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

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Good evening everyone and welcome to Bible Believers Baptist Church. Glad you could all be here tonight. Turn in your hymnals to page 477. At Calvary, 477. Calvary, 477. He died on Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Hard and there was multiply to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. On the second. By God's word at last my sin I learned. Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned. Till my guilty soul imploring turned to Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Hard and there was multiply to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. Now I've given to Jesus everything. Now I gladly own him as my king. Now my rapture soul can only sing of Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Hard and there was multiply to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. Oh the love that drew salvation's plan. Oh the grace that brought it down to man. Oh the mighty gulf that God did spend at Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Hard and there was multiply to me. There my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary. Alex, would you pray for us tonight, good brother? Say a prayer for us. Thank you Father for bringing us here tonight. Thank you for your word. We bless you. We ask that you bless and serve us tonight in the preaching and the worship to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. OK, 198, our next song. There's power in the blood. There's power in the blood. Would you be free from the burden of sin? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you are evil of victory when there's wonderful power in the blood. There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the lamb. There is power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb. Would you be free from your passion and pride? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Come for a cleansing to Calvary's tide. There's wonderful power in the blood. There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the lamb. There is power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb. Would you be wider, much wider than snow? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Sin stains are lost in its life-giving flow. There's wonderful power in the blood. There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the lamb. There is power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb. Would you do service for Jesus your King? There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you live daily His praises to sing? There's wonderful power in the blood. There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the lamb. There is power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb. And now we're going to have some something. I'm not going to read the announcements. Yeah. All right. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Bible Believers Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, just lift up your hand. Do we have any bulletins left, guys? Does anybody need a bulletin? If anybody needs one? Okay. All right. Well, then just, I guess, listen to the announcements. On the front cover, we have the verse of the week. It's Job 39.8. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing. And on our inside page, there's just a short message. When I'm here, feel free to come ask me questions. I'll try to make myself available to you after the service for anything you might need. We're King James only, soul, wanting, salvation by faith alone, family integrated, Baptist Church, independent, fundamental, and old hymns and songs and psalms only. And so if you, let's see, our service times are 1030 a.m. Sunday morning for a preaching service, and Sunday evening is also our second service on Sunday. That's 3.30 p.m. Wednesday is at 6 p.m., and that's the one you're at now. And let's see, you can, we're family integrated, so that means the children and infants are welcomed during the church services. Of course, there's not really, there's one child here today, so if he's bad, brother Paul, just take him to the back and make him stay in the room by himself in the corner. No, I'm just kidding. No, but obviously, we offer a mother-baby room for mothers with their children. So our schedule that's up and coming, and tonight we have a, well, I'm going to be preaching, of course, the last chapter, Jonah chapter 4, and then we're going to have the Lord's Supper afterwards. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to preach a sermon. I'm going to give about a five-minute break or so so people can use the restroom if they need to, and then we're going to come in, and we're going to do the Lord's Supper. So I think it was Brother Robert preached a sermon kind of about what we believe about doing that, so this is kind of a new thing for our church here, but it's not that much different. I mean, maybe it is. It's just probably been a long time since I've been to another church that does it, but we do it the way that we do it. We do it one time per year, and so this is a special night for us to remember the Lord, and so when we get to that time, it's kind of a time to just be quiet and reflect on the Lord and think about what He did for us, and He said this due in remembrance of me, and we don't get upset with other churches that do it differently necessarily unless it's just totally wrong like the Catholic Church where they say it's the actual body and blood of Christ. That I would have a problem with, but it says this due, you know, as often as you do this in remembrance of me, so some people do it more. Some people do it like once a quarter. Sometimes people do it every week, and I just kind of feel like if the Passover was once a year, they did that to remember what happened in Egypt. It's kind of the same pattern, so we do it once a year and try to make it a special time, so that'll be kind of like a solemn service at the end there, and we'll sing a hymn, and then we'll hang out for a little bit, but then we're going to take off, so if you've not been baptized, though, I would not recommend you doing it, so has anybody in here not been baptized? Okay, everybody's been baptized, good. All right, so never mind. All right, and the other thing, so this Saturday is the mega marathon, and did you guys decide what you, I'm just kind of spitballing up here, but what did you guys, do you guys want to have Panda Express or Chipotle or something like that? Anybody have any ideas of what you want to do? Beruchies? Okay, so can they handle you guys, though? Can they handle the Baptist power coming in there? That's fine if you guys want to go there. I can just leave the church debit card here, and you guys can spend as much as you want there. It's fine with me. No, I'm just kidding. Brother Rick's like, no. I'm only kidding, but yeah, we'll definitely pay it by everybody's lunch, and are you guys planning on meeting here in the morning? Is that what you're doing? Anybody know? No, that's okay. That's all right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, but the soul winning mega marathon is basically, okay, let me explain it. We used to do it where we cover every state, and we just don't have enough coverage to do that, but I wanted all of our churches, any church that's affiliated with us, to take part in it. Yeah, so if you guys want to meet here, we'll get donuts and coffee going, and then you guys can go out soul winning, and then meet the Beruchies. What's it called? Beruchies, okay. I kind of feel like that's like Asian trying to say blue cheese or something. So Beruchies, okay. I'm sorry. That was a joke. Don't get upset. I know there's Asian Americans in here, so anyway, but so yeah, and you guys can meet there for lunch, and then finish off the day, and then just report how many salvations you got at the end of the day. Just kind of put it in the group so I can kind of total up what's all been done, and then we're gonna have the Lord's Supper that evening on the Sunday, this Sunday, but we're doing it tonight. So Easter Sunday, you guys are more than welcome to have some kind of a potluck or something afterwards, if you guys want. I don't know if that's something that you want to do, but you know, we're Baptists, so I mean, there is that. So but and then there's a men's preaching night afterwards, so if you guys want to do a potluck, you're more than welcome to do that. If somebody wants to bring a ham or cook a ham, I'll pay for it, so whoever wants to do it, more than welcome to, all right? And then let's see, the youth conference is coming up, and I'll be preaching there with Pastor Jimenez, and Pastor Tavener actually is gonna be coming with us because he's preaching at our church on the 7th, and so I don't know if anybody's going to that or not, but you're more than welcome to go. You're still time to sign up for that, and then the Red Hot Preaching Conference. I heard you guys, some of you guys are going down to the, who's going to the Red Hot Preaching Conference? Everybody. We're gonna have to cancel church? All right, no, we won't. But okay, well, that's great. I'm glad that we got some people that are going down there. Some of you guys have never been to it before. Brother Rick, you've never been to it before, have you? Wow, that's a great conference, so. All right, well, do we have another song to do in between, or is there only three songs? I was just gonna say we'll sing a song, we'll receive the offering, but we can just take up the offering right now, and we'll just have the ushers come forward. That'll kind of make the service a little bit shorter, so let's just go ahead and do that. Yeah, okay, so let's go ahead and have the ushers come on up. All right. All right, Brother Paul, will you pray for the offering, please? Holy God, thank you for the day, Lord. Thank you for everything you do. You're in the process for us. Bless the spirit, Father. Bless the greatness. Bless the politics, Lord. And thank you, Lord, for the day we have a last minute in the middle of a troubled day, Lord. We are here, but while there is day, be in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, we're gonna be reading Jonah 4. If you could stand for the reading of God's word. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry, and he prayed unto the Lord and said, And said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Taresh, for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O God, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm, when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madeest it grow, which came up in the night, and perished in the night. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six-core thousand persons, that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle? You all hear me fine? All right. So this is the last chapter that we're in. It's obviously the last chapter of Jonah, but I'm going to preach my last sermon out of this and then move on to something else next time when I come up. But I'll just recap a little bit because it's been a month since I've been here or so. So Jonah chapter 4, the title of the sermon tonight is Jonah's Anger and the Lord's Compassion. Jonah's anger and the Lord's compassion. And just to recap, in chapter number 1, Jonah flees from God and gets swallowed by a whale. So he also gets thrown overboard. It's a picture of Jesus Christ being lifted up because he said, lift me up and throw me in the water. And so we have that picture. Jonah is in the belly of the whale in chapter number 2, and that picture is that Jesus Christ was three days and three nights in hell. And I preached a pretty lengthy sermon on that. And then also chapter number 3, Jonah got a second chance to obey God to go to Nineveh and preach the coming judgment of Nineveh being overthrown in 40 days. And a bunch of people get saved. There's a great revival. The people of Nineveh believe God. They turn from their evil ways, but they believe first. And so I kind of went after the belief that you have to repent of your sins to be saved. And so that's kind of where we're at now. And Jonah has done a great work. He preached like God told him to. God said, preach the bidding that I bid unto you. So he told Jonah what to preach. But remember, Jonah doesn't like these people very much. Because this is the Assyrians, and the Assyrians were oppressing the children of Israel, and he just did not like them. It's very obvious he doesn't like them because even after he preaches and gets a bunch of them saved, sees the repentance that they do, he's angry about that. He's not happy that he got them saved. He's angry about it, which is really bizarre because, I mean, I don't really know any soul winners that, you know, get someone saved and they're like, oh, man, I can't believe I got that person saved. Like, it's just kind of a bizarre way to think. But, you know, of course, we didn't live back then. We don't know what the Assyrians were like. You know, I've just seen the Veggie Tales movie, so I know that they were slapping each other with fishes and stuff like that. But, obviously, they were doing way worse things than that. So, but he definitely doesn't like them. Look at verse, so my first point is that Jonah does not respond to Nineveh's salvation the way that we think he would because we would be pretty stoked if we had a city of 120,000 people, you know, get saved and even their animals are repenting and sackcloth and ashes. It's like they're making, you know, animal clothing for them to, animal sackcloth. I mean, the king went pretty all out on this repentance thing, right? But, you know, we would be happy about that. And Jonah, like, this is one of the greatest evangelistic things in the whole Bible. I mean, I can't think of another place in the Bible where someone got as many people saved as Jonah did. And so people will say, well, if you're not, if you don't have the right spirit and you're not nice and you're just mad and you don't like certain people that you can't get them saved, well, that's just not true. You know, with a bad attitude, with him failing to do what God told him to in the first place and then getting the second chance, he obeys because he's getting punished. He realizes the salvation of the Lord. But then even after all that, even after he's been showed a bunch of mercy, he still has no mercy for these people afterwards. He wants them to die. And it's very obvious by the context, but look at verse number one, the Bible says, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry. He wasn't just angry. He was very angry. And it displeased him exceedingly. So he's really upset that they did repent like they were supposed to. They end up, you know, they believe in the Lord and they got saved. And Jonah, so Jonah's just literally pissed off that his preaching resulted in God saving the people of Nineveh and sparing that city from destruction because what was the message? Forty days and you'll be overthrown. And so his preaching changed that from happening. God repented at the evil he said he would do unto them and did it not. So to us soul winners, that would be really strange. We were out soul winning today and we had one salvation, right? So praise the Lord for that one salvation. But, you know, we weren't mad because everybody else didn't, you know, didn't get saved. I mean, we would love to see those people get saved. But, you know, we didn't come back with a bad attitude. I mean, when one person got saved, praise the Lord, but 120,000? Imagine that on the report. Like, hey, we got 120,000 people saved yesterday. I just want to let you know half of the Yakima Valley got saved yesterday. I mean, that would be a pretty awesome news, wouldn't it? But it should be obvious to us, though, from this chapter, though, that, you know, he doesn't just have a bad attitude. It's a downright wicked attitude to be upset that people get saved. So in reality, though, there's a lot of Christians that have the same attitude today. And it permeates throughout our whole city. Why are the other churches not doing soul winning? Why not? Well, because they have the Jonah attitude. That's why. They don't care whether other people get saved. And, in fact, some people, they'd rather not have them get saved because they've been watching Newsmax and Fox News way too much and they just want to kill everybody. Let's go to war. Let's kill the Russians. Let's kill all the Arabs. Let's just turn it into a sea of glass. And this is the kind of attitude that Christians get because they're following politics too much instead of following what the Word of God says to get out there and get people saved. That's what the Bible teaches. That's what Jesus wanted us to do. He came to seek and save that which was lost. And so it's a really weird attitude to be apathetic to soul winning. But yet when people come to our church, they're like, we tell them we go door to door, they're probably like, uh, is this a cult? And they do say that, right? They think it's weird because who are they used to seeing out there? Who normally knocks on their door? It's the cults. It's the Jehovah's Witnesses. It's the Mormons. And so when they hear that we're doing it, they're like, oh, you mean like the Jehovah's Witnesses? No, like the Baptists. No, like Jesus told us to do it. Just like the church in Acts, they went out daily and preached house to house, right? But you know, the Christians today are so apathetic, they don't even care that people are going to hell. And really, at least Jonah went and did it. But there's people today that just won't do it at all. And how wicked is that to just know you have the truth, you have the gospel, you know what could get people saved, and then you just pass by these people every single day and don't bother to open your mouth and tell them that there's a hell to shun and a heaven to gain, and all you have to do is put your faith in Jesus Christ. You don't have to do all the works that your church has been teaching you that you have to do. You don't have to keep doing works to stay saved. You don't have to do works to be saved. It's not a combination. It's not works and faith. It's just faith alone. And that's real easy, isn't it? It's easy to be saved. It's harder to live the Christian life. But, you know, they won't even go out and say that. Because why? Because they're apathetic. Because they don't care about other people. And you're like, well, you're just trying to put your church up on... Hey, you know what? Our church is great. We might be small in number, but you know what? God does great things with small amounts of people. He does, you know, just read the Bible someday, and look what God does with just small amounts of resources, small amounts of people, you know, small churches. He does great things. We don't need the world's money. We don't need the world's fancy buildings. We don't need a bunch of people. We can take this amount of people right here and just week in and week out, and we can knock every single door in the Yakima Valley. Real easy. And we could probably do it again. And we're gonna do it. We're gonna knock this whole area. And someone's gotta care. Someone's gotta, I mean, I knocked on the door of a Baptist lady who literally went to the church across the street of that, remember that big Baptist church that was there? She's been going there for years. She literally lives right across the street from it, and she thought that she was saved because she was baptized. I mean, what are they teaching in these churches? How is it that it's possible that you could go to a church for 30 years and then you don't know how to be saved at a Baptist church? What a shame. What a reproach. You know, the only people that might not know how to get saved is a first-time visitor at our church or some kid that hasn't really fully understood yet. But you're gonna know how to get saved if you come to this church, because we're gonna tell you. And you know what? We're gonna go out, and if you ever go out and go souling with us, you're gonna hear the gospel being preached, and you'll know how to be saved then. But not these Ben Shapiro, Adam Sandler-loving, David Lee Roth, Dr. Spock people that just worship Israel and lick their boots and put their flags up in their churches. They'd rather go and bomb Hamas and stick up for Israel when they're just butchering people and like totally destroying a whole nation, and they're gonna say how much they love them. Let's pray for them. Why don't you pray for the people in your own city instead of the synagogue of Satan? Look, there's a lot of bad cults out there. There's a lot of bad religions, but there's none that are mentioned in the Bible except for the Jews' religion that is called the synagogue of Satan. Like literally, the synagogue. If you think about it, they just do everything the opposite of what Christianity does. They do. Everything that we believe, they just believe the opposite. They do the opposite. They're not giving. They're stingy. They don't want to lend. They don't want to lend. They don't want to reach out to the goyim, is what they call us. And goyim just means nations, but they hate people. They had Jonah's attitude. I don't want to save those people, and look what good that does them. But to be called the synagogue of Satan and then our Baptist churches in this city and in cities all over the place are like, oh yeah, rah rah, Israel, yeah, blow them all up. What kind of attitude does that have to have? I just don't see the verse in the Bible where Jesus says kill them all and let God sort them out. I don't see the verse in the Bible that says let's make their desert a sea of glass by dropping bombs on them. No, he wants us to drop the truth bomb on them. He wants us to drop the gospel on them. And yeah, a lot of those countries, we can't get in there because of a lot of the other Muslim nations. We'll get killed going to them. But you know what? There's still ways to reach people now in 2024 that we could have never done in the past. People do watch stuff. They do see stuff on the internet. They are able to get some of the information. I mean, there's a lady that went to the Toronto Soul Waning event that I went to last year, and she was from some way up place in Canada and saw the Bible way to heaven way up there, way up in like some Indian village way out in the middle of nowhere. Inuit people, they're what we would call Eskimos, I guess, but they don't like being called that. But anyway, that's what you would know them as. So they're natives that live up in the north, but if you looked at where she lives, it's like there's no way that she could ever be reached, but they do get reached. They get reached because the internet is a great tool, and that's why it's upsetting to us when things like that get taken away. But these Baptist churches around here, they want us to love and support these Jews, but they don't even want to go across the street and tell their neighbor how to get saved. They don't. They love people that hate the Lord more than they love the people that could get saved, which is really sad. So turn to Matthew 5, verse 43, Matthew 5, verse 43. What's the Bible say? Well, the Bible says in Matthew 5, 43, You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. So Jesus didn't teach drop bombs on them because we don't like them. No, he says that we're supposed to love our neighbors. We're supposed to love our enemies. He says it's been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But that's what people were saying. Because God did teach in the Old Testament in Leviticus chapter 19 to love your neighbor as yourself. And that's one of the second greatest commandments in the whole Bible. But they kind of twisted that and said, Hate your enemy, though. But Jesus proves who the neighbor really is in Luke chapter 10. But let's keep going here in Matthew chapter 5 real quick. It says, that you may be the children of your father which is in heaven, for he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be therefore perfect even as your father which is in heaven is perfect. So he's saying, hey, don't just do things that everybody else does. He wants us to be different. He wants us to love more. He wants us to help people more. And the sun rises and the rain comes upon the unjust and the just. And so we should also have the attitude that we're going to go and reach those people. Look at Leviticus chapter 19 where I just told you that commandment is. Leviticus chapter 19. People just get this weird idea that the God of the Old Testament hated people and was just this destroyer. But he's the same exact, he's Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. So he doesn't change. And last time I checked, Jonah's in the Old Testament. Last time I checked, he cared about those people more than Jonah did. He loved them and he even mentions the animals at the end. Like people act like he just doesn't care about animals at all. Well he made them, so I'm sure he does care for them in some way, shape or form. Obviously in comparison to human beings, they're not even on the close level at all. But he still cares about them. Look at Leviticus 19 17. It says, Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. Where in that part does it say to hate those, to love your neighbor but hate your enemies? Does it say that in that verse right there? So you see Jesus is correcting whatever the wrong teaching is. And he actually was quoting Leviticus chapter 19 because Jesus Christ is the word of God. So everything in the Old Testament is the word of God, everything in the New Testament is the word of God, and Jesus is the word of God. Jesus said when God said let there be light, Jesus spoke the world into existence, everything was created by him and for him, and there was not anything that was made that he didn't make. So he's saying in the Old Testament, love your neighbor as yourself. Does it say there hate your enemy? No, so sometimes Jesus will go back and say, well, you've heard this said before, but that's when someone has twisted what's been said and not the truth. And so he's making sure that people understand, hey, I didn't say to hate your enemy. I just said to love your neighbor as yourself. And that's everybody. Look at Luke chapter 10. I'll prove it to you right here. Chapter number 10. Because he starts to go on about how these, and I'm not, we don't have time to read the whole story, but basically there's a Samaritan, and he's robbed and wounded, and the Pharisees are basically just like seeing him laying there, and they hate the Samaritans, and they cross over on the other side. A Levite crosses over the other side, right? Look at verse 25. It says, and behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right, this do, and thou shalt live. But he willing to justify himself said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And so then he goes into this parable about this Samaritan, and you can read the story later on if you want, if you want to read the whole thing, but basically I'm going to have you skip down to verse 36, though. It says, Which now of these three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? So it was the person that helped them, right? Look at what it says. He said, He that showed mercy on him, then said Jesus unto him, Go and do thou likewise. So he's showing us that it's not just loving your own people, just the children of Israel loving each other, and loving their neighbor. That's what they were saying. To love your neighbor as yourself is just talking about us only and not other people. And Jesus tells that story. He's like, No, no. The ones that were the Jews didn't do anything to help them. And that story is called The Good Samaritan. So the Samaritan helps the man that's wounded and is the neighbor to that man that actually was robbed and beaten and hurt. He fixed him up. He paid for his hotel stay. He said, Hey, anything that you have to pay extra, I'll come back and reimburse you for that. That's what being a neighbor towards somebody else is. And they wouldn't even walk on the same side of the street that he was laying on. That's how much they didn't care about people. So at this time in the nation of Israel, during the time of Jesus, they were really ruthless. They were really unloving. I mean, Jesus is healing people, and they're mad because he broke the Sabbath day when he did it. It's like, what verse do you see in the Old Testament where it says, Thou shalt not heal on the Sabbath day? There's no verse that says that. It says, as a matter of fact, if your ass falls into a ditch, that you're supposed to help your neighbor bring that out. Isn't that breaking the Sabbath? Yes. When you circumcise a baby on the eighth day, isn't that breaking the Sabbath? Yes. When they cut up animals and do those things on Sabbath days and on special high Sabbath holy days, aren't they working when they do that? Yes, they are. So they just kind of have this heart where, you know, it's basically how we keep the Sabbath is how you're supposed to keep it, but they weren't keeping it right. Now look at Proverbs chapter 25 verse 21, Proverbs chapter 25 verse 21. You think that a prophet of God is going to care about people like God does, but you know, it is a good picture for us to see why are people so apathetic towards soul winning today. Why do people not care about other people's souls? And it's just because it is a sin that we can fall into where we just don't care about people or your mind gets poisoned against the thought of helping other people besides those. We should help Christians first, I think. You know, it says especially those that are of the household of faith that we're supposed to do good things for them, but that doesn't mean that we don't do anything for anybody else. And when we, the best thing that we can do as a church is to love them with the gospel, to preach the gospel to them and get them saved. Their clothes, you know, if they need clothes, they need food, all that stuff, that's important to do too, but what is the most important thing that they actually go to heaven? You know, you can give them a can of beans and some warm socks or whatever, but how long is that going to last them? And obviously we should help people when we have the opportunity to help them, but I'm just saying, what's more valuable, you know, to get them saved? You know, we don't have like drug treatment programs at this church. Why? Well, because we have a ministry of getting people saved and if they get saved, then God's going to give them the power to overcome some of those problems and then those people are going to probably just give up those things anyway. So not everybody will, but, you know, a lot of people do. A lot of people quit drinking when they get saved. A lot of people quit smoking when they get saved. A lot of people, you know, quit doing hard drugs or smoking pot or whatever it is, and you should, you know. So, I mean, the best thing to do is get them saved and get them on the right track so they can start thinking the right way, thinking the way the new man's supposed to think and how God teaches us to think instead of throwing them in some self-help program and saying, hey, just believe in a higher power. It doesn't matter what higher power it is. You know, you just, you believe in that higher power, then go to apologize to everybody you screwed over in your life and tell them you're sorry. You know, you need to tell God you're sorry. You need to seek God. And, you know, God's going to help you to overcome sin, but, you know, we can't put the cart before the horse. You know, the horse has to pull the cart. You know, we don't put people in all these, you know, and most of these drug program things that people run, it's based on a workspace salvation. They'll say, well, you know, if you drink, then you've lost your salvation and you need to come back to the program so the program can help you. That's true. I mean, I've seen it happen. I preach at those rescue missions and stuff, and really the only reason why they even go there is because they have to because if they don't do it, they lose their salvation or they don't get the free meal that they were offered. You have to listen to the preaching first and then get the meal. So, which I understand that, but a lot of people are just jumping through the hoops so they can get what they want and really they don't care. But Proverbs 25 verse 21 says, If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink, for thou shalt keep coals of fire upon his head and the Lord shall reward thee. So, when we treat people with respect, when we help them, when they're trying to do wicked things to us, you know, obviously we're not trying to keep coals of fire on them and say, hey, haha, you're going to die or whatever. You know, we're trying to, you know, obviously there are people that that might affect, like say it's some really wicked person and God, you know, punishes them in some way and then they know that's why it came. Obviously, there are some people that are reprobates that mess with us and God does keep these coals of fire upon their head, but turn to Romans chapter 12 verse 14. Romans chapter 12 verse 14, it puts it in perspective in Romans chapter 12 and obviously the New Testament is going to kind of help us with commentary on how we should think about the Old Testament scriptures. So, that was Proverbs 25. Look at Romans 12 verse 14, it says, Bless them which persecute you. Bless and curse not. And you know what, this is really difficult because if someone's messing with you and threatening to kill you and just, you know, you know, persecuting you is putting you through some sort of a torture. Whether that's verbally, physically or whatever, but it says bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible as much as lieth in you, live peaceable with all men. Now look, you know, Paul's telling us this, but you know, these things aren't always easy because it's not easy to love people that hate your guts and are saying all kinds of wicked things to you. It's not. But it's just like, you know, when Jesus says if someone slaps you, you know, smacks you in the face, turn the other cheek to him also. You know, it's just like that's a hard thing to do because you know what I want to do? I want to turn their cheek back. I want to break their jaw if they did something like that to me. But that's the flesh. That's not how, you know, we're supposed to operate in the spirit. So obviously if you're being persecuted for your faith, I would say, you know, don't fight back and let them beat you up or whatever or just try to get away from the situation. But, you know, obviously there's a limit to that. You know, Jesus said that we could flee. You know, you can run away from a situation like that, but sometimes you can't run. And, you know, Stephen didn't have a chance to run. They caught him and snatched him up, and what did they do? They killed him, and he let him. He didn't say, hell, let's fight. You know, I'm going to see how many I can take down before I die, you know. They just threw rocks at him until he died after he got done preaching. There was nothing he could do about it. So sometimes, you know, that's going to happen. Obviously it doesn't happen in our world right now, but we don't know what's going to change. Things change really quickly, as you saw during the whole COIVID years, and we still haven't really recovered from that in a lot of ways. I mean, obviously it's like a distant memory to us now, you know, when you have to put a mask on, and everywhere you go it's really annoying. But, you know, we just saw just how fast they can yank the rug out from underneath us and say, you can't go to church, you can't do this, and just make life really difficult for you. I mean, if they're going to tackle a guy jogging on a beach in California where there's nobody else around, I mean, they're like, get him! You know, it's just like, what's he doing to harm, you know, him being on a beach where nobody else is out? How is that like harming anybody else? But it wasn't about that, it was about the control. That's what it was about. And look, people want to control us too. They always want to tell us, hey, don't come back here. And they'll write me emails, or they'll call me, hey, don't ever come back here again. I'm like, okay, don't ever come to my apartment again. Like, okay, what apartment number are you in? I'm not telling you that. And it's just like, well then, because you're going to come back and harass me. It's like, why would I come back and harass somebody that asked me to not come back to their house? Like, the last thing I want to do is argue with somebody that doesn't want to hear the gospel. You know, when someone said, no, I'm not interested, that's just like, okay, let's go. It's wasting our time. Yeah, we can, we only have limited times when we're out there, and we don't want to waste it with people that don't want to hear it. But they'll try to control us too. They try to write these letters that tell me to back off and don't come here, and you know, it's just really bizarre, the lengths that people, you know, have you guys ever had this happen? Like, the neighbor's not home, and they say, oh, they're not home. And they're like, he'll walk up to put a cart on their door anyway or knock on their door, and they're like, I said they weren't home. It's just like, they're trying to control you. Don't knock on my neighbor's door either. It's just weird. People have control issues, and they want to control us and tell us what to do, and there's going to come a point when they're going to try to control us by force, and they're going to say, you can't go solely into this. We're going to throw you in jail, or we're going to hurt you, or we're going to do this. And, you know, people have gone through those things in their lifetime. But, you know, I mean, Jonah just got to walk right through Nineveh. Nobody was stopping him, and he got to do this great thing. Nobody's stopping us now either. But you know what, when we stop exercising our faith and our rights, in this country, we have the right to go soloing. We have the right to go door to door. You know what police are doing in Vancouver now? They're telling the people that are harassing us and chasing us around and ripping all of our cards off the doors. No, they have a right to be here. And I'm just like, they finally read the Constitution or whatever. It's just like, cool. But there's going to come a time, though, when that's not going to fly anymore. But, you know, when we have the right to do it, when we have the right to do it, when we have the ability to do it, that's when we should be doing it. That's when all these churches around here should be doing it. And instead they're doing nothing. They're sitting on their hands doing nothing. And, you know, they're having another trunk or treat party, or they're having another Christmas cantata, or another Easter cantata, or whatever. And you know what, cool, whatever. Do those things, but don't leave the other things undone. Don't leave the soul wanting undone. We still have to reach this world for Christ. And really, what NIV preaching church is going out knocking doors? Zero. What New King James church is out there knocking doors? None. What churches that have and promote these new Bible versions, which one of them are barnstorming and just getting people saved en masse? That's not happening. There are mega churches of just, hey, let's sing some breathy, queer-like music for 45 minutes and you're going to get a 15 minute little sermonette at the end. That's what a church has become. You know, we got the fans going, but all we have to do is turn these lights purple and put a little fog machine in here and we could fill this place up really quick, couldn't we? But you know what? Someone's got to do what's right. Someone's got to run a church the way it's supposed to be, and someone's going to have to knock these doors and nobody else is doing it, so looks like it's up to us. And we should have a good attitude about it and not be a Jonah-type Christian and just be like, oh, I didn't really think soul wanting works. How can you be a pastor and you don't know that soul wanting works? How could you call, how could you put your name with pastor in front of it if you don't know how to go soul wanting? How is that possible? And then they're going to talk down their nose at us and say, oh, well, you just, you know, you just, you're just going to be like delivering the baby, you know, the baby Christian, then throwing them in the dumpster because they don't have any place to go. Well, they do have a place to go. They can come here. And you're like, well, soul wanting doesn't really work because where's all the people? Well, you know, we're starting to get a little bit bigger in case you didn't notice. And slowly but surely we're going to have more people coming to this church. And, you know, that's why it's important for when the, when the church is small for everybody to be here when they can be here. It's super important. So, because when people walk in, there's like two people in here. They're going to turn, they're going to not come back. So the most, you know, I would just say this, be in church as much as you can. All right. So, but let's see. Look at verse number 21 where I had you at. Romans 12, 21 says, be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. This is how the Christian operates. It's not turn their village into a sea of glass. It's not kill every soldier or, you know, look, they're killing citizens. They're not just killing army people or people in their terrorist organization. They're killing citizens. They're killing children. They're killing, you know, obviously the Hamas people did some really wicked stuff, too, if that stuff's even real. But we don't know because, you know, there's a lot of weird stuff you can do. You know, I mean, there's videos I've seen where it looks like Biden is saying all this weird stuff and it's not really him. I mean, he does say enough weird stuff, though. He does sniff girls' hair, which I think is very strange. And, you know, he does a lot of strange things. But, you know, we just, people got to get away from this Fox News garbage and this politics that has just infected independent fundamental Baptist churches. They spend more time with Hannity than they do at their own church. They spend, you know, six hours a day to listen to Hannity just spout his garbage. He's a Catholic. Ben Shapiro is a Jew. Why are you getting your information source from people that don't believe like you? They're like, oh, Ben Shapiro is so good. He's great at debating people. So what? Is that what we're doing? Is that what it says? Debate them into heaven? How's that working? How's that working? And he doesn't even believe in Jesus. As a matter of fact, I heard Ben Shapiro say that, you know, Jesus deserved to be killed on the cross. Killed on the cross. So what? We killed him. That's kind of their attitude. Yeah, we killed Jesus. So what? He was a troublemaker. He was a magician. He was a sorcerer. I mean, those are the people that we're sticking up for. We're sticking up for Hannity, who, you know, I mean, I don't know if you guys have knocked these doors, but we knocked a few of them tonight, where it has like these little Catholic pictures on there telling us not to knock their doors with a cross with Jesus hanging on it. I mean, that's who we're supporting when you're supporting Sean Hannity. When you're listening to it, you're like, well, yeah, but Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck's a Mormon. Like, why are we listening? Why are Christians listening to this trash? Turn that thing off. Quit listening to those. Why don't you listen to a sermon? At least something's edifying. Read the Bible. I mean, I'm not against, like, you know, reading secular books and things like that, but just why are we filling our brains? If you're filling your brains with Glenn Beck, you're just in a sad state of affairs, and you're going to get that mentality where you don't care about people, you want to bomb them instead. Let's bomb Ukraine, or, I mean, not Ukraine, Russia. Everybody wants to bomb Russia, and you know what, Russia's wicked in a lot of ways, but is that, should that be our attitude? Did Jesus say bomb them? Bomb them? Just keep bombing them, and then they'll believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Bomb them, and they shall be saved. No, it doesn't say that. That should not be our attitude, and this is Jonah's attitude. Bomb them, Lord! Isn't that what, I mean, what is he expecting to happen? He's expecting fireballs to start flying out of the sky and destroying it, right? Look at verse 2 back in our text. It says, And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my same when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Now, when it says repentest thee of the evil, evil means harm. And so when God harms people, it's not, you know, because evil can mean, like, that person's evil or wicked or whatever, but when God does something, when he does evil, then that means he's doing harm to people that deserve it. He's not just an evil, you know, but people just, you know, there's a difference. So, but isn't this funny? So he says, didn't I tell you that this was going to happen, God? Like, he knew that if he went and preached that those people would get saved, and that's his problem, that he, God still wanted him to do that, and then when he did it, they got saved just like he thought, and so he's angry about, that's what he's angry about. What a weird attitude, what a weird thing to be upset about. And so that really makes it worse for me, you know, that little detail right there, because what makes it worse is that he is just straight up saying that he disobeyed because he knew that God would save them. That's why he ran, because he didn't want them to be saved, right? He literally did not want them to be saved, and unfortunately we have a Jonah generation that we're living in right now where a lot of Christians don't want other people to be saved, because, you know what, if our gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost. We have the gospel, it's our job to proclaim the gospel, and if they're not getting it, we're hiding it, right? Because they're not getting it, it's got to be hidden, and when you hide it, it just shows that you're an apathetic Christian that doesn't want to help people. Obviously, you know, we get to times in our life where if you're injured or sick or, you know, the ladies are pregnant or, you know, you get too old to do it, you know, when you get old, things hurt, you know, and I'm only 49 and I don't feel like I'm that old, but I hurt from things that I've had happen to me in my life, and, you know, I've got to have hip surgery here pretty soon. Why? Because I got into a motorcycle accident when I was 19, you know, I just had a lot of, I got in a main break and popped my hip out of socket, Ramon knocked me down in a flag football game, you know, that was the end of it. Yeah, a little Ramon, you think he's little, but he hits like a Mack truck. So anyway, yeah, he's solid, he really is. We did some usher training, he injured our person that was supposed to be the training dummy, so he just touches them, they, ah, you know. But anyway, I'm sorry, brother Ramon. But so, yeah, let's look at Isaiah chapter 28 verse 11, Isaiah chapter 28 verse 11. So, you know, people will say, well, I just don't, I don't think I, it's my gift to go soul winning. I don't think it's my gift, I don't think God gifted me to do that. Well, you don't have to be gifted to do it. I've seen some of the shyest people ever give the gospel to people and they get people saved. It just has to do with your ability to obey. Will you do it or won't you do it? But if you can't do it, if you physically can't do it for some reason, then you can pray for people to get saved. I mean, there's plenty of people that need to be saved. You could just pray for the soul winners when they're out doing their thing and you can have some part in it. You know, we, we only have a certain amount of time between the dashes of our life. You know, that first dash is the year you're born on your gravestone and the second one is the day you die. But obviously for the first several years of your life, I mean, for some years you can't talk, you can't read, you can't write. And so you're limited there and then you're limited on the back end depending on how old you get. You know, you can only walk up flights of stairs and stuff for so long before you lose that ability. And you don't know, we're like literally a car wreck away, we're an injury away, we're a fall off the ladder away, we're a slip on the ice away from never being able to go again. So we should treat it like it's an emergency that we actually have a weekly time when we go soul winning. Look at Isaiah 28 verse 11, it says, For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. So God will use even the person that stutters and sputters and has a hard time preaching. Does he say with the stammering lips, what does that talk about? It's talking about someone that stutters. With stammering lips and another tongue, different languages, will he speak to this people? So God can use a man to preach that maybe just doesn't have a great oration and able to preach, you know, like a silver tongue orator. But, I mean, apply this to soul winning. You don't have to be some great speaker, you don't have to sound like Casey Kasem or whatever. If you know, some people are like, who's that? Me and Alex know, that's all that's important, brother Rick. Miss Mary knows who it is, right, Casey Kasem, weekly top 40. Okay, but anyway, so, you know, you don't have to have some gift of gab to be able to go soul winning, you just have to be able to show people what the Bible says and ask them questions, explain verses. You know, and you can do it as scared as a rabbit or you can do it as confident, but God wants us to do it. He wants us to get out there and do it. And if God can and did use somebody who literally hated people to get saved, then he can use anybody to get anybody saved. And has and does. So, you don't have to like anybody, you don't even have to like them, but you can still get them saved. You can be the meanest, only cuss in the world and you can still go up and still give the gospel to somebody and they'll still get saved. I mean, if Jonah can, you know, if the worst attitude soul winner ever goes and preaches to a people and 120,000 people get saved, then, you know, obviously that's just showing, it's the power of the message. Because Jonah was saved, it's the power of the preaching, it's the power of God's word. He said, preach unto them the preaching that I bid thee. So, when God says, hey, preach what I say, he was a prophet, God spoke through this man. And so, we don't really have to have the greatest attitude, but we, you know, we do have to just do it. So, he didn't really, he had a choice, but what happened when he didn't want to go? I mean, it just shows you that God can and will punish you for not doing part of your job. Because, you know, when the Bible says to put on the full armor of God, do you know that your feet are part of it? You know, that you're supposed to have the shoes on also. It's not just, I mean, because if you just have the helmet, you have the breastplate, you have all the armor of God, but then you just don't have any shoes on at all. I mean, you're missing part of your armor, aren't you? You don't have the sword, you don't have the shield. I mean, you have the sword, you have the shield, and then you're just barefooted. Wouldn't that be weird? I mean, if you, imagine that picture of some hairy-toed dude with corns on his toes and gnarly-looking feet. But God, you know what, if you put the spiritual shoes on and go out and do what God said, he says those feet are beautiful. How beautiful are the feet of them upon the mountains that, you know, that bring glad tidings of good things. You know, that preach the gospel. So, and then let's look at point number two. Jonah throws a pity party. Jonah throws a pity party. And he really, you know, he's already mad, but now he's just going to go full whiner right here in verse number three. It says, Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech Thee my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. So he's just like, kill me, God. You know, you let these people get saved, just kill me. It's like, what a bizarre, like, way to act. It's just, I mean, I just can't even understand why, how someone could think that way. But obviously we see it in the Word of God. You know, but he's whining. He's throwing a little pity party. Oh, feel sorry for me, just kill me, God. And so sometimes we can get focused on ourselves rather than other people. And, you know, the Bible says that Jesus died for others. You know, he cared for others. He did those things for other people. And what did he really benefit out of the perfect life he lived, the coming and leaving his glory to live that perfect life, and, you know, what, to get teased his whole life? Oh, there's good old Jesus cleaning his room, like his mommy said, you know. Well, I'm sure he heard all kinds of stuff like that growing up. His brothers didn't even like him. They tried to get him killed. And John chapter, what is it, John chapter seven, I think? He's going to the feast. They're like, you should go out in the open, Jesus. You should just go, you know, it's like all these people are trying to kill him. He's like, yeah, I'm not going to go with you guys, but I'm going to, you know, and then he ends up showing up, right? But they didn't like him. Even his own brethren hated him. You know, the people he grew up with, it's like you think you would love perfect Jesus, but even his brothers didn't like him. Because just like nobody liked Joseph either. You know, like here comes that dreamer, daddy's favorite. You know, and then they sold him into slavery and all the other things. They were going to kill him. So but, you know, we shouldn't be focused on ourselves. We should think about other people. And some people just go to really big depths of extreme of self pity. And, you know, they just this guy, he's just like unreasonably trying to drop drop off of a jump off of a cliff. You know, a grand canyon size cliff to just he's just really hyping up. This is just weird. My life, take my life from me because you got people saved, God. Like that's just I mean, am I the only one who thinks that's weird to have that attitude? But, you know, he's he's having a mental meltdown, really. He's having a breakdown here over people getting saved. And, you know, he's being a spoiled brat prophet, basically. And the modern modern psychological term for what's happening here with Jonah is what's called a hissy fit. Right. He's having a hissy fit pity party. So and I did see this comment on Facebook. It says your pity party on Facebook should be should have been under events. So I could have chosen whether or not to attend. You know, they put they put this about so you know, because people go on Facebook and social media and they like throw these little fits on there. It's like you realize how weird you seem when you're doing that. Like, I don't know. So this is how bad people's hearts can get. Look at verse four, it says, Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. And there made him a booth and sat it under the shadow till he might see what would become of the city. So even though the people got saved, even though they turned from their evil way after getting saved, I think that he feels like this pity party is going to turn God's mind and make him destroy him. I mean, why else would he do this? Like, it just doesn't make rational sense why he would still go out and go, well, he wants to see what might become of the city. He thinks because of his hissy fit that God's going to change his mind and just kill all these people because he doesn't like them or something. That's that kind of seems to be what he's doing here. It's pretty it's just weird. I just don't know any other way to explain it than the fact that it's just bizarre. And so so point number three is that that God teaches Jonah some hard lessons on compassion. Jonah teaches or God teaches Jonah some hard lessons on compassion. Now, God's going to teach him a lesson and he's going to use things that that were that. Well, let's just look at the verse. Verse six says, And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. So he makes this like little shack that he's in and he's like waiting for the city to get destroyed, maybe making his popcorn or something. I don't know what he's doing, but it's not enough to keep the heat out, obviously. So God does something nice for him. He prepares his gourd. And, you know, gourds are things in like the pumpkin family, squash and all that kind of stuff. But it doesn't necessarily have to you know, I'm not thinking big giant pumpkins are growing over the top of them or anything. But, you know, some kind of gourd that covered him up. It's a vine type plant. And to cover him from to deliver him from his grief, because isn't that what happens when you get somebody saved is that you deliver them from their grief. And, you know, what was his grief? That he was hot. What's hell like? It's hot, isn't it? And so when we get someone saved, we're literally delivering them out of the fire like a fireman. You know, a fireman's job is to save people in a burning building, right? Or to save a kitten out of a tree or whatever they do. And, you know, so he's teaching them. He's like, hey, well, Jonah's in grief right now just in the physical sun. Let me teach him a lesson. Jonah's glad that the gourd came and covered him, right? He's glad he got some relief. But God prepares fruit also, you know, just like he prepared these gourds. And, you know, save people that he prepares to be able to come up and be shade for the fire awaiting them in hell and to deliver sinners from their grief so that those people that get saved by his vine, right? He is the vine, right? And we're supposed to abide in that vine. So Jesus being the root of that vine, he uses us to bring forth more fruit. Proverbs 11 verse 30 says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that win the souls is wise. I've heard preachers explain this verse away and say this is talking about money. I'm like, how do you get money out of that? These, you know, Baptists that like to preach a tithing sermon every time they take up the offering or whatever. But, you know, to me it's saying the fruit of the righteous, people that are saved is a tree of life and he that win the souls is wise. So our job as a soul owner, as a Christian, is to complete the cycle with somebody else, to make another tree like yourself. Because when you're getting people saved, you're bringing forth fruit unto God and then you want to replicate that process. You want to plant a seed for somebody else and that seed gets watered and that seed grows up into another tree and then that tree eventually produces fruit also. So when we produce fruit and we, it's like when, you know, we get somebody saved out soul winning, they come to church, they get baptized, they start going soul winning and then, you know, they're in church and so you're completing that cycle and then when they win their first soul and they continue in the faith and, you know, then you've replicated that righteous tree, that process. So, I mean, God uses plants and planting a lot to talk about soul winning. But it's interesting that he uses this gourd as that shade for the hot heat. So he's basically showing a picture that this is what you're supposed to do. When people are in grief, when people are exceedingly, you know, going through, you know, hard times in their life and they're not saved, then we come up with the shadow of our gourd and we preach the gospel to them and then they have relief from the heat that's awaiting for them in hell for all eternity. So turn to John chapter 15, John chapter 15. John chapter 15 verse 1. The Bible says, I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. So now if you're a soul winner, God's going to bring forth more fruit in you. He's going to purge things out of your life. You know, and so when we get saved and when we start becoming a soul winner, we should allow God to purge us and purging hurts. You know, getting things clipped off of you hurts sometimes and you're giving up things that you've loved for so long. But, you know, if those things are wrong or they're hindering you towards being a great soul winner or being a soul winner in general, then you should be willing to let God prune you. You know, getting certain friends out of your life. You know, because those friends are going to influence you back into the things that you used to be doing, whatever those things were. And, you know, it's just certain things. Maybe it's just a hobby that you do that's taking away from a time that you could be at a soul winning time. Instead of tinkering with your car during the soul winning time, why don't you just go soul winning and let God purge you of those things. I'm not saying just don't ever have fun, only go soul winning, only read the Bible, only go to church. That's it. That's all you ever do. Not saying that. Because obviously I think that we should have some fun. I think we should have some hobbies. I think that we should do some stuff. But if that's all you're doing and you're not putting any time into your spiritual life, and any time into your soul winning, and any time into your Bible reading, any time into your prayer life, any time into your church attendance, then you're not really living the Christian life, are you? Everything else is more important to God than God is. And we have to be a little more able to take the purging that God wants to put us through. Because He does that because He wants you to bring forth fruit. Look back in Jonah chapter 4 verse 7. Jonah chapter 4 verse 7 says, But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, and he fainted and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry even unto death. So he's sad that poor baby gourd died. You know, his little pet gourd died, and he's angry about it. Why? Because the sun's beating upon him, and if you live in this eastern side, you've probably felt the vehement east wind hit you before, especially in the gourd area. But he's so angry that he's ready to die over it. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for that which thou hast not laboured, neither made us to grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night. So God uses the gourd that he prepared, and a worm that he prepared, and a vehement east wind that he prepared, so that Jonah would see things from God's point of view. I don't know if it ever sunk into him, because the chapter doesn't really leave off that, oh, and Jonah really got the lesson. It doesn't say that. He's still mad, as far as I know, after the book is complete, but it should help us to see the picture, that we get upset about things that don't really matter, and we're so upset about these certain things, but these are literally people that God died for, that the Lord Jesus Christ died for, and he wants them to be saved, and you don't care about them, but you care more about a plant than you do about a human soul. People care more about their animals than they do about a human soul, and that's just, that is wicked. It is. So if your plants are keeping you from going soul-wining, cut them, chop them down, and throw them in the fire. If I only got to have my special lily that I bought from Israel or whatever, it's just like, I got to water it every day, and I can't go out for soul-wining, because I got to make sure this plant's growing. That's kind of, or the people that are prostrate in their yard when we come up soul-wining, they're literally bowing down with their knees to the ground, digging in dirt, planting plants, and they don't have time for God. I mean, how many Sundays have you gone out, and people are just working in their yard? And it's just like, that's more important than God? And for Christians to do that, it's just a shame. It literally is. So He made man. They're His creation. They're His living souls that will go to a literal fire forever unless they get saved. He loves man and has pity on man and prepared the way for him to be saved when some worm, his people, go against God's program, have no love, have no compassion for the unsaved, and the eternal state of those people They care more about some stupid hanging fuchsia in the front of their yard than they do about the soul hanging in the balance that they could go and cause. Look, the more people we have out there, the more ground we can cover, and we can do more soul-wining for the Lord. But let me just tell you something. This is the majority of Christians today. They care more about their plants, they care more about their puppies, their rescue puppy, than they do about people's souls. They'll have 18 cats, but they care about those cats more than they care about people. They might have some dog that's like, oh, I can't do it. I got to stay home with my dog. You know, I mean, there comes a time when it's time to pop a dog back to the dirt where he came from. And I'm not saying to do it yourself, but they're animals, folks. They don't have souls that live forever, but people do. So think about that. Now, look at verse 11. And really, Jonah's just getting a small taste of hell, really. That's what God's getting. He's just giving him a small taste of what hell is like, but just a very small picture of it, because obviously, hell's a lot hotter, there's no water, there's nothing to drink, and you're just there forever and ever and ever. So he's just getting this small taste of it, and he said, I want to die. But, you know, the people in hell are conscious, and they can't leave. They don't have a gore to come help them. I mean, it's past time for them. So, I mean, obviously, whether Jonah got this message or not, we should get this message. Look at verse 11. It says, And should not I spare Nineveh that great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle. So God does care for the cattle, too, but they are way in second place. We're worth way more than, you know, all these sparrows and whatever. You know what, and I would, if I had a choice between one person I know is going to get saved, and then every dog in the world dying at the same time, and I could pick between the guy that's going to get saved and all the dogs in the whole world, and I had to push a button for one of them. You know which one I'd push every time? All the dogs to die at the same time, and that might piss people off, and I know fluffy is important to you, and whatever your dog's name is, I don't know, but I'm just saying in between a soul going to heaven, even a soul that you don't like, animals don't have souls like humans do. You know, that movie All Dogs Go to Heaven, I don't think that's actually true. So I'm not saying, like, be mean to animals. I'm not saying be cruel to animals. I'm just saying in the grand scheme of things, what's more important, someone who has an eternal soul that's going to roast and hellfire for all eternity, or every dog in the world that's just going to go and go back into the earth? I think dogs will be in heaven. You know, maybe. I don't know. Josh doesn't believe that, but no, I'm just kidding. But seriously, I mean, that might seem like an extreme thing for me to say about the push and the button. I like dogs. I mean, I pet a dog today that I thought was going to kill me at first, but you know, Yakima's got a lot of dogs, and we were rattling all the gates and stuff, but for some reason, we didn't see the Beware of Dogs sign on this one house, and, like, we walked in, and I was just like, oh, yeah, he's like, dog. I was like, ah, and it was like this big, white pit bull-looking dog. I didn't see its face at first, but it was like, what do you think it was, like a boxer mix of something? Like a boxer pit bull mix or something? It was a stout dog. It came out, and I was just like, oh, man, we're dead. But he came out, and he was nice. But then he started barking when I knocked on the door, so he got out of there really quick. But you got to be careful. Anyway, sorry. Let me get the last verses in here. So John 4-11 says, should, oh, yeah. So Mark 9 spells out for us, and I'll just read these verses, but if you want to, actually, Matthew 9, excuse me, not Mark. Yeah, just go ahead and turn there. It'll be the last place we turn, then it'll all be done. So Matthew chapter 9. See, God does care about people. He cares about animals, too, but he cares about people more. And he says in verse 35 in Matthew chapter 9, it says, and Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. And when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Look, sheep do not thrive well without a shepherd. They tend to get in all sorts of trouble, eat things that can hurt them, and easily fall prey to predators. The condition of the sheep is directly related to the care of the shepherd, isn't it? And Jesus Christ cares for people, and you can see that when he saw that they had no shepherd, that he had compassion on them. You know what compassion is? It's a care for someone that makes you move to do something. It's not just say, oh, it's too bad that that person lives in that mud hole. Oh, you know, I'll send him a penny every month or whatever, or just to not do anything. But when you have compassion on someone, it moves you to do something for them. And so what did he do? He went and preached everywhere and healed all their diseases and forgave their sins and got them saved. Look at verse 36, it says, but when he saw the multitudes, oh, excuse me, verse 37, I'm sorry. Then saith he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborer are few. This is a very famous set of scriptures here. Why did he say that? Why did he say that? Because it is true. It's true then, it's true today. So when you dip out of soul wanting, when you dip out of serving the Lord, you're making it even fewer. You're responsible because you're hearing these words right now, you know what the truth is, and to just turn away from that, you're making it worse. But what we should be doing is trying to bring more laborers in, praying for those laborers, because look what it says, pray therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. So we need to have some compassion. We need to care about people, and sometimes people are contrary to themselves. We look at them and we think, this person's a mess. Look at their house. Look at how they live. Look at their beer bottles all over the front, and it disgusts us because we don't want to be there. We don't want to be like that, but we still should just kind of put that stuff aside when we see those things, and if they will listen, if they will hear the message, then we need to hate the garment spotted by the flesh. Don't worry about that stuff, and pull them out of the fire. Some say with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. That's what the Bible says, and we're supposed to have compassion. So caring about them despite what they're in right now, because we were also trapped at some point, and maybe it was a long time ago when you got saved. It was a long time ago for me, but I do remember where I came from, and I do remember that somebody took the time and shared the Bible verses with me, and had me call upon the name of the Lord many, many years ago, and I got saved, and it changed my life forever. That I know is true, and it changed my destiny in that moment to heaven instead of going to hell, and that's what it's all about, and it's not about having shade, watching some city get newt because you've been watching too much Fox News, and you care more about people getting killed, and you care about people getting saved. You know what I'm saying? We got to just not have that mentality. When people have that mentality, it's just really wicked. We need to have an attitude that what we do does matter, because it does, and quit worrying about your plants dying, and start worrying about souls that are dying. Stop worrying about your puppy dog, and start worrying about real souls. We need to love people that the Lord died for, and do what we can to pull them out of the fire. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for the Scriptures tonight, for the Book of Jonah, how powerful of a tool it is to teach us, and help us to have compassion on the lost. I pray, Lord, that we wouldn't have that attitude, and we would never get apathetic to having people saved, Lord, and that we would always be a soul winning church here. There would always be a soul winning church here in Yakima that would reach the people with the gospel. Lord, help us. Lord, we pray for laborers to go into the harvest, Lord. We pray for more laborers to be sent to this church, Lord. I pray that the people that are silent partners right now, that Lord, they would get trained up, and that Lord, you'd send us more silent partners, so that we can expand, and reach this area for the gospel, and that you would build this church, Lord, the way that only you know how to do, the way that only you can do. We pray these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Amen. All right, so we're not going to do a song yet. We're going to take, does anybody need to get up and use the bathroom real quick? You can go ahead and end the live with the gospel, and do the Lord's Supper. Let me give you five minutes. Amen.