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For in his name, since I have been redeemed, I will glory in my Savior's name. I have a Christ I satisfy, since I have been redeemed. To do his will, my highest Christ, since I have been redeemed. Since I have been redeemed, since I have been redeemed, I will glory in his name. Since I have been redeemed, I will glory in my Savior's name. I have a witness bright and clear, since I have been redeemed. Scaling every doubt and fear, since I have been redeemed. Since I have been redeemed, since I have been redeemed, I will glory in his name. Since I have been redeemed, I will glory in my Savior's name. I have a hope prepared for me, since I have been redeemed. Where I shall dwell eternally, since I have been redeemed. Since I have been redeemed, since I have been redeemed, I will glory in his name. Since I have been redeemed, I will glory in my Savior's name. All right, let us pray. Dear, Father, thank you for allowing us to be here this morning. Thank you for all the souls that have gotten saved out in Mexico, out in Matamoros, and for all the souls that have gotten sold in the regional area. So, thank you for this church and for everything. And I just pray that the preacher will be edifying to our ears as we hear your word preached. Please fill Pastor Shelley with the Holy Spirit so he can preach her word to us and so that he can preach it with boldness and help us to learn from it and let everything be done for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, for the next song, song number 29, song number 29 at the cross. Song number 29. On the first, alas, and did my Savior bleed? And did my sovereign die? Who'd heed to pull that sacred head for such a worm as I heard? At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, when the burden of my heart rolled away, it was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the way. What sinful crimes that I had done, He groaned upon the tree. Amazing pity, grace unknown, and the beyond degree. At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, when the burden of my heart rolled away, it was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the way. Well, might the sun in darkness hide and shut His glories in when Christ the mighty Maker died. Who, when the creature sinned at the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, when the burden of my heart rolled away, it was there by faith I received my sight. And now I am happy all the day. What drops of grief can every pay the debt of love I owe? Dear Lord, I give myself away to this all that I can be. At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, when the burden of my heart rolled away, it was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all the way. Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need one of a bulletin, if you didn't already get one, please lift your hand real quick. One of our ushers can come by, get you guys a bulletin, and on the front we have our Bible memory passage. We're in John chapter number one still. We got the grace week, and so if you are able to quote the entire chapter, of course you can receive a special prize. And so that's going to be a great chapter to have in your heart though. That's the greatest prize that you can get. On the inside we have our service and soul winning times. We also have our church stats for the month and for the year to date. On the right we have the list of our expecting ladies, and we have our prayer list. Please continue to pray for everyone that's listed there as well. If you have any other prayer requests that you'd like to update, please email those in. We got back from our Mexico missions trip, and just really last night a lot of us, unfortunately someone didn't make it. It was the church fan. It wasn't too, too bad. Thank God that brother Jesus came and helped get a lot of the people back. They got stuck out there. Maybe we'll be able to bring the church fan back again eventually. I don't know, but I think other than that it went great. Honestly, our missions trip was a blast. We had a great participation, and it's definitely a little bit different than some of the times we've gone by. Or back there in the past or been in that area. There was a lot more migrants and a lot more people that were trying to enter into the United States. People from Haiti, people from Venezuela, and so it's definitely changed a little bit from that perspective, but that just gives us even more people to try and get saved. Some of the people from Haiti speak French, and they speak Spanish and some English a little bit, but one of our friends, brother Nick, speaks French, so he was able to try and give the gospel to people in French, and that was exciting for him. Who would think that you'd go to Matamoros, Mexico to get someone saved in French, right? That's just how the Lord works. He works in mysterious ways. I got to actually talk to somebody from Haiti, and he spoke Spanish, and so I was able to give him the gospel in Spanish. It's kind of interesting, the cultural mix that's going on down at our southern border right now, and I want to explain a little bit more about that. I want to get through our bullets in and talk about that a little bit more. On the back, we have the church reminders. Please do not allow your children to run through the church. No playing on our stage. Please supervise your children at all times. We do have our mother baby room over here. On the other side of this wall is for mothers and their children, so you can use that discretion. Please, though, if you are going to use that room, please be mindful that it's designed for zero, one, and two-year-olds to be able to freely roam. If you take older children in there with you, please just have them just sit with you so that way they're allowing the younger children to freely roam. Also, we have gliders in the auditorium for mothers who are either expecting or pregnant or some combination thereof or whatever. We want them to be used for those individuals, not for the single guys to do cartwheels in or something. Also, we have an ice machine, a refrigerator, and everything like that back behind me. If you need any water or anything like that, please feel free to get whatever you need. If you even have questions, just ask an usher, and they'll get it for you. We have a couple bathrooms over here. We have one in the bathroom around this corner as well, so if you ever need to use a bathroom, we have all three of those. They're all family restrooms to be used at your discretion. That's pretty much all I have as far as church reminders. Upcoming events, we have a baby shower the 19th for the Cooley's. On the 23rd, we have the Thanksgiving dessert fellowship. The second, we have the ladies' Christmas party from six to nine. Again, it is nurselings only, so you guys got to watch all the kids, all right? December 6th, it's our Christmas caroling, and that's a lot of fun. We go out and go to some of the nicer neighborhoods. For a change, it's nice to go to the nice neighborhood because they enjoy the caroling, right? We do that. It's a lot of fun. On the bottom, we have the exciting announcement of the Holden family on the birth of Haley Elizabeth. She was born November 8th, to 24pm, weighing five pounds, five ounces, and measuring 18.7 inches long. Congratulations to that family. Very exciting. Again, on the missions trip, we ended up having 177 salvations, which honestly is really a giant number for the group that we had, but I believe it's mostly due to the fact that there's just so many migrants just piled up right there, really close to the border. Some of our soul owners are able to talk to larger groups at the same time, and it had a lot of salvations. I don't know if we'll ever be as fruitful in the future, but again, right now, it's very fruitful. God willing, he'll give us other opportunities to do things like that. While the Republicans are freaking out about our border, it's like we actually get an opportunity to go down there and get even more people saved. Definitely, you can always look at something from two different perspectives and praise the Lord that people are getting saved. The reason why some of these people were here, it's crazy, their life story and the problems and the things that they're going through. The fact that they at least get to go to heaven, it's a great coincidence that they happen to be down there, and we're down there, and everything like that. Also, I constantly try to harp on this, but if you have the ability to, or you can learn Spanish, it's definitely a good thing to do because you can reach more people with the gospel. To me, one of the really positive testimonies of this is Brother Marcel, who's been working on Spanish, and he went down there with us. He's gone in the past, but he stayed on the state side before, but he went to Mexico with us this time. I wanted him to just come and give a quick few-minute testimony, if he doesn't mind, of his experiences of going on this trip. Thank you, Pastor. Pastor wanted me to stay on the state side before because there weren't no Haitians over there, so now they would have blended in once we went to Mexico. It was pretty cool because I've seen a lot of Haitians there. I was like, oh, Nabule. I was like, hi, in Haitian Creole. I was like, yeah, you're my brother from another mother. I'm from Dominican Republic, so I was able to break the ice. Pastor Shirley challenged me, and I've just been working at it for about a few years, so my goal was just to get one salvation in the first hour. The Lord blessed me with two, so I was very grateful for that. Truthfully, it's just all the Lord. The Bible says there's a prayer place. It doesn't say this exactly, but I want to kind of give one verse, but like Pastor Shirley always says, there's a prepared place for a prepared person. In Isaiah chapter 6, the Bible says, and he said, go and tell this people. Sorry, sorry, verse 8. It says, also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I, send me. So the Lord's just wondering who can he send to Mexico? Who can he send to Haiti? Who can he send to all these different parts of the world, and we just need a person that's willing to just preach the gospel over there, and I believe the Lord blesses mightily. As soon as you cross the border, like Pastor said, there's a bunch of just immigrants everywhere just standing around, and people were talking to like five, six people at the same exact time. Now me and brother Dylan, we were just cleaning the field, so we went around the whole city, learned the area, and we're just getting one, two here and there, so it was definitely an amazing time, a great time of fellowship. There's nothing like it, and the food was amazing. Like Anzaria, Pastor Shelley, he hasn't failed us yet. Every time he says he had a good food spot, you know, it's always amazing, so I think I gained about five, ten pounds, so I'm gonna have to fast this week to kind of get back in shape, you know, but yeah, thank you so much Pastor Shelley for hosting us, and thank you. Yeah, let's give him a round of applause. Thank you. Again, my goal with Mission Trips is not only just do the spiritual things, but to have fun, okay? So I think if you ask any of the people that went, they'll tell you they had a lot of fun, and you could just see it. People were, a lot of smiles, and again, the food was excellent, all right? So you gotta love La Canzarilla. It's a great place, and that, you know, that actually restaurant, drawed me back to that location, so you know, just by them being good at their craft, and you know, working hard, encouraged me to come back there, and it kind of even made me think of some of these people like from Haiti and other countries, the ones that have been diligent to learn English or Spanish or another language were the ones we were getting saved, and so you know, the Lord rewards you for working hard and doing good, and you know, even if we didn't have a lot of those immigrants, it's still a very receptive place. Mexico is a place that's ripe unto harvest. It's a place where a lot of people can get saved, and a ton of people, you know, there and even people who get saved, they want a church, you know, and there are churches down there, but you know, we need more, and we need more people to step up and to rise up and to want to go to these places and to plant churches and to reach people, and I hope that our trips and some of our events will encourage people, inspire people to do more for the Lord and to see that when they take a step out in faith, the Lord is going to be there to enlarge their steps and be with them and bless them, and so we want to keep going to those areas and going all over the world preaching the gospel, and you know, we're still doing great works. You know, we don't want to relish on the past. We want to constantly relish on the future. We want to think about the next trip and the next event, and the reason why we like to talk about these is to try and inspire you and motivate you to consider doing a missions trip sometime in the future, you know, and even if you don't speak Spanish, there are going to be other missions trips that we're going to do that are going to affect English-speaking, you know, missions. You know, we're planning on doing a Bahamas trip. I haven't locked in the date yet, but we're planning on doing something like that. Also, even just Shreveport, Louisiana. I mean, that's a great place to go and preach the gospel, or I think we're planning, we're going to try and plan a one in Dallas in December, and so, and we have the Arlington. They did a big push on the last Saturday, and you know, you just got to get plugged in to preach in the gospel and get out there. It's a life-changing experience, and you know, that's what we're all about. That's the primary reason we're here is to try and get as many people saved as possible, and so we don't want to ever diminish our soul-winning ministries, so thank you so much for all of you that prayed for us and supported us for that missions trip. I look forward to the many more that we're going to have in the future. We'll go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week in our separate handles. Psalm 149, Brother Bodo is going to lead us. Psalm 149. All right, Psalm of the Week, Psalm 149. Praise ye the Lord, sing to the Lord the new song and his praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise his name in the dance. Let them sing praises unto him with the tin girl and heart. For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people. He will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in his glory. Let them sing aloud upon the inner best. Let the praises of God be in their mouth, and unto which it sordid their hand. To execute vengeance upon the heathen, aid punishments upon the people. To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with better sub-iron. To execute upon them the judgment written, this honor hath all his saints praise ye the Lord. All right, as the offering play goes around, turn to your Bibles to Matthew chapter 25. Matthew chapter number 25. So so Matthew chapter 25. We'll read the whole chapter as is our custom, and the Bible reads there starting in verse number one. Behold, the bridegroom cometh. Go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you, but go ye rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went out to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the son of man cometh. For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country who called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to every man according to his several ability, and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his Lord's money. After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliverest unto me five talents. Behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His Lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou has been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliverest unto me two talents. Behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His Lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant. Thou has been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown and gathering where thou hast not strawed. And I was afraid and went and hid thy talent in the earth. Lo, there thou hast that is thine. His Lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant. Thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not and gather where I have not strawed. Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my commanding I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him and give it unto him which hath 10 talents for unto everyone that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when the son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him. Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory and before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divided the sheep from the goats and he shall set the sheep on his right hand but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was in hunger and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him saying, Lord when saw we thee and hungered and fed thee or thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw we be a stranger and took thee in or naked and clothed thee or when saw we be sick or in prison and came unto thee? And the king shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say all on the left hand, Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was in hungered and you gave me no meat. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you took me not in naked and you clothed me not sick and in prison and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him saying, Lord when saw we thee in hungered or thirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them saying, Verily I say unto you in as much as he did it not to one of the least of these he did it not to me and these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father God we thank you Lord for the opportunity to hear your word being thundered forth from behind this pulpit. I pray that you would fill the man of God with your spirit now and give him clarity of mind as he preaches. Help us to listen and learn and apply this message so we can walk out of the building this morning more complete Christians and bless our soul winning time in the afternoon. We love you. We thank you for salvation and it is in the and we also Lord pray for the safety of everyone leaving as we go our separate ways after the service. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. So we have Matthew 25 and honestly I think it's probably one of the more difficult chapters of the Bible to be understood. It has a lot of parables in it and a lot of people that believe in work salvation would go to a passage like Matthew 25 to kind of try and bolster their works based salvation. But I believe if you slow down and you kind of think about the context of where we are in Matthew and we try to apply proper biblical interpretation to these parables you're going to understand these passages pretty clearly and they start to become not that difficult to be understood anymore. But I do want to explain kind of chapter 24 a little bit before we get into chapter 25 because of course context is always important when it comes to Bible interpretation. And a couple of rules when it comes to doctrine specifically we never want to base any doctrine on a parable. You should always base a doctrine on a clear statement. So anything that you believe it should be coming from a statement that says exactly what you believe like salvation's by faith. Well we have plenty of verses that just say exactly that or they say that salvation is by faith without the works of the law without the deeds of the law that it's by grace and since like why do you believe that because it says that exactly when people start having weird doctrines that you can't find a verse that says exactly what you're saying that's when it becomes suspect. And of course people that preach false doctrine they'll always go to the parable they'll go to a strange saying a weird story Old Testament or something like that and there's nothing wrong with reading those passages believing them getting doctrine from them but we don't want that to be the source of the doctrine we don't want that to be in essence why we believe it. We take the doctrines we believe and then we apply them to the parables to understand the parable. We don't take the parable to understand doctrine we take doctrine to understand the parable. Okay now in Matthew 24 also there's another rule is just it should always fit the context if it doesn't fit the context then it's just not right it's not the right interpretation but if you think about Matthew 24 what's the point of Matthew 24. Well look at verse one and Jesus went out and departed from the temple and disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple and Jesus said unto them see not all these things verily I say unto you there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down and as he sat upon the mount of olives the disciples came in and privately saying tell us when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world. Now that is a really important verse to understand the next few chapters of the bible because they're asking a multi-layered question and what's interesting is how Jesus Christ is able to kind of answer all of these questions in one cohesive monologue narrative that kind of explains all of them but we have to realize about Matthew 24 and Matthew 25 and some of these passages they're not going to answer all three of these questions every single time. Sometimes they're answering one question and then all of a sudden they're answering another question and so some parts of Matthew 24 apply to this first question when it says when shall these things be what what was the things he's saying when the stones are not going to be on one another and of course this is where you get the doctrine of what's called Preterism. Preterism is kind of a belief that everything in the bible is fulfilled in AD 70 and of course where they get some truth from that is the fact that this passage some of this was fulfilled in AD 70 what aspect the part where he's saying hey when shall these things be when the stones were thrown down and the Romans invaded Israel and Jerusalem and threw down the stones and they compass it about and they destroyed the children of Israel and scattered them throughout of course some aspects of Matthew 24 were already fulfilled in AD 70 but notice that it has another question and what's the sign of thy coming now here's the thing that's where Preterism is completely just nuts and ludicrous because Christ did not come you didn't have the return of Christ nor do we have this the end of the world now don't you think if the end of the world already happened we would have noticed that I mean don't you think that's a kind of a pretty big clue to the fact that hey maybe this hasn't happened because the world's still here you know that's almost like the worst possible doctrine interpretation is to tell you that this has already happened when it's saying it's the end of the world but then you didn't see the end of the world okay so we have to understand is that Matthew 24 and 25 are answering this multi-layered question of what when are the stones going to be thrown down when is Christ returning and when is the end of the world okay now again the world could mean some different things and what I want you to understand is that you know sometimes the Bible will say for God so love the world right what are we meaning by that we're talking about planets solar system stars we're talking about people sometimes the Bible talks about this world and the next world what is that kind of referencing it's just kind of talking about a phase or like an age or just kind of the status quo as it were of just how things are going to exist because in essence we're still going to have the heaven and the earth these things are going to always exist they just have different phases as it were right we have the new heaven and the new earth is kind of a new phase is a new world in essence so we're talking about the the end of this world we're kind of talking about the end of this phase of what what phase we're kind of in and just knowing Bible prophecy or having studied this subject you say when's the next phase well it's the millennial reign of Christ is that next phase that we're going to enter in so we're talking about the end of the world we're really talking about is the moments leading up to us entering straight into the millennial reign or that transfer into the millennial reign now I'm not going to explain Matthew 24 for you but I do want you to notice something notice it said in verse 3 the sign of thy coming notice how it's going to constantly bring up this phrase look in verse 30 it says and then shall appear the sign of the son of man in heaven and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn and they shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory now doesn't it make sense that if they say hey when are you going to come he then is going to tell them when he's going to come right and you say when is that well look at verse 29 immediately after the tribulation okay now of course that immediately disproves pre-trib you know they'll say like oh well there's a there's a rapture before it's coming or something like that but wait a minute he didn't explain anything in between these two stages you're saying hey when are you coming and he's like I'm coming when immediately after the tribulation and notice he also says that's when everybody's gathered together verse number 31 and he's he shall send his angels with a great son of a trumpet and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other now you compare this to other parallel passages they'll even talk about the earth the fact that they're not just gathering people from heaven it's all christians from all ages every single person is all gathered together with them immediately after the tribulation now look at verse 37 but as the days of Noah were so also the coming of the son of man be so we have another reference of what we're talking about what his coming look at verse 39 and knew not until the flood came and took them all away so shall also the coming of the son of man be look at verse 42 watch therefore for you know not what hour your lord doth come I feel like we're in the same context right he's talking about him coming he's talking about coming he's talking about look at verse 44 therefore be also ready for in such an hour as you think not the son of man look at verse 46 blessed is that servant whom is lord when he cometh shall find so doing look at verse 48 but and if that evil servant shall say in his heart my lord delayeth his coming look at verse 50 the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he look at number I feel like we're just hammering a specific context what is the context the return of christ when he's coming when he's coming when he's coming when he's coming and it ends in matthew 24 talking about those who are ready for the coming and those who are not ready for the coming that's how it ends talks about the guy that's ready and receiving reward the guy that's not ready he's an evil wicked servant and look at verse 51 out ends and shall cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth so you kind of see this dichotomy or you see this how two different responses are going to be had at the coming of christ look at verse 25 verse one then is that usually how you start a brand new thought or just a completely different context or do you feel like maybe we're just continuing the exact same thought that we've been we've been talking about so this is again why did i take a few minutes to explain this because we don't want to approach matthew 25 without realizing that we're talking about the coming of jesus christ and was that a parable or were these just clear statement after clear statement after clear statement after clear statement we're talking about the return of christ right then verse one then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened in the 10 virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet their bride meet the bridegroom and five of them were wise and five are foolish they that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them but the wise took oil in the vessels with their lamps while the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept and at midnight there was a cry made behold the bride who'd cometh go ye out to meet him then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps and the foolish said and the wise give us of your oil her lamps are gone out but the wise answered saying not so lest there be not enough for us and you but go ye rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves and while they went to buy the bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage the door was shut afterward came also the other virgins saying lord lord open to us but he answered and said verily i stand you i know you not watch therefore for ye neither for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the son of man cometh now i read all of that just to give you because we're talking about context matthew 24 was real clear the coming of jesus the coming of jesus the coming of jesus the coming of jesus then we got a parable and then how did he end the parable how did he sandwich the parable he sandwiched wherein meaning the reason why i just said this is because you don't know when the son of man cometh so the only way to interpret this parable is it's in reference to jesus christ returning if you come up with another way to interpret this passage you're an idiot because you're just ignoring all of the clear straightforward evidence of this past but then people will will try to use these things to teach work salvation or whatever this isn't even talking about how to go to heaven eternal life this is talking about what's going to be the response or what's going to happen when christ returns so so how do we interpret this passage well we have 10 virgins five have oil in their lamps five don't what does oil often represent in the bible i mean the lord jesus christ in hebrews chapter one is can has the oil of gladness you know what is that it's the holy spirit right who has the holy spirit people who are saved and people who don't have the oil they don't have the holy spirit so when christ returns those who have the holy spirit what's going to happen they're going to be saved and inherit the kingdom with the lord jesus christ and those that don't they don't get a chance to now believe and that's kind of an important point to understand that everybody's saved by faith we're not saved by sight you know there's a stupid idea out there that all these christ rejecting jews in israel when they see christ come they're going to finally get saved because they're going to finally see him they're going to be like oh now i realize but here's the problem they're going to say hey i know you and he's going to say i don't know you why because they didn't get they weren't prepared they didn't get the oil when they had the chance and again this life is is is basically it's kind of giving you this picture of this parable of saying look you have opportunity to buy oil now quote unquote which is believing on jesus and being saved if you don't believe on jesus now it's going to be too late there is a too late point and so at the return of christ we're going to see a great chasm we're going to see a great divide of those who are saved and those who are not saved and those who are not saved are going to be what they're going to be destroyed okay they're not going to they're not going to enter in they're not going to be part of this covenant relationship with the lord jesus christ only those that were the prepared virgins those that were saved okay let's keep reading verse 14 for the kingdom of heaven is asked so again he's giving you all these different parables of the kingdom of heaven this also helps you understand that he's kind of talking about the millennial reign as being like a kingdom of god or the kingdom of heaven now i'm not going to explain this in the bible i'm just going to tell you but i believe when the bible brings up the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of god same thing but they can be in reference to two different kind of concepts number one is just the millennial reign like when christ is here ruling and reigning that's kind of sometimes the reference of the kingdom of god of the kingdom of heaven but another is a spiritual understanding of how the kingdom of heaven is basically inside of us and that we're going out and we're the servants of this kingdom of heaven it's not a physical kingdom per se it's kind of a spiritual kingdom but what we have to understand is it's the same thing it's just right now it's only spiritual and with the millennial reign it's going to then manifest itself physically as well just like i'm saved i'm saved spiritually but there's coming a day where i'm going to be saved physically where i'm going to have a new body and i'm going to have uh basically be new in every way not just internally so kind of the same way with the kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of heaven kind of has a spiritual um understanding and interpretation now but one day it'll have a physical manifestation as well so when we're talking about these kinds of we kind of have to understand both of those here in this passage he's kind of he's alluding to really if you think about it that coming kingdom and when christ is going to be there to judge he's come and now we're entering into that physical manifestation of that kingdom of heaven okay at that physical manifestation who's entering in the saved only only the saved get to go into that physical kingdom of heaven that's going to be on the earth look at verse 14 for the king of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country who called his own servants and delivered unto them his his goods and unto one he gave five talents to another two and to another one to every man according to his several ability and straightway took his journey i i like to point out verse 15 says several ability several means various diverse multiple so he's talking about the fact that some people have more ability than others you know not everybody's the same okay men are different than women women are different than men adults are different than children and frankly speaking i believe that there's various abilities in all people all over this world we all have different talents and we all have different gifts that god has given us and no one is really equivalent when it comes to the abilities that we have of course diligence can always outweigh talent can always outweigh ability but we don't want to neglect the idea that ability exists you know some people are just tone deaf it's like it doesn't matter how much they practice singing they might just suck at singing their whole life okay now when you sing with other people we don't notice so it's okay all right sing out nice and loud but we might not put that person as the song leader okay just because they don't have that ability right so not everybody has every ability and that's okay there's nothing wrong with that but whatever abilities god has given you you should use them we should use the talents and the abilities that god has given us now he as we keep reading here it says verse 16 then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents and likewise he that had received two he also gained other two but he that had received one went and digged in the earth and hid his lord's money so they have these three servants they get a different talent five two one right some have more some have less but they all got a talent no one was having nothing they'll add something now look what it says in verse 19 after a long time the lord of those servants cometh and reckon to the now what do you think he put that phrase in there because he's probably alluding to something how about when christ comes after a long time now wouldn't you say it's been a long time since he was here and we realize that he's going to come after a long time so do you really think now that we've gotten to this this parable we've just completely changed context again or do you think it's just going to be exact same context as we've had the entire time obviously it's going to be the exact same okay it's even the same concepts here he says in verse 20 and so he that had received five talents came and brought to the five towns saying lord thou deliver us unto me five talents behold i have gained beside them five talents more his lord said in them well done thou good and faithful servant thou has been faithful over a few things i will make the ruler over many things enter thou in the joy of thy lord he also let her receive two talents came and said lord now deliver us unto me two talents behold i have gained two other talents beside them his lord said on them well done good and faithful servant thou has been faithful over a few things i will make the ruler over many things enter thou into the joy of thy lord then he which had received the one talent came and said lord i knew thee that thou art in hard man reaping where thou hast not sown and gathering where thou has not strawed i was afraid and when hid thy talent in the earth lo there though has that is thine his lord answered and said in him thou wicked and slothful servant thou knew is that i reap not reap where i sowed not and gather where i have not strawed thou oddest therefore to put my money to the exchangers and then am i coming i should have received mine own with usury take therefore the talent from him and give it unto him which have ten talents run to every one that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance but for him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness there should be weeping and gnashing of teeth now in this parable we have a five a two and one five and two gain equivalent to what they were given five for five two for two the one buries it and simply returns the one back in the parable they're rewarded according to what their works were we have the five getting rewarded greatly ruling over many cities because of what he'd done the other one gets to rule over many things because of his two and the one he has his talent taken from him and given to someone else so how could we possibly interpret this chapter or this this parable and again this is the focus of my sermon is this specific parable but i wanted to explain all this because it helps us right and i'll explain the one beyond this but this is where we really want to focus for a moment we have three servants in all of our previous examples and all of our previous parables were the servants always saved people was everyone always saved i mean think about back in 24 and think about in verse number 48 but if that evil servant shall say in his heart is that us is that guy saved we have no reference of that guy being saved right now and it's talking about people that are faithful and wise also when we talk about the virgins we have the foolish virgins and we have the wise virgins here's the thing what makes someone wise anyways isn't it the gospel isn't it the word of god i mean nobody it's not talking about people that are just smarter than other people what makes someone foolish is someone that's not saved and someone that's wise is someone that is saved what makes someone wicked is not being saved and what makes someone righteous is being saved did what did he say to this servant in um verse number 26 his lord answered and said to him thou wicked and slothful servant so he's saying this guy is wicked now what you have to understand in the bible is that everyone is a servant of god so you don't have just this oh well a servant means a saved person because this is how work salvationists will interpret this passage oh these are three guys that were christian or whatever and the ones that did the works go to heaven and the ones that didn't do the work go to hell but where do you get that clear statement you don't have that clear statement in the bible first of all and number one no one's saved by works because we're knowing that a man is not justified by the works of law but by the faith of jesus christ even we have believed in jesus christ okay so we know that we're not justified by works whatsoever so someone is righteous by jesus christ's righteousness but just because someone is righteous by jesus christ's standard doesn't mean that they themselves don't have any works i mean we all have works whether they're good or bad and what are the people that are saved they're going to have good works in general and the people that are unsaved are going to have bad works in general but again that's that's still not even in my opinion what this passage is talking about because if we have to think about it who is jesus really preaching to and of course this is what every preacher will say who is matthew 24 written to it's written to the jews right where's the thing that's true okay there's nothing there's nothing untrue about that we're still talking to the jews matthew is a constant rebuke to the jews folks okay it's constantly talking about the jews to the jews but if we really think about this the jews were god's servants is anybody argue with me that they weren't his servants they're of course his servants so if we look at the jews as all being god's servants some are given five talents some are given two and some are given one and some people do good things with them they produce fruit they basically multiply their talent others do nothing with their talent and hide it now what would be a picture of the talent what could be the talent even be how about the gospel of jesus christ now did the jews as a whole what did they do with that gospel knowledge what did they do with the truth of jesus christ did they go out and share that with the world or did they bury it they really kind of buried it didn't they and if you think about what jews didn't bury it how about paul how about peter aren't they jews now think about what he says here in verse 26 his lord answered and said to him thou wicked and slothful servant thou knewest that i reap where i sowed not and gather where i've not strawed now here's the thing where is jesus christ where is god doing all of his planting and sowing and everything it was the nation of israel that was his area that was his land everything else is not really his land is in the same context in the same way so in order to get a big reaping where did you have to go you had to go out of that area right to whom the gentiles now who really hated the gentiles the jews and they're hiding the gospel message because they don't want who to get saved the gentiles who loved the gentiles wanted to get them saved paul so really if you want to interpret this passage a good way to look at it is the five talents is paul the two talents is peter and the one talent is all the unsaved jews because think about it the apostle paul is willing to go out and to multiply in the areas that yeah jesus christ or god didn't really sow that much or he didn't really invest that much into the gentiles or whatever and they're going out and they're getting the greatest harvest they're going out and reaching the most Peter still did good i mean Peter still got a lot of people safe and he even still went into the gentile some didn't he but who never did anything i mean they just hid it they tried to bury it they tried to get rid of it you know it's interesting jews bury their torah's you know when they think there's a mistake in them or whatever they'll they'll just bury it or whatever but what you have to understand about this parable is it's not like oh well these are three saved people one loser's salvation or one didn't do the works that's not the context and what's going to be the context when christ returns who's going to get rewarded those who served god those who did that was his right and who's not going to get anything those jews that buried it and guess where they're going hell it's like oh it says verse 30 they're going in this person's going into hell great you know i i don't have any problem with those people going to hell he's like how do you reconcile that well because you have to understand again the context is when christ comes when christ comes not everybody's saved and those unprofitable servants that were just didn't believe in in jesus christ obviously didn't produce any fruit and so they're going to go to hell because we have to understand those who are unsaved have no fruit of course someone who's saved could theoretically have no fruit i mean we have the the thief on the cross obviously the thief on the cross it would be hard to argue that guy had any fruit mostly because he didn't have any time i mean frankly speaking he got saved in the last moments of life it's hard to point to that guy's fruit here's another guy i think has virtually no fruit if any is lot i mean a lot in your bible it's hard to point to all the good works that lot had in his life you know you can point to pretty much every mistake he made i don't think in the cave dwelling with his daughters there was a lot of fruit i don't think living in sodom you know how many people did he get saved in sodom yeah i mean it's pretty easy to know less than 10 for sure right i mean we know that there wasn't even 10 save people okay it's like well if homos can get saved then why didn't lock anybody saved it's like hey the one haven of homos it's like none of them got saved you know less than 10 for sure but lot didn't get saved inside him either though he was a saved person that decided to dwell there okay and we have to understand with this parable though again it's talking about the jews is the primary interpretation i believe that this is the primary decision of course you can always take other interpretations but think about some of the other things he's saying here he says in verse number 28 take therefore the talent from him and give it unto him which had 10 talents so it's like okay we're taking something from this guy that is the one and we're giving it to the guy that had the five which is now 10 in my interpretation who is the five is paul who is the one who's the one it's the jews well go to matthew 21 let's stay in matthew and go to chapter 21 and look at verse number 42 this is another parable that jesus is using to rebuke the jews verse 42 jesus saith unto them did you never read in the scriptures the stone which the builders rejected the same has become the head of the corner this is the lord's doing it is marvelous in her eyes therefore i send you the kingdom of god shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof and think about this he's saying the kingdom of god what is the whole parable about isn't it the kingdom of god that we're talking about and he's saying hey the apostle paul took the kingdom of god from those unbelieving jews and you know he gave it to the gentiles i mean who like basically single-handedly handed the kingdom of god to the gentiles this is also paul going out and just planting churches everywhere and and serving and it's like even the thing that they seem to have is taken from them think about that wording do the jews really have salvation they don't even have it but they seem to have it don't they because they have the word of god they have the gospel there but they don't even actually have it themselves they're not even really saved and so even what they seem it to have is taken from them and then it's given unto the gentiles who actually have it who really have salvation are another true saved people now look at verse 41 i'm sorry i flipped pages so i gotta flip them 41 they say on them he will miserably destroy those wicked men and will let out his vineyard unto other husband men which shall render him the fruits in their seasons obviously i i could do nothing and be saved i mean the bible says but to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is kind of righteousness i mean blesseth the man in whom god imputed righteousness without works amen but of course is that really what god wants me to do obviously this is not the recommendation it's not like get saved and then worship the devil after that of course we then still serve god out of a love and appreciation for him and who's going to end up producing the fruit it's the save that's going to end up producing the fruit so of course god wants the gentiles to produce fruit who's going to produce the save the saved the ones producing the fruit the unsaved will never produce any kind of fruit so when he's uh in this parable the husband is lending out his vineyard to other people what is he saying he's saying he's taking the kingdom of god which is the vineyard and he's lending it out to another group of people and they're supposed to bring forth fruit so we as the new vine dressers as the new laborers forgot we're supposed to bring forth fruit and if we don't he'll take it from us even now you say what does that mean because you look at john chapter 15 doesn't it talk about taking things away and you know we're supposed to abide in the vine we we look at other passages in romans that are kind of more difficult to be understood but he talks about the fact that hey we're not supposed to boast against the branches and he's like hey we could even get replaced and you're like what does that mean it's talking in a collective in the sense that think about a church that stops doing the first works what happens he removes their candlestick so just like the nation of israel was replaced with christians our church could be replaced with a different church when we're not bringing forth the fruits thereof and you could even see that throughout history church is constantly kind of evolving movements kind of evolving even denominations kind of evolving and it's like god is constantly removing one replacing one with another and who's he going to give it to the one bringing forth the fruits thereof and you know if you want our church to thrive if you want any church to thrive you want our movement to survive you know what it has to be bringing forth the fruits and when a church or a movement or denomination stops bringing forth fruit you know what it's going to die and god's going to replace it and it may even still live physically but it'll be dead spiritually because we see hey the catholic church lives physically but you know what it's dead spiritually it's not bringing forth any of the fruits it doesn't have the blessing of god it's a den of iniquity it's full of hypocrisy it's full of all kinds of junk just like the pharisees were you know the pharisees in the catholic church are pretty similar and they have the word of god they have an appearance of christianity but you know what they're full of dead men's bones they're full of iniquity and hypocrisy they devour widows houses and for a pretense make long prayer i mean you could almost just take all the statements about the pharisees and just apply them directly to the catholics and say oh why are you fundamental baptists because they're bringing forth the fruits thereof that's why let me say it this way they're using their talent and the title of the sermon i've gotten i've gotten you know in the sermon is use your talent use your talent hey he's given us a talent let's use it and of course the greatest outlook i don't know if you have five or two talents but i know you have at least one and it's the gospel of jesus christ and we can all go out there and preach the gospel and get people saved and of course this parable matthew 25 is talking about the coming of christ and who's going to be the great the most greatly rewarded is those who are using their talents because he's trying to emphasize things that are really important you know every parable doesn't explain every scenario every person involved it's explaining two groups that are there who are the two most impactful groups the ones that you thought should should go into heaven and were faking and they go thrown in hell and the guys that produce the fruits they get greatly rewarded there's going to be a lot of other people that did like nothing you know and it's like okay but who cares to write about them jesus is contrasting kind of the greatest of the worst and so that's why we have these type of parables and pictures but those that are the worst are going to be literally killed go to luke chapter 19 and we'll see another parallel passage here luke chapter 19 as far as this parable is concerned but the bible talks a lot about the end times and the coming of christ and it's very clear when you compare spiritual spiritual it becomes unclear when you're just bouncing around parables and not slowing down paying attention to context luke 19 verse 27 but those mine enemies which would not that i should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me now again this is the exact same people that we read about that's the five foolish virgins it's the same people that were the wicked servant that said my lord delay this coming it's the same people that buried the talent okay it's all the same person that's doing all these things do you really think this person that's saying i don't want jesus to reign over me is the person that believes in jesus no this person wants nothing to do with jesus okay and he's just like let's slay these people they refused their messiah they rejected their messiah they didn't want a messiah and it's all the same people the same kind of attributes the same characteristics okay go to the first peter chapter two for a moment to kind of further bolster the fact of who we are and that we've replaced these god hating god rejecting jews first peter chapter number two look at verse number five the bible says he also has lively stones are built up a spiritual house a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to god by jesus christ wherefore also is contained in the scripture behold i lay in zion a chief cornerstone elect precious and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded unto you therefore which believe he is precious but unto them which be disobedient the stone which the builders disallowed the same is made the head of the corner and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient wherein to also they were appointed now notice a couple phrases here verse seven unto you therefore which believe he is precious how can you say i don't want this guy to reign over me and also believe he's precious at the same time we're talking about two different people aren't we also notice in verse eight it says that they stumble at the word and they're disobedient what is a characteristic of someone who doesn't believe in jesus they're disobedient you know what you don't find you don't find people that are like i hate god i don't believe in him and they live a strict more higher standard of life than fundamental baptists you know where do you see all these people they're like you know what i don't drink i don't smoke i don't chew i don't go with girls that do but i don't go to church right where is that person where's that group of people that are just out there just working hard diligent moral godly type people without christianity it just doesn't exist so of course you can see the outward manifestation of what's going on in someone's heart you know of course the people who believe are going to end up having manifestations of that belief and that faith in their heart and it doesn't mean that we want to judge people solely on their works we want to test someone's faith by what they say ultimately i go at the door i'm not going to knock on the door and be like no you got a beer in your hand you're not safe and someone that doesn't have a beer oh you must be safe you know that's not really how i'm going to judge things but can't you see that there's usually a connection still though it's not that that saves somebody what their works are but don't you see a pattern isn't it funny that the church like ours that teaches you can literally be any kind of sinner and be saved are people that are living separated clean lives and then you go to the church across the street where they teach you know that you got to work your way to heaven they're all in all kinds of rampant sin and not living separated lives it's like how does that make sense it only makes sense for one reason we're saved and they're not it's not really it's not a doctrine thing entirely it's the fact that we're just actually saved and they're just actually not and when you're not saved you're just not going to live a reformed life and when you are saved you have the capability of living a reformed life not that you definitely will that's a struggle we work on every single day but the only people that have a reformed life are the saved the people that are actually truly transformed that actually live like jesus would have them are the true saved believers and there are some fakes and phonies but we know they're fakes and phonies and the bible gives us clues as to who they are of course they brag about their works they brag about the money they give and they're fasting and they're praying and everything like that and that's just a clue this person's not actually righteous they brag about the fact they would never use a four-letter word but you know what they don't actually have any real righteousness because we're in the bible doesn't even say that it doesn't even say that and most of the time these people brag about things the bible says not even to brag about frankly speaking you're just not supposed to brag period or to be prideful you know to be a humble person now go if you would back to matthew 25 let's look at this last parable for a second since we've already gotten so much context and we've gotten a better understanding of this chapter it's nice to kind of finish this one off too because again i personally believe most people struggle with matthew 25 they think it's a who thinks matthew 25 is a difficult chapter okay all right hands all over the building right some people are like i didn't know there was 25 chapters okay there's 28 all right but for those of us that try to study the bible you know it's not the easiest and i get that but again i think it's because you know matthew has longer chapters and so sometimes you forget the context you're not really paying attention all the context if you just get one of these little devotionals that gives you three verses every day you know you're probably going to be really confused on a lot of bible and the bible is to be consumed in larger quantities than three verses at a time typically speaking obviously proverbs are self-contained but a lot of these passages in the new testament you don't want to just sit here and just get one verse a day you can get some weird ideas you want to get you know a full chapter or a couple chapters in a row because it's going to help you have the right type of thought process when it comes to the scripture matthew 25 look at verse 31 when the son of man shall come in his glory now is that also you just start like new thoughts we just ended with our parable and then notice it says the verse when the son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory so it stands the reason when we had every single parable sandwiched with his coming at the beginning and his coming at the ending it's always about his coming isn't it and we've stayed really consistent with our bible interpretation haven't we we're always talking about the coming so when jesus comes what's going to happen peter and paul are going to be greatly rewarded and they're going to get to rule over many cities and those who are likewise and those jews that would not have him reign over them the synagogue of satan are going to be thrown into everlasting fire people are thinking like oh the jews are going to get saved they're going to go to hell that's what's really going to happen it's going to crush every zionist dream like they're ever sitting here like i can't wait for them to get saved they're like oh oh like whoa that was not what i was expecting and then they're like that guy that hate preacher you're giving him like all these cities he's ruling over you and you're like you know it's going to be all these zionists that are ruled over by you know people that don't believe in zionism the you know replacement theologists that would be a nice title like servant of replacement theologists you know if we can give out titles maybe we can handle this with some of these people but in matthew 25 verse 32 now it says and before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divided the sheep from the goats if i haven't already convinced you think about what he's now saying hey when i'm coming we're not talking about just say people we got everybody here and we don't just have to say people we have the sheep and we have the goats who is the sheep the guys that were you know doing stuff with the talents who was the goat the guy that buried his talent okay so again we're staying super consistent he says in verse 33 and he shall set the sheep on his right hand but the goats on the left don't be left-handed right no i'm just kidding verse 34 then shall the king say unto them on his right hand come ye blessed of my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world so he's bringing in the saved he's bringing in the sheep and the others are going to be rejected he says for i was a hungered and he gave me meat i was thirsty and he gave me drink i was a stranger and he took in naked and he clothed me i was sick and he visited me i was in prison and he came unto me then shall the righteous answer him saying lord when saw we thee and hungered and fed thee or thirsty and gave the drink when saw we be a stranger and took the inner naked and clothed thee or when saw we be sick or in prison and came unto thee and the king shall answer and say unto them verily i say unto you and as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren you have done it unto me so let's pause for again for a second verse 40 and the king and the king who's talking jesus christ there's going to be a literal day on this earth where all election fraud can't do anything we're going to have one king jesus christ okay it doesn't matter what the voting machine said all right jesus christ is going to be in charge and he's going to say unto the righteous hey you guys did all these things for me now again what's what's the context is the context he's talking to one person he's talking to every single person on the planet okay he's saying as a collective and then he's divided them into all the saved and all the unsaved and he's saying to all of the saved what is he saying to every single safe person he's saying all of y'all y'all did what y'all when i was hungry you gave me meat when i was thirsty gave me drink i was a stranger he took me in is he saying this to one person no is there any one person that's probably done all of these probably not it's he's talking about a collective he's saying as a group as a general collective group you guys are the ones that did stuff what you were the ones that were feeding me you were the ones that were clothing me you were the ones that were preaching to me i mean who do you think preaching the gospel it's the same folks it's not the unsaved that's preaching the gospel he's saying you're the ones that were doing this unto me and then they say wait a minute we've never seen you like when did we ever do this to you and then he makes it abundantly clear verse 40 and the king shall answer and say i'm very likely saying to you and as much as you've done it under one of the least of these my brethren you've done to me does he say under the one of the least of these people he says my brethren so again what's the context saying save people so who ministered to save people let me answer the question save people now let me ask the question is the unsaved outside of this church are they ministering to you when you come in here how many people's getting ministered by the world christianity is not getting ministered to by the world folks when did those group of people go to mathemoros and preach the gospel to lost people and feed and clothe them you know it's it's not rocket science when you start making application of what they're really saying here he's saying look unsaved people aren't the ones ministering to say it's people and he's saying you're doing it unto me he didn't say you're just doing it to people to some homeless jerk on the street corner no he's saying you're doing it to christians so we're saying like we're not talking about did you feed a random homeless person on the street corner he's saying did you help a christian did you help a person that's saved and he's saying you are the ones that did this you are the ones that were doing it unto me okay verse let's just pause for a moment i want to come back to this let's prove this a little bit go if you would to matthew 10 keep your finger here we go to matthew 10 think about what jesus says in other places and look we've been locked in matthew because matthew is going to explain matthew jesus is going to be saying the same things over and over matthew chapter 10 look at verse 40 he that receiveth you receiveth me and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me now let me ask you a question if he's talking about when you're doing something to me you're doing it to these other people but is he just saying random people or is he saying the people that believe in jesus christ and believing in god the father yeah he's talking about saved people so again it's we're consistent in our interpretation here those that are he's talking about are saved people verse 41 he that receiveth the prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of the disciple verily i stand you he shall in no wise lose his reward in these contexts is this just random people are we talking about ministers of the gospel a prophet a righteous man someone even a little child but in the name of a disciple notice it's always the spiritual context here associated it's not just talking about random people he's talking about god's people and he's saying when you help god's people who takes that personally jesus does just like think about this way if you did something unto my children i'm going to take that personally and i'm going to like that and i want might return the favor or bless you because you did it unto my children right whereas you do it to some random person i may not care that you did it because it's a random person right just like jesus is saying hey you did something nice unto my children i take that personally and of course in the context of the bible we're brethren with jesus christ we have god the father okay you know i don't believe though for even one second if you do something nice to joe biden jesus christ cares i mean think about that why why would he care about that that doesn't even make any sense oh i donated a million dollars to joe biden's charity okay i mean does he really think that god up in his head is like you're such a righteous person man he doesn't care in some cases you're funding the enemy because he's definitely not pleased with that okay you know what really makes them please is that you're feeding his people and his sheep and you're doing good on them because jesus isn't on the earth he's in heaven so who are the people that are supposed to minister he needs us to help the sheep he needs us to care for the sheep he needs us to minister unto them and to love them and to do good unto them and to bless them financially you know we're supposed to be as the modern new vegetables to say the hands and feet of jesus but you know i like that phrase because we should be we should be the ones handing the things out and we should be the ones going into the world and ministering unto the sheep and ministering unto the lost and trying to get people saved and of course when we find someone who's safe when we get them safe i'm more likely to want to help that person than the person that rejected the gospel from me than the person that's not interested in hearing how to be saved whatsoever go back to matthew 25 let's see the next group verse 41 then shall he say also unto them on the left hand depart from me cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels for i was hungered and you gave me no meat i was thirsty and he gave me no drink i was a stranger and he took me not in naked and he clothed me not sick and in prison and you visited me not then shall they also answer him saying lord when saw we thee and hungered or thirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister unto thee then shall they answer unto them saying verily i sand you and as much as he did it not to one of the least of these you did it not to me and these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal again who's going into life eternal the righteous is that by their righteousness no it's by the righteous imputed unto them by the lord jesus christ but you know what the righteous are going to do likewise because they're going to follow in pattern of their heavenly father and their their lord the lord jesus christ and they're going to be the ones that did the righteousness but also he didn't say hey you didn't minister to anybody you didn't minister unto my sheep is what he's saying because some people get confused about this they'll say oh i know an unsaved person that fed the poor okay i know an unsaved person that went to prison and visited somebody or i know they did whatever but you know what they didn't do they weren't ministering to the saved and you will find that as a consistent pattern in this world even of the people that are not saved doing these things it's so few and far between anyways i mean if you want to look at charity it's coming from christianity as a whole in general but even beyond that the ones that are really ministering and doing good it's coming from the safe because think about this did not the pharisees minister to the poor but they'd blow a trumpet about it they would give alms unto the poor but then they'd blow a trumpet about it their heart wasn't really in it you know the bible says the righteous consider it the cause of the poor meaning that the righteous isn't just indiscriminately giving out all of your money they're not just taxing everybody and then just as democrats is handing it out to everybody because people are like oh the democrats are so much more charitable you know what they don't consider the cause of the poor and are they really ministering to the righteous i mean think about who the democrats are really feeding their money into isn't it into these poor minority neighborhoods that are democrat voters let me tell you a little secret democrat voters don't get saved very often if ever okay they're not really ministering to the safe folks okay i don't know if you realize the democrat base is like full of satan it's full of you know they all wear masks and let me tell you a little secret well i didn't come up with this my partner did but they were saying hey i've noticed that you didn't get a single person saved with a mask on and like i tried i probably gave the gospel to more people with a mask on than not you know it's like for some reason it's like people wearing a mask just didn't want to get saved believe in repent of your sins believe in this weird because there's all these associations related to salvation folks and i'll tell you in america people that wear masks usually have a problem with them now i'll i'll give you two caveats okay i personally and maybe you can think of another one all right but this is generally this is my personal opinion this is not bible okay take it i'll pause for a second people that wear masks are bad people unless they're old or foreign in america i mean you almost just universally now of course if you work somewhere like you can tell there's a difference between the people that work out of the job where they force them because they wear it below the nose okay and it's like barely hanging on and it's kind of dirty and you can tell that person's not doing it because they actually like think that this is protecting it's dirty you know they're like throwing it on the ground and like putting it back on like this is so stupid or whatever i'm not saying that person i'm saying the person that is voluntarily jogging with their dog on the street corner with a mask on i'm talking about the person in their car by themselves wearing a mask this person has serious mental issues okay now of course you know i give the exception of foreigners because people from china were doing this before was cool all right so they obviously it's not like a spiritual thing necessarily for them and obviously old people they kind of get delusional or confused and they're afraid of everything and they have health problems so a lot of times older people just do this as extra or whatever but you find these young healthy people walking around with a mask on double mask on it's like what's wrong with you and you're like oh why how dare you say that well then how come they never want to get saved well how come those people aren't the people interested in my church how come those are the people wearing like love is love shirts at the same time like there's obvious patterns to people's behavior and what they believe folks okay and and we don't want to just shy away completely from the fact that people are saved are going to do good works and people are not saved are not going to do good works that's just the truth and reality of of our society and how the world works and i've even taught whole sermons on a way to tell if someone's saved or not having good fruit is a proof text that someone's saved but it's not a proof text when it's absent that they're not saved okay so just because one side of the equation is true doesn't make the other side true as well now go to the daklesia chapter 11 is the last place i'm gonna have you turn in the bible this evening or this morning i'm sorry but i do want to preach for a little longer so don't get comfortable or don't or don't start getting up or anything like that all right let's apply our sermon what was the sermon use your talent and of course you know did we see anywhere in matthew 25 t's work salvation no absolutely not okay nothing like that anywhere it's super clear we're talking about the return of christ but here's the thing we're all going to be there we're all going to be there you and me will be at these events and some people are going to be greatly rewarded and some people are going to be not as rewarded of course none of us god willing will be the ones thrown in the fire if you believe on the lord jesus christ you're saved you can't go to hell okay but if you haven't believed in jesus if you're not saved you need to get saved today okay because you're not promised tomorrow you're not even promised five minutes from now so we need to get saved but beyond that god's given you talent and you need to use that talent if he's giving you five you better be responsible for using all five then you know if he's giving you two use all two if he's only giving you one will at least use the one and you know another application we could take from this he's saying even if you don't go soul winning okay and there's people that don't go so winning it's like can't you at least just go to a church that does so winning and tithe at that church i mean it's like couldn't you at least just put the money at the bank and just gotten a little bit of usury out of it and let me tell you something i believe that those who come to our church and tithe and give to our church even if they don't go soul winning they're going to still be partly rewarded for having financially supported and having ministered unto us and helped us to do that work so i'm like can't you just at the bare minimum like at just the very base level just go to a church that's all winning you know and tithe and donate to that church right but then of course i'm not saying that's where you should be content you should become a soul winner you should go out there and preach the gospel and minister people but we understand i mean you know somebody can be old someone could have not the ability to go out there and preach the gospel and we don't want them to feel like they can't participate join in and the work maybe someone's pregnant obviously when you're pregnant and you're highly pregnant and it's the middle of summer that's not realistic to go out there and preach the gospel you know we want to make sure that they're protected and they're safe they have an important job too but you should be plugged into the the right program and at least ministering and using the talents and you know talents can be money why you know i talk about the importance of having skills to pay the bills but how about just having skills so that you can have extra money to fund the program of christianity you know if we're all just dirt poor it's gonna be harder for us to minister to the loss and get people saved than if we're all working hard and producing extra income that can be used to go out and preach the gospel you know there's plenty of people that went on our mission strip that use their own money and ways on this trip now of course i try to fund a lot of things i try to help with housing and food and whatever but people are buying their own plane tickets people are spending their own gas money you know that's them investing in the work of the lord and putting money into serving god you know we need to use the talent the money the things that god has given us for his glory and for his honor as opposed to just doing nothing with it you know we live in a debt-ridden society and i preached a whole sermon on this last week kind of talking about the evils of interest and and talking about the evils of of the jews and banks and all this kind of stuff but you have to understand because you live in this society and we're already in this bad predicament it's not like getting loans are bad okay i don't want people to get confused about what i taught i have a mortgage on my house there's but that's the only way for me to get a house you know and by getting a mortgage and having a home it actually makes it where i can live cheaper than if i was renting and by saving money then it gives me more money to be used to fund the kingdom of god you know i have to have a car you know at times i've had car loans you know what if i can't have a car and i can't drive to work and i can't get around i can't do the things that are necessary then how am i going to serve god so you know sometimes yeah i have to pay a little interest i have to pay a little usury or whatever but at the same time i'm trying to maximize my effort for god so really you should look at your life as an opportunity to maximize your work towards god and when i look at working you know i don't want to get a love of money i don't want to get infected with trying to gain wealth so you say how do you balance these well you balance these concepts by saying you know what i'm gonna have a christian spiritual standard and i'm never gonna let money dictate that right i'm gonna read the bible on a regular basis i'm gonna go to church three times a week i'm gonna go soul winning x amount of hours but you know once you've kind of set a nice healthy standard that's a pattern that you can repeat for your whole life then you say but every hour that's not that i'm gonna try and make as much money as humanly possible because why not like i have to go to work why would i want to get a job that's going to pay me the least right why wouldn't i get a job that's going to pay me you know the best while maintaining you know there's other factors involved but i'm just saying generally speaking why not try to maximize my efforts and get as much money as possible so then i can spend more time back on christianity my family and doing good i mean i've gone to church with people who are working twice as hard as me and work like they're working 80 hours a week at times i'm working 40 hours and i'm making more money than them and i'm thinking like that's not more righteous necessarily because why wouldn't i want to work less in the world that i have to like do this as least as i can over here to get as much as i need and then i can maximize my efforts in my family and reading the bible and ministering and doing soul winning and trips and all it's like you want to have a healthy balance here okay and we have to use money to get money i mean you have to go notice they're going on exchanging exchanging money they're exchanging goods and in fact in this parable he even commends usury if you think about it which is weird i guess it's because you're lending to the jews so it's like well we're not going to oppress the jews okay folks or whatever but he's he's basically just saying you know don't just sit here and squander the things that you have and there's an opportunity cost everything you have i'll say this cash is usually an opportunity lost cash is usually an opportunity lost in our society and the reason why is because inflation interest and just the future value of money and so when you're just sitting on cash it's usually deteriorating it's not a good thing you should take that cash and use it for something now of course you have all kinds of stuff you use you could take that cash and you could invest it in a home you could take that cash you could invest it in church you know you could take that cash you could invest it in a car you could invest it in an inventory you know a lot of times businesses they'll buy a lot of inventory early in the year because the price will be cheaper early in the year because prices keep increasing right and they get that money into a good so if inflation goes up it doesn't even impact any of their cash because think about this i was thinking about buying a truck like two years ago and it was like a truck that i was you know my truck is like dead right now anyways but it's like i need to fix it but my truck was already having some problems and i was kind of worried i was thinking like maybe i should buy a truck now and i was looking at the prices now i look at that same truck it's like twenty or thirty thousand dollars more folks for the exact same truck and usually vehicles go down in value like historically that's typically how it works but inflation's so ridiculous it's like the same vehicle's twenty or thirty thousand dollars now if i had bought that car back then i'd had to get a loan i'd pay interest but let me explain something the interest on that loan would have only been like maybe two or three thousand dollars but by waiting to buy it now i have to pay twenty or thirty thousand dollars in inflation okay so it's like oh well interest is always bad or always wrong well in these scenarios it would have been better off buying something earlier i would have been a better financial position than having to wait and then now have to buy it so the point that i'm trying to make though is if you take what you have you take your talent you actually use it it can be good the person that's just constantly burying their talent and doing nothing with it is usually going to end up getting raked over the coals here's another example i could just live and have no debt and just stack cash or whatever but that person will never get as far ahead as the person that's investing into a house or a car or a business or whatever because your money's going to slowly deteriorate as evidenced by the fact that look at how much money your parents had your grandparents had saved up and how much that would do for you now it's like grandparents would say like i spent my whole life savings and i had five thousand dollars you know it's just like that's nothing today you know it's like if you just stacked money you know and just hit it under the mattress every single day of your life inflation will kill you to the point where it will be almost meaningless that's why you have to take cash and convert it into assets and then those assets are protected against all the stupid games that are played by our economy and our society and and i'm just telling you this because i want you to invest physically you know 401k i'm not against that theoretically now of course you know i don't like playing the stock market because it's really just gambling in general but you know 401ks a lot of times they just have it in a lot of funds like you buy like these big mutual funds or whatever whose company offers 401k all right so this is important that's what i'm talking about okay why is a 401k sometimes good well number one your employer does matching if your employer is matching hey i would do it all day long every time i've ever had an employee do 401k i always did it and i always did the matching because otherwise you're just throwing away free money sometimes it is six percent matching and it's just like amen i'm like let's get on to that i'll just take this the free six percent cash just all day long and it just keeps constantly add up here's another thing about stocks though they're protected against inflation because no matter what happens in the market it's going to drive all those prices up with them so while i believe a house or goal is technically a better investment than a 401k over time it's still infinitely better than just having cash cash is basically almost just going to slowly dwindle in value over and over and over again now of course you need to keep some petty cash just for emergencies having a little fund or whatever but if you have a stockpile of cash you should probably invest in something and think about this way if you have a stockpile of something physical you should invest it you should take a stockpile something spiritual invest it too you have a stockpile of time invested in bible reading and going to church and soul winning hey you have a stockpile of bible knowledge we'll start putting it to use by going out there and preaching the gospel you know start investing the things that you have spiritually and and go out there and slowly start using that talent you have you can speak a foreign language but you're not a soul winner i mean you have two talents right there already you as a foreign language speaker are better than most of us in this room because we only speak one language you have so much more potential so much more time you need to go out there and preach the gospel you have a spouse that speaks a foreign language learn that foreign language you know you've been given an extra benefit an extra talent there you know we need to be using our energy and our efforts for the lord jesus christ and glorifying him in our bodies is what the bible says and saying hey everything that god has given me my money my talent my wealth my wife my house my cars i just want to use everything i possibly can to glorify god with them you know go on more missions trips and you know let me tell you something about these missions trips you're like oh i don't know if it matters and i don't know if we get anybody saved but you're a loser if you don't think we get people saved i don't care what you think you say oh well you went down there and you didn't get them in church let me tell you something this morning i had an interview so we're working on a king james interview with a man named dr imberto gomez dr imberto gomez is like originally from monterey but he lived in matamoros for a large portion of his life in fact most of his childhood and raising he lived in matamoros it's his stomping grounds he was uh orphaned at a young age his father died and his mom had several children and he said they were so poor she couldn't even feed them so he was forced into the streets and he was forced to just get involved in all kinds of gangs and just violence and criminal activity and whatever but he said an american came down to matamoros someone who's a king james only evangelist and showed him the gospel and got him saved as a young man and now dr gomez he was telling me you know he he's done a lot of things he's passed he started churches he's preached to the gospel he said he got his whole family saved dr gomez then later got all of his brothers and sisters saved and his mom saved not only that he's he's gotten many people saved throughout the years they he eventually came to america and learned english and learned about the king james bible and and started realizing and people are showing him how the spanish bible that he used the 1909 was not quite as dialed in as the king james and so he started working on a work with all kinds of other people in the world to translate the the spanish bible a new translation that was more in line with the texas receptives more in line with the king james bible and that's where we have our reign of alera gomez 2010 that's why we use that is because it's more in line more accurate it's it's a it's a it's more refined it's not like the 1960s is a critical text piece of trash okay folks that's also another problem but he's getting this dialed in he said they've printed over three million copies of this thing and distributed in the world now i mean and we're printing them and we're manufacturing they're also doing a work to possibly translate something for paraguay and you know like other languages and stuff all from what one american going down into mathemoros and preaching the gospel of some kid in the streets you have three million bibles translated in spanish you have thousands you have probably thousands of people saved from this man's influence i mean oh who cares you go to matamoros you know what's gonna happen well look at ecclesiastics chapter 11 and look at verse number six we were going there okay you were worried ecclesiastics chapter 11 look at verse 6 in the morning so thy seed and in the evening withhold not thine hand for thou knowest not whether shall prosper either this or that or whether they both shall be alike good you know what oh pastor chelly what's gonna happen if you go to matamoros and what's gonna happen if you go to bahamas what happens if you go to shreveport what happens to go to dallas and what happens if you go to houston i don't know but i'm just commanded to sow my seed and i'm supposed to use my talent and i'm supposed to go out there and to preach the gospel and i don't know what's going to prosper either this or that or whether they're both going to work but you know what i do know you doing nothing is going to accomplish nothing and what i also know is those that go out and bear the precious seed are going to doubtless come with rejoicing bringing their seeds with them and i don't know you know i bet you that that person that got him saved has no idea i don't know for sure but i mean do you really think that guy even knows that umberto got his whole family saved and got plugged into america and got plugged into church and became a pastor and helped probably didn't even know because he was a young man this guy's older umberto's like very old now that guy's for sure in heaven you know that guy's not that guy's not here with us anymore he didn't get to see all the fruits and all the labors and all the the benefits of what he did you know people sit here and say like oh where are the nine you go out solvending where's the nine well i don't know if i'm getting to see it or not you know what i don't care because i'm gonna go out and preach the gospel and by faith i know it's gonna do a big work by faith i know we're gonna see the fruit of it eventually by faith i know i'm gonna go to heaven i'm gonna bring my she's with me you know we need more people to go out there and have faith to get people i mean imagine this if we just walked out and we just preached the gospel and immediately someone got saved and got into church got baptized and turned it in a soul winner instantly we wouldn't have to argue that soul winning is important it would just be obvious it would just be like oh man wow this really works you know because it takes a while sometimes and because you know it's not an immediate harvest it takes that faith to do it just like just like growing crops folks you don't put a seed in the ground and cover it and just instantly get to eat corn you have to water it for a long time you don't even know if it'll ever sprout and then it sprouts you still don't even know if it'll produce fruit then you have to water it water and water and water water and then it starts producing fruit you don't even know if it'll finish because sometimes it'll start producing fruit and then die or it won't work you have to wait a long time to reap that harvest and let me tell you something we're gonna have to wait a long time to reap all the harvest of our soul winning but we will reap if we don't faint in due season and if there's anything to be learned of matthew 25 it's not work salvation it's that you use your talent let's close in prayer thank you heavenly father so much for the chapter for our church for giving us an opportunity to be servants of yours i pray that we wouldn't be slothful servants we wouldn't be wasteful but rather we would be good stewards of what you've given us and that we would continually sow our seed i pray that you would just bless the fruit you bless the works of our hands that you would help us to produce great fruits that many more people could be saved like dr gomez i pray that you would just bless him and his works and that his testimony would inspire other soul winners would inspire other evangelists would inspire other pastors to go out there and to preach the gospel and to see many people saved many children and that we could turn many to righteousness and in jesus name we pray amen all right for the next song son number 379 379 379 bringing in the sheeps sowing in the morning sowing seeds of kindness sowing in the noontime and the do we waiting for the harvest and the time of repeat we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheeps bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves sheaves Rejoice seed, bring it in the sheaves, Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows, Hearing neither clouds nor winter's chilling breeze, Lying by the harvest and the labor ended, We shall come, rejoice seed, bring it in the sheaves, Bring it in the sheaves, bring it in the sheaves, We shall come, rejoice seed, bring it in the sheaves, Bring it in the sheaves, bring it in the sheaves, We shall come, rejoice seed, bring it in the sheaves, Going forth with weeping, sowing for the master, Though the loss sustained, our spirit often breathes, When our weeping's over, he will bid us welcome, We shall come, rejoice seed, bring it in the sheaves, Bring it in the sheaves, bring it in the sheaves, We shall come, rejoice seed, bring it in the sheaves, Bring it in the sheaves, bring it in the sheaves, We shall come, rejoice seed, bring it in the sheaves. Amen. You are dismissed. God bless you. Have a good day.