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Tell them of Jesus Almighty to save. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying. Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. Though they are sliding Him still, He is waiting, waiting the penitent child to receive. Lead with them earnestly, lead with them gently. He will forgive if they only believe. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying. Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. Down in the human heart, crushed by the tender, feelings are buried, their praise can restore. Touched by a loving heart, wakened by madness, Lord, that are broken will vibrate once more. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying. Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. Rescue the perishing, duty demented, strength for the labor the Lord will provide. Back to the narrow way, patiently with them, tell the poor wonder a Savior has died. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying. Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. Heart is the shepherd's voice I hear. Out in the desert, dark and clear, calling the sheep who've gone astray, far from the shepherd's fold away. Bring them in, bring them in, bring them in from the fields of sin. Bring them in, bring them in, bring the wandering ones to Jesus, who will go and help this shepherd God. Help him, the wandering ones, to find, who'll bring the lost ones to the fold, where they'll be sheltered from the cold. Bring them in, bring them in, bring them in from the fields of sin. Bring them in, bring them in, bring the wandering ones to Jesus. Out in the desert, hear them cry, out of the mountains wild and high. Heart is the master's speech to thee, O find my sheep, wherever they be. Great man, great man. And 26, we'll get started with our first song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. In your hymnal, it's song 426. Sing it out nice and loud, on the first. I heard the bells on Christmas day. Carol, come hail your carols playing. And wild and sweet the words we hear. Of peace on earth, good will to them. I heard the bells on Christmas day. The bells raise up on Christmas day. And hold the one and only song Of peace on earth, good will to them. And in his prayer I loud my head. There is no peace on earth, I said. For hate is wrong and wrong's the stop. Of peace on earth, good will to them. Then, feel the bells roll loud and key. God is wonderful and lovely sweet. The wrongs of them, the right we bear. With peace on earth, good will to them. Till many singing on each way. The world we hold the right to take. The Lord is the child, the chance of life. Of peace on earth, good will to them. Good singing, let us pray. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this church service. Thank you for allowing us to be gathered here. Thank you for the goodwill you sent us through your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that you would be with those that are sick, that you would allow us to have the right spirit for Christmas, and that we would also share that bright and shining light of the gospel with the lost. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's go ahead and sing our second song, 430. Just flip the page, you're right there. 430. While shepherds watch their flocks, song 430. All around, and glory strong around. Fear not, save me for my hatred, that seeks their troubled kind. That's my means of pain, joy I bring to you and all mankind. To you and all mankind. To you with faith, this now mistake is worn of David's line. Your Savior, who is Christ the Lord, and this shall be the sign. And this shall be the sign. The happy baby, there's now mine. To you and you this way. Oh, be we wrapped in swan event, and in a manger lane, and in a manger lane. All glory be to God on high, and to the earth be peace. The bell is born from heaven to men, being in and never ceased. Being in and never ceased. Thank you for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If anybody lost some keys, I've got some up here, so just FYI. Also, if you did not get a bulletin and you'd like one, just lift up your hand nice and high. We have our Bible Memory passage, Matthew 28. We're working on verse number five, and also on the inside we have our service, our soul winning times. Church stats, make sure you turn that into your soul winning captains if you have that, or if you just put it in our group chat for your stats. Also our maps, make sure you're please updating them and putting them in there. On the right, we have a list of our expecting ladies, if you'd please be in prayer for them. And then we have a church prayer list, so if you'd like to have yourself added, or a friend, or anybody that you want prayer for, you can just email us, or you could fill out a communication card and put that in the offering plate. On the back, we add the Cleaning Volunteer lunch, thanks to those who help clean the church. We have a Christmas cookie bake-off coming Christmas day, and so we'll have our normal regular service time at seven, and we'll have some candlelight service immediately following the service, as well as a cookie competition. And so we're giving out prizes for the the three categories of best tasting, best decorated, and most creative. And then again down below we have a couple other events. January 1st is going to be a men's preaching night and pizza. So if you're 18, older, you're a man, you wear a button-up shirt and tie, and you'd like to preach about a five-minute sermon, we'll have that as an opportunity on January 1st. And then we're going to have a pizza fellowship following. January 11th through the 12th, there is a church down there in Houston, Spring Crest Baptist Church, with Pastor Reyes, who's invited me to come out and preach for them. And we're going to be having a soul winning event the day prior, so we'll be meeting there at the church at about 10 a.m. We can actually meet around 9 a.m., going out around 10 a.m. for a couple hours of soul winning. We'll have lunch, have an afternoon soul winning time, and then also we're going to have kind of a fellowship event. I'll be preaching both services on that Sunday. Their Sunday service schedule is actually, I believe, the same as ours. So they have a 10 30 a.m. service and then a 4 30 p.m. service. And so we'll, I guess we're just setting the trend, you know what I mean? So no, but it makes sense. And so if you want to join us for those service times, we'd love for you to come down there, or if you just want to pray for us while we're down there. That's exciting. On the inside of our bulletin, we had a little separate printout, and it was a congratulations to the Brooks on the birth of their daughter, Rosalie Marie. She was born on the 12th, 252 p.m., six pounds and seven ounces. Congratulations to them. And that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements. We're going to sing our Psalm of the Week, and it's Psalm 119. And so if you can get your special handouts, that'll help you. And we'll sing this one through. I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments. God am conflicted, very much quick in me, O Lord, according unto thy word. The wicked have laid a snip on me, and I am done. Thy precepts, thy testimonies, have been taken as enemies forever. Thy word is the lamp unto my feet, and the light unto my back. Except I beseech thee the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord, and teach me thy judgments. My soul is continually in mine, and yet do I not forget thy law. The wicked have laid a snip on me, and I am done. Thy precepts, thy testimonies, have been taken as enemies forever. Thy word is the lamp unto my feet, and the light unto my back. For they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have in mine, mine heart to perform. Thy statutes await, even unto the end. I did make thoughts, but thy law do I love. The wicked have laid a snip on me, and I am done. Thy precepts, thy testimonies, have been taken as enemies forever. Thy word is the lamp unto my feet, and the light unto my back. Very good singing. At this time we turn your bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter number two. Our ushers are going to pass our offering plates, and we'll read the entire chapter of 1 Thessalonians chapter number two. Thank you. 1 Thessalonians chapter two. The Bible says, For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain. But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile, but as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness, God is witness. Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail. For laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. Ye are witnesses in God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, that ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when ye receive the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. For ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us. And they please not God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always, for the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored the more abundantly to see your face with great desire. Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ as is coming? For ye are our glory and joy. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for this day. I want to thank you for the reminder this morning about your great love for us and the great hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Please help us to keep our minds on you this Christmas season. Please bless Pastor Shelley as he preaches the word to us. Remove all distractions and help us to be attentive to your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. The Bible says in verse 18, says, Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us. And the Bible talks about a particular character, Satan. And Satan has a couple different names. Lucifer, the devil, that old serpent. There's a few different ways that we can describe him. Sometimes there's also other kind of metaphors or, you know, talking about Beelzebub or other things that maybe be alluding to the devil. But we typically refer to him as Satan. And what I thought would be interesting is to look through the Bible and notice the attacks of Satan. And so the title of my evening sermon is this, The Attacks of Satan. Notice here that Satan is stopping the Apostle Paul from traveling to certain areas to preach the gospel. So one of the attacks that the devil does is he gets people banned or hindered from going to certain parts of the world to preach the gospel. That is something that the Bible is bringing up. And what I think is interesting is to think about what the devil does to people in the Bible and then think about like how that may relate to us today. But I really just want to spend a lot of time quickly going through the attacks of Satan that we see in the Bible. Go to Job chapter one. Go to Job chapter number one. But the first point is that Satan will stop people from traveling to certain areas because he knows how effective they are. The Apostle Paul is a very effective preacher of the gospel. The Apostle Paul is very mission-oriented, evangelistic. And so the Apostle Paul makes a great dent into the devil when he goes to an area. And so the devil is preventing him, hindering him. And what's interesting is that the Apostle Paul is aware of the fact that it's literally Satan. It's the devil who is causing him to not be able to travel to certain areas. And so the devil is aware of the servants of God. The devil's main goal is to fight against the servants of God and to take as many people to hell with them as possible. Well, who is his biggest opposition? People preaching the gospel then. Because if no one preaches the gospel, the devil doesn't have to do much. You know, broad is the way which leads to destruction. I mean, there's not really any reason for someone to go to heaven apart from hearing the gospel. That's the only way you can get there. So if no one's preaching the gospel, then he doesn't really have to do much. But of course, because the gospel is so powerful, the devil has all these different lies and deceptions and traps to try and stop people from hearing the gospel, from hearing the truth. And so one of those is literally preventing people from traveling areas and preaching the gospel. Here's other attacks that Satan does. Job chapter number one, look at what it says in verse number six. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came also among them. Here's another lie that the world will teach is that Satan is in hell right now or that Satan is partying in hell or that Satan is locked up in hell. But that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that the devil, Satan, is walking around the earth. Not only walking around the earth, apparently he has the ability to even go to heaven. And so the devil presents himself to God in heaven with the sons of God, which I believe is just the saints, those who are saved. And God talks to Satan. It says the Lord said unto Satan, whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it. Notice Satan did not say I came from hell. Notice the Bible does not say that Satan came from outer space. He was from the earth. He was walking around on the earth. What do you think he's doing? Well, the Bible is pretty clear what he's doing. He's going about as a lion seeking whom he may devour. He's constantly going around trying to do things like hindering the apostle Paul from going out and preaching the gospel. So who is Satan most focused in on? The people that are just doing drugs and doing nothing or the people that are serving God and actually trying to be effective for the kingdom of God. He's focused in on the people that actually love the Lord or servants of God and doing the most for God. Who's the most doing for God at this time? Job. Job is the most effective man of God. That's what the Bible tells us about him in verse number one. So the God first asked Satan, where'd you come from? Cotton-eyed Joe. I don't know. It's just kind of a... He's like coming from the earth, right? And the Lord said unto Satan, hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and is sheweth evil. Now notice what Satan does not say. It does not say, and Satan answered the Lord and said, I don't even know who Job is. What's Job? Who are you talking about? What does it say? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, doth Job fear God for naught? So he's like, hey, have you ever considered Job? He's like, yeah, I know about Job. Why? Because the devil knows who is the godly people in this world. Not only does he just not know, not only does he know who Job is, notice what he describes him as in verse 10. Hast thou not made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thus blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. So the devil knows not only is Job exist, but he knows that Job, you can't get at this guy from any angle. Because notice he said like, hey, you've made a hedge about him on every side. Sounds like the devil's been trying every side, hasn't he? Not only has he been trying every side, hey, you've also been blessing the work of his hands. He's been effective. He's doing something. He's accomplishing something. Not only is he accomplishing something, his substance is increasing in the land. So he's being prosperous. He's effective. Job, when you read through the book of Job, obviously reached a lot of people. A lot of people sought his wisdom. He was a elder in a sense, and he taught a lot of people the word of God, and was a great, you know, man of God. And the devil definitely knows who Job is. Now, they are going to get in a little bit of an argument here. This is what the devil says, but put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, behold, all that he hath is in thy power. Only upon himself put not forth thine hand, so Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. So what does the devil do? Well, the devil is going to bring severe persecution against Job. Now in the text, it tells us that he loses his children, all ten of them. He loses all of his flocks and his money and his herdsmen, and basically most of his servants, apart from the handful that basically come to tell him the bad news. So it basically just has economic loss, financial loss, family loss, just everything. Really I'm not really getting focused in on the details. This is what I think. It's just severe persecution against the best Christian. If we look at Satan's attack so far, he's hindering and banning the greatest Christian, then we see severe persecution against the best Christian. Okay? And specifically then he ramps it up because that doesn't work. Job still has the right attitude. Look what he says in verse number 21, and said, naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Even after losing all ten of his children, all of his money, all of his goods, he still was a godly Christian, was still going to serve God, wasn't going to say anything against him. So then, verse 1 of chapter 2, again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also. Among them present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, from whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, As thou consider my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God, and sheweth evil. And still he holdeth fast his integrity, although it moveth me against him to destroy him without cause. So notice the devil will attack the best Christians for no good reason, for no legitimate reason, no legitimate reason, not even as a punishment. So if we were to study the attacks of Satan so far, the apostle Paul's banned Job as being severely persecuted for no reason. For absolutely no fault of his own, nothing that he did wrong. He is just being hammered by Satan. And after withstanding all of that, he does it again. He doesn't give up. He hits him even harder. Now he says this, verse 4, And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will they give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone in his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. Well, you know what? Satan was a liar in chapter 1. So how do I know he's not going to be a liar in chapter 2? Oh, yeah, he's the father of lies. He's going to lie again. But here's what he did. Not only did he afflict Job in such a severe persecution economically in his children, he then puts boils all over his body and gives him the worst pain and suffering that you could possibly have without dying, because God won't allow him to kill him, but the devil's allowed to afflict his body. And so we see, if we look at the attacks of Satan, he's hindering the best Christians, and he's bringing severe persecution against the best. Now, ultimately, the story of Job, Job ends up succeeding and not cursing God foolishly. God eventually delivers him, but he still has his wife come attack him. He has his friends attack him, and they all just like, man, you're obviously a super sinful guy. Then he has a bozo come out of nowhere and attack him, a laihu, who's the worst. He's like the most frustrating character in the Bible, okay? Sometimes you meet people in this world, and you're like, you're like a laihu. Job went to 1 Chronicles chapter 21. But even through all of that, when Job finally prayed for his friends, the Lord delivered him, and he even gave him more than he had before. But when we just look at Satan's part of the equation, what is Satan doing? Satan is not severely persecuting random people. Satan's not randomly persecuting just drug addicts and the lost and whomever. Who is he bringing the most severe, the most harsh, the most extreme, the most unwarranted persecution against? It's against the best Christians, okay? And that's what we see as a common pattern. Now, 1 Chronicles chapter 21, also when the devil does that, you know, if you read the book of Job, you'll notice a lot of people fall for the tricks. They actually think like, oh, Job's a bad guy, and the devil just tricks a lot of people. He tricks his wife, tricks his friends, everybody's kind of giving up on Job. They can't really figure it out. 1 Chronicles chapter 21, look at verse 1. And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. Here's another thing that Satan does, is he goes for the leaders. Have you noticed the theme, Paul, Job, David? And what is he doing to David? He's trying to get at, I believe, his pride. Now, there's a couple different things in this story, and I'm not for the sake of time going to elaborate on everything. This would be a great story to go through. But what Satan will do is he tries to attack leaders and tries to use pride as a tool to destroy leaders. Now, if we think about David in this particular story, whenever the king or whoever would cause the nation of Israel to be numbered, they were all to give a shekel as a ransom for their soul. And so if you think about it, what does getting the number kind of do, though? The number could cause someone to get a little bit prideful or kind of look at my credentials or look at how powerful we are, because we have a million in the army. Whereas when you're going through and you're getting the census and you're getting that half shekel, well, all that money is then to go to the Lord, and it's a ransom. So it's like we're not doing this census to say how wonderful we are. We're doing the census to collect more money for the Lord and to pay honor and tribute to the Lord. And to say, hey, I need to make sure I'm giving money to the Lord when we do this census so that we recognize it's by the Lord's might and the Lord's strength that we are delivered, not by our own might and our own strength. Now, if you had to pay for the government to count you, you probably wouldn't want that to happen very often. Right? But the reason why it's probably in there is you're trying to understand, okay, we're not just counting ourselves to constantly brag about how many numbers we have and how big we are. We're doing this as a result of, hey, we need to know the number every once in a while. We want to make sure that even though we get the number, we're still trusting in the Lord and not our numbers, not our own strength, not our own might. And the devil, Satan, is provoking David to number Israel. So I believe that that's the best way to understand this story. There's a couple different pieces here, but we can study it all throughout. But it's consistent in the Bible that the devil will attack men of God, preachers, pastors, kings, governors, leaders, through pride. Pride is the tool and the vehicle of the devil. Go to 1 Timothy 3 and we'll see the same thing. I want to use this as, this is a really clear example. I just wanted to read that because I'm going through all the mentions of Satan attacking. But Satan attacked David by provoking him to number Israel. And again, I believe he's trying to destroy David through pride. Obviously it cost David severely. David ended up having to choose between three punishments. He falls into the hands of the Lord. The Lord slays a lot of the children of Israel. Then David has to end up paying a big ransom in order to deliver them. And there's all kinds of pictures of the gospel there too. But at the end of the day, it cost David severely for that attack that Satan came trying to get at his pride. And this could happen to any of us. We could always think that we're prideful as Americans. Like, oh, we have so many people in our military. We spend so much money on our military. Or you could look at this as churches, churches thinking that they're great because of their attendance or how many numbers they have. We don't ever play this game where we're thinking we're great because of numbers or lifting ourselves up by pride, but recognizing it's by the Lord's will that we exist, it's by the Lord's strength that we accomplish things, and only by His favor that we continue to exist. Now 1 Timothy 3 warns in verse 6, not a novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. So notice again what could cause someone to fall into the condemnation of the devil is pride. So I'm using this as kind of a parallel to notice that leaders or people in positions of authority, the devil will attack you through pride. The devil wants leaders and people in positions of authority to be lifted up and to think that they're more special than they really are or that they're more important than they really are or that they can do things by their own might and strength and power and they're not doing them by the Lord's power, strength and might. And so we always need to make sure that as leaders if you're in a position of authority that you're not getting lifted up and allowing the devil to attack you through pride. Go to Zechariah chapter number 3. Go to Zechariah chapter number 3. So how is Satan attacking? He's attacking people by getting them banned. He's attacking people by bringing severe persecution against the best. He's trying to use pride to lift up leaders to get them to sin and cause problems. Zechariah chapter number 3, we're going to read about the rebuilding of the temple specifically. And it's kind of an interesting period in time. They're rebuilding the temple. Joshua is the high priest. Zerubbabel is going to be lifted up and going to be put in a position of authority and power. But Joshua is being mentioned here in verse number 1. It says this, and he showed Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. So Joshua is there to build the house of God in a spiritual sense. Zerubbabel is there also as the leader and the governor. But Joshua is there to build the house of God, the physical house of God, the temple. And in a sense, the house of God is what we call the church today. That is the church. It's like building the church in a spiritual sense. And you have to understand, the most important leader, the most important man building the house of God, who's right there at his right hand to resist him, it's Satan. So Satan, what does Satan do? Satan wants to not access all the areas of the world to preach the gospel. Satan wants to bring severe persecution against the best Christians that exist. Satan wants to try and eat at people with pride. And then Satan is right there to resist those who want to build the house of God. Those who are building the house of God, the devil is right there resisting them and bringing all kinds of persecution against them. Now let's keep reading. It says in verse number 2, And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. Even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head and clothed them with garments, and the angel of the Lord stood by. So one thing I like about this, even though Josh was building the house of God, notice that the Bible is really clear that he had filthy garments and that he had iniquity. Why? Because God uses sinful men to build the house of God. And he covers their sin and covers their iniquity and then allows them to build the house of God by grace. But here's the thing, the devil's still right there to resist and to attack and to go against those who are trying to build the house of God. Go over to Matthew 4 and we'll see the devil attacking here in the New Testament. Matthew chapter number 4. Satan is mentioned in the Bible a few times, but notice he's really specific in who he's attacking, isn't he? I mean, couldn't the Bible just randomly tell us like there was this random guy walking down the street and Satan just went after him? But it's like that's not who he's being attacked. Who's being attacked? Joshua, the high priest. Who's being attacked? David, the king of Israel. Who's being attacked? Job, the most upright man in all the earth. Who's being attacked? The apostle Paul, the greatest evangelist, the greatest Christian of all time. That's who Satan is constantly attacking. Because Satan is not God. Satan is not omniscient. Satan is not omnipresent. Satan does not have the ability to just attack all the people of the earth. Who's Satan going to basically reserve himself to? The greatest, the best, isn't he? He's going to go after the Christians that are doing the most. And of course, who's doing the most at the time of Christ? So where is the devil at? He's right there in the wilderness, tempting the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the flesh, right here in Matthew chapter number 4. Now, it says in verse number 1, Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. So the devil comes and tempts him. Skip down, I'll show you verse number 9, it says, And he saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. So the devil, in this particular story, is offering Jesus a bunch of carnal pleasures. He's offering him power, here, hey, you worship me, I'll give you power. Hey, why don't you turn these stones into bread? He's offering him food. And he's basically just offering him position, power, protection, these kind of carnal pleasures. And so what the devil will do is he'll take those in positions of authority, or doing great things for God, and he'll try to offer the carnal pleasures of this life to distract them and to get them off from serving the Lord Jesus Christ, from serving God. And that's what he did to Jesus, but Jesus completely succeeded and did not go for the carnal pleasures or the lusts of this world, but rather submitted himself unto God. Go to Matthew chapter number 12, go to Matthew chapter number 12. So how is Satan attacking? Really, you have to understand, it's probably every angle and every side. Didn't he say that about Job? Now, this is an interesting thing. The Bible says in verse 25, and Jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How shall then his kingdom stand? Now, that's an interesting point. What is the Bible saying? The Bible is saying that Satan will not fight against Satan. So you know what's interesting about Satan is that Satan will unite with Satan. So the enemies of God will have an unholy union. You'll see satanic people not fighting against other satanic people. What would this look like? I don't know. How about a false prophet or a false preacher of the day letting pedophiles and sodomites into their church? Because you know what? Satan is not going to fight against Satan. So you know what? Satan is bringing more wolves and more sodomites. And you know, it's really weird when preachers and pastors are more mad at Christians than sodomites. That's weird. Something off about that person. And again, you can get mad about things, and that's fine. But when you're more mad about Christians and God-fearing people and normal people than you are about pedophiles and wolves, there's something wrong about you. There's something off about you. Because you know what? It makes sense if you're satanic because Satan is not going to fight against Satan. Those of us that are on the Lord's side, we wrestle against satanic powers and against these darknesses and these forces. You know, we should hate these type of people, but you'll see the enemies united together with the wicked. And let's keep reading, though. It's interesting. It says in verse 27, And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? And then he will spoil his house. He that is not with me is against me. And he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. Here's another aspect of Satan, is notice if you are for God, if you're for the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is from another passage, you would do the opposite here. You're gathering together. But if you're not, what is it saying? It's saying, He that is not with me is against me. And how do I know this person? And he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. So Satan will scatter. Think about Judas coming in, and he scatters all the sheep away from the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you can tell things, you can tell spirits by their works, a work when people come in and they scatter things. They're scattering Christians, they're scattering the work of God, they're dispersing the word of God. You know, that is Satan. And that's how Satan attacks. Satan comes in, he wants to divide and conquer. What does a wolf do? A wolf tries to scatter the flock so that there will be sheep by themselves and he can attack them and prey on them when they're alone. But he can't do that while they're gathered together and they're one unit. So it's necessary for Satan to come in and to divide and to scatter. And so you can tell, hey, someone that's of God is gathering God's people together. Someone that's not of God is scattering the people of God. Go if you would to Mark chapter 4. Go to Mark chapter 4. So we're seeing the attacks of Satan. What is Satan like? What is Satan's modus operandi? How does he operate? And you know, he's not dumb, so he's not going to fight against himself. You know, Starbucks almost did this to themselves. They put too many Starbucks next to each other and they're almost like fighting themselves on their own competition. And it's kind of like oversaturating the market. They're basically like oversaturating their own market. And so, you know, businesses want to strategically place their different stores so they're not necessarily competing and fighting against themselves. The same is with the devil. The devil doesn't want to just stick four coffee shops of his own all in the same corner. He wants to diversify and spread out. He doesn't want to attack himself. Therefore, he has lots of ministers and he doesn't want his ministers to fight and go against each other. That's why Herod and Pilate became friends on the same day. Hey, they're on the same team. They're just anti-Jesus. You know, that should be a warning flag when somebody's buddies with all the enemies of God. When they're friends with all these people that are influenced by the devil and with Satan. It's like, what's wrong with you? Why are you so friendly with all of these individuals? Mark chapter number 4, look at verse 15. And these are they by the wayside when the word is sown, but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts. So it's another thing the devil does after you preach the gospel to someone and they didn't get saved. So they've heard it. Maybe they even understood some of it. But they're just not quite there. They didn't want to call upon the name of the Lord. They didn't want to believe on him. And so the devil comes along and distracts them, lies to them, drags them back to the Catholic church, does whatever he needs to do. He literally takes the word out of their hearts. They forget, lest they what? Believe and get saved. So the devil is literally trying to go around and mop up soul winning expeditions that didn't actually spring forth or germinate. I mean, he's going around. You have to understand that not every person that hears the gospel will stick with them. That's why if someone's receptive and I have an opportunity to get them saved, I want to close the deal then because I don't want the devil to come behind me and rip that out. And you know, it's so frustrating. Sometimes this even happens to us. You're like preaching the gospel and you're about to be done. And then like the mom or the dad or the brother, someone comes in there and just rips them away or drags them off. And you know what? That is the devil. That is the satanic thing when they're coming in there and trying to ruin them from getting saved. You can even have this in groups where one friend is eventually they start figuring out what's going on and they're trying to drag their friend away or trying to fight them. So this is a real battle that we go out there and fight. Luke 8 says the same thing. Sometimes I'll show this to people. Someone's hesitant to want to actually make the decision to trust in Christ. I will often encourage them by showing them a few verses, maybe this one in Luke 8, of like, hey, if you've understood what I showed you, you need to just seal the deal now. Don't wait because you could forget. You could move on. You could decide not to trust in the Lord. We need to do it now. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. So we want to get saved now. Not today, now. That's the modern version. The modern versions say today the King James says now. So we want to get saved now. Now it also says in Luke 8, look at verse 12, those by the wayside are they that hear then come of the devil and take away the word out of their hearts lest they should believe and be saved. You know, they always say in modern churches just accept Jesus in your heart. But wait a minute, doesn't this person have the word of God in their heart and they're not saved? Because it's not just hearing the Gospel and saying I like that. It's not just hearing the Gospel and saying that sounds true. It's believing in the Gospel that saves you. It's accepting the Gospel and receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior that saves you, not just accepting him in your heart because that's vague. That's a meaningless phrase. It really could mean anything you want. It's just kind of a useless phrase that doesn't really have much meaning. Somebody could mean the right thing by that and someone could mean something completely different from that. So it's important if someone uses that phrase to drill down and ask another clarifying question and not just walk away saying well they've accepted Jesus in their heart but you don't know what that means. We need to make sure that they've actually trusted in Jesus and they put their faith in Jesus Christ. That's what saves someone, not just having the word of God in your heart. And the devil will come by and take it out of people's hearts so that they can't believe and get saved. Notice, think about this, if salvation was by repenting of your sins, this wouldn't even make sense because the devil doesn't come around and just make sure they keep being sinners. He has to take the word out because if they believe it they'll get saved because salvation is just by believing. Salvation is a free gift. It's a one-time decision to just trust Christ and get saved. That's why the devil has to take so much effort and energy to just take that word away because if it was repenting your sins they could believe it and still not be saved. But it's not by repenting your sins. It's just by believing in Jesus Christ and that's why the devil is coming around and constantly trying to take the gospel out of people's minds and out of their hearts and confuse them and deceive them and lie to them so they don't believe in Jesus and get saved because salvation is a free gift. That's why people say oh there's all these ways to get to heaven or there's all these religions and all this. It's just the confusion of the devil trying to come there and take away the word out of their hearts, isn't it? And there's so many false prophets and false teachers constantly trying to take away this and so you really see the devil attacking soul winning. Go over to Mark chapter 8. Go back to Mark chapter 8. What have we seen so far? Satan is getting people banned from foreign countries. Satan is getting severe persecution against the best Christians. Satan is trying to use pride to destroy leaders. Satan is resisting those who are building the house of God. Satan is offering carnal pleasures to stop people from serving God. Satan is allowing all the enemies to unite together and not to fight one another. And then the devil is attacking soul winning. Now Mark chapter number 8, look at verse 31. Mark chapter 8, look at verse number 31. The Bible says, And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and of the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him. But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. This is an important point. Jesus is saying, hey, I know you guys want me to show up in Jerusalem and just take over and set up an earthly kingdom and appoint you guys as like number 2 and 3 and 4 in charge and we're just going to rule the world, but actually I'm going to go there, I'm going to be rejected, spit upon, crucified and killed and there's going to be severe persecution. And what is Peter's attitude? No, I don't want that. No, that's not right. No, that's not good. And then what does Jesus say? Hey, you're not savoring the things that be of God, but of men. So what does man want? What is the things of men? Pleasure, power, authority, good, positive. What's the thing of God? Suffering, persecution, sacrifice. And what I've noticed, and I've seen some people do this, is they act like the things of God are only positive, not negative. And that they actually get mad at the idea of suffering persecution. And they want to avoid persecution. They want to avoid drama. And then they'll say like, oh, I want to go to a church that has a sweet spirit. But here's a question. Is that sweet spirit the things that are of God or is that sweet spirit the things that are of men? Peter didn't want to go down the persecution road. Peter didn't want to go down the suffering road. Peter didn't want to go down the rejection road. Peter wants to go down the power, authority, fun, positive, good. And you know what? There's a lot of Christians, a lot of people that are under the devil's influence that is trying to teach them and inspire them to say, hey, you want this positive Christianity, not the sacrifice, rejection, drama, persecution, affliction, Christianity. But you know what? That's real Christianity. Yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. And so you could be like Peter and be like, no, no, that's not the right kind of Christianity. Why are you guys always causing all kinds of problems and affliction and all these struggles and all this drama? Hey, because I'm not of the things of men, I'm the things of God. You think that Christ came to bring peace on earth? Nay, I say division. He came to bring a sword. He did not come to make your life, this is your best life now. If you're saved, this is your worst life now. And it's getting worse because you're getting older. I mean, there's a peak, like you kind of go up and it kind of gets like better, better, better. But then like at some point we all hit that climax and I don't know what age, I'm not going to put it out there. But we hit a climax and then it's kind of downhill in a sense. And look, there's still great pleasures and joy in being older. You know, there's great things seeing your children grow up and then get married and have grandchildren and a lot of things like that. But this life is not our best life now. It's not our best life that we're ever going to have. Only for those that are going to go to hell is it their best life now. It is Joel Osteen's best life right now. Because he will split hell wide open. And you know, I would love to avoid drama and persecution and affliction. Like if Jesus was like saying, hey, we have two roads we can walk down. One, we just go in and take the kingdom and we rule and reign. The other one, I'm going to basically be beaten and put on a cross and rejected and everybody's going to hate me and then you're going to have to follow my footsteps of everybody hating you. It's like which one do you want? Obviously I know which one I want. But you know what, I'm not going to necessarily have to savor the things of men. I have to savor the things of God. The things of God, you know, he's called us to be sheep for the slaughter, not to be lions ruling and reigning now. That's later. Go to John chapter 13. Go to John chapter 13. The attacks of Satan. Satan is going to attack the work of God. Satan is going to lure through the lust of the flesh. Satan is going to lure through the pride of life. John chapter 13, look at verse 27. And after the sop, Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, that thou doest do quickly. What's another attack of Satan? He enters into fake disciples, fake followers and uses them to betray the men of God. So what are you going to see the devil do? He's going to insert fake disciples, fake people in your movements and then he enters into their bodies to betray men of God. That's what Satan does. Go to Acts chapter number 5. Go to Acts chapter number 5. And look at verse number 3. Acts chapter number 5. Look at verse number 3. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land? So what's another thing the devil will do is he tricks people into lying about money and being deceitful about money and he attacks them through these kind of means. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter number 7. So we're just kind of quickly going through all these different attacks that Satan has and, you know, it's such a weird story because these people give money to church and then they die. Like if you just think about it from like a net perspective, it's like somebody gave and not only just some money, they gave more money than probably most people. Like I don't know, we have no idea what the numbers are. But they sold a piece of land and, you know, land today could be pretty expensive. I mean, they could have given $100,000 in today's money, a million dollars. And they didn't give the entire price of the land that they sold but God got so mad at them just because they lied about it. They were deceitful about their gift. They were deceitful about their offering. And you know what? God doesn't want us to lie about the money that we give or the things that we're doing with money or being deceitful with what we're doing with money. That is a great offense to the Lord. And Satan had tempted them to lie about these things. Now it says in 1 Corinthians chapter number 7, look at verse number 5. Defraud ye not one the other except to be with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. What's another thing that the devil does is he tries to attack marriage by weaponizing the whole point of marriage, by causing due benevolence to be a tool used by both male and female and weaponize that to harm marriages. So if we're looking at how Satan attacks people, we're seeing all kinds of different things. Go to 2 Corinthians chapter number 2. What are we seeing? He's going to ban people from foreign countries. He's going to bring severe persecution to the best Christians. He's going to try and attack people through lifting them up with pride. He's going to resist those that are building the house of God. He's going to offer carnal pleasures. He's going to allow all the enemies to unite one with another. He's going to attack soul winning. He is going to try and tell you to avoid persecution and drama. He's going to bring in fake people into your movement and cause them to betray you. He's going to try and inspire people to lie about money and do weird things with money. And then he's going to try and attack marriages by attacking this one due benevolence area in marriages. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter number 2 and look at verse number 10. 2 Corinthians chapter number 2, verse 10. To whom you forgive anything, I forgive also. For if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ, lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for you are not ignorant of his devices. What's another thing Satan loves to do is to try and get us to not forgive one another. He wants us to have bitterness and hatred in our hearts one to another and not forgive people and not let things go. And that causes us to divide ourselves again. He wants to come in, causes us to divide. So one of the devil's tools is to get us to never forgive each other. Keep your finger in 2 Corinthians, we're coming back, go to Ephesians chapter 4 for a second. We'll see the exact same thing. Ephesians chapter number 4. Look at verse number 26. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 26. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil. So again, what does the devil want? He wants you to hang on to your anger and your bitterness and your malice and your wrath towards people. And then that gives what? Place to the devil. We shouldn't be ignorant of Satan's devices. The devil wants us to devour each other. He wants us to hate one another. And so he's going to allow us to have this spirit where we're not forgiving. We as Christians need to make sure we're constantly forgiving one another because Satan will attack us through that. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter number 11 now. Just flip the page, 2 Corinthians chapter number 11 and look at verse number 12. I've just got a few more. But we're seeing the devil's coming at us with all kinds of stuff. And the Satan will attack in all kinds of different areas. I think most of us could probably recognize that we've already seen some of this, haven't we? Now 2 Corinthians chapter 11, look at verse 12. But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion. That wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ and no marvel. For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. So we have in this section just a little tidbit here where the apostle Paul is bringing up how Satan uses ministers to attack the work of God. What does he do? What is his ministers like? They transform themselves into ministers of light. They pretend to be godly. They pretend to be righteous. But what's one of the things that we can kind of point out? How do I tell this guy is good or not? Well, what does it say here in verse 12? That I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion. So these people desire occasion. Let me use a different word, attention. Their attention whores. They just need attention. And because they don't even get it and they don't get all the attention they want, how do they try to drive attention? They glory in themselves. That's what he's saying here that we're in they glory. The apostle Paul is saying like I'm not walking around glorying in myself and bragging in myself. That's the whole context of this chapter. He's saying look, I know there's some fake people in your midst. Who are the fake people in your midst? The people that desire occasion. The people that are desiring attention and are constantly glorying in themselves and bragging about themselves and lifting themselves up. Those are the ministers of Satan. And they've transformed themselves into ministers of light, but really they are the ministers of the devil. And notice this in verse 15, whose end shall be according to their works. Hey, if you're so great, just prove it to us. But then when we look at you, we examine you, you don't have any works. You keep telling us how great you are. You keep telling us how wonderful you are. But then we look at you and we're like, okay, show me the works. And then it's like there aren't any works. Or the works are actually negative. They're actually works that don't actually match up with God's people. They match up with Satan's people. Well, that's not the right guy, is it? Go if you would to 2 Corinthians 12. You're right here, look at verse 7. Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. Now, there's a lot of controversy on what this means. A lot of you have different opinions, different ideas. I'm not going to say that I dogmatically know because I don't. Some people would suggest that the thorn in the flesh is a literal infirmity. It's a physical issue that he has. I could see that viewpoint. There's another way you could look at this. It's a spiritual or satanic thing where he's just being pestered in that way. And there's kind of a third that's kind of similar to the second. It's a person that's under a satanic influence that's just kind of a pain in the rear. It's a thorn in the flesh. And that's the messenger of Satan. And that's why Paul is saying, depart from me. Because if it's a physical thing, I don't know how that makes sense that it's going to leave him or depart from him. But again, you can interpret this multiple ways. I think it's valid. But I understand this as someone who's there to just harass the apostle Paul. And look, if you serve God, you will have people that just harass you. You will have a literal messenger of Satan to come around and torment you and won't leave you alone, and it's just like a psycho ex-girlfriend, spiritually speaking. And you're just like, what is wrong with this person? This person's insane. But that's what the devil does. He brings up these messengers of Satan to just harass and attack and lie and slander and do all kinds of weird stuff to you. Go to 1 Timothy 5, go to 1 Timothy 5. We're seeing what Satan does. I didn't write the Bible. I'm just showing you all the mentions of Satan. What is Satan like so far? And boy, it's really weird. It's just like coming off the page to me. I don't know if it's doing that to you, but it does to me. Look at 1 Timothy 5, verse 11. But the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith. And with all they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not, I will therefore that the younger women marry, their children, guide the house, give it on occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan. So what's another attack of Satan is busybody women and tattler women. That is what the devil uses to attack God's movement. He uses a bunch of loudmouth women. That is one of the tools of Satan. Okay? Now let's go to Revelation chapter 2, go to Revelation chapter 2, and look at verse number 9. I'm just showing you how the devil works according to the Bible. Look at verse number 9. I know thy works, talking about the church at Smyrna, and tribulation and poverty with thou rich, and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer, behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days, be thou faithful in the death, and I will give thee a crown of life. What is another way that the devil attacks the movement of Christianity is through fake Jews. And really it's fake Jews only to us that are saved who know they're not Jews because to the world they're Jews, because they claim that they're Jews, but the Bible is saying they're not. So there's a group of people that call themselves Jews that are attacking whom? The Christians in the world. So what does the devil use? He uses Jews to attack God's people and he attacks them through throwing them in prison and even killing them. If you read Acts chapter number 17, they also rile up the lewd fellows of the baser sort to come and set themselves against the church of God, against God's people. What would this look like? I don't know. Maybe Sodomite protesters. What would be Jews attacking God's people? I don't know, maybe like shutting them down at every single bank. I don't know, maybe getting them locked out of access of all kinds of things in the world and attacking them and using lawfare and suing them and evicting them and all these kinds of things. Maybe that's what it would look like. Oh yeah, that happened to the apostle Paul, didn't it? The apostle Paul being attacked by the Jews, drugged through court, drugged through all kinds of Roman law and all kinds of different situations. And this is what I was thinking about. This is why I preached the sermon. Sometimes, you know, when you're going through life, you just kind of step outside of where you're at. Just try to think like, I'm just going to distract myself with everything I believe, everything I know to be true, because I just want to prove it to myself again. Sometimes you just want to say, am I on the right path? What does it make sense? So I was just thinking, you know, let's just see, who is the devil attacking in the Bible? Because as I know, the devil is the same. And if the devil has a consistent pattern in the Bible and attacks the same kind of people, then today that same devil would be doing all these same things and then that would help me identify something. You know what helped me identify? The best Christians in the world. The people who are doing the most for God. The people who are accomplishing the most. Because didn't we see a consistent pattern? I mean, let me just remind you, oh, yeah, he's getting people banned from countries. He's bringing the severe persecution against the best Christians. He is appealing through pride to try and destroy different leaders. He is resisting those that are building the house of God. He's offering carnal pleasures. He is allowing all the enemies of God to unite together with the wicked. He's attacking soul winning. He's trying to tell people to avoid persecution and drama. He is using fake disciples to come in and betray people of God. He has all these people that are lying about money and doing weird things with money. He's constantly attacking marriage and weaponizing the due benevolence in marriage and acting like it's wrong or something. He's not having people forgive anybody. He's bringing in false apostles and false leaders. He has certain messengers of Satan, people just to come in and just harass and attack constantly. He has women constantly running their mouth and just being a busybody and a tattler. And then he's having the Jews at the forefront of the army, attacking them in all kinds of ways, bringing all kinds of prison, lawfare, sodomite protests, and even martyrs. And I thought, you know, whoever is doing a lot for God would have a lot of those on the checklist. So then I thought, you know, maybe I should consider some different people. Maybe I should consider someone like Pastor Steven Anderson of Faith-Award Baptist Church. Getting banned from foreign countries. Check. Severe persecution. I don't know. Now, again, Satan severely persecuted the best Christians in the Bible. I can't tell you who is the best Christian in the world, but I can tell you this, that whoever it is, Satan is going to bring heavy and severe and unusual persecution against that person. Appealing to people through pride to destroy them. Have there been other pastors, people that are similar, who get a little bit too big for their britches, think they're really great, and fall through pride? I've seen that. I've seen churches come and go. And not just bad people, even good people. Have we seen a huge resistance to people building churches, trying to grow churches? How about just offering of carnal pleasures to destroy people? That happens to all of us. How about enemies uniting with each other? Oh, man, I have seen people that hated each other and just said all kinds of horrible things about each other, and then they become best friends the next day. Just as long as one thing, they hate Faith-Award Baptist Church and Pastor Anderson. He's just like, wow. How about attacking soul winning? How about attacking calling on the name of the Lord? How about saying we need to avoid persecution and drama and go to these drama-free churches or whatever? But wait a minute, the drama-free churches aren't the ones that Satan's attacking. How about betrayals? How about someone like Garrett Kirschway, who a lot of you probably don't even know, but this is a guy that went to Faith-Award Baptist Church for years, I think over a decade, if I remember correctly. Over a decade just pretending to be a godly guy, going soul winning all the time. More soul winning than probably anybody else in that church building. And then at one point just totally betrays Pastor Anderson. And you would think, well, how do you know? What are you saying? But Garrett Kirschway still exists, folks. He's popular on YouTube for making weird dance videos and doing all kinds of things. He's not preaching the gospel. This guy preached the gospel for like 13 years straight, acting like a dedicated, austere Christian. And now he's making all these videos about how to make money. He's making all these videos about how to get rich quick. Him and his wife are now super megastars on YouTube. They don't use their platform at all to preach the gospel. Doesn't even believe the Trinity. Just a complete heretic. Look, that's bizarre. That's bizarre to have someone go to your church for a decade plus and then just betray you out of nowhere. And to be weird. But it makes sense when you see how the devil attacks. How about liars about money? There's been a lot of people that have done some weird, shady things, even to us specifically. How about weaponizing marriage and making all kinds of weird claims about marriage? I've heard a lot of weird stuff about marriage. You know, the problem in America is not too much due benevolence. It's being weaponized and taken to a place where wives and husbands are using it to attack each other rather than to bless each other. That's the whole point of marriage. And we should be making sure that the devil's not allowing us to be attacked in that area. How about forgiveness? There's a lot of people that just don't want to show any forgiveness, don't want to show any grace. How about false apostles? How about someone like Tyler Doka? Talk about a weirdo. Talk about someone that desires occasion. His preaching is lame, so then he has to keep escalating and preaching weirder stuff to get more attention. And then it goes from I think it was like flat earth to then he started teaching that Christians are going to go to the lake of fire for a thousand years. And then pretty soon he's just Jesus. Now he's just a biker or something, you know? He literally has alpha and omega tattooed on his face. And then he had this whole message about how the new IFB was his number one enemy. And I'm just thinking this guy is the most antichrist figure I've ever seen in my life, and he is saying who's his biggest enemy? The new IFB. I didn't say that. He said that. I didn't force him to say that. I don't want anything to do with him. I never had anything to do with him. I never liked him. I didn't like his face before the tattoo. But this guy is coming out of nowhere attacking. How about people to harass you? Oh, boy, just ask some people in here. We've got some harassers. We've got some stalkers. We've got some psychopaths that won't leave us alone. How about women running their mouth? Boy, I have seen a lot of that online. And that is what the Bible says, satanic. Going after Satan. What about the Jews attacking? I mean, you don't even understand how much our church and like-minded churches have been banned from stuff. And, like, I can't hardly do anything. I can't even use YouTube. Let me explain something. I'm not saying upload. I'm saying use. If you try to go on YouTube, it says you're not allowed to access this app. So like I'll accidentally every once in a while if I was on a page, a YouTube page, click a button that's like a comment or something, and it just goes to another screen like you're access denied. You're not allowed. You can't go here. I can't use my phone number. I could never set up a new account. I've created like random fake accounts and then just uploaded one video and just immediately taken down, shut down everything. Like, I can't do any credit card processing. Any. With any bank. There was banks that said, like, we'll accept you, and they're like, no, we won't accept you after they researched. We can't we can't bank at all kinds of banks just in any capacity, let alone credit card processing. Okay. We've been evicted. We're still in the process of being evicted and sued in the sense that that lawsuit is still going on, folks. And let me explain something about this. I'm being sued for damaging the property. And let me explain how I damage the property. We built a brand new bathroom. Let me explain how I damage the property. There was a missing kitchen, and we built a brand new kitchen. How does that even make sense? How is that even logical? It's like this is damaging the property. There was places where there was exposed piping and plumbing, and we replaced that with new flooring. That was damaging the property. And I'm not even being facetious. I have an itemized list of how I damaged the property, and it's literally like added bathroom, brand new kitchen. What kind of insanity is this? What kind of weird stuff is happening? How many sodomite protests have we had? And I'm just trying to say, like, wow, I just stepped away, and I said, look, I know God's real, and I know the devil's real. And if the devil's real, let's see what he's like in the Bible. And if that's what he's like in the Bible, what do we see in the world? Because here's what I know. Whoever Satan is attacking super hard and doing all these things against, I want to go find that person, and I want to go support them and be on their team. And I want to remind myself, hey, I walk by faith, not by sight. And when I look at the circumstances of our situation and like-minded churches, it doesn't make sense on paper. It doesn't make sense in the flesh. It looks like I want to be like Peter and run away from it. But then I say, you know what? I need to walk by faith, not by sight anyways. And I need to be strengthened by faith, because wow, I mean, how many of these things are checking off? The only few that I was really kind of like, this hasn't happened, and praise God it hasn't, is like us being thrown in prison and killed yet. But here's the question. When that happens, are you going to walk by sight or are you going to walk by faith? I mean, how many of these things do you have to check off to say like, wow, maybe I am on the right path. Maybe there is something to our movement. Go to 1 Peter 5, go to 1 Peter 5. And look, I'm not down on other churches. I'm not down on other movements. I think that there's great churches, there's great other movements. I Wednesday night visited another church, and I love that church, and I was talking with one of the pastors that I'm friends with, and he said, you know, I just kind of said, how's the church going? Because I don't know, I'm out of the loop, I haven't talked to these people but every couple of years. And he's just like, well, you know, the devil's alive and well. And it's just like, you know, these people are being attacked too. And I'm not trying to undermine other people being attacked, because I know there's other people being attacked. And I know there's people in this world that are suffering prison, that are suffering the martyrdom. But what I do know also is that we are suffering too, and there's other people like us that are suffering, and we should come alongside them and encourage them, and support them and recognize, hey, the devil's at work here. It's something that we need to come alongside. We don't want to be Job's friends. We want to be people that are encouraging those who are going through difficulty. And, you know, I just picked out one person, but there's so many other people. Pastor Jimenez, Pastor Mejia, other friends of ours, other people that are like-minded, you know, even Pastor Boyle, they're a group of missionaries in the Bahamas got robbed at gunpoint. That's obviously the devil, Satan, trying to come in there and discourage people and attack people. You know, praise God that they remain steadfast. They stuck it out. They kept preaching the gospel. And you know what? They got even greater rewards. You know, we shouldn't view this world as like only positive things are of God. We should recognize that there's going to be persecution, there's going to be afflictions. I know other pastors, other great men of God that have lost their jobs. They've lost their financial accounts. They've lost all kinds of different things. They've gone through sufferings. But, you know, the old IFB, as we affectionately refer to them as, will sometimes just really kind of like hate us and not like us and act kind of negative towards us, too. And, you know, I don't have negative feelings towards them. I like them, and I think they have a lot of good things. But let's just be honest. They're not being persecuted the same way we're being persecuted. So, you know, who is really doing the most work? Not from us building ourselves up or puffing ourselves up. From the devil's perspective, who's the bigger threat? And you know, we should then be careful to maintain good works. When we notice, hey, the devil's been at work here. We need to make sure that we're keeping this thing going because there's something special. There's something special going on. First Peter chapter number 5, look at verse number 8. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary of the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith. You know what the cure is to the devil? Being steadfast. That's our church's name, steadfast. We need to be steadfast. And, you know, I constantly play this game with myself just because the world's crazy, and the drama's crazy, and I don't like it. But then I have to go back and I say, you know what, wow, the Bible just keeps proving to me to be steadfast. The Bible just keeps proving to me the importance of this church. The Bible keeps proving to me that we should keep walking by faith, that we're on the right path, that even though we may go through all kinds of afflictions and sufferings and persecutions, you know what, I want to remain steadfast. And I'm for other Christians, I'm for other churches, I'm for other movements, but I'm really for this church. I'm really for this group of people. And this is what people don't recognize and they won't understand. No one will understand. But, you know, I said this, and people misinterpret it, they don't even understand it, but I said at one point, like, hey, if Pastor Anderson or if their church, you know, went down, we're next. And I don't think people understood what I was saying, but this is what I'm saying. If he's being attacked the most by the devil, and the devil were ever to knock over a church or get a church to disappear or not be a threat anymore, well, then he's going to go to the next church that he thinks is important. He's just going to put more pressure. He's going to put more effort and energy onto the next group. And if we disappear, he's going to put pressure on somebody else. Because obviously we're getting a lot of pressure. But I'm just saying, that pressure won't just subside. It's not like if our church just disappears, that the devil's just like, I'm good now. No, he's just going to apply it to someone else. And if other churches in our area went away, you know, they're also providing us some benefit. You know, there's churches in this area that are getting persecution and attack. I'm glad they exist. We all need to exist. We need more reinforcements. We need more people on the team, not less. I don't want less churches. I want more churches. I want more pastors. I want more soul winners. I want more people to be preaching the Word of God. I want more people to make the Sodomite deception. Hey, if you don't like my DVD, make your own. Make your own poster. Make your own noise. Make your own waves. You preached Leviticus 20-13. You preached all these passages. You preached Judges 19. You lead a soul-winning revival. You drag a bunch of people into church that were unchurched. You tell people to their face that they're sinful. You tell people that they're backslidden to their face. You kick people out of church. You do the things of God. Because you know what? It sometimes is frustrating by being the only people willing to stand against the devil. But let me tell you something. The devil is going to fight. The devil is going to war. The devil is going to roar against God's people. But you know what? If God be for us, who can be against us? And you know what? I know I'm on the right path, and I know that God is with us, and I know that God wants us to succeed. Because look at what the devil is doing. If we were on the devil's team, he would leave us alone. But you know what? He rallies all of his minions all together. And boy, I would not want to be in that group. When you notice these people that are enemies, you should stay far away from that group, from that horde, that 10,000s of groups of people that are lined up against me, that encircle me. Hey, you know what? Stay away. It's kind of funny because I told somebody close to me, not related to our church, it was just someone that I consult with. And I just said, hey, there's this person that I feel like is trying to destroy me, and I was kind of concerned about. And this is what he said to me. He said, well, you know what? He's just going to have to get in line. And I was like, you know, it's kind of funny. It's kind of true. But at the end of the day, we're just going to keep our eyes on Jesus. And I just like this sermon. I just like this thought because it just kind of encourages me. It encourages me to see how the Satan works and then notice, man, he's been doing that a lot. To the people that I care about, to this church, to us, we must be on the right path. And we shouldn't be ignorant of his devices. We shouldn't be ignorant of how he wars against us. And even though all these strange things happen, these weird things happen, we should count it a blessing to say, wow, God's giving us a sign. Hey, we're on the right path. We're doing what's right. And when the attacks of Satan come, let us just become more steadfast and resist the devil so that we can get more people saved and God can be more glorified. Let's go some prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us this encouragement that even though the devil exists, you can still give us the victory. And even though the devil may inflict us for a season, if we resist him and if we're steadfast, he'll also depart from us. And we know that we'll always have to suffer some persecution. I pray that we wouldn't have this attitude of avoiding drama or avoiding persecution, but rather we would seek to just be godly and righteous. And if persecutions come, that we'll endure them, that we'll have hardness, and that we'll just seek you more. I pray that you would continue to protect our church and that you would not allow us to be lifted up with pride. You wouldn't allow us to allow bitterness and hatred to infect this congregation, but that we'd have charity, that we'd have forgiveness. I pray that to those outside of this church, other like-minded Christians, that we would be on their team, that we'd support them, that we'd love them. And I pray that you would help to strengthen and encourage our marriages and our soul winning and our efforts so that we could do a great work in 2025 for your honor and for your glory. And it's in your son's name we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. For our last song, we're going to do song number 431, Silent Night, Holy Night. Song 431. Sing it out. On the first. Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright, Round yon virgin, mother and child, Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night, Shepherds quake at the sight, Glories stream from heaven above, Heavenly hosts sing alleluia, Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love's pure light, Pray in peace from thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord, hath thy birth, Jesus, Lord, hath thy birth. On the last. Silent night, holy night, Wondrous star, then my light, With the angels let us sing, Alleluia to our King, Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born. We have a baptism this evening. Above us 11, it's time to be baptized. And we trust the Christ as your Savior. Then I baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The very Delightness of His death. Praise, walk, and give Him some life. Make sure to congratulate our baptism. Also, someone had donated some anonymous gifts to the children up front. So if you want to come up front, there's going to be some gifts for y'all. You are dismissed. God bless. Have a Merry Christmas.