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

Amen. I want to say thank you so much for coming here. It's very encouraging seeing all of you guys here. The church is very full and hopefully God will bless you guys with a larger space so you can continue to grow. And y'all's church is very near and dear to our heart, Steadfast Baptist Church and Pure Earth Baptist Church. I know a lot of my church members are constantly asking me about this church, asking me about your pastor, Pastor Matthew Stuckey. Some of the church members of mine have visited out here and they've always spoken very highly of this church and the soul winning and they really love you guys. And so I don't want you to feel like just because you maybe aren't in America, no one cares about you because us in America, we very much care about you guys and we're thinking about you. And I really appreciate the kind words from your pastor, Pastor Matthew Stuckey. I haven't necessarily gotten to hang out with him as much as I'd like because he's always traveling the whole world, starting a million churches. So, you know, he's a hard guy to track down, but I always enjoyed his preaching and really enjoy his fellowship the last few days. I'm here by myself as far as I don't have my family with me today and they definitely are thinking about you guys and in prayer for you. I have five children and one on the way and so we're definitely growing. And then I did bring one of my church members, James Perry. He's with me. He's from Pure Words Baptist Church and also evangelist Duncan Urbanic. He was our evangelist at the Pure Words Baptist Church for the last few years and he's been doing an excellent job. He's been really helping that church grow and doing a lot of evangelism, a lot of soul winning and it actually works out that he's going to be at home. Sorry, I'm not turning on my mic. These words are just for you all, okay? Can you all hear me now better? All right. Also, I have evangelist Urbanic with me today and evangelist Urbanic was leading our church plan at Pure Words and he has been doing such an excellent job and really he has a heart for the Philippines. He has a heart for soul winning and so I feel like we have a great and unique opportunity to be able to send another evangelist over here and we just want him to be a blessing to you guys and also to just really be sensitive to the work of the Lord and that whatever opportunities may arise that he could help plug himself in and really get shoulder to shoulder with you and try to help with the work because there's a great work here. I don't know if you know the traffic is pretty intense around here. There's obviously a lot of people and I think I looked it up, there's like 14 million people in just Manila proper and obviously that doesn't even include all of the outskirt areas and I'm sure many of you don't even live necessarily in Manila. You live in other parts of the Philippines and so there's definitely a need for many soul winners. The Bible tells us that we're supposed to pray to the Father in heaven that he would send more laborers into his harvest and so we want to continually send more people to this area and reach this people and for us, a soul is a soul. We don't care. Red, yellow, black and white, they're all precious in his sight and so we want everyone to go to heaven and we really love Verity Baptist Church. Again, I really appreciate you guys for accommodating us and giving me the opportunity to preach to you this morning. Now, I want to get into my text. It's really just the very end of Mark that I want to focus on. If you look at Mark 9, the last two verses here, verse 49, the Bible says, For everyone shall be salted with fire and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt hath lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves and have peace one with another. Now, what's interesting is I believe that verse 49 is bringing to remembrance something that was mentioned in the Old Testament. So, if you would go to Leviticus chapter number 2 for a moment. Go to Leviticus chapter number 2 and the Bible is telling us that we're supposed to have salt in ourselves. So, we're supposed to be salted. We're supposed to be seasoned with salt and that's really the title of my sermon this morning is Season with Salt. We as God's people need to be seasoned with salt and what's interesting in the Old Testament is that the sacrifices of God were to be seasoned with salt. The Bible even just literally says, salt is good. And so, you know, the Bible says that salt is a good thing. Look at verse 13, Leviticus chapter 2, verse 13, the Bible says, And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt. Notice that phrase again, season with salt, neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering. All thine offerings, thou shalt offer salt. So, notice that every single offering was supposed to have salt in it and the Bible makes it abundantly clear that we're supposed to also be salted. Now, God uses what I always describe as carnal truths to expound spiritual truths. God often uses earthly examples of things so we can understand spiritual truths like being born again. We understand how physical birth works and that helps us understand how spiritual birth works. We understand all kinds of different nuances of a father and son relationship and that's to help us understand the relationship that God the Father has with His Son, Jesus Christ. And how we too are supposed to have a relationship with our children and how we're supposed to treat our children and the love and the attention and the affection that we should have towards our children. You know, Jesus Christ often describes things to His disciples when the Bible uses metaphors or parables. There's often an earthly example, a carnal truth that Jesus Christ uses to expound spiritual truths. And so I was thinking about salt. What does salt do? Just from a carnal perspective, one of the things that salt does is it preserves the food that has been placed on it, especially meat. If you season meat with salt, it helps it last longer. It helps it preserve itself and so it doesn't rot. It doesn't deteriorate. It's still edible for a longer time. And in fact, certain meats have become so heavily salted they're actually just kind of permanently preserved. Things like deli meats or pepperoni or salami. A lot of these meats have been so salted that in fact they actually are preserved for a very long time. And so one of the aspects of salt is that it preserves. Another aspect of salt is that it tenderizes meat. So actually in fact, salt will actually make the meat itself just a little bit more tender. It kind of draws out the water content of the meat and so it will make it taste a little bit better. Instead of being as chewy or tough, it actually can make it really savory. It can make it just kind of melt in your mouth. And there's nothing better than having meat melt in your mouth. This is why I'm from Texas and we love brisket, okay? And if you've never been to Texas, you have never had brisket. So sorry if I'm offending you. When you go to Texas, we make brisket and boy, does it melt in your mouth. I also like to make smoked barbecue ribs. So I take pork ribs and I smoke it and it gets to the point where it's so tender that it literally just falls off the bone. You can't even get any meat to stick to the bone. The bone is just nothing. Essentially, you're going to eat all of it. And it's annoying when I go to a restaurant and I get ribs and it's like you have to try and gnaw off that meat off of the bone. It's nice when it just falls right off and it's so tender and it's juicy. But of course that takes salt. It takes cooking it very slowly. And lastly, the other thing that salt really does is it enhances the flavor of that meat. And so salt is good. Salt provides a lot of benefit in our carnal world. It provides a lot of benefit for our eating, for our meat. It causes the meat to last longer so that we can have it. It allows the meat to be more tender so it tastes better. It has a better quality when you chew it. And then in fact, the flavor is actually increased or amplified when you add salt to your meat. Many people really like salt. They like to add it to the food that they eat. And you know, I love salt. So that's the carnal truth. We can all go home. No, I'm just kidding. I'm getting hungry, right? But there's also a spiritual truth to the carnal truth of the Bible. And just like meat is supposed to have salt in it, we too are supposed to have salt. And if that salt is preserving the meat, the salt also is going to preserve us. And the Bible, I believe, makes it abundantly clear that the salt is the Word of God. It's a representation and a picture of the Bible, of the Scriptures, and how the Lord Jesus Christ wants us to be salted with the Scriptures. He wants us to have the Word of God inside of us and that the Word of God is going to preserve us when we have the Scriptures seasoned in our lives. Go over to Proverbs 2 for a moment. We'll go to Proverbs 2. And the Bible is abundantly clear that the Word of God is what provides us preservation. When we talk about preservation, it's a pretty broad category. But the Bible just generally preserves us from evil, from destruction, from all kinds of horrible things that can happen to you because sin is a very destructive thing. Sin will cause our lives to be destroyed. It will cause emotional anguish. It will cause pain, suffering. It can cause your relationships to deteriorate. Sin will destroy you. It will destroy your family. It will destroy those around you. It will destroy your city. It will destroy your country. It will destroy the entire world. Sin is an evil force. And what causes a preservation of us, a preservation of our city, a preservation of this world, is the Word of God. The Word of God and the Bible preserves everything on this earth. The only reason cities and people and things still exist is because there's salt in it. God is angry with sin every single day. And if it wasn't for salt, He would have no reason to preserve it. The only reason He is preserving things today, the only reason it hasn't poured out His wrath the way He would like to, is because of the salt that exists in this world. And that salt is supposed to be somewhere specific. It's supposed to be inside of us. So we need to read the Bible. We need to meditate on the Scripture. We need to memorize Scripture. And we need to be seasoned with salt. Look at Proverbs 2, verse 10. The Bible says, When wisdom enterth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee, to deliver thee from the way of the evil man. And that what the Word of God does is it will give you wisdom and knowledge and understanding and help you realize, I need to stay away from certain people. You know, I understand there's a heart to get every single person saved. And I believe that with all of my heart. I want everyone to be saved. But we also have to balance the reality that not everyone is going to get saved. And not everyone is a good person to be around. The Bible says there are certain evil men that we should avoid, that we should stay away from, and that wisdom gives us that knowledge to say this is an evil person. I'm not going to be around them. Many churches, they are inviting evil men into their church. Many times the evil men are the people leading the church. And you are no stranger to the fact that there are many churches in the Philippines that are filled with evil men. They're filled with evil people. And you know, we need to stay away from those evil people. And you say, how do I stay away? You get saved and you realize this is a bad church. You get baptized and you start reading the Bible and you start realizing there's so many false prophets in the world. The Bible says, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. And you know what? It's not just America. It's in the Philippines too. And it's not just the Philippines. Yea, all of the world is filled with false prophets and evil men and we need the wisdom and the discretion to be preserved from their lies, to be reserved from their false doctrine, to be preserved from the leaven that's leavening the whole lump. And let me tell you something, Jesus Christ ripped on the Pharisees. Jesus Christ preached hard against them and their leaven and their false doctrine. And you know what? We need men of God like Pastor Matthew Stuckey to get up and rip on these evil men. And you need to listen to the word of God and get that in your heart so you're preserved from evil men. Now the Bible keeps going here in Proverbs chapter number 2. It says in verse 12, Deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh thrower things, who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice to do evil and delight in the throwerness of the wicked. Notice that they delight in wickedness. They will praise sin. They will praise sinners. They delight in things that are contrary to the Bible and the word of God. It says here also, verse 15, whose ways are crooked and they throw it in their paths. This is also something that wisdom will deliver you from. To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger, which flattereth with her words, which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. For you young men, you have to realize there are also evil women in this world, the strange woman which would love to destroy you. Many men are being destroyed in this world through strange women. And when we talk about strange women, we're not talking about someone that's awkward or weird. We're talking about someone that you don't know. Many people are committing whoredom today with people they don't know. And because of the Internet, because of applications on people's phones today, it's never been easier to meet a stranger and to commit whoredom. And you know what the Bible is saying? You need wisdom, you need to be seasoned with salt so that you avoid those people. So that you avoid those kinds of temptations. To avoid that application. If you have an application on your telephone that gives you easy access to strangers, you should get rid of it. You shouldn't even have it. You need to replace that with an application that reads the Bible. You need to replace that with an application that memorizes Scripture. You need to get the Faithful Word app and listen to sermons, okay? Because we need to be seasoned with salt and realize that whoredom is a giant problem. And it's not, you know, it's crazy. It's not just America. It's not just Australia. It's also the Philippines. It's everywhere. It is literally everywhere. And it's all over the place. And you know what? We need to keep our young people pure and we need to preserve them and we need parents to guard the hearts of their young people. And you young single men, you need to protect yourself from the strange woman because she will destroy you. In fact, look at Proverbs 7. Just flip over the page. Look at chapter 7 right here. Look at verse 21. The Bible says, With her much fair speech she caused him to yield. You know why the strange woman is so dangerous? Is that the things that she says sound so good. You know the Bible talks about a strange woman that her words are as smooth as oil. So it's just like the best tasting food. The best sounding food. She just has a way with her words. She's going to tell you everything you wanted to hear. Everything you would like to know. But in fact, it's all lies. It's flattery. It's deceit. She doesn't really care about you. And it causes many men to stumble and to fall and to be destroyed by a woman that's insincere. She has ulterior motives. And there are a lot of women out there, the Bible describes, that want to destroy young men. In Proverbs chapter number 7, it keeps going. It says in verse 22, He goeth after a straight way. It's saying when the woman comes and gives this guy the words that he wanted to hear, it just says immediately he's going to follow her. Just right away as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, to the dark strike through his liver, as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. Notice that he's actually being physically destroyed. It's a trap. In fact, in the government, especially in America and some other places, they call this the honeypot trap. And it's essentially, they describe a woman is this honeypot and she's out there as this, oh, I want some honey, but it's a trap. Because if you trap animals, I don't know, you all have a few animals around here, okay? You have a few dogs left, okay? But you go to other parts of the world, there's a lot of animals. To catch animals, a lot of times what you do is you take food that's very delicious and you put it in this trap. And as soon as they walk into the trap, trying to get this delicious food, the door closes shut and now they're stuck in this trap. Or a bear trap, in fact, it has jaws of teeth and if a bear comes in and touches the food, it'll set the release trigger and then the claws just clamp really hard. And now all of a sudden it's got its arm or its leg and it's stuck and this is the point of a trap. The Bible is describing this woman like that. She is like a little bear trap where she puts some honey out there, her smooth bear speech, and many men just go straight into the trap and the Bible says it just destroys them. They end up dying as a result of going down this road of perishing. And if you go to the very end of this, look at verse 26. For she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. You know, this literally happened to some people in the Bible. Samson is someone who went into the trap of Delilah and Delilah only cared about money. Delilah sold out her boyfriend, I guess is the best way to word this. I don't know how else to word it. And essentially he was killed and slain as a result of going with Delilah and hearkening unto her. And a lot of times it's not necessarily that the woman is going to actually kill you. It's not that she's necessarily going to be the one to physically destroy you, but chasing after that kind of woman, the lifestyle that these people are living, and the path that she'll lead you down often leads to physical death, often leads to physical destruction, often leads to emotional destruction. Even in fact, many men in America are even committing suicide because of what women have done to them. Women that are taking advantage of them and leaving them and racking up bills and just causing all kinds of anguish upon them, slaughtering their children through abortion, have caused many men to be so upset and so disappointed, disenfranchised, feeling like they're never going to have an actual woman, that no women are genuine, they actually end up taking their own lives. There are so many ways that death can come upon you, and we need to avoid this particular woman. How do we do that? We have to season ourself with salt and that salt is the Word of God. We need to get wisdom and discretion. We need to read the Proverbs. We need to memorize the Proverbs. We need to set our children down and drill these into their brain, into their head, because you know what? Temptation is strong, and we need a lot of salt. We need a lot of salt. Go to Psalms chapter 40. Go to Psalms chapter 40. Point one is this, that the Word of God is going to preserve you. It's going to preserve you from whoredom. It's going to preserve you from false teachers. It's going to preserve you from evil people, people that get involved with drugs, people that get involved in idolatry, people that get involved with familiar spirits, people that get involved in stealing and scamming, people that get involved in all kinds of evil that's out there today. You know the Bible will give you the wisdom and instruction to stay away from that. To preserve you from rotting, to preserve you from destroying yourself, just like that meat would rot and destroy itself, that salt keeps it preserved and keeps it lasting longer. And you know what? The Word of God will keep us lasting longer. I mean the Bible literally even says that one of the commandments is given with a special promise that if you honor your father and your mother, that your days will be long upon the land which the Lord by God giveth thee. So according to the Bible, that's literally preserving your life longer by obeying your parents. You children, you want to live long lives? Obey mom and dad. In fact, you should just get a calendar up there and just mark off days every time you disobey, like I'm going to die one day sooner. And then just another day and another day. I mean you could be just taking days off your life and you don't know it. You know, when your mom and dad tell you to do something, you say, yes sir, yes ma'am, you do it the first time, you obey and you know what? God promises to give you a longer life. I guarantee you when you meet older people, there is a common denominator among all of them, that they are very obedient children. Because you know science is always trying to figure this out. They're trying to figure out like, well, what's going to preserve these people? And you know, it always baffles them. They'll find people that are 80, 90, 100 years old and they're smoking cigarettes every day. Or they're eating very unhealthy. Or they're doing, and they're thinking like, how is this person defying, you know, all of these dietary laws or these dietary restrictions? And it's probably because they're a very obedient child. You know, and I'm not advocating smoking, okay? Don't hear the wrong message, okay? I'm not advocating living an unhealthy lifestyle. But what I'm telling you is that many people don't realize that your life is tied to following God's commandments directly. And then on top of that, He gives you wisdom and knowledge to say, hey, that's something bad. Anyways, I'm going to stay away from it. And that also prolongs your life and preserves your life. And you know, we need to be constantly seasoning ourselves with salt so that we will be preserved. Now in Psalm chapter number 40, it's kind of interesting because this prayer is for sure quoted by the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's about the Lord Jesus Christ. But a lot of the Psalms kind of have a dual fulfillment where the author themselves, David or whomever, is kind of living through this experience and then Christ also is using some of those verses to apply to Him. And what I believe about this passage is it's very clear that the beginning portion is about Jesus, but then it's going to shift and be mostly about the author. And it's something that we can relate to. Notice what it says in verse 7, Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God. Yea, Thy law is within my heart. So this is definitely about the Lord Jesus Christ. He talks about this. He brings us up. He reads this scripture. But notice how the passage keeps going. It says, I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness within my heart. I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation. I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation. Withhold not Thou Thy tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth continually preserve me. Notice that He's wanting God's mercy and His grace and His lovingkindness and the truth that's in Him to help Him be preserved. Notice what it says in verse 12, For innumerable evils have compassed me about. Now, of course, that's true of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had many enemies, many people that wanted to destroy Him. It was innumerable at times. But notice this. Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me. Now, that's, of course, not necessarily about the Lord Jesus Christ unless we're talking about Him being on the cross and taking our sin. But the Lord Jesus Christ didn't have any iniquity. The Lord Jesus Christ never sinned. The Bible says He who knew no sin became sin for us. So there was a moment in time when He took our sins upon Him. But I believe this is also in relation to the author, the human author, David, who's also someone that was encompassed with many enemies, who's also someone that had many iniquities. And look what the Bible says his attitude is about this when he talks about his iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of mine head. Therefore my heart faileth me. You know, if you were to ask David, how many sins do you have, he would have said, I have more sins than the number of hairs on my head. Now, for people that are bald, that's easy. But, I think that David had a full hair of head, or a full head of hair, sorry. And so according to the Bible, you know, no one's perfect. There's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. I mean, the Bible says that there's none that doeth good, no, not one. The Bible says for all sin it comes short of the glory of God. You know, if we were honest with ourselves, we sin regularly. And to me, this is just the same idea as raw meat. That raw meat is just deteriorating quickly. Raw meat is constantly wasting away. And the thing that's going to keep that on the shelf life, the thing that's going to keep that preserved is salt. And so in the same with us, we're constantly sinning and we constantly have iniquity and we constantly have problems as well. And the one thing that's going to preserve us longer and longer is that salt. Inevitably, we will die. Inevitably, we will experience physical death. And because of our sin nature, we have to die. But we can prolong that. We can last longer. And the longer we're going to last is directly related to how much salt we're putting in our lives. If you are a Christian and you're not putting much salt in your lives, there's a high likelihood you're going to go home soon. There's a higher likelihood that you're going to rot quicker and that you're going to be deteriorated to a point we have no real use anymore, no real value. And so we need to constantly put salt on ourselves to preserve ourselves. And I like that this attitude from the author, you can kind of see the tenderness of his heart. So point one that I brought up was the preservation that we get from salt. But point two is the tenderizing that we get from God's Word. And we notice when you read the Bible over and over, you're going to recognize the fact that you're sinful. You're going to recognize that you're not perfect. You know, the people that talk about how perfect and how godly they are often are the people who don't read the Scripture. Because the Bible made it abundantly clear that the king was supposed to read the Bible every day of his life so that his heart would not be lifted up above his brethren. Why? The Bible humbles you. The Word of God in the Scripture helps you recognize the fact that you're not as great as you think that you are. In fact, many godly men when confronted with the Lord Jesus Christ, when confronted with visions, their initial reaction was, Lord, depart from me for I'm a sinful man. I mean, or they acted as if they were not worthy to be used. Moses felt unworthy to be used by God. We have men like Isaiah feeling unworthy to be used by God. We have men like Jeremiah worrying about being too young to be serving the Lord. We have men like Timothy who Paul has to remind, let no man despise thy youth. And you know, there's nothing wrong with young people serving God. There's nothing wrong with young people getting into the ministry and doing great exploits for the Lord at a young age. But you know, we have to recognize and realize we're all sinful. We all have problems. We all have issues. And we need that Bible to constantly tenderize our heart and soften us up and make us sensitive to the Lord's will. Make us sensitive to cleaning up our lives. Sensitive to serving the Lord and recognizing we need Him. You know, when people stop going to church, typically their heart starts to harden. When they stop reading the Bible, their heart starts to harden. When they stop going soul winning, their heart starts to harden and they become more prideful. They're not sensitive to the Lord. They're not recognizing how sinful they are. The more sinful we recognize that we are, oftentimes it'll help us to recognize our need for church. Our need for the Bible. Our need for the Lord. And we can consistently see that people that had a tender heart were the ones that even got saved. I mean, who was getting saved? The publicans and the harlots. It was easier for them to recognize how sinful they were and their need of a Savior. And when we go out and preach the Gospel, who are the people most likely to get saved? The people that are more humble. The people that have less money. The people that recognize that they're a sinner. In fact, you can meet people in America that say, I don't sin. Do y'all have that here? Okay. You're like, what? You don't sin? What are you talking about? Now, how easy is it to get that person saved? It's a lot more difficult to get that kind of a person saved than the person that's easily like, oh yeah, we're all sinners, of course. In fact, I often ask this question when I go soul winning. Right off the bat, I say, we're all sinners, right? I just show them Romans 3.23. And I just say, you know, what an example of that would be lying. And if I told you I've never lied before, would you believe me? And it's just funny to watch different people's reactions. Most of the time, people are like, no. Of course not, right? But then some people are like, well, if that's what you say, then sure. And I'm just thinking like, what? This is a prideful person that thinks that someone wouldn't be a liar, right? And it just kind of shows you this kind of person doesn't have the right heart towards the things of God. We need to have a sensitive heart towards the Word of God. Then we go to Luke, chapter number 8. The Bible brings this up about the importance of having a soft and a tender heart because the Bible uses, again, other earthly examples of these truths. The Bible in Luke, chapter number 8, describes our hearts as being dirt, as being soil. And I believe that the parable of the sower illustrates for us the different reactions you have when people are approached with the gospel. And you have it very clearly laid out here where essentially seeds being sown everywhere and Jesus Christ kind of gives this parable explaining all these different choral things. But when you get to the interpretation, he's really clear what this means. Look what it says in verse 11. Now the parable is this, the seed is the Word of God. So the seed being sown in this parable is the Bible or the gospel. And it says, those by the wayside are they that hear, then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. So those who are unsaved, they never believed in Jesus Christ. And I believe that this could generally represent everyone because everyone that doesn't get saved, I believe has heard at least some Bible at some point in their life, and the devil would love to take that away from them and cause them not to hear it and not to get saved. Look at verse 13. They on the rock are they which when they hear receive the word with joy and these have no root, which for a while believe and in time of temptation fall away. So then you have another group that actually does get saved, but notice because of the fact that they are on a rock, which is something very hard, they can't really root themselves, they don't get enough nutrients and supply of water to actually produce any kind of fruit, so they dry up, they wither away, they don't really produce much. Verse 14, and that which fell among thorns are they which when they have heard go forth and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection. So another group gets saved and they potentially have the soil capable of producing fruit, but the problem is that they have something else in that soil. And the Bible describes it as thorns, and that these thorns are essentially the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches, the deceitfulness of sin and other parables, and just the pleasures even of this life. Pleasure is not even necessarily wrong, but it's just a distraction. The devil would love for you to be distracted with just pleasure so that you don't do anything for him. And ultimately what happens is again your heart is not tender enough to produce that fruit. Look at the next group it says in verse 15, but that on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. So the Bible makes it abundantly clear that the people who have the good soil are the people who have the good heart. And the good heart are the people that have taken the gospel, they've taken the word of God, and they're not going to allow the world to choke out that particular fruit that's being grown are actually going to just purge themselves from all these thorns, purge themselves from these things, and they're going to simply produce a lot of great fruit. And one of the ways to keep that soil tender, to keep that soil in a good position is that salt. Whenever you're putting thorns in, you're going to destroy the ground. When you're putting salt in, it's actually going to cause for you to be able to bear that fruit. And we need to constantly tenderize our heart and keep them sensitive to the things of God so that we'll get people saved. The people who have the most tender heart are people that go out soul winning. The person that loves Jesus is the person that's a soul winner. The person that's following Jesus is a soul winner. People that are not going out and preaching the gospel are not following Jesus. They don't love Jesus. They don't have a good heart. And you know what? They're not tender because they don't have any salt in their lives. The more you read your Bible, the more you're going to recognize the need to go out and preach the gospel to every creature. Don't tell me that you're constantly reading the need to go out and preach the gospel over and over and then you do nothing. In fact, I went to a church, it was a Baptist church, and they had stopped soul winning, and I was asking the pastor about it, and I said, you know, I go out soul winning on Saturdays. Can we start a time or do something? And he said, well, you know, I don't want to just start a time and people come and then we kind of quit. And he's like, you know, every once in a while, I'm just sitting in my office and I start reading the Bible and then I just feel this need to go out and preach the gospel. You know why? Because that salt will tenderize your heart and you'll be reminded of what you need to do and how you're supposed to go out there and preach the gospel to every creature, and it must be that these churches that aren't soul winning anymore, it must be that the individuals that stopped soul winning, they must have stopped reading the Bible. They must have stopped seasoning themselves with salt. They must have stopped going to a church with a leather lung preacher getting up and emphasizing soul winning. You know, if there's a church in this world that needs to be on fire for soul winning, it's very Baptist church because soul winning can't be much easier than here. I mean, you have millions and millions and millions of people lined up, ready to hear the gospel. We need to be sensitive here at Verity Baptist Church to go out there and preach the gospel. And you know what, Jesus Christ needs you to preach the gospel. Not just the pastor, not just the evangelist, not just some of the men. No, he needs every man, woman, boy, child, and girl to learn how to preach the gospel that they would open their mouths boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. And you know what, we need to tenderize ourselves with the soul of God's word so that our hearts care more about people going to heaven than pleasure. I am from the country of pleasure. I am from the land of pleasure where everyone that's Christian seems to be just choked with the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and pleasures. And you know what, it would be sad to see an area like this go down that road. And you know what, you don't have to have money to have a love of money. In fact, many poor people have a love of money in their mind and their heart. That they care more about making money than serving God. You know, people here work really hard. I ran, I took a grab taxi today or yesterday and I asked the man, I said, how much do you work? And he said he works 12 hours a day, six days a week. That's 72 hours in a week. You know, in America almost no one works that. And especially even if they did clock in that long, they're not working that hard. They're not working that many hours. They're fooling around messing on their, taking bathroom breaks and doing whatever. You know, it's a joke. You know, that guy's working so hard to get ahead and to provide for his family. You know what, there's nothing wrong working hard. There's nothing wrong with providing for your family. In fact, the Bible commands us to do so. But you know what, if your goal is to get rich, you have the wrong heart. If your goal is to have more pleasure, then you have the wrong heart. We need to constantly be seasoning ourselves with salt so that we can go out and preach the gospel. And if there's anybody whose example you could follow, let it be your pastor. Because let me tell you something, living here and moving here and doing this work is not that second group that's caring about the pleasures of this world, okay? That is someone that has dedicated his life to getting people saved, who has dedicated his family to be an example of soul winning. And you know what, you need to follow your pastor's example. You need to look at what he's sacrificed and what he's given up. Coming here is a sacrifice for Americans. I'll just be honest with you, okay? Because we've been grown up with a silver spoon in our mouth, and you know what, we've had so much luxury and wealth and just abundance, and yet you know what, there are men that are still willing to make a huge sacrifice and dedicate their ministry and dedicate their life to preaching the gospel. That's what it's about, folks. When the Bible talks about people losing their life for the gospel's sake, look no further than Pastor Matthew Stuckey. Look no further than Vangelis Duncan or Bannock. Look at men that are willing, and you know what, there are many men that love Jesus, that love the Bible, but they are not willing to make that decision. They are not willing to make that kind of a sacrifice. That is a special kind of love. That is a special kind of appreciation. These men have obviously salted their hearts with the Bible and with the Word of God, and we need to look to these men and encourage these men and follow these men and be like them as well and say if they're going to sacrifice, I want to sacrifice too. I want to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm going to care about souls. You know, if these men are going to sacrifice this much to come here and have a soul-winning time, you know what, you go to that soul-winning time. You show up, and you support them. You be reliable. I mean, they're making a big sacrifice. And look, I know a bunch of you are making big sacrifices to even be here. I'm sure people have traveled an hour, two hours, even sometimes to come to church through traffic. It probably costs a lot of your income, a lot of your money to take away from work and to come to church. But you know what, you have a great pastor that's made a lot of sacrifice. You can follow his example. And we need to follow his example. Go if you would to 2 Kings, chapter number 2. Go to 2 Kings, chapter number 2. We need to season ourselves with salt. We will recognize and pay attention to how the Bible brings up this particular topic. You know, we're not just preserving ourselves to be able to watch TV for the rest of our lives. I'm not cleaning up my lives and following the commandments just so I can have as much fun as I can possibly have. The reason why I'm supposed to be preserved is so I can preach the gospel more. So I can preach the gospel for the rest of my life. Not just so I can end up enjoying all the luxuries and the cares of this life, but rather so that I can do something for God. That's the whole point of me being preserved. Just like I'm not going to put salt on meat to preserve it and then just throw it in the trash. No, I'm putting salt on it to preserve it to put it on the grill. Put it on the barbecue to smoke it and then to eat it, okay? To consume it and to enjoy it. And that's the whole point. Look at 2 Kings 2, look at verse 19, the Bible says this. And the men of the city said unto Elisha, behold I pray thee the situation of this city is pleasant as my Lord seeth, but the water is not. And the ground barren. And he said, bring me a new cruise and put salt there in. And they brought it to him. And when he went forth unto the spring of the waters and cast the salt in there, and said, thus say the Lord, I have healed these waters, there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So we have a carnal example of the water's bad, the land's good, the water's bad, and Elisha performs this miracle where they pour salt in the water. It fixes the water and then it causes it to where they can produce fruit again. And it says there's no longer going to be any more barrenness in it. And you know what, I believe what it's picturing, if we go back to our example of Luke chapter 8, that our hearts are like that soil and when you put the salt in it, it'll fix it to where it won't be barren anymore. The Bible will fix you. Jesus Christ said, if you follow me, you're going to become fishers of men. He promised that. He gave that as a command to his disciples as a reward to following him. Hey, when you're reading the Bible and you're going to the right kind of church, you know what, you will become a fisher of men and you won't be barren anymore. So the reason why people are barren, they're not putting the salt into the water, they're not putting the miracle that we have here of the Scripture and you know what, the Bible will fix things. The Bible has power. I want you to go to Luke chapter 14. Go to Luke chapter number 14. And you know, because of sin, this world is very unfruitful. The Bible tells us and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. And you know, it's hard to know exactly what the world's always been like through every generation and every decade, but it just seems like in the last few decades that our world as a whole has become more sinful. And you know, that's just my personal opinion. If you have a different one, you can tell me later, but I kind of see it not just in America, but really in the whole world that sin kind of seems to be escalating and increasing. And the Bible is telling us that because iniquity shall abound in the end times, towards the end and the coming of Christ, that many people are just not going to have any love anymore. And you know what? Sin will do that to you, where if you allow sin to take over your life, you'll stop loving people as much and you'll have less of a desire to go to church, less of a desire to go soul winning, less of a desire to see people saved. And sin will harden your heart. Salt will tenderize your heart. And so because we're always going to be sinful, we need to constantly be applying a lot of salt to keep it tender because it's kind of like that tide. Sometimes you can stand out in the ocean a little bit and you're not even moving, but somehow it's like drawing you further out. Who's noticed that before? Yeah, it's this weird phenomenon where you kind of are drawn. That's kind of how it is in our lives when we're not really proactively serving God, reading our Bible or going to church or doing godly things. It's like the sin is constantly drawing us further away, hardening our hearts even more and more, even if we don't really realize it, it's like this parable of a frog boiling in a pot of hot water. Who's heard of that expression? I don't know if you all know this. The expression is basically if you take a pot of hot water and throw a frog in, he'll just jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and you slowly heat it, the frog will stay in the whole time until he cooks to death. And it's kind of the way sin is that sometimes we don't realize that the little sins start to slowly add up and take us to bigger and bigger and bigger sins and bigger and bigger. And eventually we're drawn to an area where we would have never gone initially, and we're doing things that we wouldn't normally do because we've allowed ourselves to slowly be cooked by sin, to slowly be desensitized by sin. And we need to keep our hearts tender with the salt of God's word. So point one is that the salt is going to preserve us. Point two, it's going to tenderize us. And point three is that it's going to enhance our flavor. It's going to enhance the flavor. Now of course we want all three. We want the meat to have been preserved and not rotten. We want the meat to be tender when we bite into it, that it's not tough. And we also want it to have a good taste. We want that seasoning to taste good. Because if it was really tender, but has bad seasoning, then it's not going to really be worth it, right? And if it's really well seasoned, but it's not very tender, it's okay, but it's not as good. You want all of it, right? We want to have the entire effect. And we get that through salt here. And it really enhances the flavor. Now, I want to go to Luke chapter 14. I actually wanted to go to Matthew 5 first. So just keep your finger and go to Matthew. Matthew chapter number 5. The Bible brings up salt a couple times in some pretty familiar passages. I think you probably recognize this. Matthew chapter 5. Look what it says in verse 13. Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt of loss is savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and be trodden underfoot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick. And it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Now according to the Bible, we are salt. Now that's kind of interesting, because we've been talking about how we need to have salt in us, but then the Bible is also saying that we are salt. And the reality is that both are true. And it has the exact same parallel, that just like salt in us preserves us, us being salt in this world preserves this world, and it preserves our city, and it preserves our country, and it preserves our family, and it preserves the things that are around us when we ourselves are salt. But the only way we're going to be salt is if we've been seasoned with salt and we actually have that unique characteristic of what salt is. When salt loses its savor, it just seems like just nothing. It has no real flavor, it has no benefit, no qualities about it anymore. It's just grains, grains of dust. Empty grains of dust that have no meaning. Whereas salt actually has that essence of it, it has that saltness that gives its quality, its benefit. And so the Bible is saying that we need to have that salty characteristic so that we can benefit this world. If you're a Christian and you're not sharing your faith with anybody, you're not benefiting this world. If you're not living a godly life, you're not benefiting this world. You're not to preserve our city, to preserve Manila, to preserve the Philippines, to preserve Pampaga, to preserve all these different areas. We need people that are actually salt. We need you and me to be salty and preserve these particular areas. And it really enhances the flavor. Now look at chapter 14 of Luke. Go back to where you put your finger. Luke 14, and look at verse 34. Luke 14, look at verse 34. The Bible says, salt is good, but if the salt had lost its savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dung hill, but men cast it out. He that hath ears hear, let him hear. Notice that when the salt loses its saltness, loses its savor, it's worthless. It just basically becomes something on the ground used to catch moisture and prevent ice from forming on the ground. But it's basically not used as salt really anymore. It's a completely different substance. And so it's important that we remain having our savor and that we're constantly seasoned. Notice it says, wherewith shall it be seasoned? You know, the only thing that's going to make you godly is the Bible. The only thing that's going to make you right with God is the Bible. You know, people aren't moral without the Bible. Go find me a religion of really moral people that are not Christian. Go find me the giant group of Catholics that really are godly, doesn't exist. Go find me the Muslims that are very godly, doesn't exist. Go find me the false religion out there that is really worshiping God. How about the Jews? The Jews are the most ungodly people in the world because they despise the Bible. They despise the Scripture. And you know what? The thing that makes you salty is the Bible. So if you don't have the Bible, you will not be salty. Watching YouTube videos doesn't make you salty. Going and learning some martial art doesn't make you salty. Going and educating yourself in the college doesn't make you salty. The one thing that makes you salty, the one thing that gives you savor, is the Bible, is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That's what gives us the saltiness. And that's what causes us to have actual flavor. So what we have to do is we have to elevate this book and say, everything in this book is going to give me that saltiness. And we can't reject any of it. But we notice a lot of people are rejecting what this book says. And you know what? They're rejecting it all the parts that you can really savor, that have a lot of saltiness to them. It makes me remember something. Go over to Luke 17. It makes me remember something that Jesus told me to remember. And Luke chapter 17, look at verse 31. In that day he which shall be upon the housetop and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away. And he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife. Hey, talk about an example of salt that's good for nothing. How about Lot's wife who is, according to the Scripture, turned back and literally turned into a pillar of salt that had no real benefit. Go over to Genesis 19. Go to Genesis chapter number 19. Let's read that verse for a moment. Let's just remind ourselves. Let's remember together. And you know what? There's so many preachers today. There's so many Christians today that they've lost their savor. They've lost their saltiness because they won't preach the salty parts of the Bible. They won't remember Lot's wife. They say, oh, Jesus never brought up the L-G-B-T-Q-I-A-Z H-I-V. Well, you're wrong. Remember Lot's wife? Jesus literally brought it up. I mean, why would Jesus bring up that story if it didn't really happen? I mean, think about it. He's confirming that the story about Lot's wife really happened. He's recognizing it and saying, you know how I felt about them? Well, remember Lot's wife. And you say, well, what happened in Genesis chapter number 19? Well, of course, the Lord sends two angels down there to see if the cry is as great as it really was. Lot is pretty much the only just guy in the town, as the text describes. But look at verse 26. It says this. But his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt. So they fled the town. In fact, they didn't want to leave. The angels grabbed Lot and his wife by the hand and their two daughters marched out of the town and the angels even told them specifically don't look back. Don't look at that. And they just looked at it. She looked at it anyway. She turned back. She couldn't help herself. She looked back and she was turned into a pillar of salt. And, you know, I don't know what you call these people here, but what I call them is faggots, okay? And the Bible makes it abundantly clear that you're not supposed to be looking at faggots. Because then you turn into salt that's worthless. You shouldn't be hanging out with these people. God burned them with fire in the Old Testament. And then later he gave a law saying that all of them were supposed to be put to death. They were supposed to be stoned with stones. That it was a wicked abomination. And you let people have forgotten that. Churches don't preach that anymore. And the question is is this preacher worth his salt? No! Because he's not remembering Lot's work. You know, you need a preacher. You need a pastor that's going to get up and he's going to actually rip on what the Bible rips on. He's going to actually preach against the most wicked people on this planet. And let me tell you who they are. It's faggots. It's sodomites. It's homosexuals. It's men with men. The most disgusting and grotesque abomination on the planet. It's evil. It's wicked. I don't even want to look at it. And I'm sorry you guys have to look at a lot of this filth. Americans have to look at a lot of this filth these days. But you know what we don't want to do is we don't want to become a Lot's wife where we're constantly looking back and not focused on the things of God. We want to be seasoning ourselves with salt so that we don't turn into worthless salt. But so many people are just constantly concerned with pleasing this world. We have so many Christians that won't preach these things. They're not seasoned with salt. And they've allowed homosexuals and fags to take over virtually every part of our society. They've taken over the media in this world. They've taken over the governments in many of the world. They've taken over Hollywood. They've taken over the trafficking of children. And you know it's not just America. America's over consuming it. But they're taking children from all over the world and importing them. And trapping them. And guess what? They really are taking over. How about the clothing? I mean what is Lot's wife really looking back at? Was she looking back? What about that snow bag? Oh. What about the Christian Dior? Oh. What about the dulce and babana? Oh. I mean what was she looking back at? Oh by the way all those people are faggots. Just to let you know. Oh do you need some more? How about Armani? Faggot. Just basically pick a popular fashion designer. It's a male homosexual. Why in the world are women so concerned with male homosexuals dressing them? Why is it that they want to look like a male sodomite would have them dress? And the clothing that they would have them wear? Christian Dior. Perry Ellis. Dulce and Gabana. Michael Coors. Chanel. Armani. And you know what? It's no different here. You go up and down the malls and these places they have all these kind of stores. They have all these kinds of goods. Everybody's so concerned with them. And what is the apparel that these sodomites are trying to put everybody in? They're trying to put women in the pants aren't they? They're trying to get women to dress like men and then they make the men so effeminate and queer looking that it's hard to even tell the difference between men and women anymore. It's embarrassing. It's a shame. It's a mockery. You know what? The devil would love for every man to look effeminate and queer and to not dress like a man, not manly. You know what? The Bible tells us that being effeminate is a sin. And you know what? We need Christian men that have some salt in them and they're going to be physical men. They're going to look like men. They're going to act like men. They're going to sound like men. They're going to dress like men. And they're not going to let a bunch of male sodomites tell them how to dress. They're not going to tell a bunch of male sodomites how to act and how to behave and how to look. And let me tell you something. Women don't even like it anyways. They like a strong man. They like a strong man physically, mentally and spiritually. They want the whole package. And you know what? You young men that don't have a wife yet, work on being a strong man. If you're married, become a strong man. If you're a boy, become a strong man. We need some strong men in this world. And you know what? I'll tell you something. Even in America, we're suffering from this. But the Philippines could use a lesson as a whole and men becoming stronger, taking this more seriously, being more masculine, being more manly. The men in the Bible are manly. The men in the Bible are lifting off the stone from the well. The men in the Bible are wrestling bears and lions and tigers. I mean, oh my. I mean, the men in the Bible are killing men. I mean, they're warriors. They're using their strength physically. Let me tell you something. It changes your life when you follow the Scripture. You eat the strong meat of the Word. You know there's so many false religions that won't let men eat meat. That's a demonic doctrine causing them to be weak. Causing them to be puny and to not have testosterone and to not actually be able to function at a high level. We need men functioning at a high level. We need to get preachers up there preaching against faggots. And you know what? I want my church to be so manly that if a fag ever showed up, it would stick out like a sore thumb and not blend in. But you know what? The sodomites want everybody to dress weird so they can blend in with society. We need to make society and culture so godly again that they can't blend in. That it's so obvious that their disgusting limp wrist and pink pants and whatever skirt they're wearing, that we just throw them out of the church and then they'll come protest mine. The sodomites, they don't get to come in. They're just always outside my church protesting. And they're so mad that they can't come in. But you know what? Over my dead body. Why? Because our church is going to be seasoned with salt. We're not going to be seasoned with the cares and the deceitfulness of riches and with the pleasures of this life. And I don't care what the world says, nuts to them. You know what? I'm going to remember my mom's wife. I'm not looking back. I'm not interested in what they can do. You know, fags are confused on anatomy. Did you know what makes someone a fag? They're confused on how anatomy works. They're confused on what makes a man a man, what makes a woman a woman. They don't know how any of that works. Why would I have them dress me? They don't even know what's going on in a male reproductive body. They like to play with dung. I mean, why in the world would I have this person dress me? Why would I have this person tell me what to do, rule my life? You know, we need God's people to get back and preach the Word of God. The Bible says in Proverbs 28, They that forsake the law praise the wicked. But such as keep the law, contend with them. You know, we need to do more and 24. And 2024, we need to do more. We need to be seasoned with more salt, and we need to have more flavor, not less. We need to be saltier than ever before, not weaker than ever before. And you know what? You need to encourage your pastor. Pastor Stuckey needs to be encouraged that when he preaches a sermon that has a lot of savor, when it has a lot of flavor, when it has a lot of saltiness in it, that you encourage him and not think like, oh, that was a little spicy. Oh, that was a little too salty, Pastor Stuckey. You should say, hey, put more salt on it. Not less. You know what? That's not going to fix America. That's not going to fix the Philippines. That's not going to fix the world. It's by people preaching soft. We need more salt. The salt is what preserves. The salt is what tenderizes. And the salt is what gives us flavor. In fact, that's what makes our preaching so great. It's not that I'm great. It's that the Bible is great. It's that the seasoning here is so great. That's what makes the preaching good. You know, some people say, New Ivy preaching or Pastor Anderson's preaching or Pastor Stuckey's preaching. It ruins other preaching. Why? Because they don't season their food. Once you get used to good seasoning, you're like, this is dry. Where's the seasoning? This doesn't taste good anymore. It's like, can't you put some salt on it or something? You know? And that's why good preaching is so good is because it's seasoned with salt. You know, we need evangelists or bannock to preach on this more, not less. Don't be discouraged. Don't allow the enemies and the foes to cause you to quit. You know, I didn't see a lot of protesters out here this morning, okay? But no matter what opposition you have, just keep preaching the Bible. Because, you know, we've had protesters for years. I think if you count, like, all the services I've ever preached, I've probably had more service where I had protesters than I didn't. But, you know, I don't have any right now. And if I went back home, I wouldn't have any right now. They're gone. They're licking their wounds because they lost, and we're winning. And you know what? Christ always causes us to triumph. We're always victorious in Christ. And even if they were still protesting, I'm still winning. I'm on the winning side. And you know what? I would rather be with God's people in a prison than to be with the world and dress in dulce and gabbana. Not gonna do it. Throw us in the fiery furnace. You know, we need to set the example. We need to follow Christ. We need to be seasoned with salt. And you need to get into church, otherwise you're gonna be what the Bible says, good for nothing. When you don't go to church, you're gonna get hardened, and you're gonna get to a point where you're just good for nothing. If you stop reading your Bible, you can get to a point where you're good for nothing. If you stop going soul winning, you're good for nothing. We need to keep the basics and the fundamentals. Hey, we're fundamentalists. It's not like rocket science here. It's easy, it's simple, it's basic. It's not hard to know what to do. It's hard to consistently do it. But we need to constantly season ourselves with salt. You need to constantly hearken to the voice of your pastor, get into church, make the sacrifices you need to. Why? So that you can be used by the master. So that very Baptist church can continue the course and the trajectory it's on. I mean, you guys have six churches. Pretty soon you might even catch up to Pastor Thompson. Maybe. I don't know. You know, it's a tough race. I mean, look at the bull. You got six churches going. You're starting churches where white people are. You're colonizing white people, okay, in Poland. Right? I mean, you got to reach the white man. Alright? The white man isn't saved anymore. You know, I always make this joke. It's like atheism is like the white man religion. You know? And it's sad. But you know what? There's no reason why little can't do much. Little is much when God is in it. This is a humble people. Y'all certainly aren't the richest church in the world. But you know what? You can be rich in faith. You can be rich in preaching the gospel. And you know what? God can reward you greatly. The woman that's considered going to have some of the greatest rewards in heaven, she gave the least amount of money anybody's ever given. Did you ever think about that? Don't think that you have to be in America or in some awesome other country to do something great for God. You have an amazing opportunity right here, right now to do something incredible for the Lord Jesus Christ. And to be greatly rewarded of Him. Don't let the lies and deceptions of this world, the pleasures of this life choke the word. Make sure you're constantly seasoning yourself and you're reading your Bible, you're going to church, you're getting into church and we need some more people to lose their life for the gospel's sake. Just like Pastor Stuckey, just like Evangelist or Bannock, these men are willing to lose their life for the gospel's sake. We need more men like that. We need more people here that would be willing to make giant sacrifices. And, you know, the Bible doesn't say when you lose your life it's over. It says you'll find it. When I talk with Pastor Stuckey, he's a happy man. When I talk with Evangelist or Bannock, they're happy men. It's not like their sacrifice is God is not going to take care of them. He isn't going to reward them. You know, they're walking by faith, not by sight. Because nobody by sight would trade America for this place. I'm sorry, okay. Just like many of you may not even trade for America because you know, it's got its problems too, okay. But at the end of the day, you know, men that are making these giant sacrifices should be worthy of praise and you know, I hope that you guys don't get comfortable with your pastor. Because you know, the Bible says a man is not without honor saving his own country and his own land. And I'm sure you've probably given him a lot of honor to this point. But I hope you continue doing so because he really deserves it and he really needs your support. And it's probably really hard on him to be in a distant land and to not have as many friends. And you know, I'm really encouraged by men like Pastor Stuckey to make sacrifices myself. I like to look at his example and what he's doing to motivate myself to be more spiritual and to love God and to say, you know what, this is a man that's seasoning himself with a lot of salt. We need to seize ourselves with a lot of salt too. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for this great church here and this wonderful group of people. I pray that you would just help us to recognize the need to salt ourselves with the scripture. I thank you that you give us the opportunity to read the Bible and to salt ourselves. Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to also preserve our towns and our cities and our lands if we will be that salt and light. I pray that you would be bold in us, that you would encourage us to preach the gospel more in 24. That we would take bold stands on the things that the Bible says and that we wouldn't be ashamed of Christ and His words. And I pray that you would really work on people's hearts today, that you would help tenderize them and make them soft so that they would be willing to make spiritual decisions. I pray that men and women in this room would decide to give their lives to Christ, that they would serve Him with their lives. We thank you for the free gift, but I pray that people go beyond the free gift of salvation and they would just offer themselves as a living sacrifice the need for the Master's use. And I pray that you could use this church greatly to win thousands, yea millions and start all kinds of churches all over this world. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.