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

I just want to say that it's a great honor and privilege to come and preach unto you all tonight. I thank you all so much for having me. The part of my sermon that I want to focus on, look at verse number seven, where the Bible read, And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that at the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth. I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, for thou hast a little strength and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. The title of my sermon tonight is Open Doors, Open Doors. We see here in Revelation that Jesus Christ is preaching to the church in Philadelphia, saying that he's opened a door unto them, okay? I believe in our lives today, there are many open doors that we have, that Christ is open unto us. And I think the problem for many people is they just don't see the door. They just don't know the door is right there that they can just walk through, and there's a blessing that God's prepared for them. Go to Genesis chapter 25, if you would. So you see, at the beginning of Revelation 3, when he's talking to all these churches, he talks to Philadelphia, he says he knows their works. So they're workers, and he's opened a door for these workers. You see, not everybody goes through the open doors that they have in their life. Not everybody goes through and takes advantage of the opportunities that they've been given. Look at Genesis 25 verse 29. And Jacob sawed pottage, and Esau came from the field, and he was faint. And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die, and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day, and he swear unto him. And he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils, and it did eat and drink and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. So you see, Esau, he's been given a great door, his birthright. We know that his father is, you know, the Lord God is his father. He has endless opportunity. We see that Esau, though, he despises his birthright, so he sells it for a pottage, for lentils. I mean, we've had this bag of lentils in our pantry for like a year and a half. Like who wants to eat lentils? I mean, you know, we always just look at it and we're like, do we make it? I mean, it's lentils. But that's how much he despises birthright. He was willing to eat, you know, a pottage of lentils, you know, as rather than have his birthright, have the inheritance. And a lot of times the firstborn was given a double portion, a double portion. But Esau is nothing. Well, go to 2 Kings chapter 20, if you would. I'm going to read from you from Hebrews 12, the Bible says, Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord, looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. So we know that Jacob's, or I'm sorry, Esau's brother was Jacob, who later becomes Israel. I mean, that's a pretty popular name. That's a name a lot of people know of. Why? Because we have the 12 tribes of Israel. We see that Israel becomes God's inheritance. And what did, what did Esau do? He sold it. He didn't have it. He would have inherited the blessing. It was Esau's. Esau was supposed to be God's chosen people, but he despised it. He didn't, he didn't walk through the open door. He saw it as meaningless. He didn't see it before him. Go to 2 Kings chapter 20 verse 17. So you say, well, what about me? How does this pertain to me? Well, there's a lot of ways that we can despise our inheritance that God's given us. Let's see what Hezekiah's attitude was here. Look at verse 17. I'm sorry. Behold, the days come that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day shall be carried into Babylon. Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord, and of thy sons that it shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then Hezekiah unto Isaiah, good is the word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken. And he said, is it not good of peace and truth be in my days? So you see, Hezekiah, he's given a bad word. He's told, look, there's going to be peace in your days, but your children will be carried into Babylon. They're going to be eunuchs. What does that mean? They're going to have their privy member chopped off. They're not going to be able to have children. They're not going to have the blessing that comes, that God gives to every man and woman that are married and know each other. He blesses them with children. If you're a eunuch, you can't have that. These children are carried off. It's a horrible, you know, prophecy that's given unto Hezekiah. And what's his attitude? Does he weep? Does he mourn for his children? He says, well, it's good that it's going to be, you know, good days in my time. I mean, as long as I do okay, who cares about my children? Who cares what happens unto them? What a selfish attitude. But you know, we see that today. We see it a day people despise their inheritance. They despise their children. You say, well, how do they despise their children? Well, go to Lamentations chapter 4, if you would. I'll read for you from Job chapter 39. The Bible says, Gave us thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks, or wings and feathers unto the ostrich, which leaveth their eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth that her foot may crush them, or that the wild beasts may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers. Her labor is in vain without fear, because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding. Look at Lamentations 4 verse 3. Even the sea monsters draw at the breast, they give suck to their young ones. The daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. Now the Bible makes it clear that the ostrich, she just leaves her eggs. She just, she has a egg, and then she just leaves it, wanders. She doesn't care if somebody comes along and just stomps on it, and kills it, or it gets blown away, or anything bad happens to it. And if you go online, you just look at, you know, just scientific articles about ostriches. It's very interesting what they'll do, is they're usually kind of in packs, so they'll have groups, or, you know, pack might not be the right word, but they're in groups, you know, they have a lot of them. And all the females, they'll just get all of their eggs and put them in one pile. And then there'll just be one ostrich, like female ostriches, that kind of just oversees them. So they basically all come, and they just drop them off altogether, and then they just go do whatever they want. And there's only one that's kind of looking after all the eggs. Makes me think of a lot of things we see in today's culture, right? Like don't care. Oh, I mean daycare. We see all the mothers today, they don't want to be a mother. So they just take their kids, and they just drop them off with a stranger, and they don't care what happens to them. They don't care if it gets taken, or taken advantage of. I mean there's so much pedophilia, there's so much molestation, there's so much neglect, I mean these kids are not well taken care of. And if it's not your kid, let's be honest, I mean you're not going to take that much care for it. I mean, today's world, we see parents forsaking their children. How much more a stranger? How much a person that you've never even met? We see it's cruel to just take your kids and then just wander off. That's not God's plan. That's not God wants for you. God has an open door with your children. Children are an open door to pour into their lives. One of the most important relationships you can ever have is with your children. Think about God the Father and God the Son. There's an important relationship there. Fathers need to love their children, children need to love their parents. The only way you're going to get that is by spending time with them. Well, we see today, women, they want to go drop their kids off at the daycare, at the don't care. Then they go and work, you know, six, seven hours. They go to school. Then the kids go to the after school program. Then when the parents get home, well, they want to go on a date because they've been working hard. So they get a babysitter and then the babysitter puts them in bed, they don't even see their kids. They don't even spend any time with them. And then they wonder why their kids hate them. They wonder why their kids don't even want to see them when they get older. Because their parents don't have time for them. Their parents never poured in that relationship. You know, I don't go down the street and just find a random stranger and go invite him to dinner very often. Let's say never, okay? It's the same with a parent. If you never get to know your parents, if you never spend any time with them, why are you going to want to spend time with them later? You're not. And you're going to have a lot of resentment in your heart that your parents never spent any time with you. You're just throwing away your inheritance. You're despising it. That's why in the Bible it says there was a generation that rises up, that, you know, hates their father, hates their mother. Why? Because they didn't take any time to care for them. It's cruel. It's cruel. And when you have your own children, it even makes it that much worse to realize, man, my parents just left me with whoever, whenever. I mean, they didn't even spend any time with me. They didn't even take the time to, you know, teach me the Bible. To teach me anything important. Teach me anything valuable. I mean, you read the Bible and it's so important, you're like, why would my parents never show me what the Bible says? Or teach me anything from the Bible. It's so clear. Go to Titus chapter 2. We see a parent and a child, it's very special. There's a bond. Jacob had a special bond with Moses when she got to raise that child for a few more years. You know, breastfeeding. We see that there's a great relationship. There's great instruction. How are you going to hearken to the instruction of your father and your mother when they're never there to tell you, teach you anything? We're supposed to love our children and to love our children would be to spend time with them. Not to ship them off, not to give them to somebody else that doesn't care when we see they're going to be neglected. Look at Titus chapter 2 verse 3, the aged women likewise that they be in behavior has become of holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Man, there's a lot of things in this verse, but you know, it's a shame today that the older generation forsook their children for the most part. A lot of parents forsook their children. So what we have is we have a deficit in the church. We have a deficit in this country of older women teaching the younger women a good example. But that's what the Bible wants. I mean, I know my wife even, there's been a lot of things where she's had to learn on her own. Why? Because no one was showing it to her. And that's a shame. It's a shame. We need women, the older women, to be a good example into the younger women. Teach them to love their husbands, to love their children. That's why it's so important for a mother, you know, to be a good example, not just for yourself, but even the others. We see it's a hard lifestyle in America today for a woman. If she wants to live godly, if she wants to actually follow God's commandments, it's tough. It's hard work. But you know what? If you don't, you're just going to be forsaking the open door that God's given unto you. God's given you an open door. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world is true. Every single man in power today had a mother. And you know what? He was directly affected by that mother. The person he is today is because of his mother. Why do you think Barack Obama was such a horrible person? Because of his mother. She was a horrible person too. And we see a lot of the kings of Israel. Sometimes they had a bad father, but they had a good mother. And they ended up doing right in the sight of the Lord. That's a very important thing. We see Abby. She was the mother of Hezekiah. And Hezekiah had a wicked father. But Hezekiah did right in the sight of the Lord. And I believe it was because of his mother. That's why my youngest daughter's name is Abby. I mean, it's a good name, right? Go to Matthew chapter 25. So we see today, I think one of the most obvious open doors that we have unto us is our children. God wants us to be fruitful and multiply. He gave us the power to, you know, get married and to have children and to multiply. And there's an inheritance right there. You can build a heritage with your children. We see there's a lot of other ways that we've been given open doors. Look at Matthew 25 verse 24. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man reaping where thou is not sown and gathering where thou is not strawed. And I was afraid and went and hid thy talent in the earth. Lo, there thou hast, that is thine. His Lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not and gather where I have not strode. Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers. And then at my coming, I should have received mine own with usury. So we see there is a parable. For sake of time, I didn't read the whole parable. We see people are given five talents, two talents. One guy's given only one talent. But he has an opportunity with this one talent to do something, and he decides to forsake it. He decides he's just buried in the earth. He does nothing with it. Absolutely nothing. And he says, well, I just want to make sure I didn't lose it. I just want to give it back to you. And we see he's rebuked. He said he's a wicked and slothful servant. If someone gives you a talent, if someone gives you a gift, if someone gives something unto you and you do nothing with it, it's a waste. You know, I think it's the time of Christmas. One of the best things you can do with a gift is use it. I mean, imagine someone gives you this gift. They worked really hard. They bought something special. They tried to be creative. They give it to you and you just throw it in the truck. Thanks. You just throw it in the trash. They're going to be like, what is that? No, the best way to be thankful for a gift is to use it. A lot of times people have the wrong idea. They think, well, now I need to get you a gift the same value. That really doesn't make that person feel good. If you got somebody a really special gift, you don't want them to just buy you something. You want them to use it. That was the whole purpose of you giving them the gift. And I think the best thing you can do when someone gives you a really good gift is say thank you and use it. Now that's obviously in the carnal eyes, right? Well, what about the gifts that God gives us? The Bible says in Colossians chapter 4, I'll read for you, it says, with all, praying also for us that God would open to us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds. Now we talked about Esau and he foregives his inheritance, right? Now obviously in the flesh, we can have an inheritance through our children, right? That's an important thing. But what about a spiritual inheritance? What about the inheritance that God gives us for being saved? What is that? It's a home in heaven, is it not? I mean, it's eternal life, but you know, a lot of people despise that inheritance. How? They never do anything for their home in heaven. They're never serving God. How do you serve God? Why don't you go out and preach the gospel? You say, oh, I'm not that, you know, talented. I'm not that wise. I'm not that smart. Well, guess what? If you're saved, you have at least one talent. You know what that talent is? You know the gospel. You know how to get somebody saved. You know how to preach Jesus Christ. Otherwise you're not, I mean, if you don't know, I'm just saying, how can you be saved if you don't know the gospel? If you know the gospel, God's given you at least one talent. And I guarantee everyone in this room has more than one talent. But I'm saying that's an obvious talent that we all have, an open door. And if you know Christ is going to reward you, he's going to build that mansion in heaven for you based on your works, if you never go preach the gospel, how do you feel towards that inheritance? How do you really feel towards that home in heaven? You're despising it when you never go out and preach the gospel. Now there's a lot of reasons to preach the gospel. I mean, how about the fact that people are going to be burning in hell for all of eternity? That's a good reason. Here's another good reason. Christ is going to reward you. Everything you do in this life is going to vanish away. It's going to burn in fire, but your home in heaven's not. Imagine, you know, somebody buys a great piece of land and they have this great vision to build a big house, but they never spend any time on it. They never spend any money on it. They never go see it. They didn't really, I mean, do they really love it? Is that really there? And people today, they spend their whole lives working so hard to have that mansion, to have that white kitchen, to have that pretty, you know, that five bedroom house, you know, the pool, have all these things. I'm not against having, you know, nice things every once in a while, if you work really hard for it, but I mean, people are working their whole lives, dedicating their whole time, working 80 hour weeks, trying to get so much money to build this house. And we can't even build the house that won't even rust in heaven. We can't even go out and preach the gospel. You know, how's some ways that you can do this practically? Well, how about leading a soul winning time? You know, and the one thing about soul winning times I think is really important to understand is I personally could go soul winning anytime, okay? So having a soul winning time is not actually for me as much as it would be for other people. It's helping other people learn how to go soul winning. It's helping encouraging other people to have a time to go soul winning. You know, when you don't have a church to go to, and you want to go soul winning, it's hard. You know, you say, Hey, honey, I'm going to go soul winning at five o'clock. And she goes, Well, why? Well, I just decided, you know, she's like, Well, why can't you go at six? Or why can't you go at seven? Or why can't you go tomorrow? There's no real purpose. You're just kind of making it up as you go. But when you have that, hey, it's Thursday night, it's 515. Let's go soul winning. It's a lot harder to get out of it encourages other people. It helps other people. You know, when I have a soul winning time, and I have an odd number, I always go by myself and let the other people go two by two. Why? Because I don't want someone to show up to my soul winning time, and then just go by themselves and then be like, well, I could just go by myself whenever. Why am I going to this soul winning time? No, I want them to get the fellowship. I want them to get the brethren. You know, it's way better. Two are better than one according to Ecclesiastes. It's better when you have someone to go with. It's better when you have someone to talk to. It's better when you have that camaraderie and that fellowship and encourage you. Iron sharpens iron. And we see a soul winning time as a way that you can, you know, have an open door before you. Is there anything stopping you from going out soul winning? Is there anything stopping you from having a soul winning time? You have a great building here. You have a man that's willing to, you know, step up and take the lead right now. I mean, you have, you have Bibles, we have invitations. You have an open door to go out and build your mansion. What are you doing? You know, I, you know, I'm going to go home, I'm going to relax, I'm going to kick back. You're despising your inheritance. You're despising the open door that Christ has given unto you. Go to Luke chapter 17 if you would. For a pottage of lentils. You know, he sold it for a pottage of lentils. That's what people sacrifice. If you don't go soul winning, what is it for? It's usually for carnal things. Oh, I want to go home and eat this or go watch some TV or go listen to music or just wasting time. It's not like they usually, the people that forsake soul winning, they never go. It's not like they always have a good excuse. I mean, yeah, occasionally maybe something might happen. You have a birth of a child. You've got to skip soul winning one week, okay? But we're talking about people that just don't want to go soul winning. Why? Because of the things of the flesh. How silly is it to give up your whole inheritance for just some beans? But that's what it's like in this world. Everything in this flesh is going to burn. Everything in this flesh is vanity. Go out and serve Christ. Look at Luke 17 verse 16, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan and Jesus answering said, were there not 10 cleansed? But where are the nine? They're not found that return to give glory to God, save this stranger. You know, the unfortunate thing is most people aren't going to say thanks to God for what he gave them. There was 10 leopards, Christ heals them all, only one comes back to say thanks. Now, of course, I believe it's, you know, you could illustrate this as salvation. Ten guys were saved, but only one of them actually wants to come back and even say thanks to the Lord. We see that there's, you know, a bountiful harvest out there, but there's few people that go out to preach the gospel. There's few people to go out and get people saved. Don't let that get you discouraged. Realize that it's your inheritance before you. Were there not 10 leopards cleansed? Yeah, of course. But what are you going to do? What is the decision you're going to make? Are you going to go say thanks? Are you going to, you know, be thankful for the inheritance that God's given you? How can you be thankful? What did I say earlier? Use the gift that he gave you. He gave you eternal life. He gave you the gospel. He gave you this book. He gave you a great church. He's giving you all these things. Go and use them. That's the best way to say thanks unto the Lord. Use what he gave you. Go over to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. You know, I think that, unfortunately, in hindsight, I've had a lot of open doors in my life that I didn't walk through. And one was, after my mother had passed away, my dad had wanted to do something in honor of her. So he wanted to hand out, like, blankets to some of the neighborhood people. He just, they had bought all these blankets and they just wanted to give them to people that were in government housing and all these things and just, you know, kind of be a blessing and inviting them to church and everything like that. And so he asked, you know, all of his children to do that with him. So I was like, sure, we all live in the same town, so we went there. But there was no, like, preaching the gospel. There was no trying to get somebody saved. So I would go. I would knock on the doors. I would say, hey, we're just giving out blankets. We're from this church. You know, you go to church. Can we just pray for you for anything? And, you know, the people were so receptive. I mean, they were like, thank you, and they had the blankets. They had prayer requests. You know what, I never preached them the gospel. And I guarantee if I had preached the gospel to them, they, a lot of them would have gotten saved. You know, it was an open door. I was just blinded to it. I just didn't see the opportunity there. I didn't walk through the door. There's an open door for you to go out and get people saved. They want to get saved. There's so many people that are so receptive today, but they're going to hell because nobody's walking through the open door, going out and preaching the gospel. You know what? I can sit there and dwell on that and say, well, you know, poor me. Or I can use it to motivate myself to say the next time I have that open door, I'm going to walk through it. Hey, I might have failed in that instance to get somebody saved, but I'm going to use that to motivate myself to make sure I'm ready to preach the gospel at any time. I'm ready to preach the gospel to anybody so that I can walk through that open door. I had you turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 20, look at verse 19. And the Levites of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high. And they rose early in the morning and went forth in the wilderness of Jecoa. And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, any inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established. Believe his prophets, so shall you prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness. And as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were to come against Judah, and they were smitten. Now this is a really interesting story. We see this battle, and they're preparing in the battle, but they prepare some singers. They prepare some people to go out and praise the Lord before they go to battle. And look at verse 22. And when they began to sing and to praise, so what's happening? They start singing, they start praising the Lord, and then what happens? The Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, which were to come against Judah, and they were smitten. We see when they praised the Lord, when they started to sing, the Lord did works for them. The Lord fought for them. The Lord was going out in battle. The Lord wants us to praise him. He wants us to sing songs unto him, sing the songs. The Bible says constantly to praise the Lord. It says it over and over and over in the Psalms, and we see a practical example here. When they praised the Lord, the Lord went out and did battle for them. The Lord fought for them. So if you have the gift that God's given you of music, God's given you the ability to sing, God's given you the ability to play an instrument, God's given you the ability to praise the Lord, you need to use that gift that he gave you. He has an open door. If they hadn't sang, if they hadn't praised, what would happen in the battle? What happens when you go out and you preach the gospel, we fight against spiritual wickedness in high places? How about you sing some songs before you do that? How about you get filled with the Spirit when you go out and do that? The Lord will fight for you. The Lord will set ambushments for you. We see it's an open door. There's nothing stopping us from singing songs unto the Lord, to singing praise unto his name. There's countries today where they don't have that open door. But today in America, we can't see the doors a lot of times because of all the money, because of all the prosperity, because we're just caught up with the lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes and the pride of life. We don't see all these open doors that God has unto us, that we can sing psalms unto his name. We can read his word. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 4. So we see God's given us a lot of gifts, hasn't he? I think everybody has more than one gift. Obviously, we're all given. If you're saved, you have the gift to go out and preach the gospel. How about music? I think most people can sing a song. How about if you can play a song for the church? You can lead a song. You can play another instrument. You know, at Faith Word Baptist Church, we have people that play the trumpet, we have people that play the guitar, we have people that play all kinds of different instruments for us. You know, the bass guitar even. If you can play an instrument, what are you doing with the gift that God gave you? Well, nothing. Look at 1 Timothy 4 verse 12. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word and conversation and charity and spirit and faith and purity, 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 both save thyself and them that hear thee. You know what he's saying? Look Timothy, you were given a gift. You better not neglect that gift that's given unto you. Maybe if you're a man tonight and you've been given the gift to be able to preach, what are you doing with that gift? You know, at our church we have a men's preaching night. I don't know if y'all have a program like that, maybe you'll have one in the future, but if you're ever given an opportunity to preach and you've been given that gift, what are you doing with that gift? The Bible says it's not just going to help him, it's going to help them that hear him. Those that hear the Word preached, the servants that get exhorted and encouraged to go out and preach the gospel. You know, we get beat down by this world, we get beat down by sin and the filth and the wickedness, sometimes it's easy to be discouraged by how many people are going to hell, how few people want us to actually serve the Lord. You know what, that's why we need the good preaching. That's why we need the Bible to come in and build us up and edify us. And if you have that gift of preaching, what are you doing with it? Are you working on it? Are you working on your preaching? Are you trying to memorize scripture to get better at preaching? Are you trying to write sermons? There's a lot of ways that we can use the gifts that God's given us, and there's a lot of open doors to go preaching. And you know what, if you prepare yourself, if you start planning, you say, I don't have any opportunities today. I guarantee if you start planning and preparing yourself, there's going to be all these doors just open up that you didn't even expect. I remember back in Texas, I was going to an independent Baptist church there. And I had prepared a sermon just in case I ever got an opportunity to preach. I was never told I would, there was no expectation. We show up on Sunday morning, and right after the announcements, the pastor gets up and he goes, tonight, we're going to have a special sermon from Brother Jonathan Shelley. I mean, he didn't say anything before this service. He never told me anything. I mean, just right out of the blue. I'm not saying that that's just going to happen. I mean, I'm not saying you just go home, prepare a sermon, and you're going to automatically get that chance. But I'm saying there's a prepared place for a prepared person, and there's going to be doors open unto you, and you'd rather be prepared and ready to walk through than have that opportunity and be like, oh, what am I going to do? I don't know. I can't preach. I'm afraid. Stammering tongue. It's a shame. Go to 2 Chronicles chapter 29, neglect not the gift that is in thee. You say, oh, I'm a very gifted speaker. What are you doing with that? Are you preparing it? Are you developing it? Are you trying to use it for the Lord? And maybe it's not even in a glamorous way. You know, I did a lot of preaching back home for an addiction and recovery center. You know, none of my sermons were online. Nobody was, you know, it was just these people hearing it. But it gave me a great opportunity to preach the Word of God, to learn how to grow, to learn how to write a sermon. A lot of things I developed in that time frame has helped me with my preaching. Helped me be prepared and more ready when a real opportunity or a better opportunity came along. Look at 2 Chronicles 29 verse 3. He in the first year of his reign in the first month opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them together in the east street and said unto them, hear me, Levites, sanctify now yourselves and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. So we have a story here where Hezekiah is cleaning up the house and he opens the doors of the house of the Lord again and he repaired them. So you say, what is this thinking of? There was a time where they didn't have the right church. They didn't have the right house of the Lord. It had been neglected. It had been broken down. It needed to be repaired. And they opened the doors of the church to be repaired. And you know what happens? You got to keep reading this story, but they do all kinds of stuff to repair the house of the Lord. All people are coming in, they're cleaning it up, they're preparing themselves, they're performing all these sacrifices. You know, it's not one person that builds a church. There's a lot of people involved, even in the house of the Lord here. And when he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, what happened? They had an open door. They have a chance to say, hey, my fathers, they forsook the Lord. They weren't following him right. They messed up a lot of ways of his commandments. But now I have the opportunity. What am I going to do? The doors have been opened. Are we going to repair them? Are we going to repair the open doors? It's an obvious open door. Think about Faith Board Baptist Church LA. The doors are open. What are you going to do? Are you going to repair the house of the Lord? Are you going to try and bring people back unto the Lord? Are you willing to be like these servants and get your hands dirty and say, hey, this is my church. This is the house of the Lord. I'm going to repair it. There's an open door. I can come in here and be a blessing and help this church grow. You know, one thing about Faith Board Baptist Church in Tempe, if you go back eight years, nine years, ten years, when the church was just getting started, you know how many people are still going to the church that started coming back then? I mean, it's less than like one hand. Less than one hand. Think of what a blessing it would have been to be the person that just stuck through all of that, saw it grow, was there to help, to be an encouragement. You have an opportunity with this church to say, hey, this is the house of the Lord. I'm excited. I want to help repair it. I want to help build something. I want to get behind the man of God. I want to go out and walk through the open door. There's an open door. There's 13 million people here. I mean, approximately, right? How can you have a bigger open door? I mean, maybe New York City, but come on. You want to repair California? It needs a lot of repairing. I mean, this state needs a lot of repairing. It is ungodly. It is wicked. I saw some sodomite billboard when I was driving in. It made me want to throw up. It's disgusting. We need to break down the houses of the sodomites through preaching the word of God, through building the house, through repairing it. But we need a lot of people. It's not one man. It's not one person. It wasn't just Hezekiah. It was all the Levites. It was all the people. They're coming in. They're bringing in sacrifices. They're bringing in money. They're helping build the church. Church is through people. The church is the people. Think about that, okay? You're part of the church. You are the church. Repair it. Walk through that open door. Go to 2 Kings chapter 13. When the children of Israel were going to go into the land, the promised land, Reuben and Gad, they saw where they were at and they liked it. They said, hey, we're not going to go. We got the sheep. This is really good land for sheep. Let's just stick it out here. And Moses said, you better not discourage your brethren. You better not discourage your brethren. When you don't build the house of the Lord, when you're not faithful to the church, when you're not showing up, when you're not going to walk through the open doors, a lot of times your brethren aren't going to. You know, there was a time where I got to preach at Faith Word Baptist North for the Sunday morning sermon, and it's a pretty small service. Very few people come. We had just three guys come, and then a visitor showed up. So it was just four people and me. You know, it was pretty small, okay? And the guy, I talked to him a little bit, but it was the right time to start the service. I start singing. I lead a song. I start going through the announcements, and the guy just gets up and leaves. You know, and I think to myself, it's probably hard to come to a church that you've never been to. You don't know anybody. You walk in. There's just a few people there, and you're like, what am I doing? And you say, am I that important to Faith Word Baptist Church LA? Yes, you are. It just feels better when you come into a building and there's people and it's lively and it's exciting. You're important for visitors, for other people. You encourage the brethren for them to come. A lot of times, if you stop coming, somebody else probably would too. You don't even know it. You don't even realize that somebody's actually counting on you to show up for you to want to come. How many times would somebody want to do something, but they don't because nobody's going to go with them? Man, I would go to dinner, but I don't have anybody to go with me. You know? I want to go play some basketball, but I don't have anybody to go play with. I mean, there's so many things. You know, a woman says I want to go to the bathroom, but there's nobody to go to the bathroom with me. You know? I mean, there's just so many open doors today, and you need to realize when you don't show up at church, you're discouraging the brethren. There's an impact on other people. It's not just you you're affecting. You're affecting the man of God getting up to preach the sermon. You're affecting the song leading. You know, we should be encouraging the brethren by showing up. Have you turned to 2 Kings 13? Look at verse 15. And Elisha said unto them, Take bows and arrows, and he took unto them bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it, and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward, and he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot, and he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria! For thou shalt smite the Syrians in affect, till thou have consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows, and he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. Let's stop for a second, okay? You go to the man of God, okay, and he's about to die. You're getting this special, you know, prophecy from the man of God. He asked you to shoot an arrow out the window, and then he makes this great proclamation of how you're going to defeat your enemies because you shot this bow. Now he's saying, Smite the ground. He's thinking, I mean, a normal person, I think, hey, what do I get in here, you know? I mean, I better smite the ground hard, you know, I better go really strong, I better hit it, you know, lots of times. See what he does. And he smote thrice and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him and said, Thou shalt have smitten five or six times, then addest thou smitten Syria, till thou have consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. So you see, he didn't have the zeal. He didn't see the obvious thing that was happening and say, Hey, God's given me a blessing here of a weapon. God's given me an opportunity to defeat my enemies. What am I going to do with it? He kind of just stutter steps. He's just kind of lukewarm. And then he goes out and he just only defeats them three times. The Bible says, though, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. In the Old Testament, there was a lot of physical battles. There was a lot of people being slain. There was a lot of the sword and the bow and the spear and the buckler. See, in the New Testament, it's not a physical battle that we're fighting. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. What are they? They're spiritual. It says in Ephesians 6, verse 17, And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We don't have, we do have weapons, though, in the New Testament. They're not physical weapons, though. They're a spiritual weapon. And here's the question I have. You know, if Joash, the king of Israel, he wasn't, you know, really excited about the weapon that he was given through Elisha. He wasn't going to use it very many times. What happened? He didn't win the battle. He didn't win the entire war. He won a few battles, but he didn't win overall. He was consumed by his enemies. We say, what's my weapon? It's the word of God. It's very clear. You say, oh, man, this is what's going to change America. You say, what's going to change America? The word of God. It's not me. It's not some man. It's not some idea I came up with. No, it's preaching God's word. It's people being called back to the word of God. That's our weapon today. That's our weapon to go out and defeat our enemies. You know, some people say, oh, man, I'm excited. I'm ready to go out and win the battle. I've read my Bible, you know, three books of it. You know, I haven't even read it one time. You're like Joash. You just smite the ground a few times and then you stay. No, you need to get in this word and read it over and over and cover and cover. You know, the man of God that wants to go out and preach at church, he just reads the Bible many times. Why? So he can prepare to go and win the war. Not just a few battles. Not just a few times. You see, people that don't know the word of God, that don't have this weapon, you know, sharpened, they're ineffective. They don't do big things for God. Why? Because they don't have the word of God on their side. They don't, they just had this open door though. I mean, are we, is anybody stopping you from reading your Bible tonight? Is anybody stopping you from opening this book and sharpening your sword today? Do you live in, you know, a communist country where you can't even own a Bible? We have an open door. God's saying, look, I'm going to give you all the weapons. I'm going to give you the best weapon you can possibly imagine, the word of God without air, the King James Bible. What are you doing with it? Well, I just smote the ground a couple of times and stayed. You're going to be ineffective. You're going to lose the war. There's an open door for you to open your Bible and to get the weapon sharpened. So when you go out, you can defeat your enemies without, you know, hesitation. Go to Jeremiah 38, if you would. Whenever I was younger, I grew up playing golf my whole life. I played golf all the time and I had aspirations to try and make a career out of it. I went to college and I got to play on a college golf team. I played hours and hours every single day. And whenever I was in high school and going through that time, I was very zealous. I would work very hard. I would play eight hours a day practicing, working very hard. That's what made me very good. But when I got into college, there was a lot of things that detracted me from working as hard. You know, a lot of distractions. I got really discouraged by certain things. The area I lived in was really windy, it was bad weather for golf for the most part. So a lot of times I would get really negative about the weather. I had really bad coaching. I had like four different golf coaches the four years I was there. And they were just all terrible. What I literally had Ryan Leaf as my golf coach. Now you may not know who Ryan Leaf is, but he was a professional quarterback in the NFL. He was the second draft behind Peyton Manning. He was like the biggest bust ever. And he came to our college because they needed a quarterbacks coach and they weren't paying him any money. So they're like, well, let's just make him the golf coach and pay him more money. He was horrible. It was terrible. But you know what? That wasn't stopping me from just going out and practicing golf, him being my coach. It wasn't stopping me from going out and still working hard. No, it was my bad attitude. Me getting distracted with the things of college. Me getting distracted with all kinds of different things. And I didn't work very hard. And guess what? I started declining. I wasn't very good. By the time I was a senior, I was not very good. I wasn't going to the tournaments. I wasn't even traveling with a team anymore. I was basically, I was a joke. Why? Because I wasn't sharpening my sword. I wasn't continuing to work hard. I had an open door to me. I could have gone out and practiced hard every single day. I had all these opportunities to me. I could play any course in the entire area for free. I could get range balls for free. I had all kinds of equipment. My dad was paying for me to play on the golf team. I didn't have any expenses that I weren't covered. He just had this open door to me, but I just didn't want to walk through it. I was being wicked and slothful and lazy. Now I'm so glad that I didn't waste my life on vain things like that. Maybe that was a good thing that I failed so I could, you know, focus more on spiritual things, things that matter, but you can still learn a principle. Anything in your life. You have these open doors in your workplace. To be promoted in America, if you work hard, you'll get promoted. I promise you. But you know what? It's the same thing with God. There's no limit on God. God can use the weak things of this world. He can use you greatly. But how hard are you willing to work? Are you willing to walk through the open door that He's given you? Look at Jeremiah 38 verse 17. Then said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and thou shalt live in thine house. But if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon's princes, then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand. And Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me. You see, Zedekiah has given some hard preaching. And if you read through Jeremiah, it's interesting how many times the Lord gives Zedekiah a second chance. I mean, you can see the long suffering of God when you read through Jeremiah. I mean, he keeps saying, look, I know you screwed up again, but if you'll just repent now I won't destroy the city. God's like just saying, I don't want to destroy it, just please, you know, don't continue in wickedness. But what does Zedekiah do? He just keeps going. He just, he won't submit unto the word of God. And things keep changing and changing, but Zedekiah keeps getting chance after chance after chance. He never wants to get it right. And a lot of times people, they come to church and they hear a hard preaching sermon on their sin, they're given an opportunity. There's an open door unto you at this point. You can choose to get it right and have the blessing of God in your life, or you can continue in your sin, continue in your iniquity, and God will punish. And don't take for granted the long suffering of God to let you just continue in your sin, continue in your wickedness, because when God stares you in the face and makes it plain unto you, like a man preaching the word of God, preaching a hard sermon, he's not going to give you that many more chances. Your time might be up. And for Zedekiah, it was up. What happened to him? Well, his children were killed before his eyes, and then his eyes were poked out. Talk about a war, I mean, that's horrible. That's awful. Nobody wants that. But he was given opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. And I know if you come to Faith Word Baptist Church LA, there's going to be a hard sermon that probably gets on your, on your pet sin, gets on something that maybe you're struggling with, you're irritated with, and you're given an opportunity. You know what you should look at that sermon as? It's an open door. How do I respond when I'm in error? How do I respond when my sin's being rebuked? How do I respond when there's something in my life that's not quite right? And the Bible's crystal clear on the issue. I mean, the Bible couldn't be plainer. What are you going to do? How are you going to respond? It's an open door that God's giving you to get it right, to walk in His ways, to get the blessing. Go to Deuteronomy 28, if you would. But you see, He didn't want to do it because of fear. Oh, I'm afraid. I'm afraid if I quit drinking, what my friends will think of me. I'm afraid if I tell them I don't submit marijuana anymore, they'll mock me. They'll say, oh, what are you, too good? You too good for us now? Oh, you love Jesus now? They'll mock you. They'll ridicule you. And you have to make a decision. Who do you care? Are you going to continue in that wicked sin and have God destroy your brain and destroy your life and have everything taken away from you? Oh, that's way more important, Zedekiah. Way to go. Yeah, that was great. Have your whole family destroyed and your eyes plucked out, that's great. You know what? If you go live a wicked lifestyle, you go out drinking and fornicating and you're doing all this wicked sin, smoking marijuana, doing all these drugs, living of the world, God will punish. You know what? People that come to this church, they're going to be like Zedekiah where you have less chances. I mean, his long suffering is running short on people that know the truth. He has a lot more mercy on the ignorant than those that know the truth, that have heard the hard preaching. Deuteronomy 28, look at verse 9. The Lord shall establish thee in holy people unto himself as he hath sworn unto thee. If thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God and walk in his ways, and all the people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, and the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy ground, and the land which the Lord swearer unto thy fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season and to bless all the work of thine hand. And thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. Look at verse 12. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure. God wants to open all kinds of doors in your life. He wants to bless you. He wants to give you the desires of your heart. He wants to do all kinds of things for you. But there is something attached, a string attached. You gotta follow his commandments. You gotta do what he said. If you don't do what he said, he's not gonna bless you. Look at verse 15. But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments, all his commandments, all his commandments, and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee. God wants us to follow all of them, not some of them, not part of them, no, all of God's commandments. And when you don't, there's a curse. There's a blessing and there's a cursing. You have an open door. God wants to bless you in your life. He wants things to go well for you. He wants to strengthen you. He wants to build that mansion for you. You gotta go out and work hard though. You gotta follow his commandments. You gotta go and walk in his ways. Now obviously salvation's a free gift. Hey, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you're saved. There's nothing you can do to go to hell at that point. But if you want the blessing in your life, if you want him to build your home in heaven, you gotta follow his commandments. You gotta walk through all the open doors he has for you. You know what, you're gonna struggle so much more in your life if you just close your eyes and run into the wall. That's what it's like. If you're not going through the open door God has for you, you're just hitting the wall. You're just, oh, just hitting the wall, hitting the wall. Just walk through the open door. It's blessing. Go to Galatians 6, that's where we'll finish. Bible says in Deuteronomy 30 verse 19, I call to heaven in record to, sorry, I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live. That just destroys Calvinism, doesn't it? I mean, if God's saying, hey, I want to bless you, you have a choice to be blessed or to be cursed and God makes all the decisions and then he says, hey, choose life. I'm just kidding. I'm going to choose cursing for you. What a wicked God. What an evil God the Calvinist believes in. What a liar. None of the Bible would make any sense. Why would he tell you to choose something when you don't have a choice? That's a mocker. That's a liar. That's a deceiver. Is God a liar? How can God tell you to choose something if you can't choose anything? It doesn't make any sense. Look at Galatians 6 verse 10. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good in all men, especially under them who are the household of faith. What's the title of this sermon? Open Doors. Look, there's a lot of open doors in our lives. If we would just look with the spiritual eyes, we'd say, Lord, open my eyes. Let me see the open doors that I have in my life. But then guess what? You have to choose to walk through it. I'm just hoping that I can show you the doors. I can show you, hey, there's a lot more open doors in your life than you think. But guess what? I can't choose those for you. And guess what? God can't either. Don't believe the Calvinist garbage today. God wants you to choose it. God wants you to walk through these doors, but it's your choice. Are you going to walk through the open doors that God's given to your life? Are you not going to despise your inheritance? Are you going to say, hey, I appreciate the gifts and the talents you've given to me, God. I'm going to use them. I'm not going to discourage the brethren by not coming to the church, not coming through the open doors. I'm going to encourage them by coming and being faithful and being a blessing. You know what? I'm going to use the weapons that he gave me. I'm not going to just read it one time, two times, three times. No. I'm going to keep reading my whole life so I can have this word sharp, so I can go out and win the battle, win the war. And every opportunity that God gives unto me, I'm going to try and take. Even if it's a hard sermon, even if it's an opportunity where I'm being rebuked. The Bible says, Reprove not a scorer. Rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. The Bible says, look, if you're a wise man, you'll love rebuke so you can get it right so you can have God's blessing in your life. You can walk through that open door. I'll read for you Revelation 3 one more time. I know thy works. Behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, for thou's little strength in us kept my word, and it's not denied my name. God has an open door for you in your life. Let's walk through it. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for all that you've given us, all that you've blessed us with. Thank you so much for this great church and this great opportunity that you've given to all these people. I pray that we would see the open doors that you have for us in our life. They give us the strength and the encouragement and the desire to walk through them. And that as we walk through them, that you would go out and you'd set ambushments for our enemies, that you'd go out and fight for us, and that we could see the victory in the battle. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.