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Proverbs chapter 11 the Bible reads, A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. When pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom. The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. Richest profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death. The righteous of the perfect shall direct his way, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish, and the hope of unjust men perisheth. The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead. And hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbor, but through knowledge shall the just be delivered. When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth, and when the wicked perish, there is shouting. By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbor, but a man of understanding holdeth his peace. A tail-bearer revealeth secrets, but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter. Where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it, and he that hateth suretorship is sure. A gracious woman retaineth honor, and strong men retain riches. The merciful man doeth good to his own soul, but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh. The wicked worketh the deceitful work, but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward. As righteousness tendeth the life, so is he that pursueeth evil pursueeth it to his own death. They that are of a froward heart are abomination to the Lord, but such as are upright in their way are his delight. Though hand joined in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished, but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered. As a jewel of gold and a swine snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion. The desire of the righteous is only good, but the expectation of the wicked is wrath. There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than his meat, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself. He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him, but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it. He that diligently seeketh good procureth favor, but he that seeketh mischief shall come unto him. He that trusteth in his riches shall fall, but the righteous shall flourish as a branch. He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind, and the fool shall be a servant to the wise of heart. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that win his souls is wise. Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth, much more the wicked and the sinner." So here in Proverbs chapter 11, we have so much wisdom, so many different thoughts, but as I was reading through this chapter, I felt like the one theme that really seemed to kind of carry itself forward in this whole chapter was there in verse 3, where it says, the integrity of the upright shall guide them. And I think this whole chapter really focuses on the idea of integrity. So when you think of integrity, what do you often think of? You know, I think of some synonyms like character, like doing that which is right. You look up integrity in the dictionary, it says, the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, moral uprightness, and you know, integrity can also, you know, we think of it often as that definition, it can also mean the state of being whole or undivided. Something, you know, you might talk about a piece of wood or a metal beam and saying it still has its integrity, meaning that it's whole, that it's not been bent, that it doesn't have any perverseness in it, that it's just, it's got its integrity still. Just like a man or a being can not have any perverseness or any crookedness in themselves, they have that integrity. And so I wanted to go to 1 Kings chapter 9, if y'all turn there, 1 Kings chapter 9. And I want to read a couple of verses on integrity so we can kind of get a little bit of a foundation before we look at a lot of this chapter. And in Job chapter 2, I'll read for you, it says in verse 3, and the Lord said unto Satan, hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God and a sheweth evil, and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou moveth me against him, to destroy him without cause. So Job was suffered by the hand of Satan. God let Satan curse Job, and he lost all of his kids, he lost all the goods of his house, he lost all of his cattle, I mean they just, messenger after messenger after messenger comes up to Job and he's like, he lost this and he lost this and he lost this, I mean he lost it all in a matter of just seconds. Some guy just came and he lost it all. When Satan came before God, God's like, look, he still holds fast to his integrity, meaning that he didn't curse God, he didn't reject God, he didn't blame God, even with all the bad things, he still held integrity. And oftentimes when you look at someone that has integrity, it's not when things are going well that you would really look at them as having great integrity, it's when things are going bad. That's when your integrity really gets tested. That's when you can really see, does this person have integrity when the times get tough? And in Job chapter 2 verse 9 it says, then said his wife unto him, dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die! So his wife's like, look, why are you still being upright? Why are you still doing what God said? Why are you still holding your integrity? Just curse God and die. But there in verse Kings chapter 9 and verse 4, the Bible says, and if thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked in the integrity of the heart and in uprightness, and to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and will keep my statutes and my judgments. So God's giving, or David's giving a commandment unto Solomon, and he's saying, look, if you want to walk in the ways that David did, if you want to have the integrity of the heart, if you're going to have uprightness, you're going to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and will keep my statutes and my judgments, he was going to bless Solomon. He was going to give him wisdom. He was going to be there for him. But he said that he not only wanted to walk, he wanted to have integrity of heart, meaning that no matter what's happening in this world, Solomon was always going to make the right decision. He had already settled it in his heart that I'm going to do what's right no matter what the Bible, no matter what the world says, no matter what my friends say, no matter what my spouse says, no matter what my family says, I'm just going to do what's right because I love the Lord, because I want to serve God. And I mean, us as mortals on this earth, why wouldn't we want to do that? Why wouldn't we want to just do what God said? Why wouldn't we just want to please God the best we can? But the reality is that you have to have the integrity in your heart already established, or when tough times come, you're going to fall. When tough times and temptation come, you're not going to be solid on what you believe. You haven't settled it in your heart, and that integrity is not going to be there, so you're going to fall. You're going to make mistakes. That's why it's important to get that integrity now when things are good. If things are good in your life, you need to really reflect on do I have that integrity in my heart? If I lost one of my family members, if something really bad happened to me, if I lost my job, if things weren't going well, would I still want to go to church? Would I still want to read the Bible? Would I still go out soul winning? What if something really bad happened to me? What if there was a lot of persecution? What if the government decides that they want to inflict punishment onto people that go out soul winning? Are you still going to go out soul winning? Have you already decided to get that integrity? Decided, I'm just going to do what the Bible says no matter what. No matter what the circumstances are, I'm going to have that integrity. So we'll go back to Proverbs chapter 11. Kind of keep that in mind, I'll read a couple more verses. It says in Proverbs chapter 19 verse 1, better is the poor that walketh in his integrity than he that is perverse in his lips and is a fool. He's saying, look, it would be way better for you to just be poor and have no money, doing what's right, than anybody that had any riches. It's not important, you know, obviously the Bible says that we shouldn't desire to be poor, we shouldn't desire to be rich, but we should desire to be integrous more than anything. Meaning, if you have a decision at your job where your boss is saying, hey, I want you to do something wrong, I want you to sit against God, and you're like, I'm afraid I'd lose my job and I might have some poverty, you should always do that which is right. Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity. It says in Proverbs chapter 20 verse 7, that just man walketh in his integrity, his children are blessed after. You know, you might not understand all the ramifications of that decision. Maybe if your boss wanted you to lie on the job, you don't realize that that's going to trickle down and it's going to affect your children. But when you're honest, yeah, you might suffer some affliction, you might suffer some poverty, you might suffer some strife, you might suffer some discouragement, but that's just going to build so much more integrity in your children. When they see you take a stand for the word of God, when they see you do what you preach, you know, a lot of times children can look at their parents and say, they say the right things but they never do them, and it really gives them a hard heart towards religion. Maybe it gives them a hard heart to their church, maybe it gives them a hard heart to wanting to go soullen, and then they see the right thing to do but their parents just don't do it. But when you have that integrity, when you're doing the right thing, even when you don't realize other people are paying attention, maybe you don't realize your five-year-old children are paying attention to what you're doing. Your six-year-old, your seven-year-old, your teenager, whoever it is, they're paying attention to what you're doing and when you have that integrity, your children will be blessed after you. So we look there at the first one, it says, a false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. So we see God, he doesn't want you to ever do anything that is deceitful. He doesn't want you to ever make a false deal. It's an abomination unto him. I mean, that's some strong language. If you look through the Bible at things that are abomination unto him, there's some really bad stuff. But he's saying, look, if you're going to make a deceitful deal with somebody, that's an abomination. We should always be upright. We should always hold to our word. We shouldn't be making false deals in our business dealings, at our job, when we're out dealing with other people. If you agree with a man to give him some good or some service, you should make that deal right. Or just cheat them. And if you look at verse 26, it's interesting there, he says, he that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him, but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it. So now God is not, you know, a person that doesn't believe in profit or doesn't believe in capitalism or believe in some socialistic society. No, he said the man that selleth it would be blessed. So there's nothing wrong with building in profit to your goods and services or selling to make money or selling to have goods, but what would be wrong is if you were deceitful in your dealings. If you decided, hey, I'm going to give you a pound of sugar and you actually give them three quarters of a pound. Or if you say, hey, I'm going to fix your oil and I'm going to give you this really good oil that's sitting here on the shelf and in the back you have some crappy oil that's just sitting in the back that you just load into their car. God doesn't want you to be perverse in your dealings. You should always be straightforward. You should always be honest. It's an abomination to the Lord when you don't have a just weight, but the just weight is his delight and he's not against you selling things necessarily. And in verse 26 he's saying he that withholdeth corn, meaning this guy's not wanting to help anybody. He's not trying to, you know, give unto the poor or anything, but he's saying he that selleth it, that's not bad. It's not bad to sell things. It's not bad to have a job. It's not bad to make money. It's not bad to have a profit. It's bad to have perverse dealings and people understand they expect a profit to be built in. They don't want you to be lying to them through your teeth. They don't want, if they, if you agree upon a price, if you agree upon a car, they want it. Now my dad told me this story. He said he went to a dealership when he was pretty young and they're going to buy a car and I don't remember the exact brand of the car, but the model was a Reliant and it wasn't Reliant, but he had bought this car and the guy said, well, it was kind of like a model is inside the dealership, but the guy said, well, you can't have it today. Come back tomorrow and we'll give you the car. So they agreed on the price, they agreed on the car and so he comes back the next day and it's not the same car. I mean the car that he had is like had bucket seats and had leather and had like, you know, the automatic windows and this car, you know, it was a lot less, it was a lot scaled down. It was like the model down. It didn't have, it had like roll up windows. It looked like it was even maybe a little bit more used and he's like, this isn't the car that I bought and the guy sat there and argued with him, argued with him and my dad for some reason just decided to still buy it and then he drives off the lot, gets about a mile down and the car breaks down. I mean he just buys a brand new car. He knew that it wasn't right, but that's what the Bible is saying would be an abomination. You should never switch the goods right in the last minute just so you can make an extra profit. You should never jack up, you know, you can have a high profit, but you shouldn't be lying to the people about what's going on in your business. If you agree to give them a certain amount of goods, you should give that certain amount of goods. You should never, you know, give them a defective product knowing that it's defective saying, hey, you can rely on this or you know how about the used cars sometimes they'll roll back the miles. There's a lot of things that can be perverse and even in our jobs we need to be paying attention that we're not being a partaker of something that would be abomination unto the Lord. If we look at verse two, the Bible says, when pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom. I was thinking about this word shame is saying when pride cometh, there would be shame. You know, in Romans chapter 10 verse 11, the Bible says, for the scripture saith whosoever believeth on me shall not be ashamed. You want to be ashamed? Be filled with pride. The person that's filled with pride will never get saved and they will always be ashamed. God says that he gives grace into the humble and resisted the proud. The only way you're going to get saved is by letting go of that pride and saying, you know what? I do deserve to go to hell. You know what? I do need a savior, but someone that's full of pride and arrogance will never admit those things. And you can just see it. It's through the Calvinist or the person who's a lordship salvationist. They want to believe that they can earn their way to heaven. They want to trust in themselves. They want to stand before God and say, God, I know these wonderful works, but that person filled with pride will be brought down to shame. And this is not just in salvation, it's in everything. In Proverbs chapter 16 verse 18, the Bible says, Pride goeth before destruction and a hearty spirit before a fall. So I'll turn to Isaiah chapter 14. Now I was thinking about pride, it's the ultimate sin of Lucifer, if you read the Bible. If you understand why Lucifer fell, it's the ultimate destruction of him. In Proverbs chapter 29 verse 23, the Bible says, A man's pride shall bring him love, but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit. So God, you know, when he represents someone that's being prideful, they're going to be brought down. They're going to be brought love. The Bible represents hell is being brought down. In Isaiah chapter 14 verse 12, the Bible says, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high, yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. We see there the five I wills of Lucifer. He said, I will ascend, I will exalt, I will sit, I will ascend, I will be. We see it's filled with pride. He's filled with arrogance. He wants to be God. He wants to be like the most high. He wants to be the one that's worthy of praise, but he's going to be brought down to hell. And the Bible makes the parallel to anybody that would be filled with pride, even in your job. If you decide that, hey, I'm a pretty good worker. I'm the best guy in my job, oftentimes your boss will look with disdain under that person. When you're filled with pride and arrogance, it's repelling into other people. They don't like that. And you're often going to be brought into shame. You're going to be brought into destruction. If you want to have, you know, grace, be humble. Look unto others as being more valuable than yourself. Trying to build others up, being edifying. Great leaders often are very humble. Great leaders look to the people around them and try to lift them up. Trying to encourage them. Trying to make them better. Someone who's prideful and arrogant just says, I got this. I'm the greatest. Look at me, and Satan wants that worship, he wants that praise, and the devil is the king of pride. If you look, let's go to Job chapter 41 and look at this one verse. It's interesting in Job, it talks about a couple creatures that we don't really have in today's existence that we could just go and look at, that we know of. It talks about behemoth. It talks about behemoth having a tail like a cedar tree. Having his sinews, meaning his like thighs being like tree trunks, being like trees. His belly being so big, him being able to drink up a river. But it also talks about another creature, it talks about a leviathan. Sounds like a fire breathing dragon with scales of bottom. And in Job chapter 41 verse 34, the Bible says, he beholdeth all high things. He is a king over all the children of pride. And now just like a dragon, if you saw, you know, some 40 foot tall fire breathing dragon that was covered with the scales that were like shields where iron couldn't even pierce and he was coming to attack you, you're going to lose all your pride. He's going to be king of pride. But the Bible says in Revelation 20 verse 2, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan and bound him a thousand years. The Bible often references Satan as the dragon, as the serpent. And Satan is the king or the children of pride. I believe it's a symbolic representation of who Satan is. He wants to lift you up with pride. He wants to lift you up with arrogance. And that's the fall of almost any guy in the Bible that we see. We see the kings are lifted up with pride and then they would forget God. We see anytime in the Bible that someone struggles, it's because they're lifted up with pride. And pride is going to destroy you, it's going to bring shame unto you. That's why it's always important to try to be humble, to be reflective of, hey do I find myself more important? Do I think of myself as the greatest person or am I looking to build up others? Am I looking to pour into others? Am I looking to build others up? To help other people. That's what will make you humble. When you look at other people and you decide, hey, it's more important if that guy succeeds. Hey, it's more important if all the people in this room are great soul winners than me. What's more important? One person being good at soul winning or many people being good at soul winning? If I just said, hey, I'm the best soul winner and I'm so great and just look at me and everybody clap and tell me how great I am. Or if I said, hey, I want you to be the best soul winner. I want to teach you how to be the best soul winner. I want to show you how I do it and maybe you can do it better. Maybe you can do it, show me ways how to do it. It's more important for me to help others to not be filled with pride and arrogance. But it's only going to come when you have that integrity already in your heart. When you already realize the importance of the Bible, the importance of Jesus Christ, you reflect on how little of worth we are in the sight of God. It's more important to just build other people up. When you have that integrity, it will help you with your pride. See in verse 3, it says, the integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. So we see your integrity is so important, it's going to keep you on the right path. No one's going to be a great man of God by accident. Nobody's just going to wake up one day and have 1000's of people to Christ. How do you get there? By having integrity. By doing the right things. Hey, I'm going to read my Bible every day. Hey, I'm going to memorize the verses of the Bible that are for salvation. Hey, I'm going to go out and do all the right things. Hey, I'm going to always go out in church. Hey, I'm going to always be singing the hymns. And just get that settled in your heart. Just get that integrity where I'm always going to do that no matter what, you're going to be a better soul winner. You're going to be a great man of God. And nobody's just going to wake up and just become some great man of God. You have to get that integrity in your heart so that you can do great things for God. You know, to help you when you have that integrity, when you've built up a good practice that will help you in all kinds of different situations. You know, you can't, when it comes to soul winning, somebody would be like, what's your presentation? Well, sometimes it has to change. Sometimes it has to adapt the situation because we're talking to people and there's all kinds of different people. They're all in different life circumstances. They all have different views and beliefs and it's the same gospel. I don't variate from my gospel very much, but there's sometimes different ways for me to get them engaged to the gospel or different ways to get them to want to listen. Or maybe I start a little different place or maybe I get them, you know, they're struggling with a certain doctrine that they've been taught and I have verses already backed up in my memory that I can turn to to help get them over that false belief. But when you don't have any integrity, when you just say, hey, I'm just going to go out and just do some soul winning and I haven't really prepared. I haven't been reading my Bible. You don't have any extra tools. You don't have that integrity inside yourself to be ready for different situations. You know, I was thinking about driving a car. You know, if you decide to just speed, like let's say you decide to drive really fast one day. Okay, let's say the speed limit is like 50 miles an hour and you just decided to drive like 90 all the way home. Now most likely you probably won't have anything bad happen. I mean, most likely you'll be okay, you do it that one time, but what about somebody that speeds like that every day? What's going to happen? That's what integrity is about. Integrity is not about the one time. Integrity is not about the one quick moment. No, it's about a lifetime. It's talking about the, you know, how you live your lifestyle. When you're integrity, when you're doing what the Bible is saying, when you're following God's commandments, you're going to be protected. But when you step out, when you decide to not have that integrity, something might stop you and catch you by the way. You might get that ticket or even worse, you might be going 90 miles an hour and lose control of your vehicle and die. You know, someone that's under control, someone that has integrity, someone that's disciplined, someone that's reading the Bible, someone that's grounded on the Bible. They're going to have that integrity. It's going to preserve them. It's going to keep them. Someone that has a bad habit. It may not affect them right away. Someone that decides to smoke, someone that decides to drink, someone that decides to go out and party, maybe someone that decides to commit fornication, maybe that first time they get away with it. But when you live a wicked lifestyle, when you're transgressing God's laws, it's going to catch up to you. And when you have that integrity, you can know I'm always going to be on the right path and nothing's going to take me off of it. God wants to preserve the righteous. He wants to preserve those that have integrity in their heart. But those that want to just decide, hey, I'm just going to do whatever I want, might not affect you the first day, might not affect you the next month, might not affect you the first year. But be sure that your sins will find you out, is what the Bible says. You know, I think about Abraham and Lot. When Abraham was looking at the place to go, he said, look, we've gotten too big. Our shepherd men are fighting because they're always conflicting, there's not enough land. Let's spread out a little bit. And Lot, you can decide where to go. And where does Lot decide to go? He decides to go to the well-watered plains. He decides to go pitch his tent towards Sodom. Now did he immediately suffer for that? No. He didn't have anything bad happen to him. And he decided to just keep going in the wrong direction, keep going towards more and more sin. And eventually when he was in Sodom, their entire city was taken captive and he was taken prisoner. Why? Because he didn't have any integrity. Because he wasn't doing the right thing. And it took several years to catch up to him. But do you think in that moment, when he was captured, when he was taken back by these wicked men, that he was deciding, hey, it was a good idea for me to live this wicked life, for me to transgress God, for me to follow after sin. No, he realized it finally caught up to him, but it was too late. And oftentimes when it comes to integrity, it's going to be too late if you decide to go in that wicked path. It's not going to be something that affects you every day necessarily that you can realize. It's going to be a slow burn. But eventually you'll have sudden destruction. You can have a sudden chastisement of the Lord that will have reparable damage. There's things that you can do in this life. There's choices that you can make that will have damage for your entire life. You can decide, hey, I'm going to go out and do this sin and you could never be a pastor one day. You could do some sin and now you don't have a family. You could do some sin and lose a family member. You could do some sin and get some disease. You could cause some sin and affect your life, like fornication, like drunkenness, like any of these things. And you can have something come into your life that, yeah, you still have free will, but you just lost some opportunity. You just lost some future endeavor that you could have been partaking in. Maybe you'd lose your job because you didn't have any integrity. Maybe you always came in late. In just that one day, your boss is having a bad day and you notice you come in late and you just get fired because you didn't have any integrity. You need to have integrity so that you'll be preserved. Says in verse 4, Rich is profit not on the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death. You have to be careful, you'll be destroyed by a bad habit. If y'all turn to Galatians chapter 6, and I'll read verse 6 too, it says, the righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. I'm sorry, verse 4 was, Rich is profit not on the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death. You know, I'll read this for you while you're returning to Galatians chapter 6. In Psalms 49, the Bible says, they that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of the richest, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for it. For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it seetheth forever, that he should still live forever and not see corruption. The Bible's saying no matter how much money you have in this world, you could never redeem anybody's soul with it. You could never offer unto God, God I'll give you a billion dollars if you just save this person. Never save anybody. The redemption of a soul is precious unto him, and it's only going to be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. But some people don't have that thought, they don't have that realization that money really doesn't profit you in any way. It doesn't help you in eternity's sake. Whether you're rich or poor is going to have no consequence in eternity, none. So why do you want to seek after riches when it doesn't profit you any? And it's only going to bring you a loss of sleep, it's going to bring you anxiety. Now of course, we should be able to provide wealth for our families and have food and clothing and be content therewith, but we shouldn't be chasing after riches when it doesn't profit us anything. But when you read this Bible you can get that perspective. I'll read verse 5 and 6 again. The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. In Galatians chapter 6 verse 5 the Bible says, For every man shall bear his own burden. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. And as if as we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. Sometimes we understand that God is not mocked for whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. That's a good verse. But in this context he's saying, look, if you sow to the flesh, you're going to reap of the flesh. And if you sow to the Spirit, you're going to reap of the Spirit. When you have integrity, and you're always sowing to the Spirit, you're always sowing that which is right, you're always going to reap that which is right. And sometimes when you sow to the Spirit, you may not get that reward here on earth, but you'll get it in heaven. And we need to be, you know, focused on eternity more than this life. But you will reap good things in this life if you sow good things in this life. But you're only going to get that by being, having great integrity, by always doing that which is right, by having good habits, by practicing that which is right. That's why it's saying, look, the righteousness of the upright shall deliver them. When you're doing the right things, it's going to keep you from the evil. God's going to help protect you. It says, but transgressions shall be taken in their own naughtiness. When you're sowing bad things to the flesh, you're going to reap bad things to the flesh. We shouldn't be deceived. Going back to chapter 11, verse 7, it says, when a wicked man dieeth, his expectation shall perish, and the hope of unjust men perish. Flip over to Proverbs chapter 20, flip over to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, when the wicked are expecting a future, what are they looking for? Maybe to build some great building. Maybe to make a great nation. Maybe to store up some riches. Isn't this what the kings, the heathen, you know, want? They want to build some great monument of themselves. They want to build some great city. What did Pharaoh want to build? He wanted to build great pyramids for himself. They want to store up riches for themselves. But that expectation of the future is just going to perish when they die. As soon as they're dead, it's just gone. Who cares? It's for the next guy to wander and care about. But it's saying, he says, what should the righteous be looking for? Looking towards the heaven? Looking for the new Jerusalem? Looking for rewards in heaven? Becoming the sons of God? How great does that sound? That's never going to expire. When we die, we're going to have realization of that. So why are we chasing after things of buildings and money and fame and notoriety? Those will immediately perish when we're dead. Nobody's going to care about those anymore. But why don't you seek after the new Jerusalem, after heaven, becoming a son of God? How great and glorious is that? We are the sons of God. Behold, now we are the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We're going to see Jesus Christ and realize how glorious it is to be a son of God. In Romans chapter 8 verse 18, the Bible says, For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Our purpose is to be the children of God. Why aren't we just focused on that, being a good son unto the Lord Jesus Christ? Because the wicked man dying, his expectation shall perish. We go back to Proverbs chapter 11, we'll look there at verse 8. And as they are kind of turning back, Hebrews 11 says, But without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Do you really believe that God will reward you for your works on this earth? Are you really trusting, hey when I go out sowing I went somebody to Christ, God's pleased with me, and he's going to reward me. If you believe that, how much more is that going to motivate you to go out there, to have a stronger faith? Is that what you're focused on, is the things of God rewarding you? Are you a believer that he's going to reward you? If you don't believe that he's going to reward you, you're going to lose a lot of that motivation. You're going to lose the integrity in your heart, and one day when it gets tough, when it gets cold, when nobody's going out there, when there's persecution you're going to quit. But if you believe he's going to reward you, how much more do you want to go out there? You say, oh man, I might suffer persecution or affliction, how much more are you going to get rewarded? If you believe he's going to reward you, you're like, great, man, maybe if I suffer for Christ I'll get an extra crown, maybe I'll get more riches, maybe my mansion got an extra room. But if you don't really believe that, if you're not focused on the fact that God's going to reward you, you're going to be discouraged. You're going to be discouraged by affliction, you're going to be discouraged when times get tough. You're going to be disturbed, hey, there's only one of us out here, oh man, I have to go soloing by myself today, do you believe that he's going to reward you? I mean, just get excited, hey, God's going to reward me if I go out and preach his word. God's going to reward me if I'm faithful unto him. You're going to get that by having that integrity in your heart. I'll read you one other place in John chapter 4, it says in verse 35, say not ye therefore months, then come harvest, behold I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look unto the fields for they are already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And hearing is that saying true, one soweth and another reapeth. God's going to reward you if you go out and sow and reap. He says he that reapeth receiveth wages. When you go out and get somebody's saying, you're going to get wages. And guess who's the best employer ever? The Lord Jesus Christ. He always is going to pay. He's always going to be just. He's not got an abomination of an unjust weight. No, he's got the just weight, which is his delight. He's going to repay you for those works. And verse 8, the Bible says the righteous delivered out of trouble and the wicked cometh in his stead. So when you're righteous, when you're doing the good things, even when the wicked devise some awful plan against you, he's going to get the punishment that he was trying to get on you. We see this so many times in the Bible. We see in Daniel the lion's den. Men came to accuse Daniel and they wanted to throw him in this lion's den, but God preserved him out. And then those men were thrown in with their families and destroyed. And Haman and Mordecai and Esther, Haman hated Mordecai, so he built this great gallow and wanted to hang Mordecai, but at the end Haman was hanged on the gallows. We look at Pharaoh, he wanted to throw all the children in the river and slay all the children, but in the end God put him and his whole army in the river and he drowned them. The wicked will get what they devised against the righteous. But he says he's going to give it to the righteous, so you have that integrity in your heart. You want God to preserve you, be righteous, do good. If you're a faithful soul winner, if you're going to church in today's wicked and perverse generation, how much more does God want to preserve you? He's like, I can't find a faithful man. He's searching to and fro with his eyes, looking for a faithful man that he wants to preserve, that he wants to protect, that he wants to fill with his Holy Spirit, and if you're that guy, how much does God want to preserve you? How much does God want to protect you? How much does God want to just bless you? That's why we should be focused on living righteous, having that integrity in our heart. You look in verse 9 of Proverbs chapter 11, and the hypocrite with his mouth destroyed his neighbor, but through knowledge shall it just be delivered. You know, I was thinking about, sometimes people may offer their neighbor bad advice that he doesn't himself take. He's just a hypocrite, he's trying to destroy him. I was thinking about the Pharisees, and if y'all would turn to Matthew chapter 15. You know, Jesus was warning of the Pharisees many times, he was saying, beware of eleven of the Pharisees. You know, the Pharisees were often being hypocritical of what the law teaches. They were trying to justify divorce. They were trying to justify all kinds of sin and wickedness. And that hypocrite, saying that he was from God, saying, hey, it's okay to divorce. Hey, it's okay. You may hear all kinds of false prophets say all kinds of stuff. Hey, you can drink alcohol, there's no sin in drinking alcohol. Why don't you get a tattoo, why don't you go watch radar movies, why don't you live in the world? And they're a hypocrite, and they're going to destroy their neighbor by giving them excuse to sin, by teaching them to sin. When I was going out soul winning in the soul winning marathon this Saturday, I knocked on the door of an older gentleman, he was a tall guy, and I told him we were from a Baptist church, and he says, oh, I'm never going to church again. I've been in churches my whole life, and all they did was lie to me, all they did was tell me false stuff, all they did was just, you know, disappoint me over and over and over. I never want to go to church again. You know, that's still not the right attitude. We should always want to go back and find the right church. But how bad is it that these hypocrites are just burning people, are just destroying people, and hypocrites will destroy his neighbor with their lies. That's why we need to be out there with the truth. That's why we need to be, you know, a good congregation, a great church that's loving and merciful and kind to our neighbors, loving our neighbors as ourself, going out and being a light into this world so that people will be attracted to us. Because there's so much false religion, and there's so many, I mean, it's just notorious. People realize that the Catholic priests are pedophiles. I mean, how much does somebody want to take their kid to that church, knowing that there's so many pedophiles in the church? It's our approach unto Christ, and we know that the hypocrite will destroy his neighbor. That's why we need to be a loud voice. We need to be a light on top of a hill, shining bright forth the righteousness of God and the truth. And in Matthew chapter 15 verse 7, the Bible says, Ye hypocrites, well did the zaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. And in Hosea 4.6 the Bible says, My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. Because thou has rejected knowledge, I also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me, seeing as thou has forgotten the law of thy God, I also forget thy children. So people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. But when they're being taught all these lies, all this false doctrine from the commandments of men, these hypocrites are destroying their neighbor. But through knowledge shall the just be delivered. How do you get delivered from all that wickedness, all that sin, all that filth? By knowledge. People are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. We need to be desirous of what this book says, because this book will give us the knowledge to preserve ourselves. How do you know which church to go to? This book. How do you know how to get saved? This book. How do you know what to trust in this world? This book. How do I know if what I'm thinking is from God? It's in this book. Knowledge will preserve you. Knowledge will keep the just. We see it will also slay, you know, the lies of these hypocrites, and these hypocrites are trying to destroy people. They're not just lying just to fill their pockets sometimes, sometimes they want to destroy people. Let's go to verse 10 back in Proverbs chapter 11. It says, when it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish, there is shouting. You say, hey, what would happen if all the pedophiles got lined up and executed tomorrow? There would be a lot of shouting. There would be a lot of rejoicing. What if the wicked, you know, all, what if you took all the presidential candidates, all the wicked evil people, and all the people in the hall, in the Washington DC, and they were executed. There would be rejoicing. There would be shouting. I've never seen so many people disappointed about this election. I've never seen so many people that are just like, man, we're just doomed either way. Nobody wants to vote. Nobody wants to, you know, nobody cares. They're like, this is a joke. It's a joke when you have a woman trying to run for resident, and she's, you know, in the eyes of many people, the best candidate. I don't agree that she's the best candidate. I don't, I think she's a wicked evil person, but there's a lot of people that look and say, I guess she's the best candidate. I mean, we don't want Trump, and I don't want Trump either. I don't want either of them. But it's just a shame. It's just this approach. But see that when the, when it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices. Don't get confused about, you know, people say, oh, you're just bringing all this hate speech. You want to bring in the laws of God? You want to actually do what this book says? That's when people rejoice. You know, if the government, some government official came up, he's like, I want to run for president, and I want all the laws of God to be the laws for America, we would be a lot of rejoicing in the city. There'd be a lot of righteousness. We could walk safely down the streets again. We can let our kids play and have fun. We wouldn't be worried about all the perilous evil wicked people because they would be punished according to God's law. Then when the wicked would actually perish, there'd be shouting. What should the righteous do when the wicked in Orlando are murdered? Shouting. I mean, look, it's what the Bible says. People say, you rejoice that 50 pedophiles are murdered? I mean, according to this, when the wicked perish, they're shouting. And it's not talking about like being angry, it's talking about being excited. Hey, the wicked perish. They're no longer going to persecute us. They're no longer going to inflict us. They're no longer going to hurt children. They're shouting. It says in verse 11, by the blessing of the upright, the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. Why is the city destroyed? Because of the mouth of the wicked. Why is America going to be destroyed? Because of the mouths of the wicked. Not because of the righteous, not because of God's people, not because of God's laws. That's only going to bring joy. That's only going to mean shouting, rejoicing. But when you reject God and you let the mouths of the wicked control this nation, that's when it's going to be overthrown. We can look at America and say, oh, we're so great, oh, we're the most powerful nation. But if we just continue to lift up wickedness, we'll be overthrown. Says in verse 12, he that is void of wisdom despises his neighbor, but a man of understanding holdeth his peace. A tail-bearer revealeth secrets, but he that is a faithful spirit concealeth the matter. We shouldn't go around just telling everybody's gossip. If you have some dirt on somebody, the Bible says the wise thing is to conceal it. Now, it's not talking about some child molester, someone that's committed murder, done some wicked sin. But look, if your brother, maybe you saw him have a beer one time. You shouldn't just go around and be like, oh, this guy's a drunkard, oh, this guy's, you know, doing all this. If you feel convicted, go to your brother and talk with him and say, hey, brother, I don't think you should be doing that. We shouldn't be going out and just spreading, you know, anything that we know about somebody that's been, that's wrong. Because if we're going to just, hey, every time you see somebody sin in this church, go tell someone. We're all going to get told on. We're all going to have sin that's exposed to men's eyes. And we shouldn't be going around as a tailbearer revealing secrets. He is a faithful spirit, concealed the matter. You want to win a brother over to Christ? You want to win a brother as a friend, reveal, you know, conceal that, conceal that information. You know, unfortunately in today's age and world, there's so many people that go on Facebook every single day and they do not conceal anything. They're bringing to light everybody's sin. They're like, did you see what she said? Oh, did you see what she said? Did you see what he said? Oh, did you know he believes this? Oh, did you know last year they did that? Oh, did you know they had a kid out of wedlock? Oh, did you know that, um, she wears pants on the weekends? Oh, did you know that this guy, you know, he went to some other church? Oh, did you know that their family member's a sodomite? Oh, did you see what she said that did this? I mean, it's just gossip and gossip and gossip. Just get rid of it. Don't even have anything to do with it. And if you have some private information, if you've seen some man sitting, why don't you pray for your brother? Why don't you, if you want to tell somebody, tell God, why don't you tell God, Hey, I see my brother in sin and I want you, I want God to just help me be a blessing in his life. Why don't you just help me, you know, come into him and be a blessing to him. That's what we should be telling him. If you want to tell somebody, tell God, don't spread it on Facebook. It says in verse 14, where no counsel is the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. Now this verse is really interesting because I've heard it a lot of times as a justification for a really unbiblical hierarchy in a church. A lot of people justify having like this huge group of elders or this huge group of deacons or this committee board and they're the ones that make all the decisions in the church and the pastor is subject under this board of committees because where there's a multitude of counselors, there is safety, but that's not what this verse is really talking about. It's not talking about a pastor being subject unto a bunch of, you know, rich guys in the church. I mean, isn't that what you always see in the deacon board? I mean, when's the last time you went to the deacon board and it was like Joe the mechanic and Bill the plumber and Sam the carpenter. No, it's like so-and-so businessman and so-and-so manager and the CEO of this company. I mean, if you go through the Bible, almost every time it talks about riches, it's just negative. It's just like beware of the rich guy, beware of those that trust in riches. The love of money is the root of all evil. He's saying, look, it's hard for a rich man to enter in the kingdom of heaven, but how come all the spirit-filled men on these boards are the richest guys in their community? That doesn't make any sense. If you're going to have, and of course that's not even a biblical hierarchy, but it's just ridiculous. Whenever I was living back home, there was a Baptist church in my area and I didn't, I wasn't like a primary member, but I went there several times and they brought in a guy as a deacon. He was like 25, 26, unmarried, had no children. They brought him out as a deacon because he owned his own business in the area. I mean, how wicked, how ungodly is it to just bring people in that are rich? We should be bringing in spirit-filled men as deacons. And of course, most of them don't even like represent the right kind of a deacon is what the Bible teaches a deacon should be like. But if you want to be a deacon, they should be people that are spirit-filled. Hey, this guy has been the church of faithful. He comes three times a week. He knows his Bible. He's read it many times. He goes out and wins people to Christ. He's been winning people to Christ faithfully. He's won thousands of people to Christ. He knows the Bible really well. He's such a, he's so hospitable. He's a faithful husband. He's faithful raising his children. That should be the qualifications of a deacon. How much money is he having in the bank? You know, is he going to be able to bring influence into our, we need a new building. You know, how are we going to get that building fund? Oh, we need these 10 deacon guys to sign and co-sign on the loan and we need them to all be rich. I mean, you can't get Joe the plumber to sign on some $2 million building loan. You need the CEO of some company. You need this guy that's like the manager of the bank. That's why they get all these rich people to be on their board. So what is it saying then? What does it say when it says where no counsel is the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. What it's talking about is pastors. What it's talking about is men of God being in this world, being wise counselors under the people. The people fall because there's nobody preaching the word of God, because there's no faithful pastors preaching the word of God. But when there's a multitude of counselors, when there's a pastor in every city preaching faithful the word of God, when there's a pastor in every corner, when there's people going out and preaching the gospel and getting people saved, there's safety. But when all the good preachers, when all the righteous preachers get taken out of the city, when there's no good counselors in that city, there's not any safety. That's what the Bible is teaching here. It's not teaching like, hey, I need to, you know, I need to have a deacon board because in the multitude, no, they're going to just spew all their wickedness, all their filth. They don't want to preach, you know, they don't want you preaching against money. They don't want you preaching against the bankers. They don't want you preaching against anything in the Bible that has any teeth on it because they want the church to get big and bring in lots more money and just love on the people. Where the multitude of counselors, there's safety. Now, of course, you can apply this a little bit in the fact of if you're struggling in a manner, maybe you take it before a couple, you know, wise men in the church. Maybe you take something that you're struggling with or you're concerned about and you can have some safety in the fact that you get opinion from several righteous men. But I think the primary application of this is having great pastors in this country to lead a country and saying, he that is surety of a stranger shall smart for it and he that hate his church should be sure. Now the word surety is kind of like if you were going to be co-signing on a loan or you're going to be, you know, I'll vouch for this guy. If he doesn't pay this debt or if he doesn't pay this loan, I'll step in and pay it. And he's saying, he that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it. Now the word smart is only mentioned one time in the Bible and it's in this verse and so I kind of looked it up. I didn't really know, but in the, in the dictionary, smart can also mean of a wound of a part of a body causing sharp stinging pain. So what's the Bible saying? It's saying when you just decide, hey, I'm just going to vouch for some guy I don't know, you're going to have a sting. You're going to have a wound. That's always going to be an affliction under you. You need to vouch for people that you know at best and saying he that is, he that hate his church should be sure. I mean, if you've never vouch for anybody, you'll always be sure. You'll always be right. If you're going to make sure, if you decide, hey, I really want to step in for somebody, hey, I really want to co-sign for somebody, you better make sure you know them. Don't just sign up to just help anybody that's, you know, just comes to you just, hey, will you just give me a bunch of money? Hey, I need, I need some help. Will you just help me? Don't do that for a stranger or you're going to suffer affliction. That person is just going to walk away and you're going to be left carrying this debt or carrying this burden. It says that, uh, either the surety for a stranger shall smart for it. It says in verse 16, a gracious woman retaineth honor and strong men retain its riches. The Bible talks about a gracious woman retaining honor. You know, the word gracious is a great word in the Bible. The person that's probably the most gracious in the Bible is the Lord. In Psalms 116 verse five, the Bible says, gracious is the Lord and righteous. Yea, our God is merciful. When women are looked on with respect, it's because they're gracious. It's because they, they, you know, they have mercy on other people because they look unto other people, the kind heart, because they're forgiving, because they're kind, because they're affectionate. It says in Exodus 22, 27, for that is his covering only and his raiment for his skin, wherein shall he sleep and it shall come to pass when he crieth unto me that I will hear for I am gracious. The Bible is talking about God saying, look, when this guy is struggling, when this guy doesn't have a place to sleep, when this guy cries unto me, I'm going to be gracious. Meaning you have compassion on others. Meaning when somebody's struggling, when somebody's affliction, you would go and help them. That you'd be gracious unto that person, that you'd have compassion to that person. When you see a woman that notices, hey, this person, this little kid in this family, you know, doesn't have much money or doesn't have any shoes and she goes over and helps that kid or maybe she helps a struggling family or maybe she sees someone in the law, you know, that's, that needs just some compassion and she goes and helps them. That's when you're going to have honor to that woman. You're going to look at that woman and you say, man, isn't that a great woman? She always has compassion on others. She's always looking to help others. That's when you're going to have honor and say, just as a strong man would retain riches. Who are those that retain riches? The really strong people. You're not going to keep a lot of money by not being, by being weak. People are going to come and take it from you. So just as a strong man would keep his riches, just as a strong man is able to hold those riches, a woman that wants honor is going to be gracious and she's always going to be able to retain that honor. It says in verse 17, the merciful man doeth good to his own soul, but he that is cruel trouble of his own flesh. So we see this Bible just saying over and over, we see that you reap what you sow. Whenever you do good on your own soul by mercy, when you have mercy on others, you're doing good on yourself. But if you're cruel, you're going to trouble your own flesh. The wicked work of the deceitful work, but then that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward. Look whatever, whatever a man soweth that shall he also reap. I can't read it more times. The Bible's just giving us so many different ways of saying it. Being merciful, being good, being righteous, having integrity. When you're doing the right thing, when you're being righteous, when you're doing good, you're going to have blessing from the Lord unto you. When you're doing that which is evil and wicked, you're going to have death and destruction. Says as righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death. Man, those that are pursuing his wickedness, his evilness, they're pursuing it under their own death. Says they that are of a forward heart or abomination of the Lord, but such as are upright in their way are his delight. He doesn't take any pleasure in the wicked. He doesn't like any of the wicked people at all. You say is God not mad at you, Joyce Meyer's book, God's not mad at you. No, he hates the wicked. God is angry with the wicked every day. God has no pleasure in the wicked. When the wicked gives money to the poor, no pleasure. When the wicked guy does anything that in this world's eyes is good, it's always wrong to the Lord. He doesn't have any pleasure in it, no delight, without faith it's impossible to please him. But we see that but such as upright in their way are his delight. You know who he delights in? Those that follow his commandments. You want God to be pleased with you? Follow his commandments. Says though hand joining hand the wicked shall not be unpunished, but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered. Look, even if the wicked, you know, they see, they walk down the streets in their parades, hand in hand, we're going to give money to the poor. You know, we're going to help this community. They go on to the poor communities, hand in hand, they're going to help people. They're not going to go unpunished. No matter how much good they do in this life, not much money they give to the poor. No matter what they do, riches, profit, nothing. Says in verse 22, as jewel of gold in a swine snout, so is a fair woman, which is without discretion. Now this is kind of a funny verse, it's kind of an interesting verse. You know, I was trying to picture it, I mean, if you have a pig, some disgusting, vile beast that rolls around in its own filth, that rolls around in mud, that's covered in just filth and disgust, something that you don't want to even touch, and you imagine like a piece of gold, like I think of a gold ring, and it's just shoved up in that snout. I mean, nobody even wants to go towards it. Nobody even wants to get it. Nobody wants to dig it out. That's digging for gold. You know where the phrase digging for gold came from? I think it came from this verse. So many popular phrases always come from this book. Nobody wants to dig for that gold, it's disgusting, it's filthy, it's wicked. And even a righteous, I mean, sorry, not a righteous, even a beautiful woman without discretion is this jewel of gold in a swine snout. Nobody wants to even come near it. Nobody even wants to touch it. Nobody wants to have anything to do with it. And what's discretion? Knowing how to behave yourself, knowing the right things to say, knowing how to live righteously, having discretion to preserve thee, knowing what good things to do, when you see a foolish woman who's loud and clamorous, her feet abide not in her house as the Bible says, you don't want that, you don't desire that, and you don't even want to try and get it. You realize this woman's never going to be what I want. She's not what they call a wife material. But it's reality. You look at some women and you say, this is not what I want. A woman without discretion is like a jewel of gold in a swine snout. You don't even want to try and go for it. You're like, maybe I can get it and clean it off and it'd be okay. You're like, I give up. I don't even want to touch it. I don't even want to go for it. So what was a woman without discretion? How is that woman getting your discretion? By reading this book, by understanding what God's word says so that they'd be desirous. You want to have that honor be gracious. Says in verse 23, the desire of the righteous is only good, but the expectation of the wicked is wrath. The righteous just want to do good. When you have integrity, when you have it settled in your heart that you want to do that which is right, your desire will be to do that which is right. Are you struggling? You say, man, I'm really tempted to do a lot of sin still. Man, I'm really tempted to just go out and live for the world. Man, I'm really tempted to give up soul winning. I'm really tempted to give up church. It's really hard for me to read the Bible. Get that integrity built up. Start building some integrity. Start building, you know, your focus on the word of God. The fact that he's a rewarder, the fact that he's delight is in those that do his word. When you get that integrity, you're going to only want to do good. He's going to give you the desires of your heart. The Bible says in verse 24, there is that scattereth and yet increaseth and there is that withholdeth more than his meat, but tendeth to poverty. And I was thinking about, sometimes the things of the Bible are contrary to the carnal mind. You say, how are you going to scatter and get more? I mean, how does that make sense? But you got to think of it in the terms of two ways. He thinks of like agriculture and soul winning. You say, when you go out and you scatter your seed, when you scatter, you know, whatever you're going to do for your crop, it'll increase and you'll have 10,000 times more seeds. You'll have 10,000 more of your food. There is that scatter, but increase it. If you want to have that food, you can't just hold on to all your seeds. That's why he's saying there is that withholdeth more than his meat, but it tendeth to poverty. He says more than meat, meaning more than that's necessary. When you have crops, like you think of a farmer, he's got to save some for food. He's got to think, hey, the winter's going to come. I need some food. I need to store some food for myself. But if he decides to just store it all up, then when the spring comes, he's going to have nothing to scatter. And the same thing is with soul winning. You want to see the church increase? Then you've got to go out and spread some seeds. You've got to go out and scatter so you can increase. And if you withhold more than his meat, you're going to perish. What happens to the churches that decide, hey, we can't really go out soul winning, you know, people are going to get discouraged, people want to leave the church and we start pressuring them to want to actually do some work for the Lord. I mean, I've heard a lot of people say they don't want to go to a small church because they put you to work. Like, I've heard that come out of someone's mouth. But I promise you that pastors are afraid that if they started telling people that you need to go out and start preaching the gospel, people would leave. Because people want to feel comfortable. People don't want to be pressured to start living for the Lord in many ways. They don't want to, you know, be encouraged to go out and do that which is right. And so they're so fearful and they're withholding more than his meat, they're going to perish. You got to go out there and scatter. You got to go out there and spread the seed so you can bring in the sheaves. The Bible says, the liberal soul shall be made fat and he that waters shall be watered also himself. God's making sure that those that are gracious, those that are generous, they're going to be made fat. He's going to bless. I mean, I don't know how to, I don't know how to express it exactly, but when you see something prospering, let's say you had like 10 businesses, okay, and you had 10 businesses and one was just flying off the market. It's just succeeding. It's doing great. Aren't you going to pour more time and energy and effort and money into that? Well God's looking at his soul winners, God's looking at his children and he's saying, look, this guy's doing great. I'm going to pour more blessing into him. I'm going to make his liberal soul fat because he's going out and he's being generous. He's doing that which is right. He that waters shall be watered himself. If you go out and water, going out slowly, God's going to make sure you get water. It says, he that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him, but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it. We shouldn't be, you know, desirous of our money and our goods and our possessions so much that we would never help anybody out. And you know, many times the Bible says, it was talking about the person that wouldn't work, neither should he eat. We shouldn't just be handing people like handouts and all that kind of stuff. Now, I don't think it's wrong to necessarily give people things. We should be generous and give people things, but in many cases it might be more beneficial to help somebody by letting them do some work for you and maybe blessing them in that way or letting them come along soul winning with you or taking some extra time to help them. But not necessarily just giving them handouts but helping them. He's saying that it would be beneficial to be selling it. You know, when the Bible talks about the poor in the Old Testament, it says that you wouldn't glean all the fields all the way to get all of the fruit that you would leave some. Now did the Bible say to glean all the fields and bring in all the food and just hand some of it out? No, he said, leave it on the stocks and let the poor come and pick it off for himself. So he's helping them out, he's giving them stuff, but he's making them work for it a little bit. And the Bible says he that selleth it. That's not just giving it out necessarily. I think it's good to give people things and to be charitable and sometimes it's nice to get a gift. I mean, Jesus Christ gave us the best gift ever. We should be able to give gifts and receive gifts, but in many cases you don't want to just give everybody, give everything to everybody. Think of your children. Do you just want to give your children everything? You want to teach them how to work hard, how to do that which is right. Says uh, verse 27, he that diligently seeketh good procureth favor, but he that seeketh mischief it shall come unto him. Again, when you sow what you reap, it can't say it so many times in this chapter. That's why you need to have integrity. That's why you need to be focused on that which is right. Says in verse 28, he that trusteth in his riches shall fall, but the righteous shall flourish as a branch. So I wanted you all to turn in John chapter 14. John chapter 15. I'm sorry. John chapter 15. In Zachariah, verse, in chapter 6, verse 12, the Bible says, and I speak unto him, saying, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, behold, the man whose name is the branch and he shall grow out of, grow up out of his place and he shall build the temple of the Lord. Lord Jesus Christ is called the branch in the Old Testament and in John chapter 15, verse one, the Bible says, I am the true vine, representative of the branch, right? And my father is the husband. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except abide in the vine, no more can ye accept ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. Amen. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them in the fire and they are burned. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. Here it is my father glorified that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. You want to be a disciple? Bear much fruit. But the interesting thing I find in this chapter, and I think it's an encouragement to all of us and an edification, says every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. You know what God's looking for? He's looking for the branches that are already bringing fruit. He's looking for the people that are already going out and soul winning. But what does he want to do unto them? He wants to purge them so that they can bring forth more fruit. When you have integrity, when you're doing that which is right, you're going to be going out and soul winning. You're going to be winning people to Christ. And God looks at that person and he says, I want to make the liberal soul fat. I want to make you even greater. I want you to be able to bring forth more fruit, but he doesn't like purging. Is there something in your life that's holding you back from going out and soul winning more? Is there something that's holding you back from being a better soul winner? God wants to purge you. He wants to purge your heart so you can bring forth more fruit. He doesn't want you to bring forth less fruit. He's looking for the tree branches that are being fruitful, that are budding a little bit so he can prune them so they can bring forth more fruit. You know, I don't know that much about arborism, but arborism is like, you know, dealing with trees and then sometimes you'll see this, this branch and it's kind of buddings bringing forth and there'll be these other little stems that are coming off and then he can tell he has enough experience to realize these are not going to be fruitful. These are going to hurt the tree. And now when the water comes in through the tree, these little branches are going to get some of that water and they're going to take away from this fruit. So they prune off these branches that they tell are weak, are going to take away from that fruit. And when they prune it, they can bring forth more fruit, they can bring forth better fruit. And that's what God wants to do in your life. He wants you to help get the sin out of your life so you can bring forth more fruit. He wants you to have the Bible memorized so you can bring forth more fruit, better fruit when you go out soul winning. He wants to purge you and bring forth more. You say, oh man, I'm already a soul winner, I'm always doing good. God wants to purge you and he brings forth more fruit. He wants you to do more. He doesn't want you to do less. He wants to make your soul fat. Says in verse 29, he that troubleeth his own house shall inherit the wind and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart. You know, someone that would just bring trouble onto their own house, meaning like their own family members or their own, their own people that they grow up with will inherit the wind. You know, it's an interesting verse here, but I was thinking, what does it mean to inherit the wind? It's kind of like a strange phrase, but if y'all would turn to Psalms 107, Psalms 107. Wind can mean a lot of things in the Bible, but there's one definition that I think really fits with this. It says in Job chapter 1 verse 19, and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness and smote the four corners of the house and it fell upon the young men and they are dead. And I only am escaped alone to tell thee. So earlier when you're talking about Job, one of the messengers came on him and said, look, a great wind came and break down the house and killed all the young men. So was the wind a good thing? It was pretty bad, right? This wind was a destruction. This wind brought anguish and pain. And Psalms 107 verse 25 says, for he commanded and raises the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves thereof. We see that wind can be, you know, very destructive, it can be an annoyance. When you go out in the sea and you're sailing, you don't want a big stormy wind coming and rocking the boat and causing, you know, people to fall off the boat or people to die or people to perish or your boat to crack or you have all these problems and troubles. When you trouble your own house, you're just bringing the stormy wind under your life. You need to have peace in your house. You need to have peace with the people that you live with so you're not bringing this wind under yourself. And when you're, when you have integrity, when you have righteousness, you're not going to be troubling your own house and bringing this stormy wind upon yourself. You know, the Bible says that Christ came and some houses would be divided. If you can't live peaceably with your house, then you need to find a new house, find a new family, find a new, you know, place to be, but you shouldn't be troubling your own house. When you find those, when you have your wife and you have your kids, when you have those people in your life, don't bring, you know, this, this wind under your, your life that's going to bring destruction. Be up in peace with your brothers and sisters. Be among peace with your parents, be among peace with your children, be among peace with your spouse. You should try to always be peace or it's just going to be this constant nagging wind that's bringing destruction, bringing angers, bringing all kinds of things. The Bible says, let not thy wrath go down, uh, I'm sorry, I'm paraphrasing, it's like, let your wrath not go down before the sun and saying like, don't be angry when the sun goes down. You need to settle things, settle things with your spouse. Why be angry with your spouse? God already forgave you of all your sins and iniquities. Why can't you just forgive your spouse of their sins and iniquities? Just make peace with your spouse. Love is not, hey, you're doing good, I'm loving you. Love is, hey, you're not doing good and I'm going to love you. So make peace with your spouse. It says in verse 30, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that win his souls is wise. Behold, the righteous shall be re-convincing the earth, much more the wicked and the sinner. Now this is a really famous verse, I'm going to spend a little bit of time on this last part because the Bible said that we could be purged and bring forth more fruit. This church has a lot of soul winners. This church has a lot of people that are bringing forth fruit. But why don't we bring forth more fruit? Why don't we bring forth better fruit? So I was thinking, what's the number one enemy of soul winning? Now it's kind of interesting, I don't know if it's the number one enemy, but to me that just made the most sense. It just seemed to fit and I have a lot of scripture to back this up, but I think the number one enemy of soul winning is time. If y'all would turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 6, and time, I'm sorry, turn to Ephesians chapter 5 and I'll just read for you. Ephesians chapter 5, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 6, it says, For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succurned thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. What is it that causes someone to go to hell? Because they don't believe in Christ and they die and they go to hell. Their time ran out. We only have a set amount of time in this life. And if you decide not to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and call upon him as your savior, you're going to go to hell. You just have a short time. And he says, now is the accepted time. None of us know when we're going to die. None of us know when we're going to go into the grave. And that time clock is ticking. It's ticking every second and people are going to hell every second. Time is our biggest, biggest enemy of soul winning. Why do we need more people to go out soul winning? Because there's so many people dying every second. Time is so important to soul winning, my friend. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 14, Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore be not unwise, but in understanding what the will of the Lord is. He wants you to redeem the time. Don't be deceived about what the Lord's will is. He wants you to redeem the time. In Colossians chapter 4, verse 5, the Bible says, in verse 4, That I may make it manifest as I ought to speak, walking wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be all the way with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. So I have three points that I think is so crucial to soul winning, and so crucial to people that are soul winners, that is going to help purge you and bring forth more fruit. Because what's the goal? To bring forth more fruit. He says he wants to purge these that are already winning Christ. He says, oh I'm already winning people to Christ, well let's try to get purged a little bit by the word of God so that we can bring forth more fruit. So if time is the number one enemy of soul winning, so I believe if we read these verses it's giving us, look time is really important. The first point is time is short. In 1st Corinthians chapter 7, if you would turn there, 1st Corinthians chapter 7, time is short. We only have a limited amount of time in this life. Our life is like a vapor, and one moment it's there and then it's gone. And so is everybody else's life and this earth. If time is so short, then we need to be spending our time going out soul winning. In 1st Corinthians chapter 7 verse 29, the Bible says, but this I say brethren, the time is short. It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none. And they that weep as though they wept not. And they that rejoice as though they rejoice not. And they that buy as though they possess not. And they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away. God is saying look, all the stuff in your life, all the vanity is just going to go away. The time is short. Look, whenever you have this really sad moment in your life and you're weeping, it's just going to go away. Whenever you have great joy in your life, it's just going to go away. Whenever you have some great wisdom, you had some great moment in your life, some great idea for vanity sex, it's going to go away. All the things that you bought, it's going to perish. All the things that you possess, it's going away. Why do you care about the things in this world? The time is short. You need to realize that the time is short. Then you're going to want to go out sowing it. Then you're going to want to reap rewards in heaven. When you realize that the time is short, and it's tough for young men, it's tough for people that are growing up and young, they say, oh, I have all this time in the world, you can die tomorrow. We're not promised till tomorrow. And how much more those that are getting older. The time is short. We need to be going out redeeming the time and getting people saved. The first point is the time is short. If you have that solid in your mind, if you have that solid in your heart, you're going to want to go out and get more fruit. You're going to want to be purged with the fact, is this really important? Is what I'm doing on Sunday really that important? Is what I'm doing on Saturday really that important? Is what I'm doing on Friday really that important? Is what I'm doing on Thursday really that important? Is what I'm doing on Wednesday really that important? Maybe you could take something and purge it and bring forth more fruit because the time is short. Point number two, God turned to First Peter chapter three. First Peter chapter three, and I'll read for you Titus number three, is to be ready. Titus 3 one says, put them in mind to be subject to principles and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. When God talks about anything, he wants you to be ready. You're going to be a good soul winner if you go out and you're not ready. You don't know the Bible, you don't have the verses memorized, you haven't been preparing, you haven't even practiced at all. You're going to be a good soul winner, you're going to bring forth much fruit? No. If you're ready though, you can bring forth much fruit. When you're prepared, you can bring forth much fruit. In First Peter chapter three verse 15, the Bible says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of hope that is in you with meekness and fear. So we should be always ready, always prepared, always, the Bible doesn't say this, but I think a prepared place for a prepared person. You know, whenever I was listening to Pastor Anderson online for the first, you know, year or so, he was just preaching about soul winning over and over and over. And I decided, you know what, I need to be ready, because I want to go out soul winning and I want to prepare myself. So I took the things online, I prepared my own, you know, presentation and I memorized it. I got it down in my heart. And then I said, you know what, this Bible that I have is like huge, it's not a good soul winning Bible, I'm going to go buy a Bible. So I went to a Christian bookstore and I was in there and I was looking for a Bible and I was looking for this Bible. This one right here, it's really precious to me, and I was looking through lots of different ones, trying to find ones that had like no commentary, ones that, you know, just had the Bible. And I was kind of struggling, there wasn't really very many good ones. But I kind of liked this one. And there was this other kid that came up, he was a young guy, it looked like he kind of lived a rough life. He was kind of maybe in the gang life or something, you could just kind of tell. And he picks up this huge King James Bible, like a study Bible, and he kind of looks at it and he's like, I don't know. And you could just tell the kid didn't even know what he was doing. He didn't know, he was kind of out of place. So I just struck up a conversation with him, I was like, hey, what are you, what are you doing here? Are you looking for a Bible or something? You know, I didn't work there. But I was just like, hey, what are you doing? And he was like, yeah, I'm looking for a Bible. You know, I got in this car accident, and I really started thinking about my life, and I figured I should probably seek God. I should probably seek, you know, what's, what's going on in this world? And I said, hey, more important than that, if you were to die today, are you 100% sure you'd go to heaven? The guy was like, no. I was like, if I can show you the Bible, would you want to know? And he's like, absolutely. He was the most receptive person I've ever gotten to win to Christ. And all the times I've gone out solo winning, all the times I've knocked doors, but you know what, if I wasn't ready, I would just let him walk on by. He would have just passed on by, I wouldn't have been able to get the guy saved. But when you're ready, you can bring forth more fruit. When you're ready for every occasion, for every season of life, when you have the verses memorized, when you know what you're going to say, when you're prepared, when you get in that situation, you can win somebody to Christ. Because in my point three, if God would turn to, let's see, turn to Colossians chapter four, turn to Colossians chapter four, my third point is to be efficient. So the first point is that the time is short. The second point is that you need to be ready, since the time is short, get yourself ready. And the third point, I believe, is to be efficient. If time's an enemy, if time's, you know, one of our detractors, then we need to be efficient with our time. In Colossians chapter four, which I had already read a little bit to you, look at verse six, it says, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man. He said, you better know how to answer every man. You may be talking to a Jehovah's Witness, you may be talking to a Mormon, you may be talking to a Catholic, you may be talking to an agnostic, you may be talking to someone who's an apostate Christian, you may be talking to a Baptist that just doesn't understand eternal security, but you need to know how to answer every man. How are you going to do that? By being prepared and being efficient, being able to know where to turn your Bible, being able to know how to present the gospel in the right way. Because there's been a lot of people where I've seen, they go out soul winning and they maybe have a little door, they don't have a big door with somebody, but they just only know they're one way to start and they just lose people because they don't know how to be efficient. They don't know how to go to the right verse with that person. Maybe this person already believes they're a sinner, they deserve to go to hell, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins, they just didn't understand eternal security. But then this person just starts, hey, you know we're all sinners, there's none righteous. You know that right? They're like yeah. Well let's go to another verse. We're all sinners right? Yeah. The Bible says hey, if you sin you're a transgusterer of the whole law. Did you get that buddy? Hey if you break one of God's laws you're a sinner. You know they're just sitting there hammering sin, this person gets it. They're not efficient. And this person just gets frustrated like hey I already told you I'm a Christian, why are you here? And they just get frustrated because they're like why are you talking to me about all this stuff? You need to know how to answer every man. How are you going to do that? By being efficient. Why do I need to explain to somebody that they're a sinner if they already believe that? I need to explain to them what they don't believe. I need, you know, and I'm not going to address every point. I'm going to make sure I'm not going to skip anything when I'm preaching the gospel. But if we're efficient and we know how to answer every man, we're going to get more fruit. We're going to get more people saved. Turning if you went to Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 8, in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 20 the Bible says, for which I am ambassador of bonds, that there I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So we should speak with boldness. We shouldn't speak with uncertainty. We shouldn't speak as, hey are you sure you want to hear the gospel, maybe, could you maybe want to? No we need to speak with boldness. Hey the Bible says you can know for sure if you die you can go to heaven. Hey the Bible has the truth. The Bible is the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only God. We need to speak with boldness as we ought to speak. Says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, for I am determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. If you want to be efficient, preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. We don't need to be going across the whole Bible, hey do you want to hear about how you can be saved? Well in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. You know I mean we don't need to preach in the whole Bible. Hey did you know in Job, you know I'm going to preach everything in Job, Job suffered great affliction. I mean hey, maybe sometimes in some ways you may need to go to different parts of the Bible, but we need to be efficient. Preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's what you people say, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believe it. How are you going to get somebody to say, the gospel, Jesus Christ, be efficient. If you have something in your gospel that's not preaching the gospel, why is it in there? Be efficient. In Acts chapter 8, verse 34 in the Bible says, and Eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee of whom speaketh the prophet this, of himself or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. As they went on their way they came into certain water and Eunuch said, see here is water, what doth Henry be baptized? And Philip said, if thou believeth all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus is the son of God. So the interesting thing I thought there in verse 35, he says, and Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture. Did you notice that? He began at the same scripture. Maybe if you're talking with somebody and they say, Hey, I believe Jesus Christ is my savior and I deserve to go to hell, but they're confused on eternal security. Why would you start with eternal security? I've seen so many people that they were like, Hey, I go to church. I believe Jesus is my savior, but they were screwed up on eternal security and they just start at the beginning of their gospel and it takes them 15 minutes to get all the way to eternal security. And by that time the person's just like, they don't want to hear anything they have to say because they're just like, man, I've already heard this. Why are you preaching at me? I told you I was a Christian. They get so confused. Why don't you begin at the same scripture? Why don't you meet people on their level? Why don't you come to people prepared and being efficient? Now I've not believed that you should compromise your gospel, that you should withhold anything. You should address every single point. But why should I waste time preaching something that somebody already believes? I'll confirm it with them, but move on. Why? Because time is the biggest enemy. We need to be out there and be efficient so we can get more people to win to Christ. Says in Acts chapter two verse 41, and they that gladly received his word are baptized and the same day they were added unto them about 3000 souls. Now the Bible says there are about 120 people and they got 3000 people saved. Now how long was their gospel presentation for them to get 3000 people saved? You know, I think unfortunately there's a lot of people in this church that think the longer their gospel presentation, the better, but I'm here to say that I don't believe that's true whatsoever. If you're going to get 3000 people saved, I mean, even if you just had like a 10 minute presentation, you're going to be reaching from sundown to sunup. But what's more important? Is it more important that you preach to somebody for 30 minutes to get them saved or if you could preach it in 10 minutes and they believe the same thing and you get them saved? That means you could get three people saved in the same time that it took you to get the one person saved. So what's better? Is it better to win the one person or three? Now of course I'm talking to those that are soul winners. I'm talking to those that are bringing forth fruit. It's wise to bring forth fruit and eat up when it's souls is wise, but what's more wise? If you can convey the same points more efficiently, what's better? Well if time is our biggest enemy, we should make sure that our gospels are as efficient as possible. Now I don't believe that you should compromise your gospel whatsoever. If you're preaching the gospel for two minutes and praying with people, you're probably doing it wrong. I don't believe you could get the gospel across in two minutes, but if you're taking 30 or 40 or 50 minutes, you should probably figure out a better way to do it. There's probably a better, more efficient way that you can win people to Christ so you can win more fruit, so you get more people saved. And I have this story, Monday night I was coming home and I was driving and I saw some people walking down my street and they were knocking doors. It wasn't soul winning, it was people just like, I walked up to the guy and he knocked on my door like right as I pulled up and he said, hey, we're from the Democratic party, we're just trying to encourage people to register to vote. And you know, I said, well, I'm not going to vote. And he said, why? And I said, I can't vote for either candidate. I'm not going to register to vote. I don't want to vote for any of those people. So you know what, a lot of people have said that to us and I said, hey, well, more important than voting, if you die today, you're a hundred percent sure you go to heaven. I handed him a track and the guy was like, well, you know, I don't know. And I said, what do you think you have to be saved? And he's like, well, live a good life. And I could tell these people walking up and down the street that they were in a hurry because it was getting close to dark and they were kind of going up down the street. They didn't want to waste any time. You know, there's a lot of people that would look at this situation and say, hey, my gospel presentation is 30 minutes. I don't have enough time to get this guy saved. So I'm not even going to preach to him. My gospel presentation is 25 minutes. So I'm not even going to preach to this guy. But you know what? I know that my gospel presentation can be shorter than that. I knew I had enough time. And so I preached to this guy as best and as efficient as I could. And I had my gospel presentation memorized. So whenever I'm quoting in verses, I'm flipping to the next spot. I'm not wasting any time. I'm going straight to the next verse. You know what? I preached in Romans 3.23. I preached in Romans 6.23. I preached in Revelation 21.10. I preached in Revelation 21.8. I preached in Romans 5.8. I told him the whole gospel about how Jesus Christ was God, that he was born of a virgin. He became a man, the man Jesus Christ. He was sinless and perfect. He did wonderful miracles. He healed people. He raised people from the dead. But because he said he was God, the Jews didn't believe him and they crucified him. And I said, when he was on the cross, he died for the sins of the whole world. I preached under Acts 2.31. I showed him that Jesus Christ not only died on the cross for your sins, but he took your place in hell that you served to go. I went on to Acts chapter 16, I said, what must you do to be saved? I said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I went to John 3.16. I preached in John 3.17. I preached in John 3.18. I showed him the difference that those that believe go to heaven and those that believe are already condemned to hell. I showed him John 3.36, that when he believes in Christ, he has everlasting life. I went to John chapter 1, verse 12, I showed him that believing in the Lord Jesus Christ to become a child of God, the Bible says he must be born again to become a child of God. Is there anything you can do to change the fact that you're a child? I gave him several analogies. I went and went to Romans chapter 6, verse 23 back. I said the gift of God is eternal life. I went through the gift analogy. I said, if I gave you this Bible but took $100 away from you, was that a gift? I went through the whole gift analogy. I said, if I took this Bible away from you, did I give it to you forever? Now that would make me a liar. I go to Titus chapter 1, verse 2, I preached him in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. God cannot lie. He's not going to take your eternal security away. Then I went to 1 John chapter 5, I preached in verse 13, showed him how you could know for sure that if he died, he'd go to heaven, that he could know he had eternal life. I backed up to 1 John verse 9, I preached in verse 9, verse 10, verse 11, then I went all the way to Romans chapter 10 and finished it by showing him how I could call upon the name of the Lord and be saved by faith. And I did all that in like 10 minutes. Why? Because I was trying to be as efficient as possible. I preached under like 20 plus verses, but it's because I was prepared. It's because I understood that time was an enemy. And you know, when I got close, when I got to Romans chapter 10 and I was about to pray with this guy, and he was about to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved, his buddy came and all the people in the neighborhood came and they were all done. And he said, hey, we got to go, hey, everybody's got to go, and I said, hey, give me two minutes and I'll be done. And he said, no, I know how these conversations go, they usually take 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes, they take a long time. I said, I promise, give me two minutes, go get your car and come back. And I could tell the guy was getting timid because the other guy was standing there. But the other guy went by, I explained Romans 10, I asked him all the questions, he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and he got saved. But why? Because I was efficient. Because I understood that time is an enemy. That now is the time of salvation. I was prepared. I was ready. I was willing to flip through my Bible efficiently, quickly, and get the person saved. Now what would have been wiser? If I had a 30 minute presentation and I was still on if he deserved to go to hell or not and then he had to go? Or was it more efficient for me to get through all of those verses and still get him saved? I believe I could show him less verses and get him saved. I'm not saying you should compromise your gospel. I'm not saying you should stand up and pray with people just because I've literally gone slowly with somebody from this church and they walked up to somebody and said, hey, you believe you're a sinner and deserve to go to hell and that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose again and gave you eternal life and you died that you would go to heaven no matter what, right? And the person was just kind of like, yeah? He's like, do you want to pray? I'm not saying you should do that. You should thoroughly preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You should take every moment. You should ask them several questions. Every time I get through a point, I usually ask them. I asked them several times in my gospel. I say, Hey, what's the one thing you have to do to be saved? And I let them tell me, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They tell me that over and over and over. And if the thing is, if someone can tell me that over and over from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaking, I can have a good idea. This is actually getting played in this guy's heart because it keeps coming out of his mouth. I asked them over and over questions so they can get it solid on their mind. I'm not saying you should shorten your gospel to an unhealthy level. That would be just as unwise. That would be just as bad to not preach them the full gospel. But I'm saying if you can't get your gospel down to about a nine, 15 minute window, somewhere in that timeframe, whatever you feel most comfortable with, maybe you should challenge yourself. Do I really need all of this in my gospel? Could I be more efficient? Could I be more effective in my soul winning? Maybe if I memorize the verses, I can just show them the verse and quote it to them and I don't have to be, um, and it said, uh, I mean, redeem the time because the days are evil. We need to be getting more people saved. We need to be more efficient. We need to be more effective. And hey, if you're struggling going out soul winning, but you're doing it, amen. But God wants to purge you so you can bring forth more fruit. He wants you to bring forth more, bring in more sheaves. We should be encouraged that Jesus Christ wants us to the liberal soul should be made fat and that there's going to be opportunities in your life where the time may be short and the person that's skilled is going to be able to get the person saved. We talk about David and his mighty men. These men were skilled. They were skilled warriors. I want everybody in this church to be a skilled warrior. I want everybody in this church to be the greatest soul winners in this earth. Every time they pull out their sword, they're going to slay, they're going to bring forth fruit. I'm not afraid. Hey, this guy, you know, he could have done a little bit better. He probably could have got that saved if he knew the scriptures a little better. No, I'm going to know. Look, if this guy goes out with his sword, he's going to bring some fruit. He's going to get people saved. He's very good with his sword. He knows how to use his sword. He knows how to use this book and he's got this book with him at all times. I have my gospel presentation memorized word for word. Why? Because there's been a handful of times where I've got people saved and I couldn't use this. Maybe it was too dark. Maybe I didn't have it with me. I want to be able to use my sword wherever I'm at. I don't want to be disarmed. But that's going to be being effective, understanding the time is short, being ready. That's going to help you bring forth more fruit. Says in John chapter 7 verse 6, Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready. When should you go soul winning? Always. When should you be ready? Always. When should you be effective? Always. I've seen a lot of people lose people in their presentation because it took too long. I've seen people, you know, not want to preach the gospel because they knew it took too long. Maybe they didn't want to knock another door because it took too long. We only have a short amount of time and there's plenty to harvest. You can't go soul winning enough. You couldn't go soul winning and get everybody saved. There's more fruit than there is for you to get saved. So what's more wise? To be effective, to be ready, and to understand that your time is short. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Jesus Christ for your word. Thank you God for this chapter. I pray that we have the integrity to just live righteously, to know that you can preserve us and have the integrity to preach your word faithfully, to understand that our time is short, to understand that we should be ready, and to understand that we should be effective in our soul winning, that we should be skillful, that we should know how to preach the gospel with great effect. I thank you for everyone in this church. I pray that it would be edified by the sermon and be encouraged to want to receive more wages of you and that we would always remember that you're a warder of those that would go out and sow your word and reap. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.