try to force this where they just like, I'm going to figure out what this hard passage says, regardless of the Holy Ghost shows it to me or not. And then they just start teaching weird junk. They just start teaching weird heresy, confusing things. And they preach sermons that minister questions that don't dissolve doubts. Sermons should dissolve doubts and settle things and make things clear, not be more confused afterwards. If people are more confused, you failed as a preacher. Matthew 28, look at verse 18. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even under the world, amen. Here's another clear statement from the Lord Jesus Christ saying to do something, what? To teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. So we have the Bible saying all scripture is profitable for doctrine. We have Jesus Christ saying to teach all the things that are in the Bible. We have the Bible literally saying preach the word. And it didn't say preach the red letters. It didn't say preach the New Testament. It didn't say preach only the gospels. It said preach the word. And you know what parts of the Bible you should preach? All of them. When you preach a sermon, you should preach a clear statement based on the Bible. Not a vague story, not a metaphor, not your opinion, a clear statement. I'm not going to start my sermon with here's something a lie who said. I'm not going to start my sermon with here's an example of something someone did. I mean, I could do all kinds of crazy sermons if I just said here's an example of somebody doing something. I mean, how about a lot in his two daughters? Some weird stuff he did. I mean, there's all kinds of weird stuff people are doing. I mean, this is where people start teaching things like polygamy. They'll say, oh, look, this guy in the Bible had multiple wives. Yeah, but where's your clear statement on that? Because your clear statements on that are saying that you're one flesh. Your clear statements on that are saying let every man have his own wife and his own husband. It doesn't say husbands and wives. The Bible says that the king was not to multiply wives. So the clear statements are saying no, no, no, no. And then it's like story, story, story. The Bible is saying be sober. Oh, here's the guy that gets drunk. Okay, but it doesn't matter because the Bible is saying to be sober. So we want to make sure that we're not interpreting the Bible based on things people did, stories, some vague parable. We want it based on clear statements. And here's the thing. If you have a sermon idea, say, I know this is true, but I can't find a clear statement in the Bible. You're probably wrong. Or even if you're right, you should avoid it because the job of a preacher is to preach the word, not your opinion. There have been plenty of ideas that I've rejected. There've been plenty of sermons that I've changed and altered because when I went to the text, I said, I can't find it. When I went to the text, I said, I can't prove it. When I looked at what the Bible is saying, well, it's actually saying it differently. And it does that in all kinds of different ways. There's times where I'm like, the Bible is actually harsher than I am. Or I'm saying the Bible is more gracious than I am. Or the Bible is more balanced than I am. I'm just trying to say, what does the text say? Anytime I have an idea, I'm loose with that. And then I'm saying, well, what does this say though? And I wanna be focused in on this. And you know what? We need preachers that care what this says, not what this thinks. Go over to 2 Timothy chapter two. Point one, clear statement. Now, this is why the sermon is so important to everyone. When you as an audience member are listening to sermons, before you just decide to do whatever this preacher's saying or thinking or whatever, make sure there was a clear statement, right? If someone just gets up and just starts talking and blabbing and stories and whatever, you need to ask yourself this question. What was the verse that any of this is based on? What was the clear statement that this guy was using to base this idea on? And usually people that actually know the Bible well, often what'll happen is when someone starts preaching lies or opinion or whatever, verses in the Bible flood their mind and they're thinking like, but wait a minute, doesn't the Bible actually say this? But wait a minute, isn't there something contradicting the point that's being made here? And what they're not doing is they're not considering balancing verses. So point one is this, to preach a good sermon, you need to have a clear statement. Point number two is you need to consider balancing verses. Now, the Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter number two, verse 15, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Notice this rightly dividing the word of truth. So the Bible says that we need to study the whole Bible to make sure that we're not saying something out of balance. Okay. So I want to give you some examples of this, and I'm not going to turn in the Bible to these places, but I just want to give you some examples of this where you could just take one verse and run with it and you're not balancing it with other verses. And so you teach things that are not quite accurate. Or you start teaching things that aren't good. Here would be one, turn the other cheek. Now, isn't that a verse in the Bible? Isn't that what Jesus Christ says? If someone were to smite thee on the cheek, to turn them the other also. But what about verses that say that he teaches my hands to war? Well, if you take either of those verses without considering the other, you could get really imbalanced. You could say, hey, every single scenario, turn the other cheek, not accurate. Every single scenario, he teaches my hands to war, not accurate, right? We want to make sure that we have a proper balance and that we're understanding each verse in its context and that we're considering other contexts to make sure that we're not teaching something in the wrong application. And what you'll understand that the devil does is the devil often preaches what the Bible says out of context. If you actually pay attention to Job, his three friends, they say what the Bible says out of context. Elihu uses the Bible out of context. And you know what? That's what's weird. It's confusing. I've listened to a lot of sermons and I'm like, well, everything he's saying is a verse in the Bible, but it's wrong. I mean, the devil, when he comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, he's telling him to cast himself down and that the angels will bear the up. That's a verse in the Bible. The devil is quoting the Bible in a clear statement. But you know what? It was out of context. It's out of context because it wasn't in the context of try to kill yourself and God will save you. It was in the context of, hey, even when you make mistakes or are headed for destruction, God can still preserve you and God can still protect you, even from your own mistakes and faults. But it's not a purposeful mistake. It's not a purposeful fault. Just like when Saul fell on his sword, no angel caught him. So we want to make sure that we're balancing verses in the Bible. Here's another one. Be angry and sin not, anger rested in the bosom of fools. We wouldn't want to take one of those verses and run with it. Well, anger rests in the bosom of fools. It's always wrong to be angry. And you know what? You hear that sermon all the time. Whereas in the Bible says be angry. But wait a minute. But sin not. And we don't want to be a person that's constantly angry. That's why it says anger rests in the bosom of fools. So we want to make sure that we understand that, hey, anger is a righteous emotion in some cases, but it needs to be dealt with. And you don't want to let anger sit inside of you for a long period of time because it creates bitterness and then that bitterness turns into hatred and wrath and it leads you down a dark destruction and path. So we want to make sure that when we're preaching clear statements, we're still making sure that we're balancing them with other clear statements in the Bible. And we're making sure that we're preaching these sermons with the right mindset and the right context. And we're not contradicting other places in the Bible. And it frustrates me when I listen to sermons that are constantly contradicting other parts of the Bible. It really undermines the message. It really takes away from the power and the truth that's being communicated. And that's why it's important to study, to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, rightly dividing it. So, you know, again, if you're a young preacher, if you're an inexperienced preacher, you get an opportunity to preach, preach things that you know that subject well, and you can think about those other verses. Often, I'll just be honest with you, often the only reason I really even talk to some of my pastor friends is we play devil's advocate with each other. Say, hey, I'm thinking about this. I'm thinking about these verses. What are some verses? What are some other parts of the Bible that would contradict this? What are places that would undermine this? What's a way to poke a hole in this particular idea or what the Bible is saying here? Because we want to make sure that we're not, you know, only thinking about one section of the Bible and just missing the boat on the other. And I love that I can ask other people for their honest opinion saying like, hey, you think this is, you know, what the Bible is really saying? And playing, quote, devil's advocate with ourselves, making sure, hey, there's no way, this is sound speech that cannot be condemned because there's nothing in the Bible. There's not a verse, there's not a text, there's not a story, there's not anything that's really undermining this truth that we find in the Bible. And we want to make sure that when we preach statements, that we preach many statements that are a universal truth, that are a timeless truth that cannot be misconstrued. And that's why it's important to balance verses and to consider balancing verses. Go to Acts chapter 17, Acts chapter 17. So again, point one, we need people to be preaching clear statements. Point two is they need to balance those clear statements with other verses and make sure that we're not contradicting ourselves, teaching things that don't line up with other sections of the Bible. You know, the Bible says, blessed be ye poor. But then the Bible also says, give me neither poverty nor riches. So, you know, in one section it's saying like, it's blessed to be poor. In another section it's saying, please never let me be poor. Well, which one is it? And again, there's context to all these. I'm not preaching sermons to explain all these nuances. I just want you to understand. Some people, they think all rich people are bad. Some people think all poor people are bad. And it's like the Bible doesn't teach either. The Bible teaches people who follow God's commandments are good and people that break God's commandments are bad. That's what it teaches. And you know what? That there's good people that are poor and there's bad people that are poor and there's good people that are rich and there's bad people that are rich. And then the Bible says, rich people aren't very receptive and then poor people are much more receptive. So we have different truths in different contexts for different situations. But it does not mean that we want to take one verse and run with it. And I hear this all the time. I hear people, you know, basically doing both. You kind of have some churches basically teaching all poor people are just lazy, derelict, bad people. And look, some of that's true, but it's not always true. And then some people teach that all rich people are just snobbish, prideful jerks that don't care about God. But that's not true either. And we want to make sure that when we're preaching, we're preaching a balanced view and that we're not misconstruing the truths of God's word. And you know what? You're going to be very led astray if you don't know what the Bible says, because you can't balance them yourself. Now in Acts chapter 17, verse 11, the Bible says this, these were more normal than those in Thessalonica, and that they received the word of all readiness of mine and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. When you hear a sermon, you need to make sure you're balancing it too. Going back, hey, is this what the Bible's really saying? Was this based on clear statements? Are there other clear statements that change the narrative? And making sure that you don't just fall victim of I heard this, it must be true. You study, you check, you understand what the Bible's saying too. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter one. So here's my final point of preaching good sermon is we need to identify the goal of the sermon. So if you want to preach a good sermon, number one, you need to have a clear statement. Number two, you need to consider balancing verses. And number three, you need to make sure you understand what is the goal of this sermon. And whenever I'm thinking about other people and I'm thinking about other sermons, I'm listening to a preaching class or whatever, this is what I'm constantly thinking about number three. I'm constantly thinking like, what in the world is this person trying to say? Like, where is this going? What was the point of this? Why are you communicating this? And really what's frustrating is when you ask that question and you can't answer it, then it's not a good sermon. Or you ask the question and you can't answer it, but then you're like, well, that was weird. It's like the goal of this sermon is for people not to play this one video game that no one's playing. And you're like, well, that's kind of weird. Or here's the goal of the sermon, is to preach against a standard that nobody has or a view that no one has or a sin that no one's dealing with. Or it's just like, what was the point of the sermon? You have to ask yourself, what is the goal of the sermon? Now, in order to really identify a goal of a sermon, that's where you have clear applications. And so, of course, as a preacher, we preach the word, we balance the verses, but then a really good sermon will make application. And that's where we get that goal. Like, what was the point of this? What were you trying to get at? What were you trying to help people do or learn? And look, not all sermons are an action, like a direct action. Sometimes they're just knowledge, right? We need to love Jesus more or emotion. Maybe the goal of the sermon is just, I want us to love Jesus more or appreciate the Bible more or be told, hey, read your Bible more, go to church more, go soul winning more, love your husbands more, work on your marriage, raise your kids, have kids, all kinds of different things. But we should be thinking like, what is the goal? And then when the goal is established and identified, a lot of times what a preacher should do is you should go back through his sermon and say, is this preaching that goal? And if it's not, be like, okay, mark that out. Okay, don't need that. Okay, this really is undermining or getting extracting away from that goal of the sermon. Also because people are simple and you all fall asleep and you don't care a lot, it's good to just usually have one goal that you preach over and over, because a lot of times people can't necessarily pick up that much. I think there's like a article or somebody said, it's like only 20% of a message will people even retain, at best, at best, they're gonna basically hear about 20%. So that's why it's funny when you preach a sermon, people come up to you and they start preaching your sermon to you, and you're like, yeah, I said that. But it's just reality, okay? And so again, if you preach 20 truths in a sermon, at best, they're gonna probably come away with one or two of those. So that's why it's better to just kind of have one point that you hit 50 times and then maybe one of those few 50, it actually stuck with them, okay? Now, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 21, the Bible says, for after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that belief. So of course, my applications, my explanation is never gonna be as great as the Bible, but God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to expound on his word. And so we need to expound on the word of God. Go over to chapter two and look at verse one. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. So the apostle Paul says, when I preach the word of God, when I preach the Bible, I'm not using fancy words, I'm not using some great wisdom, some great metaphor, some great idea I came up with, I'm demonstrating the spirit and power. And what is the spirit? It's expounding spiritual things with spiritual things. What is the power? The power stands in the word of God. The power comes from revealing Jesus Christ from the scriptures. The power comes from preaching the great truths of the Bible. The power comes from explaining dark sayings and hard to understand concepts in simple, understandable ways. Not by having some great speech or some great vocabulary. And when Paul says, when I come, I'm not coming with just some fancy vocabulary to wow you and you're like, man, that guy's smarter than me. No, he's coming in a demonstration of spirit and power being like, look at this verse or this verse. And you're like, wow, that connection's amazing. Or taking a dark saying and saying, this is what it means. You're like, wow, I understand what that means now. And you say, wow, this guy is filled with the spirit of God because he understands the Bible, because he connects the Bible. Not because, oh, look, this guy is so much smarter and how much studying and how much learning and how the vocabulary has and all this. No, no, that's not what impresses people. Spiritual people, what impresses spiritual people is explaining the Bible and letting the Bible make sense. Why? Verse five, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. People should love the Bible after your sermon, not you. People should love the words of Christ after a sermon and not your words, not what you said, because you know what? Our faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And we walk away and you say, hey, what were my sermon notes? It was this. You know, I'm not against taking notes. I think it's great, I think it's wonderful, but you know what? You should really walk away saying, this is what was amazing. Not what was communicated, but what this said. And the understanding of this and the goal of the sermon should be to give the sense of the Bible. Now, this whole chapter is so relevant, but I don't want to read all of it for sake of time, but notice what he says in verse six. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor the princes of this world that come to naught. But we speak the wisdom of God in the mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world under our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would have not crucified the Lord of glory. But as is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered in the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit, for the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Notice verse 10 confirms what I told you already. But God hath revealed them unto us, because I read the Bible a lot, because I'm awesome, because I'm wonderful. No, no, by his spirit. So God just decides to distribute to people at his will and his discretion, understanding of the Bible. That's why some people get some truths, some people don't. I mean, it's basically by his ability. Why does Saul go to the text and God's not answering him? Because God's turned off the spigot. We have to be open unto God and be a vessel that he can use. And then he will, at his discretion, open our understanding and knowledge of the Bible. And a lot of times I find that people are stuck because he's given you some wisdom and you decided to not do it. There's something that God has already told you to do or warned you to do, or is trying to hit you and say, do this, and you won't do that. Well, he's like, I'm not gonna turn it on anymore. I'm not gonna give you anything else until you do that. And then once you start doing that, then I'll give you more. And we need to be obedient to what God has already given us so that he can give us more, but it's at God's discretion that he reveals things unto us. Verse 11, for what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. He's saying, you wanna understand the Bible? Compare the Bible to the Bible. Don't look at the commentary. Don't look at the church fathers. Don't look at all the things of this world. Don't ask Bible software. Don't ask Logos. You know how you understand the Bible? Compare the Bible with the Bible. And you wanna preach good sermons? Compare the Bible with the Bible. And when you learn a truth in the Bible, you'll see, hey, that's in this chapter too. Hey, that's in this story too. Hey, that's over here. And you know when you're wrong, you know what happened? You said this story is contradicting it here. And this clear statement is contradicting it here. And this is saying the exact opposite over here. And a good sermon, people are thinking of like, hey, I thought of other verses. Constantly when I preach sermons, people come up to me and say, hey, here's another verse that says what you said. Here's another story. Here's another example. And you know what, that's the Holy Ghost. That's the Holy Ghost revealing unto us his word and confirming the truth of God's word. And that's what makes a great sermon. That's what makes a good sermon. Garbage sermons are man's wisdom and they contradict the Bible and they fall flat. We need to preach the word. Go to Nehemiah chapter eight. The Bible says, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. Natural people can't understand the spiritual truths of the Bible. Now here's the thing, a natural man can understand the carnal truths of the Bible. And there's a lot of carnal truths in the Bible. There's a lot of things that the Bible just says that are just so obvious and clear, like the borrower's servant to the lender. I mean, you don't even have to be saved to understand that. And look, plenty of unsaved people understand great truths in the Bible, but they're all the carnal truths of the Bible. We don't understand the spiritual truths of the Bible though. And we that are spiritual, we can understand both. We can benefit from both. And even sometimes saved people, they can't even understand the carnal truths of the Bible. They think that men can become women and all kinds of weird stuff. We don't wanna mess with them. But Nehemiah chapter number eight, look at verse six. The Bible says this, and Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, amen, amen. With lifting up their hands, they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also, Jeshua and Bani, and Sarabiah, Jaman, Acheb, Sabbathai, Hodijah, Maasiah, Calita, Azariah, Joseph, Bad, Hanan, Paliah, a lot of names for your kids, if you were thinking. Just kidding. And the Levites caused the people to understand the law and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading. This is what we should do. We should read the Bible distinctly, meaning that we're all reading the exact same spot, we know exactly what we're reading, we're making it clear what the Bible said, and then we're gonna give the sense and we're gonna let people understand what we just read. That is great preaching. Great preaching. And what's the goal? To understand what God has said. In all areas of life, in every section. Go to First Corinthians 14, go to First Corinthians chapter 14. So I have a few applications for this sermon, and I'm not really gonna elaborate on these points, but number one, I hope that preachers will preach better sermons. What's the goal of the sermon, Pastor Shelley? Well, I hope preachers will preach good sermons. And how do they do that? Well, they base the sermon on a clear statement, they balance, they consider the balancing verses, and number three, they have a clear goal of their sermon. And look, if you do that, you'll preach great sermons, you'll preach good sermons. Because the Bible's powerful, the Bible's awesome, the Bible is great. And you know, a lot of times, I don't even let, I don't even really think about applications, I think about what the Bible's saying, I think about what the balancing verses are saying, and then I think about what the goal is, and then application just flows from there. Just like, think about this. You had no idea what I was gonna preach, and while I'm preaching, you guys were making application the whole time, weren't you? How is that? Because application flows from good preaching. Whereas a lot of preachers, they're so worried about application, and they're not thinking about, is this even biblical or whatever's going on? Like, don't worry about the application, the application will come. Let the application flow out of knowing what the text actually says. Because I understand this, when you understand what the text is really saying, and you're focused on what it's communicating, applications will flow. And trust yourself that, look, I do this every time in a sermon, it will happen. Worry less about the application and more about what the text is saying. Here's the second application I have for you, is all of you identifying good preaching. You need to understand what's a good sermon and what's not a good sermon. And it's this simple, is it biblical? That's it. A good sermon is biblical, a bad sermon is not biblical. And it doesn't even matter if a preacher got up and made no application, because a good sermon should actually stir you up to think of all kinds of applications and make appropriate application for you anyways. And look, I like preachers actually making explicit applications. I think it's beneficial, I think it's helpful. But you know what? That doesn't make it a good sermon. What makes it a good sermon is that what the Bible says. Is it true? And you know what's garbage sermons? If it's not true. And a lot of times I've criticized people, I've criticized pastors, and I say they don't preach good sermons. I'm not saying because they're not such an eloquent speaker, I'm not saying because they don't yell enough, I'm not saying they don't mimic my pattern of preaching, I'm saying that they're not preaching the truths of the Bible, that's what I'm saying. And you can, you know, I have this, this is just a personal opinion. I think I'm right. This is a personal opinion, okay? It's a hot take. Quality of preaching equals quality of person. And I've noticed this pattern. Now let's take this to the Bible for a second. Quality of preaching, quality of person. On one side we have Jesus Christ. Quality of preaching, perfect. Quality of person, perfect. In fact, the best person ever, okay? Then let's go on the other spectrum. False prophet, quality of preaching, worst ever. Quality of person, the worst person ever, okay? And then I've just noticed in my personal life, when I look at people and I look at situations, and I just happen to notice that when I, the people that have the highest quality of preaching seem to be the highest quality of people. And it just always seems to be a thing that keeps being proven to me over and over. And in times past, I've given a lot of grace to people that are preaching not very good. And now I'm thinking like, that's probably not a good idea. It's probably not a good idea to really ignore that because you know what? I think quality people are gonna probably preach quality sermons. And the people that are just preaching lies and junk and their opinion probably are not a quality person. Now again, that's my personal opinion. You can take it for what it is. But, so it's the search of scripture and prove me right or wrong on that one, all right? But you need to identify good preaching. And you need to follow a preacher that's preaching good sermons. What are good sermons? They're true. They're true. And you know what? The better the preacher is gonna be the more trues of the Bible, not just one. Because some people, they might preach salvation every message. Good message. But we probably need a little bit more than that, right? We wanna make sure that we're getting all the good trues of the Bible. Here's a third one, is that you need to seek the truth and not fables. We don't wanna, like, what's the point of you coming here and me just telling you stories? What's the point of you coming here and me just telling you just some funny joke or being a comedian or getting up and just telling you something you already know? Like, didn't you show up because you wanna hear what the Bible has to say? And that's what you need to find. You need to find someone that's gonna teach you what the Bible says and seek the truth. And here's the fourth point that I have, is we need to use what I just said in soul winning. Everything, now here's the thing. You say, well, I don't preach sermons. Soul winning is preaching a sermon. So every single person needs to take everything I just said and apply it to your soul winning. What is point one? Clear statement. How about John 3.16? Hey, when you go soul winning, we should be using verses like John 3.16. We should be using verses like Acts 16.30 and 31. When people are like, you know, when I go soul winning, I like to start in Isaiah. It's like, what? That's weird. You know, we shouldn't be using weird ideas when we're trying to get someone to say, we should use the clear statements of the Bible. Clear statements like, for all of the sin and the glory of God, that's a clear statement, right? When we go out preaching the gospel, we wanna use the clear verses and have sound doctrine. What was the second point? We wanna consider balancing verses. And you know, when we go out soul winning, I use John 1.12 as a very clear balancing verse. Why? Because when we preach the gospel, we preach that you can believe on Jesus Christ and live however you want and go to heaven. That's confusing to people. But John 1.12 helps me to clear and balance that verse with people and I say, look, when you believe you become a child, and yes, technically children can do whatever they want and they'll still be a child. But that child will receive punishments for disobeying. And we too, if we believe in Jesus Christ, we become his son and we will receive punishments. And that helps balance in their mind, oh, so works are important. They just don't actually get me saved. And I'll even say this, if I follow all of my boss's rules at work, am I now his son? They're like, no. And I said, so if I go to church and follow all the rules, am I now God's son? And it helps click in their mind, oh wow, it's not about following rules that makes you God's son. It's believing in Jesus Christ that you become his son. But that doesn't mean that following the rules aren't important. Of course they're important. It's important to follow my boss's rules, my parents' rules, the church's rules. It's important to follow God's rules in the Bible. And so I'm helping balance in their mind this great truth that once you believe, you're saved forever. This great truth that once you have eternal life, you can never lose it. And I think that's really important in our gospel presentations, that number one, we preach the clear truths of whosoever believe in him should not perish but everlasting life. But we balance that by saying, look, yeah, you will be saved, but you'll be punished on earth when you disobey your heavenly father. Yeah, you will reap what you sow. Yes, it is still important to follow the commandments. They just have nothing to do with being saved. And that balance helps a lot of people get over the obstacle of thinking that work saves them. And what's the third point? Identifying the goal of the sermon, okay? Now, before I explain that, let's read a few verses here because I had to turn to 1 Corinthians 14. Look at verse number three. But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort. The goal of preaching should be to build people up and to help people. So what should be my goal in preaching the gospel? Get them saved, right? I mean, what would be the point of explaining this and them not getting saved? Now go to Romans chapter number 10. You know what the goal of me preaching the gospel is? For someone to finish by calling upon the name of the Lord and getting saved. That's the goal. That's the end of the road. That's where I'm headed. That's where I wanna get them to. But you know what? If you didn't have that goal in mind, your gospel presentation's gonna get awkward. It's gonna get weird because you have no idea how to land the plane. Before a plane takes off, it needs to know where it's gonna land. Planes are not taking off like, let's see where we wanna go. It's not a lot of successful flights, you know. It's like, hey, wanna try this airport? Wanna try that one? No, no, they already know exactly where they're headed, where they're gonna go. They have a plan and they're gonna get there. And the same should be when we preach a sermon, when we preach the gospel. Hey, where do I wanna go? I wanna go to Romans chapter 10 at the end and show them how to call upon the name of the Lord and I wanna help them get saved. That should be the goal of this sermon. Now, Romans 10, nine says this, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So the Bible says that the way that someone believes on Jesus Christ is by confessing with their mouth and believing in their heart. That's what the Bible says. Now, what's funny is there's some online bozos that will say you don't have to, you know, call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. And I'm thinking like, okay, well then what do these verses even mean? And it's so funny how those same people, they cannot tell you what these verses mean. They just render this passage completely meaningless, even though they'll still read it and go to it. And look, our church does not believe that. Virtually no church believes that. It's so crazy to me. And then this is what I've heard recently online, Jack Hyles taught this, okay. They'll say, Jack Hyles taught that you don't have to pray and get saved. And I'm thinking like, okay, so where's your evidence? So they have a sermon and there's this sermon where Jack Hyles gets up and he says something like, you know, it's not a prayer that saves you. It's not praying, it's receiving him that saves you. You can come down an aisle and you can pray and that's not what saves you. Prayer doesn't save you. It's not asking that saves you. It's believing it's receiving him that saves you. And people get confused by that. But here's the thing, you have to understand what Jack Hyles is saying and you have to understand the context is what he's saying. Because especially in the 90s, what was really big is these giant altar calls, things that are on the heels of Billy Graham, where you have thousands of people coming down an aisle and repeating a prayer and not getting saved. You wanna know why? Because they didn't actually believe anything in their heart because they didn't actually believe the gospel. So what he's trying to say, and it's the same thing I say at every single door, is if I pray and ask God to save me, but I don't believe in him, will he save me? And the answer's no. Because a prayer doesn't save anybody. What saves somebody is believing on Jesus Christ and calling upon the name of the Lord in faith. But it's weird to then say that calling upon the name of the Lord is not that process. When the Bible explicitly says it right here, okay? Plus that is what all of us did. It's like when I meet saved people, they're like, yeah, I called upon the name of the Lord. That's funny that all of us and every person that you meet saved did that. And they're like, oh, but there's a pastor out there that doesn't believe this. And again, the Jack Hyles thing's debunked. You wanna know how it's also debunked? Every single pastor that was sent out of Hyles Anderson believes you can call on him to the Lord for him to be saved. Every soul winner from their church believes that. Every person that he's ever won to the Lord, he did that. So like, what's the evidence here? I mean, you're gonna really expect me to believe that every single pastor, every single soul winner, every single person that came out of that church like at the 99 percentile all believed that, but he wasn't teaching it? You're a bozo, okay? But that's like, oh, there's this one pastor out there that believes that you don't have to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Tom Cuckooza of Northland Bible Baptist Church. Who's heard this, anybody? And so I just looked up this guy and I went to his website and he has a five minute, 27 second video on how to be saved. I listened to it. Everything he was saying was good. And then this is how he ended it. Let me ask you a question. Is there anything keeping you from trusting in Jesus Christ right now as your savior? If not, why don't you trust him right now? In the quietness of your mind, God knows your thoughts and just get it settled between you and the Lord. Lord, the best I know how I believe Jesus has paid for all my sins, I put my faith in him and him alone is my savior. And if you do that, based on the promises of God, you can know that you have eternal life. Friend, I hope you will trust Christ as your savior. So the one guy that they say teaches not to call upon the name of the Lord or not to pray or ask to get saved, when you watch his video, How to Get Saved, he tells you how to pray in the quietness of your mind to get saved. You wanna know why? Because that's the logical step. And the people that I know that teach this, all of them in the past taught clearly that you have to call and ask Jesus to be saved. All of them. And so it's just, you know what happens? People get a little backslidden in their heart, they get a little lazy in their heart, and they don't wanna go soul winning anymore, they just wanna make YouTube videos. And because they just wanna make YouTube videos, then they have to say, well, it's not praying or whatever, just to make an excuse for the fact that they don't actually go out there and try to confirm the salvations they have so they can inflate numbers and not feel bad about not soul winning. And they're just backslidden, okay? It's a stupid garbage online only doctrine, nobody believes it, we don't believe it, and you know what, it's not a good sermon if you leave people hanging, you know what? Help them call upon the name of the Lord and get saved. It's just logical, it just makes sense, everybody believes that that's saved. I mean, it's just a weird nuance, and even these same people, they all the time contradict it. They'll just be like, well, I know you don't have to pray to get saved, but let's go ahead and just pray and ask God to save you. What? Why? You know, you're just contradicting yourself. Just go ahead and just believe it and just say it, because that's what the Bible says. How am I gonna get in trouble with God for believing what the Bible says? I mean, he says that if you confess what the Bible, and then this is what they'll do, they'll be like, oh, but there's a person that can't speak. Okay, yeah, but 99.999% of people can. And look, whenever you have people in the Bible praying, many of times they're not even praying out loud, they're praying in their heart. There's nothing wrong with someone praying in their mind or in their heart. But you know what? When someone understands the gospel, they need to write their call upon the name of the Lord out of their heart. And that's how people get saved. Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom. God, be merciful to me a sinner. Lord, save me. You know, they need to confess and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou shalt be saved. That's what the Bible clearly says. And you know, when we preach sermons, we need to really think about the goal of our sermon. We need to really think about where we're trying to drive people to. And you know, if I'm preaching the gospel, my goal should always be to get this person saved. Now, we can have sub-goals, like in a soul-winning. If you can't get them all the way there, you just leave them on a good note and try to encourage them later. But I'm just saying, that should be the goal if the sermon goes all the way through. And when you get an opportunity to preach, make sure you're preaching what the Bible says, you're balancing verses, you have a clear goal in mind. When you're listening and evaluating a sermon, what did the, was there clear statements based on the preaching? Was the sermon based on something that was clear? If it's not, you know what, don't believe it. If there's imbalance in the sermon, if you go back, what about these verses? Be skeptical of that. Make sure you're getting a balanced view. And then always think about this, what was the goal of that sermon? And you know, when you identify what the goal of the sermon is, you know what you should do? Do it. I mean, if it's what the Bible said, it was in balance, and they apply it, and it applies to you, do it. Don't be like, I'm offended now. Or, couldn't someone do this at the end of your gospel presentation? So what you're saying is I'm not saved. Yes. So you're saying I need to get saved, yes. So what do you want, what are you hoping to do? Get saved. Right? It's like, hey, the end of the sermon was saying I should go to church more. Then go to church more. Well, the end of the sermon's saying read the Bible more. Well, then read the Bible more. The sermon's saying like, hey, I should evaluate sermons and decide if they're right or not. Well, then you better start evaluating sermons and deciding if they're right or not. And you better check and say, hey, is that a clear statement from the Bible? And if it's not, well, be skeptical of that. And I hope every woman and every child here reads the Bible a ton and memorizes a lot of Bible so that you won't listen to lies. There's a lot of lies out there and a lot of garbage sermons, and people get sucked in, bleeding hearts, people that are just easily offended, novices getting led astray, silly women laden with sins. The way you avoid that is by knowing what this book says and not hearkening to lies. Let us hearken to the truths of the Bible. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us the Bible, a light in such a dark world. I pray that we'd actually give heed to it, that we'd read it, that we'd study it, that we'd make sure that the things that we're hearing matches up with it, that we wouldn't heap under ourselves teachers having itching ears and go after fables and stories and lies and slander and weird things, but rather we would care only what the Bible says and that we would allow the Bible to challenge us on our thoughts and our ideas and our hearts. I pray that when we have opportunity to preach that we would preach the Bible. We'd preach the clear verses of the Bible, we'd keep them in balance, and we'd have a clear goal in mind. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, closing, let's go to song number 105. Okay. Song number 105, All That Thrills My Soul. Song number 105, everybody sing it out on the first. Who can cheer the heart like Jesus by His presence only by true and tender, pure and precious. Oh, how blessed to call Him mine. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. And the fairest of 10,000 in my blessed Lord I see. Love of Christ so freely given, grace of God beyond degree. Mercy higher than the heavens, deeper than the deepest sea. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. And the fairest of 10,000 in my blessed Lord I see. What a wonderful redemption, never can a mortal know how my sin, though red like crimson, can be whiter than the snow. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. And the fairest of 10,000 in my blessed Lord I see. Every need is hand supplying, every good in Him I see. On His strength divine relying, He is all and all to me. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. And the fairest of 10,000 in my blessed Lord I see. By the crystal flowing river, with the ransomed I will sing, and forever and forever praise and glorify the King. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me. And the fairest of 10,000 in my blessed Lord I see. Great singing everybody, you are all dismissed.