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Music Music Music Music Music The Baptist Church Foundation Baptist Church page 192 in your green hymnals, page 192 ring the bells of heaven. Ring the bells of heaven page 192 in your green hymnals, let's sing it out on the first. Ring the bells of heaven, there is joy today, for a soul returning from the wild. See the Father meets him all upon the way, welcoming his weary wondering child. Glory, glory, how the angels sing, glory, glory, how the loud harps bring, Does the ransom army like a mighty sea, peeling forth the anthem of the free on the second. Ring the bells of heaven, there is joy today, for the wanderer now is reconciled. Yes, the soul is rescued from his sinful way, and is born a new and ransomed child. Glory, glory, how the angels sing, glory, glory, how the loud harps bring, Does the ransom army like a mighty sea, peeling forth the anthem of the free on the last. Ring the bells of heaven, spread the feast today, angels swell the glad triumphant strain. Tell the joyful tidings, bear it far away, for a precious soul is born again. Glory, glory, how the angels sing, glory, glory, how the loud harps bring, Does the ransom army like a mighty sea, peeling forth the anthem of the free. Help us to learn and pay attention to the sermon tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's do favorites this evening. Sherry? I don't know the name of UPCOVERY MOUNTAIN. One piece, one more? UPCOVERY MOUNTAIN. Page 12? Okay. That's alright. Blessed Redeemer, page 12. Blessed Redeemer, page 12, on the first. UPCOVERY'S MOUNTAIN, WONDERFUL MOURN, GOD CHRIST MY SAVIOR, WEARY AND WARM, FACING FOUR SINNERS, DEATH ON THE CROSS, AND HE MIGHT SAVE THEM FROM MENTLESS LOSS. BLESSED REDEEMER, PRECIOUS REDEEMER, SEEMS NOW I SEE HIM ON CALVARY'S TREE. WOUNDED AND BLEEDING, FOUR SINNERS PLEADING, WINDED UNHEEDING, DYING FOR ME. Kayla? 215? HEAVEN CAME DOWN AND GLORY FILLED MY SOUL, page 215. On the first. OH, WHAT A WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL DAY, A DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET, AFTER I WONDERED IN DARKNESS AWAY, JESUS MY SAVIOR, I MEANT. OH, WHAT A TENDER, COMPASSIONATE FRIEND, HE MEANT THE NEED OF MY HEART, SHADOWS DISPELLING WITH JOY, I AM TELLING HE MADE ALL THE DARKNESS DEPART, HEAVEN CAME DOWN AND GLORY FILLED MY SOUL, WHEN AT THE CROSS THE SAVIOR MADE ME WHOLE. MY SINS WERE WASHED AWAY, AND MY NIGHT WAS TURNED TODAY, HEAVEN CAME DOWN AND GLORY FILLED MY SOUL. 81 on the third. Can we see Christ, page 81? Page 81, on the third verse. OH, IPE'S DAY WILL SOON BE OARED, ALL STORMS FOREVER PAST, WE'LL CROSS THE GREAT DIVINE, TO GLORY SAFE AT LAST, WE'LL SHARE THE JOYS OF HEAVEN, A HEART PAHOMA CROWN, THE TEMPER WILL BE BANISHED, WE'LL LAY OUR MURDER DOWN, IT WILL BE WORTH IT ALL, WHEN WE SEE JESUS, LIFE'S SHOUTS WILL SEEP SO SMALL, WHEN WE SEE CHRIST, ONE PRIPSE OF HIS DEAR FACE, FALL SORROW'S WILL ERASE, SO BLAVE WE RUN THE RACE, TILL WE SEE CHRIST. Bill? 160 on the first. Page 160 on the first. CROWN HIM WITH MANY CROWNS, page 160. Say it out loud on the first. CROWN HIM WITH MANY CROWNS, THE LAMB UPON HIS THROW, BARK OUT THE HEAVY AND THE DROWN, THE MUSIC BUT IT'S ALL, AWAKE MY SOUL AND SING, OF HIM WHO DIED FOR THEE, AND HAIL HIM AS THY MATCHLESS KNING, THROUGH ALL ETERNITY. Back there? Yeah. 188 on the third. Amen. LOVE OF GOD, page 188 on the third. Could we with ink the ocean fill, In were the skies of parts mid-May, Where ev'ry stock on earth a quill, And ev'ry man a scribe by trade, To write the love of God above, Would drain the ocean dry, Or cut the squall, contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky. O LOVE OF GOD, how rich and pure, The soul now measureless each long, And shall forevermore endure, The saints' and angels' songs. Sarah. 92. 92. HOW CAN I BE LONELY, page 92. 92 on the first. One is walking with me over life's uneven way, Constantly supporting me each moment of the day, How can I be lonely when such fellowship is mine, With my blessed Lord Divine? How can I be lonely when such fellowship is mine, How can I be lonely when I'm Jesus only, To be my companion and unfailing guide? Why should I be weary or my past seem dreary, When He's walking by my side? Amy. 261. 261. 261. Turn your eyes upon Jesus on the verse. O soul, are you weary and troubled, No light in the darkness you see. There's light for a look at the Savior, And life more abundant and free. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace. Page 150. My faith has found a resting place. Page 150 on the first. My faith has found a resting place, Not in device nor creed. I trust the ever-living One, His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, And that He died for me. Brother Eli. 260 on the third. 260? 260. 216 on the third. Okay. Surely goodness and mercy on the third. When I walk through the dark slopes of valley, My Savior will walk with me there, And safely His great hand will lead me To the missions He's gone to prepare. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, And I shall feast at the table spread for me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life. All the days, all the days of my life. Welcome back to Shure Foundation Baptist Church for the evening service. Let's take our bulletins and go through some quick announcements here before we get on with the final service here of the week. Or actually it's the second service of the first. Never mind. Alright, I'm confused. On the front cover we have our verse of the week. It says, Nevertheless, the foundation of the Lord stand is sure, Having this seal that the Lord knoweth them that are His, And let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse number 19. I guess I should have asked, does anybody need a bulletin? I'm going out of order here. Right there. And anybody else? Alright. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10.30 a.m. And we had a wonderful service this morning. Pastor Joe Jones preached a really great sermon. But they ended up having to go back to Idaho, so it was great having them here for the short time. Hopefully they can stay a little longer next time. Tonight I'll be preaching, and I'm going out of my series that I just started, but I'm just going to preach a stand-alone sermon about our anniversary a little bit, about how God builds the church and things like that. And Thursday we'll be back in Titus chapter number 2. We'll finish the second half of that chapter. And we have so many times, various different so many times. And our 1 o'clock so many time today. I need to count how many salvations we had. Does anybody have a salvation? Good, 5? 1, okay. 2, 3, 4. Alright, praise God. Praise God. Alright. So we had 4 salvations yesterday and 4 today. And then we had 1 on Friday, 1 on Thursday. So great job everybody. And we're not getting video game numbers like England right now, but we're still getting people saved every week. So that's good that people are getting saved at our church, and I still want that to continue for years and years to come. If you look down you can see the praise report, the salvations, baptisms, and attendance totals. I think I told you that in the last service that in England they got 51 salvations yesterday in their solely marathon. They had I think 9 today. They've had like 1,600 in the last year. So they're doing really well. And so also Brother Ian, if you pray for him, he's traveling to Poland next Saturday, and there's like 60 people that want to get baptized there. So the most I've ever done is 12 in one day, and then I did 12. I think I've done like 12 in a day. By the time you get done just dunking people, especially since I'm tall. I was like having to drag them out and then put them in knee high water and then like reaching down and dunking them. Because what's deep to me isn't necessarily deep to other people, or is deeper to other people. But anyway, so yeah, he's supposed to baptize like 50 or 60 people. He's going to just go out there and preach for them on Saturday. So great things are happening. There's supposed to be a church possibly starting out there. And so our church is just kind of partnering alongside them and trying to help them out, going there and preaching the word of God to them and baptizing. So I'm looking forward to hearing all the great things that are going on that week, next weekend for them. And I just want to say once again happy anniversary to our church. It's our fourth anniversary as Church Foundation Baptist Church and almost six years in the ministry here for our church. And I'm very thankful for our church. I'm very thankful for all you who show up and put in the work and those that are visiting with us today. I really appreciate being here. And we appreciate any time someone comes to visit our church and hopefully people have been nice and I'm sure they have. And I'm looking forward to spending some time with some of you, even after the service, getting to know you. Appreciate you coming as first time visitors. And let's see, we've got some upcoming soul winning events. But the first one coming up is the Seattle Tacoma Soul Winning. That's going to be an overnight trip unless you just want to drive up early in the morning. You can do that also. But we don't have all the details yet, of course. But we'll get those forthcoming as it gets a little closer here. And September 29th through October 1st will be the Yakima Soul Winning trip. And we usually do that every year. We've done a week and times past, but we're just going to do Thursday through Saturday. And we'll probably have like a Thursday night preaching service or Friday night preaching service up there. And then another trip is scheduled for October 28th through 29th at Blaine. Hopefully the rain hasn't come in fully yet at that time. But even if it does, it's better than going out in 100 degree weather. I'll just say we could put an umbrella over my head and I'm good, you know. But of course I would not use an umbrella. No, I'm just kidding. So most people from Oregon and Washington don't really use umbrellas. It's kind of funny. But you'll see in other places they're like, ah, you know. Like Mary Poppins out there. But anyway, we're a family integrated church. That means the children and infants are welcome here at the church services. Please utilize some of the baby rooms and the dad baby rooms for your convenience. And the rockers are for pregnant nursing mothers only and elders only. Please reserve the back rows for families with young children. And no under 10 children at any time, please. And we're going to have ice cream after the service. We're going to have Tillamook ice cream. The best ice cream in the whole world, that I've ever tried anyway, is going to be back there after the service. So I would just ask that you don't let your kids go up there and scoop the scoops themselves. Can we get a couple of volunteers to scoop some ice cream? Anybody? Not? Okay. Oh, hey, what's up? Yeah, okay. Well, Julene and then Ollie, you wanted to help? Okay. That's all we need, right? Two? Okay, two scoopers? Thank you for volunteering. That was a lot of volunteers. Like, you guys must have heard some preaching this week that made you want to volunteer or something. Anyway, I appreciate that. So we'll have different kinds and we'll just have the kind of bowls pre-made and stuff like that. So anyway, I just thought it would be a nice treat to have. And, you know, it's our anniversary, so go high on the hog and get some Tillamook. You know, it's good stuff. So anyway, I think that's all I have for announcements. I don't see Ethan here, so yeah, we'll just sing another song and then we'll receive the offer. Actually, hold on one second. I did want to say thanks to everybody again for helping with the piano and stuff like that. I know I've already thanked you a few times. But we also had to have the piano repaired. And so I know that there's already been a rule about children getting on the piano. Unless children are actually playing for some kind of services, then I don't want kids on the piano. Because they said, like when they fixed it, they said that the pedal, like that, whatever was in there could pop out really easily. And so if there's a bunch of people up there, you know, hitting the pedals and stuff like that, that it's going to mess it up. So it wasn't cheap to repair. So I just ask that you make sure your children aren't going up there and playing on that piano unless they're like doing some kind of a special or something. So I'm not trying to be mean. It's just, it is what it is. So we've got good stuff. Let's take care of it, alright? Alright, that's all I've got. Thanks. Alright, let's all turn to page 275 in your Green Hymn books. Almost persuaded page 275. Page 275, almost persuaded. Alright, sing it out loud on that first. Almost persuaded, now to believe. Almost persuaded, Christ to receive. Seems now some soul to say, go Spirit, go thy way. Some more convenient day on the alcohol. Almost persuaded, come, come today. Almost persuaded, turn not away. Jesus, invite to hear. Angels are lingering near. Prayers rise from hearts so dear. All ones were come. Almost persuaded. Harvest is past. Almost persuaded. Doom comes at last. Almost cannot avail. Almost is but to fail. Sad, sad, that bitter wail. Almost but lost. Amen. Great singing this evening. At this time we'll receive our offering. Brother Sean Harrington, can you bless the offering for us? Lord, thank you so much for this church, Lord. Thank you so much for the past four years. I pray that you would just continue to bless this church, Lord. And fill Pastor Thompson with your Spirit, Lord. And that he would preach the bowl to us. Lord, I pray that you would bless this offering, Lord. Bless both the gift and the gift. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, go ahead and turn to your Bibles too. 2 Chronicles chapter number 3. 2 Chronicles 3. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring you one. 2 Chronicles 3. 2 Chronicles 3, the Bible reads, And Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. And he began to build in the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign. Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first major was three score cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits. And the porch that was in the front of the house, the length of it was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was an hundred and twenty. And he overlaid it within with pure gold. And the greater house he sealed with fir tree, which he overlaid with fine gold, and set thereon palm trees and chains. And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was gold of parvium. He overlaid also the house, the beams, the posts, and the walls thereof, and the doors thereof with gold, and graved cherubims on the walls. And he made the most holy house, the length thereof was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits. And he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents. And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold, and he overlaid the upper chambers with gold. And in the most holy house he made two cherubims of image, work, and overlaid them with gold. And the wings of the cherubims were twenty cubits long. One wing of the one cherubim was five cubits reaching to the wall of the house, and the other wing was likewise five cubits reaching to the wing of the other cherubim. And one wing of the other cherubim was five cubits reaching to the wall of the house, and the other wing was five cubits also joining to the wing of the other cherubim. And the wings of these cherubims spread themselves forth twenty cubits, and they stood on their feet, and their faces were inward. And he made the veil of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubims thereon. Also he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five cubits high, and the chapter that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put them on the heads of the pillars, and made an hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains. And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left, and called the name of that on the right hand, Jacob, and the name of that on the left, Boaz. Brother Tim, will you pray for us? Amen. We're in 2 Chronicles 3, and this is a chapter where people usually tune out, or just kind of skim over their Bible reading, and they're like, What is this all talking about? Why do we need to know this stuff? But everything in God's Word is needed. Amen. And it's all given for our admonition, and for our learning. So, today I'm going to preach a sermon out of this chapter called, In the Fourth Year. In the Fourth Year. So, this is the fourth year of Sure Foundation Baptist Church, so I thought, well maybe I should just look up, you know, a fourth year and see what I can find in the Bible. And there's a lot of actual references to In the Fourth Year, several references actually. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to preach three fairly quick points, and then I'm going to just kind of go over some other instances in the Bible that it talks about, things that it talks about happening in the fourth year, and try to make some application at the end with everything. So, and you know, we've heard some really great sermons. I've liked the application that's been used, and other sermons that have been preached. I really like Pastor Pizarnsky's sermon, Brother Corbin, I liked all of them. They're all really good sermons, and very fitting for a fourth year of a church. And it is an accomplishment to get to the fourth year of a church, and people don't realize just how much work actually goes into it, and how much it takes to run a church. And I don't run this church by myself. I definitely don't run it by myself. I have a lot of people helping in many different areas and aspects, and pretty much everybody here does something for the Lord, and I really appreciate that. And even if all you do is go soul wanting, that's enough for me. Amen. I mean, obviously we should be able to, we should try to do whatever we can for the Lord, but you know, if you just went soul wanting once a week, that would be, I think that's great. So, let's look at the first verse, or let's look down at verse number two in our chapter here. It says, And it began to build in the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign. So, like I said, the title of the sermon is, In the Fourth Year. And so, again, I just took instances where it actually says that term, found many terms in there, but I chose to preach out of this chapter because it kind of talks a little bit about building the house of the Lord. As a matter of fact, it talks a lot about it. The whole chapter is about building the house of the Lord, and how Solomon built this house. Let's look at verse number one. It says, Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord of Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. So, point number one this evening is building the house of the Lord requires preparation. So, building the house, you know, this building is not the house of the Lord. The house of the Lord in the New Testament is where the believers gather together. We are the church when we gather together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to go preach the Gospel, and to have the Word of God preached. That is the gathering of the people together. In the Old Testament, they had the same thing. They had a gathering of the people, and it was called the congregation of the Lord. Congregation means church. So, it's just a transliteration from the Greek to English, is the word church. And in the Old Testament is the congregation. The Bible uses those terms simultaneously. So, you could turn to one, I think it's Psalm chapter 22, and it says that it's a congregation, and then in the New Testament it's quoted, I think, in the book of Hebrews, where it says it's the church. So, anyway, just a little background on that. But the Bible says here that, you know, Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father. So, notice first that he's building it in a specific place. So, in the Old Testament, God said, this is where my people are going to meet. This is how I want the house to be built. In the Old Testament, the tabernacle of the congregation is what Moses commanded through God to build this tabernacle. It was basically like a mobile tent that had all the holy things of God that were in it. And, you know, there was a preparation for even putting that together. And it was a great amount of priests that had to carry all this stuff around. It was a laborious work. And they basically just traveled from place to place wherever God told them to go. And then, later on in David's reign, you know, he actually was commanded to build in Mount Moriah, which is actually where Abraham was supposed to sacrifice Isaac, but then God, of course, stopped him from doing that. So, this place is a special place to God. I really don't understand why it is, but you know who does understand? God understands. And, you know, God is God. He expects us to do what He asks, you know. And so, when David started to prepare this place, he prepared it in a specific place, and he prepared it with specific things. So, you know, it made me think about the fact that this church here had to be prepared to be put into place also. So, we had to have a group of people that kind of came together as like a soul winning group, and we just kind of all started hanging out, a bunch of people from the northern area of Washington and Seattle and so forth, and then here in Washington, Vancouver, Washington, and also in places in Oregon, Portland, Oregon, and things like that. And we all kind of just came together and just started going soul winning, you know. When there was something going on, like when Pastor Anderson was doing like an event or something, then we would just kind of do something along the same lines, and we all just kind of became friends. You know, and we went to the Red Hot Preaching Conference in July of 2016 after Pastor Jimenez was going through all the things that he was going through, and he said, you know, we're going to do this. We're going to start a church in Vancouver, Washington, and then he began to prepare these things. So, like David had to, you know, obviously I'm not calling Pastor Jimenez David, okay. Don't be stupid, okay. I'm not saying that. But I'm just saying it made me think about the fact that there had to be a preparation for the house of the Lord to be built. And so, the house of the Lord is obviously the church. It's considered the church in the New Testament. And so, it had to be prepared. Let's look at 1 Chronicles 22, verse number 2. So, flip back in your Bible a few pages here. And so, you know, when we first started, when Pastor Jimenez gave us a shot here, you know, we started, I think our first service had like 22 people in it. And then that weekend, the people from Washington came, and then it kind of added to that number. And then just slowly but surely, we started to add people into the church. But we were not an independent Baptist church. So, it took a while for us to get to the point where we were an independent Baptist church. We were what we call a church plant or a satellite church of Verity Baptist Church. So, another pastor from California planted this church here. And we used to meet in downtown Vancouver, which was really interesting. But now we're here since we've been here for a year now. But the Bible throws around a lot of years and dates and things like that. But sometimes those things have significance. And, you know, I've preached about stuff like this before, how, you know, certain numbers kind of appear a lot of different times in the Bible. And I don't think that Donald Trump's presidency was predicted through the Scriptures or anything weird like that, okay? I'm not going that far with it, all right? I'm not like into numerology. But God does use specific numbers certain times. And I think that teaches us something that tells us something about that chapter or how he feels about that. Or it's a symbolic of a time period or something like that. But in the fourth year, you know, I really couldn't find necessarily a pattern. But I did notice that there's a lot of great things that happened in the fourth year in the Bible. So, you know, we're in our fourth year and I want us to get to our fifth year. I want us to get to our sixth year. I want us to get to our seventh year. I want us to just keep moving forward and doing great things for God. And, you know, I never wanted us to get burnt out and doing well for the Lord. And, you know, I don't want us to just become some regular church that, you know, that just people just don't care about the things of God anymore. They've glossed over the Word of God in their mind. The Bible can get preached to them and they just don't retain it. They don't apply it, you know, that the Word of God stops being special in people's lives. We don't want to get to that point. We don't want to get to the point where, you know, only the pastor's going out on visitation every Thursday night. And then the two deacons show up to go with them. Who's been to a church like that before? Oh, we're going on visitation tomorrow and I pray for us. It's like, why don't you go soul winning? How about that? You know, our church goes soul winning and we do that, not so we can brag about it, but so that we can get people saved. Amen. So we had four people saved today. Praise God for that. Four people saved yesterday. Praise God for that. We've had several people saved this week. And you know why? Because we care. And we want to do what God commands, which is to preach the gospel to every creature. And we're going forth to the other most parts of the earth. I said that in the announcements. You know, we've planted a church in London, well it's kind of London, it's actually South End. Don't get mad about that. But it's close to London, okay? It's closer to London than any place I know of. So I don't really know England that well, but I do know where South End is. But now the church has moved to a different location, which I can't pronounce right now. Sorry, forgive me. But every church goes through a process where they're prepared. When I started that church with Brother Ian, we talked for months before we ever even sprung that plan into action. There was preparations that had to be made. There was training that has to get done. Pastor Mendez had to train me in a lot of different areas. That I didn't know. What else is a preparation? Well, getting the chairs, getting the piano, getting all the things that we need, getting a map. Whatever else goes into just having a bunch of people. And we want to have a big church mentality. I remember I used to set out chairs when our church was really small. I would set chairs all the way to the back of the auditorium. Because I would just pray that God would fill those chairs. And you know what? A lot of the times when I would set those chairs out, we would have extra people come and sit in those chairs. Who remembers that? Right? So, you know, we never want to get where we don't have a zeal for the things of God. Or we don't care about God building His house. But a lot of preparation has to go into that. So I had to turn to 1 Chronicles 22, verse 2, it says, And David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel. And he set masons to hew wrought stones and to build the house of God. So, remember, it said David prepared the place. Solomon was to build the temple. Solomon was to build the house of the Lord. But David gathered together and prepared the things. So what did he do? He got the strangers together in the land. And we need to go out and get strangers from the land and bring them into the house of God. Amen? And it says he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God. So God wants us to get out there, do the work, and bring some stones in to build up this lively temple, this lively house. He wants to take lively stones and build this house. Right? So how are we going to do that? We're going to do it one person at a time. We're going to do it one soul winning at a time. And you know, does everybody that gets saved come to our church that same day? No, they don't. But you know what people will say that are these hater type churches? They'll just say, well, if they didn't come to church, then they really didn't get saved. Oh, really? So I suppose that every single person in this church that got saved, they went to church that same day? Who didn't go the same day? See, there's a lot of people that didn't go. You're not saved because you didn't go to church. I mean, that's stupid. Everybody's in a different situation. Not everybody has the ability to come to church. That mentality just boggles my mind because it took me six months to darken the doorstep of a church. And then I just quickly, as I went to church, I started to learn the Bible. I got baptized and really just started to become a student of the Bible. Because I did, once I got into the house of God, I wanted to learn. I just wanted to soak it in and learn everything I could. So you have here David, like I said, he's preparing the building. He's preparing the place. So that's what made me think about Pastor Jimenez is that he prepared this place. He prepared me to do the work. He prepared you all to do the work. He'd come and preach sermons to us and help us in any way he could. He was very supportive. But what was the goal? To make this an independent, fundamental Baptist church that would go on and make other independent, fundamental Baptist churches, right? And so the goal is not just to start some denomination. We're not a denomination. What did I say? Independent Baptist churches. That means independent of us. Once a church that we start has a pastor that gets ordained, that becomes an independent Baptist church and the umbilical cord gets cut, so to speak. And then they're an independent Baptist church. And that's how things have been done since the church started. But if it's done a different way, they're not doing it God's way. See, God requires preparation for the building, but it has to be prepared in a correct way. And so what were the things that had to be done? Well, all these things had to be brought forth. In 1 Chronicles 22, look at what it says. And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails of the doors of the gates and for the joinings and brass in abundance without weight and cedar trees in abundance for the Sidonians. And they of Tyre brought much cedar wood to David. And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnificul. And yes, that is a real word because it's in the Bible, magnificul. Of fame and of glory throughout all countries, I will therefore now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death. See, he wasn't allowed to build the house of the Lord because he'd had so many wars and shed blood. And God said, you know, I'm going to have your son do it who's tender and delicate. But you see in that last verse where it says that the house must be exceeding magnificul. This is what I want this house of the Lord to be like, exceeding magnificul. And I'm not talking about the nails and the gold and all the different dishes and all that kind of stuff. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how our church operates. What is our main goal? Our main goal is to get people saved. Our main goal is to preach the word of God, to teach the word of God, to get people saved, and to baptize people and teach them how to serve the Lord themselves. We're basically like making, you know, if you're thinking about a plant, sometimes you can take a plant and clone it. I've never done this before, but I've heard it can be done, okay? So you take a piece of a plant or a tree or something and you plant it, and that's like a clone or whatever is what they say. So that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to bring forth another tree or another plant that's like us, you know? And we want those people to be like that home-run Christian. When we get someone saved, our goal should be to try to disciple that person or when someone new comes into our church, to come alongside them and help them, train them, help them to be what's a home-run Christian. So when you get saved, that comes to church, gets baptized, and then they start soul winning and they stay in church and follow the Lord. That's like a home-run Christian, right? It might be a grand slam Christian. I guess that's if you have the bases loaded, but never mind. Well, let's move on here. So, but things had to be prepared in order for that church to be built. You know, this is a physical building that we're talking about here. But, you know, again, the people we get are from soul winning and workers that are doing the work. And, you know, God has a hand in everything that's done here. God has a hand in everything that's done here, and He calls for us to do the work of the ministry. Now, He also needs a man in place. So we're not going to just start a church in any place, and obviously I like starting churches, but unless we have a man that can run that place, we're not going to do it. So God does require that when we're talking about the preparation. Part of the preparation to build the house of the Lord, the New Testament church, is that God really does require a man to be in place there. So let's look at Numbers chapter 27, and we'll see kind of what Moses realized that he was at his end. God told him, you know, you're going to die, Moses. You know, this is what's going to happen. And basically Moses, you know, he didn't whine and cry and ask for extra life or anything like that. He said, okay, well, you know, let's get things in order here. But look what Moses said. This is what a great man of God he was. Numbers 27 verse 15, it says, And Moses spake unto the Lord, saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation. Now a lot of people say, you're just following a man. You're just, you know, you're man-centered or whatever. And what did Moses say? He said, hey, Lord, I want the Lord to set a man over the congregation. Okay, so, and who did God set over the congregation? It was Moses. And so God chose a man that he picked to go forth and lead this great nation of Israel, this millions of people. And God knew what he was doing. Moses had the heart to do it. And like Pastor Pizarnsky was talking about how the names were on the shoulders of the children of Israel. Well, obviously, there's a lot of names on these shoulders. And Moses got to the point where he was just like, just kill me, God. I mean, I can't bear the burden of all these people. And so God helped him out and had 70 other men to help him do the things. And God kind of helped him get organized, you know. So, but God said, or but Moses said, here, God, would you please set a man over the congregation which may go out before them and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out and which may bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd. And the Lord said unto Moses, take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit and lay thine hand upon him, and set him before Eleazar the priest before all the congregation, and give him a charge in their sight. And thou shalt put some of thine honor upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient. And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the Lord. At his word shall they go out, and at his word shall they come in, both he and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation. And Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and he took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation, and he laid his hands upon him and gave him a charge as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses. So, you know, obviously, God wants a man to be in charge. When Moses, it was Moses' turn to step back, and for him to pass on, then he, what did Moses want? He wanted a good man to come in and take his place. And he asked God to bring this man, and, you know, obviously, this man had been training with Moses his whole time. He was basically Moses' servant. And, you know, if you want to be a man of God someday, if you want to be a pastor someday, you have to be willing to follow somebody first. You know, we can't be self-willed and just want to do everything, and, you know, I forget who said it, but I think it was Pastor Buzarnsky, but he said, if you want power just so you can kind of lord it over people, then you want a leader. If you want to lead just because you want that power, that's what he said, then, you know, if that's what you want, then you want to lead for the wrong reasons. So, you know, it shouldn't be a power trip or whatever. It shouldn't be something that you're doing just because you want to say that I'm the man or whatever. That's a wrong attitude, because Moses, like, as great of a man as he was, you know, he's a man just like everybody else, but he didn't say, oh, God, just let me live. I promise I won't do this again or whatever. He's just like, pick another man. Pick somebody else. Pick somebody that's good. And, obviously, we know that Joshua was good, and he led the children of Israel into the Promised Land. So, number two tonight, every year is a milestone that should be celebrated and praised, and I believe that, and that's why I make a big deal about our anniversaries every single year. I always have. I've always tried to get great preachers in here to preach the Word of God to us. You know, obviously, our first anniversary, I think we had Pastor Jimenez and Pastor Anderson preach for us, and I can't remember all the different years, but I've always tried to bring in someone that would preach the Word of God, and, you know, I mean, I think, to me, it's a great celebration that we have every single year, and I never want to make light of that because every year that a church like this church is here in this place or in places around the world, it's a great thing, and it's a great accomplishment because churches like ours are going the way of the dodo, which means they're becoming extinct. Churches that actually preach the Word of God, that actually go soloing, that actually, you know, want to please the Lord and do things that are right and true, are going by the wayside. Pastors that actually get up and preach the Bible, that's going by the wayside, and if they do get up and preach the Bible, they're preaching the wrong version. It's like they're preaching a Bible version that's been corrupted, and so, really, they're not really doing anything good for the Kingdom of God in reality because they got the wrong Bible, so they're not preaching the right Word of God, they're not preaching the true Word of God, and they're, you know, Pastor Jimenez talked about real-life church down there, and I've passed by that church many times, and that stupid song always plays in my head from like the 90s or whatever, called Real Life, but I don't want to, hopefully nobody knows that song, but it's stupid, so. But I wonder if that's why they named that church that name because of that song. It's some like R&B song or something, but anyway, I mean, all these churches around here, they have these like hokey names like Abundant Life Church and, you know, Gaithe Creek and just whatever, all these weird named churches like, what's wrong with just a Bible name and Baptist church at the end of it? People are ashamed to say that they're Baptist, and sometimes I could see with some of the so-called Baptists why people would feel that way, but, you know, if you're just, you know, our type of Baptist church is a Baptist church that believes in the fundamentals of the faith, and we don't apologize for that, and sometimes negative things come forth out of this pulpit, but, you know, if you actually look at the Bible, about two-thirds of it's negative. About two-thirds of it's negative, so why is that the case? Well, because men are sinful because there's something wrong with us. It's called sin, and we all have it in our lives. Even Christians, even people that grew up in church, everybody has sin in their life, and, you know, we need to be able to work on that sin, and how are we going to do that? Well, coming to church with believers that believe the same way you do, and hearing the Word of God thundered forth from the pulpit, that's what's going to help you to get that sin out of your life, and, look, you've got to want it. Like, you can't just say, well, I want to get sin out of my life, but then you just never try. You never try, and you just kind of sit there and think about other things while the sermon's going on. You don't really show that you care that much, but, you know, I think that it's important to celebrate, you know, our churches being one year older than it was last year, and 2 Chronicles 3, verse 2 says, And he began to build in the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign. So, Solomon, you know, he was supposed to build the house of the Lord, but look what year he started doing it, the fourth year. Now, you know, we celebrate all types of things every year, don't we? Every year we have Father's Day. Every year we have Mother's Day. Every year we have, now it's like Grandpa's Day, and, you know, there's just all these days, right? And I think it's Hallmark's secret agenda to try to get us to buy cards for everybody every time something goes on. Birthday, I mean, you've got birthdays, anniversaries, and, you know, those things are good. Why do people celebrate them? Because they're worth celebrating. You know, your anniversary to your spouse is worth celebrating. Your new year that you are older is worth celebrating, unless you get to 50, and then it's, no, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm getting there. So, that's when I get the black over the hill cake, right? But they're worth celebrating. Why? Because people are worth celebrating. You know, anniversaries are worth celebrating. The new year's worth celebrating. You know, there's all kinds of things that are worth celebrating, but you know what? A church getting older, and wiser, and better, and, you know, and whatever has come that year, you know, we're celebrating the fact that we made it another year. And I don't think there's anything in the world wrong with that, and this is when Solomon began to build the house of the Lord. And you know, it took him seven years to build the house of the Lord, and in the fourth year is when the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. So, you know, he started building it in the fourth year. Four years into the seventh year, four years into the seven years that he started building, he laid the foundation of the house of the Lord. So, you know, there's something special about an anniversary, and I don't think there's anything wrong with celebrating. As a matter of fact, I'm always gonna try to make it a big thing in our church. So, number three tonight, the house of God must be built by God and His standards and His precepts. The house of God must be built by God and His standards and His precepts. So, listen, are you in 2 Chronicles 3? If you aren't, turn back there, verse number three. The Bible reads, Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for building the house of the Lord. The length by cubits after the first measure was three-score cubits, and the breadth, 20 cubits. So, notice that Solomon, when he began to start building the house of the Lord, did it as he was instructed. See, you can't just build a church in the name of God and do it opposite of the way that he told you to do it. See, the preparation was made by his father, David. David said, Here's the materials you need to have. This is what you need to do. I'm gonna lay out the instructions for you. And Solomon said, Okay, and then he gathered all these workers. He gathered all this stuff to build this great house that's supposed to be significant and better than all the houses in the whole world of worship. And then Solomon was instructed to build the house of the Lord. And guess what? He did it exactly like he was supposed to. And this is the thing about churches, is that you can have some fly-by-night, gimmicky church, you know, six-eight church and all these other churches with the fancy names. And look, you can build a big congregation with smoke and lights and, you know, some kind of rock band playing at the front for the whole thing. And everybody's waving and swaying their arms and carrying the television and, you know, all that stuff. And the fog is coming in and, you know, they're all breathy with their music. And then the pastor gets up and he tells you a bunch of nice things about yourself and how good you are and how beautiful you look. And, you know, God's never mad at you for anything. And if anybody tells you that, they're majoring on the minors and, you know, just all this stuff. It's a bunch of fluff. Look, if you read after, if you actually read what the Bible says, that's not how God is. Now, He is gentle. He is tender. He is merciful. He is tender-hearted towards His people. But you know what? When He asks to get after somebody, He gets after them. You know, and sometimes we need to have somebody get after us. Pastor Jones was preaching in his sermon how we're the, you know, we need to police ourselves, but we're the worst police officers for ourselves. You know, it's true. You know, a lot of times, people will look at what other people are doing and don't realize what they're doing themselves. And we've got to take, like you said, a self-audit of our lives probably on a daily basis because it's real easy to slip back into old habits, isn't it? It's real easy to start thinking you're better than other people because you've been saved for about five years and you've cleaned up your life but maybe not everybody else in the church. You know what I mean? So we can't get that kind of attitude. We've got to have the attitude that we're going to do things the way God told us to do it. And, you know, so Solomon was instructed into building the house of the Lord and he did it like he was supposed to. So God expects the church to be built by His standards and His precepts. That's what Solomon did, right? Now we're talking about a physical house, okay? In the Old Testament, but then, like I said, the New Testament is still the house of the Lord but it's a spiritual house filled with believers. Believers who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and if you're indwelt by the Holy Spirit and you come together in a congregation like this, we have a specific time that we meet, we have specific days that we meet and we come and we worship the Lord the way we believe. The Bible says you're supposed to worship Him in spirit and in truth. So we don't have the rock band. Sorry if you were coming here today expecting us to sing Bon Jovi living on a prayer for our worship service or something. But what we're going to do, we're going to take the old hymns that actually teach doctrine, that have a good melody to them. It's not some screeching on a guitar. It's not a bunch of people with piercings up in their faces saying that they're Christians or really not. We're using just stringed instruments. The piano is a stringed instrument and you know what? I believe that that's the kind of music. The Bible says speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in your heart, not to the congregation, not to yourself, but who? To the Lord. So we're supposed to be singing unto the Lord. It's not a showboat, American Idol practice for the next superstar, Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston or whatever you think that you're going to be. This is not a competition of who can sing the best. We all sing together as a congregation and there's some people that sing better than others, but the better singers can drown out the bad singers. I'm just kidding. The Bible says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. It doesn't say that it has to be pretty. You just make a noise. If the dogs start barking, then we'll give you some singing lessons or whatever, but what else do we do? I've talked about soul wanting a little bit, but that's one of the things that will help build the church. Now listen, God builds the church. I understand that, but He also sets men and women into this church and we help God. We are co-laborers with God. We are God's husbandry and we co-labor together with Him. In case you didn't realize that Jesus wasn't standing at the door to greet you as He walked in the door, but you know what Jesus is here? He's part of this congregation. He says where two or three are gathered together in the midst of thee, I will be in the midst of thee. Where two or three are gathered together, but God is in the middle. He's in the service. He's partaking in the things that we do and He's here leading us with His Holy Spirit and He wants us to go out and go soul winning. He wants us to go out and seek and save that which was lost. That's what Jesus said. That's what the Bible says, that Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. And so when He left, He said I'm going to prepare a place for you and He left. He's coming back again to receive us unto Himself that where He is, we're going to be there also. So we're going to be in glory with Him someday, but He's left us here to do the work and what is the work? The work is soul winning. The work is getting people saved. You're like, well, you can't get anybody saved. Look, I've heard that so many times, but when's the last time you saw Jesus, when you got to an apartment complex to knock the doors and Jesus was already there knocking them? When's the last time that's happened? Never, because He's in heaven right now. So Jesus is not going to knock the doors for you. That's not going to happen. We are left here to do the work and He said, He just said to go. Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, right? So we're supposed to go. We're supposed to preach. He left the job to us and we can't fall down on that job. So if the house of God is going to be built, it's got to be built by God's standards. It's got to be built by His precepts. Let's look at, let's see. Well, I want to read a couple more verses here. I'm sorry. I'll stay where we're at. In verse 4 it says in the porch that was in the front of the house and the length of it was according to the breadth of the house, 20 cubits and the height was 120 and He overlaid it with pure gold. And the greater house He sealed with fir tree and He overlaid it with fine gold and He set there on palm trees and chains and He garnished the house with precious stones for beauty and the gold was gold of parvain. So, you know, I'm not going to go on for time's sake with all this stuff but it's detailing everything that was supposed to be done, that was instructed to be done. But see, God has instructions for us in the New Testament also. He has instructions on how the house of God is supposed to be built. As a matter of fact, let's turn over to Psalm 127, verse 1. That's not necessarily Old Testament but I guess some people would consider it to be but it's the songbook of the Lord that I just mentioned earlier that we're commanded to sing out of, right? Psalm 127, verse 1, the Bible says, except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Now, what does that mean? That God's just going to do everything magically and we just get to step in and it's all done? No, that's not what it's talking about. It's talking about that if He's not in it, then it's not really going to get built. It's not going to get built the way He wants it to be built. It says, except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain to build it. You can build your version of church or your version of the house of the Lord all you want, but if God's not in it, it's not really a church. If it's not teaching the correct doctrine, it's not really a church. If it's not using the right Bible, it's not really a church. If it's not reaching the lost, it's not really a church. It's phony. There's a lot of gloss out there, folks. People are like, well, there's so many churches to choose from. I don't know which one is the one that actually does what God says. There's a reality check for you. If your church is just a country club where you get together and hang out with your other friends that like Donald Trump, that's not a church. Now, if you like Donald Trump, whatever, I don't care, but that's not what church is about. We're not Fox News Baptist here. We're not Newsweek or what's the new one? Newsmax, yeah. I never watch it, but I've heard of it, okay? But yeah, we're not Newsmax Baptist Church. We don't get together to talk about politics. We get together to talk about the Lord. You know what I love about our church is that we get together and at the end of church services, there's guys that are standing around with their Bibles opening their hands and we're like, hey, what do you think about this verse? What do you think about this? Well, what do you think about this? And it's just like, we're not trying to just searching the Scriptures and seeing whether these things are so or iron that's sharpening iron or trying to figure out the deeper things of God. And sometimes there's some deep things of God that people have different opinions on or it's just not real clear. We see through a glass darkly in some instances like the things of end times Bible prophecy are kind of a little difficult sometimes because, but we will know when it starts to happen, we're going to know exactly what it was talking about like, oh, that's it right there. Now I see what that meant. But I love that about our church that we, the Bible is a big deal here. And you know what? If it's not founded on the Bible, then it's not a good church. See, you have to have the right doctrine. You have to have the right Bible. You have to have the right type of action. What is the action? Soul winning. So there has to be the right kind. I believe that the right kind of music has to be there. The right kind of salvation has to be at a church. And if you're building it on all that right stuff, then it's going to be right. The Lord is going to be with it and the Lord is going to build that church. That's what I believe. Because you know what the Bible says, except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain to build it. So if we're working together with the Lord to do it the way He wants, then it's going to turn out right. Look at 1 Timothy 3, verse 15. 1 Timothy 3, chapter 3, verse 15. Excuse me. The Bible says, But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. So what is God saying? He's letting us know that if you think about the house of God in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, the house of God is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. In the New Testament, the house of God is the church of the living God, and it's the pillar and ground of the truth. When you come to church, you should expect to be taught the truth. You should expect to be able to get the truth while you're here. Of all places that you go, of all places that you walk into the doors of, you should be able to go to a church and hear what's right and true. We shouldn't hear a bunch of lies and a bunch of false doctrine and a false salvation. We should be hearing the true salvation, salvation by faith alone and Christ alone and nothing else added to it. We don't have to do a bunch of works to be saved. We want to do works because we are saved. We want to do works for God because He loved us, because He did those things. But look, you weren't out in 100 degree weather because you thought you were earning your way to heaven today. See, I know that the Jehovah's Witnesses think that and that's why they would probably have like misters on them. They just send letters in the mail now. It's like, they've gotten so, they won't even go door to door. They'd rather just go to a door with their mailbox and write things in crayons or whatever and like that's going to just make me turn to a Jehovah's Witness or something. They don't even have the sand to go door to door anymore. And you know what, when it's hot out there, that's when it's hard. Soul winning sometimes is great, it's fun, but sometimes it's hard and it's work. So that's why it's called the work of the Lord. We're supposed to do it. Now turn to 1 Peter 2, verse 2, 1 Peter 2, verse number 2. Now when you're newly saved, the Bible says that you should desire the milk of the Word. Look at what it says. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. So when you're new in church and you get plugged into a church, hey, get into the Bible because that's what's going to help you to grow. You don't want to stay a baby forever. Wouldn't that be weird if your baby just stayed a baby and they just never changed from being a baby? Think of that as a spiritual level. I mean it would be weird if Titus was just three months old or four months old for the rest of his baby life. But he was like 35 and still that age. So God wants us to grow by the Word of God when we get into church and it says we're supposed to desire the sincere milk of the Word. So what is that? It's the Bible. You start with the easy parts. You start with John. You start with easier books of the Bible and you read that and it's like drinking a baba or whatever. It's like breastfeeding or whatever. You're just like getting all that milk and it's helping you grow. So you don't want to stay a baby forever as a Christian. You want to grow up and start to get to a toddler and then whatever else comes along, the tween or whatever and then the teen. It's just like get the holy water out and I'm just kidding. But they'll love you again when they're older. They love you. When you come home, they love you. They hug your leg and it's like the best feeling in the world when they're teenagers. They stink and they like don't want to be around anymore or whatever. But that'll change. That'll change and then they'll love you again and they're like, here, here's my kid. But we don't want to stay babies forever, right? Look what it says in verse 3. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious, to whom coming as unto a living stone disallowed indeed of men but chosen of God and precious. So of course it's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ is that living stone. He's the chief cornerstone. He's the foundation of our faith. But the house of God is built up by us also as lively stones. What does it say? Built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood. So we're kings and priests. If we're saved here, we are kings and priests. And it says to offer up spiritual sacrifices. See we don't sacrifice animals on an altar. That was a picture of Christ in the Old Testament. But Christ is the Lamb of God that was slain from the foundation of the world. And we don't have to slay that Lamb anymore. He was slain once and for all. And He placed the blood, His own blood on the altar and purges us from all of our sins forever. Right? But what does God want us to do? Well, He wants us to build up a spiritual house as lively stones. And to offer up spiritual sacrifices. What would that be? That would be good works. He wants us to do good works. And it says acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. We want to do that which is acceptable. We want to do that which is right. And we don't want to get caught up in dumb things that don't matter. Like politics. Who cares? Unless it's talking about politics like abortion. Those aren't politics. Those are moral issues that are politicized in our country. But the Bible says that when someone conceives, they're with child. That's what it said about Mary. So these abortion freakazoids out there that just want to kill babies for any reason necessary, they would have killed Jesus Christ too. So these people are really wicked that are doing this stuff. But anyway, I don't want to get off on that. But, wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, verse 6, behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. So if we put our faith on that cornerstone which is Christ, we won't be confounded. And he's the one that's elect, he's the one that's precious, but we're built upon the foundation of that stone. It says unto you therefore which believeth he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed the same is made the head of the corner. So they didn't want Jesus to be the Messiah, they didn't want to accept him as their Lord, but no matter what, he still became what they didn't want him to become. Turn to 2 Timothy 2, verse 19. 2 Timothy 2, verse 19. This is our verse of the day also. 2 Timothy 2, 19. It says, nevertheless, the foundation of God standest sure. Having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. And let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Now look what it says about a great house. It says, but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the master's use and prepared unto every good work. What does God want from us? Well, he wants us to be a vessel of honor. So as Christians, we should walk in this life as vessels of honor, sanctified. That means set apart. You're not into all that worldly trash. You're not into all the worldly music and all the holy weird movies and all this other stuff. Hey, we should focus on the fact that God wants us to be meet. That means fitting for the master's use. And so to be fitting, we've got to chip off the rough edges in our lives, the things that we're still holding onto, the high places in our life that still have a stronghold against us. Because you notice even the most godly kings in the Bible, they would say they did all this good stuff, but yet they kept the high places in place. They did not take down the high places. And from the time of Solomon when he went bad to the time near the end of the kings, I think it was Hezekiah was the one that finally took them all down. Maybe it was Josiah. I can't remember right off the top of my head, but there was a point, I mean, there was like a 400-year period where those high places that Solomon built were still there. So what Solomon did was really bad. I mean, here he's doing good, but later on in life he got turned away. And this is something that kind of Pastor Jones talked about today, too, is that we want to finish. This is what the concept he was talking about. We need to finish well. We don't want to get dragged out of church over something dumb. We've got to keep going. We've got to stay in the fight. We've got to keep rank. We've got to stay, because this is like an army. In the Lord's army, women are allowed. You're fighting with men, men and women fighting alongside each other, children also. There's children in the Bible that did right and true and said, you know what, I'm not going to eat the king's meat nor drink his wine and we're ready to die. They were actually thrown into a fiery furnace because they refused to bow down and worship an idol. When all the worldly music was playing and everybody else was bowing down, they refused to do it. Gadrak, Meshach and Abednego, look kids, you can be holy unto the Lord also. And God expects it. You have more of a responsibility than most kids because not all kids grow up in church. So you need to stay your course, children, and do what's right and true. Your parents, you can't live your Christianity through your parents. You have to make your own choices. You have to make your own stands. You have to make your own walk in the Lord. Now, let's move on to Matthew 7. Probably not going to have time to go through all the other stuff. Maybe I'll just make a couple mentions, but I wanted to show you Matthew 7, verse 24. The Bible says, Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. What's he saying? Hey, when the storms of life are coming after you, when all the hard things are happening, if you have your house, if you're built upon the rock, which represents who? The Lord Jesus Christ. If your faith is settled on Christ and not on your parents or anything else besides Christ, when all these things happen and all these hard things come into your life, if you have Christ as your rock, you're going to make it through. Your house is not going to be destroyed. You will not be destroyed. But you better make sure that your life and your faith and your practice and everything you do is founded upon that rock. Because look at the alternative. It says, And everyone that hearth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell. And great was the fall of it. See, this is, I believe this is, I mean, there's different applications for this. But, you know, if you're not built upon the rock, if your foundation is not Christ alone, then, you know, you're going to be in for a hard time, because when you've built your house and your faith and all your beliefs on sinking sand, that when those storms of life come, when the floods rise up against you, when the persecution comes and your faith is not founded on that rock, it says great is going to be the fall of it. So make sure that when you're, you know, taking all this in and learning the Bible and everything, that your faith is on the rock, because if it's not, then you're going to be in for a bad time. Look at Isaiah chapter 28. Isaiah chapter 28. The Bible says in Isaiah chapter 28, look at verse number 16. And this is our church's like theme verse here. It says, therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make haste. So what is it saying? Well, you know, we need to believe on that tried stone, that precious stone. We need to have a sure foundation. That sure foundation is Christ. And that's why our church is named Sure Foundation Baptist Church, because the foundation of this church was built upon Christ. And as long as I'm the pastor here, it always will be. And I hope if there's ever a successor to me, that a man that loves the Lord and wants to serve God and wants to continue in what this church was built upon is chosen to be the pastor. Because I'm not going to be the pastor forever. Someone else is going to be the pastor someday. Someone else is going to replace you someday. Your kids are going to rise up and be the next generation. Are you teaching them? Are they learning? Are they sold out? Are they bought in? Because, look, it's not a brainwashing, folks. I mean, it kind of is. We've got to wash our children's brains from the defilement of this world. Really what's happened out there every time we step out these doors is defilement. I mean, sometimes you can't even walk out the front door and just not have, I mean, you see stuff that you wish you hadn't seen. You go to the restaurant. You look at people you wish you hadn't looked at. People serving you food that you wish didn't touch it. I mean, this world's gone crazy and, look, our kids need to know the truth and be able to hang their hat on what's right and true. And so we need to keep them far away from the things of this world as much as we possibly can and protect them. So let's turn over to, let's see, Leviticus. Let me just go to, actually go to 2 Kings chapter 18. I'm just going to go through a couple of these things. So just a couple of things to think about as I close here. Where it has, I mean, I went through and just looked at what the 4th, in the 4th year said. In Leviticus it talks about the 4th year of your fruit to be holy, to be praised to the Lord with all. It talks about in 1 Kings that the 4th year was the foundation of the house the Lord laid. It talks about in 1 Kings 22, it talks about how Jehoshaphat, the son of Asa, began to reign over Judah in the 4th year of Ahab, king of Israel. And I mean, just a side note there, you know, it's good to have good leaders in perpetuity. You know, like you had Jack Hyles, then you had Jack Scoppe. Alright, we don't want Jack Scoppe, we want Jack Hyles and then somebody good after that, right? So it's good to have leaders in perpetuity so Jehoshaphat was the son of Asa and they were both great kings. 2 Kings chapter 2 verse 8, what did I say? 2 Kings 18, 9? It says, And it came to pass in the 4th year of king Hezekiah, which was the 7th year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it. So, I guess the point I'd like to make here is that, you know, king Hezekiah was a good king. He was a great king. But he was during the same time, I think as, let's see, I think he was in the same time period as, oh, it says Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, let's see. So, I mean, I think he was around the same time as Ahab. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Anyway, but you know, when a good king's in rule, you know, it's nice to see that God's still going to take care of business and destroy the enemies of the Lord. You know, for every bad leader, there's a good leader to stand against them if they were right. So, you notice in the book of Kings, a lot of times there'd be a bad king there, and then a good king would rise up and that king would do well. And it kind of helped balance the scales of evil so that God's people still had a remnant in the land. Jeremiah chapter 25. And in Jeremiah, there's like multiple times where it brings up this fourth year. And so, I just want to go through a couple of these real quick and then we'll be out of here, okay? Jeremiah chapter 25 verse 1 says, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. So, and what happens? Well, it says, the word of the Lord, let's see, verse 2, the which Jeremiah the prophet spake unto all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, the thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, even unto this day, that is the thirteenth and twentieth year, the word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking, but you have not hearkened. And the Lord has sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened nor inclined your ear to hear. So, here we have Jeremiah in the fourth, it says in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, the word of the Lord came to him and it basically just said, you know, I've sent all these prophets to you, I've tried to help you, they've rose up early, but you have not hearkened. And let us never get to the point in this church, in the fourth year, the fifth year, the sixth year, or any other year, where we stop hearkening unto the word of the Lord. When prophets are coming to you, when people are coming to you and preaching the word of God to you, or the pastor's preaching the word of God to you, and you just don't want to hear what's coming from the mouth of the prophets. And you know what, the mouth of the prophets are right here in this book. And they're going to speak to you, and if they stop speaking to you, that means you've stopped hearkening unto them, you've stopped listening unto them. And this happened in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Now look down at, turn over to Jeremiah 36 verse 1. So, you know, the first thing that I wanted to show you here in the book of Jeremiah is in the fourth year of the king of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. So, Jehoiakim was the son of Josiah. Josiah was a great king. Jehoiakim was a bad king. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. Jeremiah 36 one says, and it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah. So, this is the same year, isn't it? Right, it's the fourth year of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah, and this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord. So, here's another time in the same year where the Lord comes to Jeremiah and it says, take thee a roll of a book and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations from the day I spake unto thee from the days of Josiah, even unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I propose to do unto them and come to them. They may return every man from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and sin. Look, why does God come and say this is going to happen to you if you don't stop doing what you're doing? Why? Because He wants to forgive our iniquity. He's giving us a chance to get things right. Isn't that what it's saying? He wants them to return every man from their evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. He's wanting, you know, He's pleading with you, please allow me to forgive you. Please get right. Please do that which is right. And, you know, a lot of times people just won't hearken. Let the Word of God, you know what, never, you know, quit thundering forth out of the lips of the pulpit from this church, from the people that preach out of this church to the people of Sure Foundation Baptist Church. Let it never stop going forth and telling people to return from their evil ways and do that which is right. So people get on to our church a lot because they are like, well, all you do is just preach about bad stuff. Not everything I preached about was negative today. Not everything I preached about was negative, but, you know, some things are negative. And God wants you to get right with Him and He expects people in His church to, you know, toe the line and to do what He says. We're God's people. It shouldn't be that big of a deal, you know. And obviously we all have our sin in our life, but, you know, it shouldn't define us. Jeremiah chapter 45. Jeremiah chapter 45. The Bible says in verse number 1, the word of Jeremiah, the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah when they had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah. Now what does it say? In the fourth year of who? Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. Is this the same year? Is this the same king? Yeah, so, so far, Jeremiah 25, Jeremiah chapter 36, Jeremiah chapter 45, this is all happening in the same year. These are different chapters that are explaining it, but God's telling us, you know, when it happened, under what king it happened, and what seems to be happening here. The word of God is being preached by a man that is standing alone, basically, in this nation. He's got a couple homies that are on his side, Baruch, the son of Neriah, and I think he has some other friend in here that it mentions, but he didn't have a lot of friends. Everybody hated him. Even his own family wanted to kill him. But you know what he was doing? He was preaching the word of God. He was preaching that was right and true, and look at what he says. Thus saith the Lord, God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch. Thou didst say, Woe is me now, for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow. I fainted in my sign, and I find no rest. So this chapter in the book of Jeremiah is only five verses, and it's written to one man. Those are written to. It's written to Baruch. God takes time to write to his friend that stood beside Jeremiah and allowed a whole chapter, even though it's only five verses, to be written to one man. And I would say this, that let the word of God never quit speaking to the individual in this church. In the fourth year, in the fifth year, in the sixth year, in the 20th year, hey, the individual needs to receive the word of God. This was written specifically to one man, to Baruch, which was his friend that helped him out. He's the one that wrote it out, all the word of God, and the princes cut it up, because Jeremiah was locked in a prison and couldn't go preach the Bible. So I think that's really cool. There's a whole chapter just written to this one man. But God speaks to one person all the time. You know, if He's speaking to you in any sermon that you listen to, or when you're reading the Bible on your own, He's speaking to you as an individual, isn't He? You're Baruch, you know. So I know that's not the best baby name in the world, but, you know, I mean, that was His name. But you know what? God cared about Baruch enough to speak the word of God to him, and it made it into the Bible. Look at Jeremiah 46. I've only got two more places to have you turn, and we're done. Jeremiah 46, I know it's been long, I'm sorry. Sorry, not sorry. Jeremiah 46, the ice cream's melting, pastor, pastor, it's an emergency, the ice cream's melting. It'll just be that easier to scoop, you know. Jeremiah 46, the Bible says, the word of the Lord, which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the Gentiles, against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh Niko. That's Maria Niko's great-great-grandfather, I think, and king of Egypt, I'm just kidding, Maria, which was the river Euphrates in Charamesh, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, smote, and what does it say there? In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. Apparently, there's a lot of things going on in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. It's a big year, isn't it? So, and it says, order ye buckler and shield and draw near to battle. So what's God doing? He's preaching against a nation that's not the nation of Israel. He's preaching against the Gentiles. You know what Jeremiah was made and ordained a prophet unto the nations? See, people will say to us, why are you preaching about, why are you going over there and being a colonizer in the Philippines? Or why are you being a colonizer over here and over there? Jesus Christ told us to be colonizers. He said to go preach the gospel and get people saved and put them in the colony of the kingdom of God. We're not trying to make them our personal slaves or something weird like that. We want people to be saved. You know what? God is going to preach against these Gentile nations. You know what? As a man of God, I'm supposed to get up and do the same thing. You know, woe unto you North Korea, you torturous, barbarous wretches that just torture Christians to death. I mean, you know, I guess I need to preach a sermon against the country here real soon because it's really, I haven't done it in a while. But you know what? God's preaching against who? Egypt. You know, what does the world worship? Egypt. You know, what's the biggest tours you can go on? Egypt, Egyptian tours and go see the pyramids and all that. And look, cool if you did that. All right? I would do it too if I had the chance. But like, do I care about it and the fact that I just, you know, I just love Egypt in that way? No, I don't. Because a lot of the wicked things, you know, Egypt is a picture of wickedness in the Bible. So we've got to guard ourselves against just getting too carried away with stuff like that. But my point is, is let the word of God always go out against the nations that despise the Lord. And you know what? God made sure that Jeremiah said, you know what Pharaoh Niko? You're going down, buddy. You killed Josiah. You've hurt the people of the Lord. And you're going to have a recompense and a whirlwind for that. You know what? Today there's countries that hate the word of God. They hate the Lord. You know, it seems like our country is starting to spin in that direction. Yeah, you're right. It has been that way for a while. And the last verse I'll have you turn to, Jeremiah chapter 51. I just find it really interesting all these different things are just kind of sandwiched in there and you wouldn't really, unless you look that term up in the Bible, you're not going to really see that, that all these things happen in this same year. But here's another one. It says, the word which Jeremiah the prophet, verse 59, excuse me, Jeremiah 51, verse 59. This is actually a different one. That was the last one of the fourth year of Jehoiachin. But this is another fourth year verse, okay? Jeremiah 51, verse 59, the word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Sariah, the son of Neriah, the son of Nasiah, when he went with Zedekiah, the king of Judah unto Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And this Sariah was a quiet prince. So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Sariah, when thou comest to Babylon and shalt see and shalt read all these things, then shalt thou say, O Lord, thou has spoken against this place to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it in the midst of the Euphrates, and thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shalt not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her, and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah. So this happened in this fourth year of the reign of, let's see, what did it say? Fourth year of his reign. Yeah, Sariah, sorry. So in this fourth year, you have this, where Jeremiah goes and preaches against Babylon, he goes actually to the nation of Babylon, and then he puts this stone in the midst of Euphrates, but this is getting into Bible prophecy. Now, the kingdom of Babylon was really destroyed, but there's a secondary application to this because there's an end times Babylon that's going to be destroyed. Well, why am I bringing all this up? Because we need to make haste to learning the mysteries of the Bible, and to applying ourselves to trying to figure out the things that are going to come to pass. And that's what I was talking about earlier, how us guys will get around and we'll talk about stuff, and we need to not be lazy. Let's figure this stuff out, and obviously we don't want to go down deep and stay down too long and come up dry, right? But we should be trying to just figure out the things of the Bible. How does this apply to end times Babylon? Well, these are things that we need to study about, and so we've just been recently kind of all talking about Babylon lately, so that's kind of why I thought that was a cool verse to bring up, but the Bible says it shall be desolate forever. It means the literal city that already has been destroyed, but it also means that end times nation that will be destroyed. So I hope you learned something today, and we've got to move on to the next year. Hey, we've got four years in, let's move on to the next year. Let's do great things for God in the fifth year, in the sixth year, in the seventh year, and just keep going and don't quit, and battles are going to come, the storms are going to rage against us, but if we're built upon the sure foundation, the rock, which is the Lord Jesus Christ in our church, will always be around. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for the great sermons that were preached this week, and let's pray that you bless all those men of God that came to feed us with knowledge and truth. Pray that you just bless each and every single person here. We thank you so much for all the people here that are just helping in some capacity around here, anybody that cleans or does any kind of construction or the sound system or the video system and people that go soul winning and just all the things that it takes to run a spiritual house here, Lord, this church. I pray that you just bless each and every one of them, Lord, and we thank you so much for the people that got saved this week. Pray that you bless us as we go our way and just bless this church for many years to come. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Varily, verily, sing it out loud on the first. O what a savior that he died for me! From condemnation he hath made me free! He that believeth on the Son saith, He hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Verily, verily, message ever new, He that believeth on the Son is true, hath everlasting life. All my iniquities, not him were linked, All my indebtedness by him was paid, All who believe on him the Lord hath said, Hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Verily, verily, message ever new, He that believeth on the Son is true, hath everlasting life. The poor in me, I can trust my Lord, All weak and sinful, I believe his Word, O glad message every child of God, hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Verily, verily, message ever new, He that believeth on the Son is true, hath everlasting life. Though all unworthy and I will not doubt, For him that cometh he will not cast out, He that believeth on the Good News shall, hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Verily, verily, message ever new, He that believeth on the Son is true, hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Verily, verily, message ever new, He that believeth on the Good News shall, hath everlasting life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Verily, verily, message ever new, He that believeth on the Good News shall, He that believeth on the Good News shall, hath everlasting life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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