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Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Good afternoon and welcome to Church Foundation Baptist Church. You can find your seats and grab your blue psalm books and turn to page number 429. We're going to be singing Take the Name of Jesus With You. Song 429 Take the Name of Jesus With You. Let's see how I get Baptist Church on that first verse. Take the name of Jesus with you, child of sorrow and of all. It will joy and comfort give you, take it then wherever you go. Precious name, oh how sweet, hope of earth and joy ahead. Precious name, oh how sweet, hope of earth and joy ahead. Take the name of Jesus ever as a shield from every scare. If temptations round you gather, breathe that holy name and prayer. Precious name, oh how sweet, hope of earth and joy ahead. Precious name, oh how sweet, hope of earth and joy ahead. Oh the precious name of Jesus, how it thrills our souls with joy. When his loving arms receive us, when his songs our drums employ. Precious name, oh how sweet, hope of earth and joy ahead. Precious name, oh how sweet, hope of earth and joy ahead. Have the name of Jesus bowing, falling prostrate at his feet. King of kings in heaven will crown him when our journey is complete. Precious name, oh how sweet, hope of earth and joy ahead. Precious name, oh how sweet, hope of earth and joy ahead. Amen. Good seeing you this afternoon. Brother Bill, could you open up a word of prayer? Amen. Our second song will be song number 333. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. Song number 333 in your blue hymn books. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. Song 333, let's sing it out together on the first. I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus. Since I found in him a friend so strong and true. I would tell you how he changed my life completely. He did something that no other friend could do. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There's no other friend so kind as he. No one else could take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much he cared for me. All my life was full of sin when Jesus found me. All my heart was full of misery and book. Jesus placed his strong and loving arms around me. And he led me in the way I ought to go. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There's no other friend so kind as he. No one else could take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much he cared for me. Every day he comes to me with new assurance. More and more I understand his words of love. But I'll never know just why he came to save me. Till someday I see his blessed face above. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There's no other friend so kind as he. No one else could take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much he cared for me. Good singing. Welcome to Church Foundation Baptist Church. Let's take our bulletins and go through some quick announcements here. If you need a bulletin, would you lift up your hand? Brother Sean will bring you a bulletin. On our front cover we have the verse of the week. It says, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. That's Isaiah chapter 40, verse number 8, great verse there. And our service times, our Sunday morning service is 10.30 a.m. Sunday evening service is 3.30 p.m. And we are still in our series pictures of the Antichrist and I'm going to be covering Nebuchadnezzar this Sunday night. Thursday Bible study is, tonight we're back in Titus, chapter number 3. And I'm going to try my best to finish it off in one fell swoop tonight. And then we'll be moving on to another book. And our so many times are listed below. We had so many today, Brother Robert, any of your salvations? No? Okay, we'll praise God for people that go out in this heat and try and save someone out of the fire. If you look down, you can see our praise report, salvations, baptisms, attendance totals. Now, we had, so I guess I announced that there were 65 baptisms. I guess there was a correction to that in the Poland soul winning trip that Brother Ian went on. It actually was 62. So, it was still in the 60s. So, still praising God for that. And I guess the attendance was 90, I said 100. So, it's Baptist numbers, you know, you kind of round up to the nearest. Anyway, I'm kidding. But anyway, our next things coming up are August, at the end of August here, we have a soul winning trip to the Tacoma area. It says Furcrest, but we might change the location. It's going to be up there somewhere in the Seattle area, though. And then we have September 29th through October 1st is the Yakima soul winning trip. And we'll have sign ups and things like that coming up for that trip. And then there's the Blaine Washington soul winning trip. And that will be October 28th and 29th. And we'll have the border crossing preaching event. So, that'll be Saturday the 29th. Anyway, other than that, you all know the drill on the rest of this. We're a family integrated church. Make sure you're utilizing the mother baby rooms and dad baby rooms according to your need. And that the rows are for families with young children. The back rows, excuse me. And the gliders or rockers are for pregnant and nursing mothers and elders only. Please know men in the mother baby rooms during the services or moms in the dad baby rooms during the service. And then let's see, we got no unattended children in the building at any time. Please make sure that you're not eating in the assembly area, which is this area right here, unless it's otherwise specified that you can. And then escorts are still available by the ushers upon request. The ushers are the guys that usually take up the offerings and they're supposed to have pins on their jacket. And I'm forgiving the jackets today. I'm wearing one right now because I'm a professional and that's what professionals do. But no, I'm just kidding. It is a little warm in here, so I might not preach with my jacket on. But anyway, I'll forgive the ushers for not wearing jackets tonight. So at any time that it gets over like 90 degrees. Anyhow, let's see, the online donations are available on our website. And just a note, for some reason it's cutting out what the totals are. I didn't take that out. The total is there, but that box needs to be fixed. So we'll just have the last month's totals on this coming week's bulletin. And then we sang Happy Birthday to Eileen and Owen. Sarah Luwai is coming up and Alex. So we'll have some birthdays to sing to this coming Sunday. That's all I have for announcements, except for the fact that the fence is going to be getting built. I know I mentioned that, but there were some people that probably weren't here when I brought that up, but the fence is going to get built here. So we can probably do some cool stuff outside without worrying about being accosted by homeless people. So anyway, that's all I've got for announcements. Let's sing another song and we'll receive the offering. All right, our next song will be song number 377, Under His Wings. Song number 377, Under His Wings. Song 377, let's sing it out together. On the first. Under his wings I am safely abiding Though the night deepens and tempests are wild Still I can't trust him, I know he will keep me He has redeemed me and I am his child Under his wings, under his wings Who from his love can sever Under his wings my soul shall abide Safely abide forever Under his wings what a refuge in sorrow How the heart yearningly turns to his rest Often where earth has no balm for my healing There I find comfort and there I am blessed Under his wings, under his wings Who from his love can sever Under his wings my soul shall abide Safely abide forever Under his wings how a precious enjoyment There will I hide till life's trials are o'er Sheltered, protected, no evil can harm me Resting in Jesus I'm safe evermore Under his wings, under his wings Who from his love can sever Under his wings my soul shall abide Safely abide forever Amen. Good to see you, brother. Sean, come. Would you bless the offering for us? Father, I thank you for this day, Lord. I thank you for bringing us here to church today, Lord. I pray that you bless all aspects of service, Lord. Bless the preaching, Lord. Give us ears to hear the message. I pray that you bless this offering. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, we're going to go to the prayer requests tonight. Please just bow your heads with me and we'll go ahead and pray to the Lord. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for the opportunity and the privilege to come to you in prayer in Jesus' name. And, Lord, we just ask that you would, Lord, just protect our church and the churches that we have planted around the world and also the churches of our dear friends and pray that you just watch over each and every single leadership in these churches and all the folks that are faithful and, Lord, those that come to our churches, Lord, I pray that you just bless them and help them and their families and their marriages and their children, Lord. I just pray that you would, Lord, just watch over us. Put a hedge of protection about us. And, Lord, we also ask for wisdom in finding a church building for our church plant in Spokane. And also we ask that you would watch over especially Steadfast Baptist Church, Lord, and also our church in England right now that's going through a little bit of turmoil. I pray that you just bless them and watch over them specifically. And we also pray for the mothers with child in our church, Ms. Chantelle, Ms. Sybil, and Ms. Amy. And we pray that you would just bless their pregnancies and, Lord, that they would have safe and healthy deliveries and that all involved would be healthy and safe. And, Lord, we ask for Brother Steven who hurt his leg a couple weeks ago. I pray that you would help him to feel better, Lord, and to heal up quickly. And also for Ms. Alejandra is too unspoken for the Bada family and unspoken prayer requests. For Ms. Sherry, two unspoken requests. For Ms. Julene, an unspoken prayer request. For the Velasquez family, Lord, we ask for prayer for their move. And, Lord, that you would help them muster up the strength. Lord, moving is hard. And let's pray that you would just help them as they try to make this change moving from far away. And, Lord, we're so thankful for their family. And we just pray that you would bless them as they begin the process of moving. And also for Ms. Sheila, Lord, we pray for her pain to ease up and that she would get some answers for the appointment that she has on the 19th. For Ms. Sarah Miller, we pray for her physical health and work opportunities that will allow her to have Matthew with her. And also for Ms. Leilani, that she'll continue to receive good results from her appointments. Lord, we also ask that you watch over Brother Chris who's over in a foreign country right now, Lord, serving in the military. We just pray that you keep them safe. And also for the Luwai family, that you would help them to get over the sickness that's been going around in their place. And for the Harrington family, we also pray for their spiritual unspoken, for their children, and also, Lord, for Penny, James, and Heidi who both have cancer. And, Lord, we just ask that you would bless the services tonight and that I do have a special unspoken for myself, Lord. You know what the need is, and I just pray that you would bless that, Lord, and we ask all these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen. All right. Good evening. Would you please turn with me to the Book of Titus, Chapter 3. Book of Titus, Chapter 3. You have a Spanish Bible. I think it's Tito. Book of Tito. Is that right, Ms. Solomon? Okay. Titus, Chapter 3. In Titus, Chapter 3, the Bible reads, Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will, that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is inherited after the first and second admonition, reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself. When I shall send Artemis unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis, for I have determined there to winter. Bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto them. And let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful. All that are with me salute thee. Greet them that love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen. Brother Brandon would you pray for us? Amen. Alright, we're going to get through this chapter of what takes all night. No, I'm just kidding. Hopefully it won't take all night. But we're in Titus chapter number 3. And the title of the sermon tonight is, Things to Put into Their Minds. Things to Put into Their Minds. And of course, just kind of a little bit of background about this book is, it's written to a pastor named Titus. And Paul trained this man in the ministry and sent him to Crete, that he would ordain elders in every city in that island. And basically, we have the qualifications for the bishop in here, and then some things that Paul specifically said that Titus should preach. And there's a lot of different things that he said that they should preach, but we kind of went through chapter 2, and we talked about the aged men, the aged women, and then of course the young men and the young women, and then also servants. So, and that's, and then I also preached on Sunday about, so I preached three sermons out of chapter 2. I preached about the blessed hope and kind of finished Titus. It's kind of just a little wind down to our last chapter here. And let's look at verse number 1. And we have, I do have six points tonight, but just don't get all scared. Alright, there's only five pages of notes, so we're ten. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, point number 1 tonight is, put it into their minds to obey the laws of the land. So the title of the sermon is things to put into their minds, but point number 1 is put it into their minds to obey the laws of the land. Look at Titus chapter 3 verse 1. It says, put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates. So these are basically our leaders and our rulers that we're supposed to be subject unto them. So we are supposed to respect our leadership in the office, or at least the offices of those leaders. And if we can't necessarily respect that person because they're ungodly, you know, people take these things to extreme. We've got to understand that there are wicked and evil rulers that are out there that are really evil. I mean, praying for the Antichrist, I mean, people are like, well, we're supposed to pray for our rulers. Are you going to pray for the Antichrist? Because he's going to be everybody's ruler one day. There will be one prayer for him, okay? So, but anyway, but like where things aren't like out of bounds and going and asking you to break God's commandments and God's laws or intruding on your family in some weird and ungodly way, you know, we're supposed to obey the laws of the land and be subject unto principalities and powers. So when a cop pulls you over, you pull over, you don't run. I know that these days, if you don't have a license plate on the back of your vehicle, or if they break through your barricade, the cops aren't supposed to chase you anymore or something like that. Yeah, that's real. But there's people out there that don't have license plates on. What are they doing? They're trying to avoid being detected by the police. Now, law abiding citizens are going to get their tabs every year or every two years or whatever it is, Oregon or Washington. But, you know, those are just basic things that we kind of have to do. And it's not the Bible, you know, basically is in agreement with the fact that we should have to do these things and not because we're not free, we are free, but there's going to come a day when there isn't going to be a tax man. There isn't going to be a gas man. The gas man isn't going to be able to hike up the prices like that because we won't need gas because hopefully we'll be able to fly at that time. But anyway, Romans chapter 13, let's look over at Romans chapter 13 and let's look at some scripture concerning this, this thing about putting it into their minds. Now, when I say put it into their minds, like even the title itself kind of sounds like, you know, things to put into their minds. This is what Paul is asking, put them in mind to be subject. So I kind of just took that term put them in mind and said put it in their mind because obviously Paul wants these things to be preached to people because, you know, if we were, you know, as Christians, if we were just always these anarchists that are, you know, most people that have some kind of belief right now or, you know, they'll blow things up or they'll, you know, they'll go down to the courthouse and rage because the law got passed that they didn't like and they'll just protest if it rains, if it's sunny, if it's cloudy, you know, whatever it is, they'll protest against the government over everything. And that's the kind of world we live in right now. I mean, the Supreme Court struck down Roe versus Wade and people are going crazy over it and basically the battle lines are being drawn but, you know, when it came into play, Christians were really upset about it but, you know, you didn't see them overthrowing places. I mean, of course, some radicals blew some abortion clinics up and stuff like that but for the most part, Christians know that they're not supposed to be violent and things like that these days. So anyway, Romans chapter 13, let's look at verse number 1. The Bible says, Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resists at the power resists at the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. Now, it's not talking about if you, you know, don't pay a speeding ticket, you're going to hell. Okay, that's not what this is talking about. This is talking about these powers that would enforce laws and that we're not supposed to resist them. And damnation just means that something bad is going to happen to you. It doesn't necessarily always mean you're going straight to hell, okay? So damnation can mean that some bad thing is going to happen to you. So it says, For the rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. So people are doing good things like, as a Christian, we go out and do good things, right? We go out and preach the gospel and sometimes the police come and tell us that we can't do that anymore, and they tell us to leave. It hasn't happened a lot lately, at least that I know of, but maybe they just gave up on trying to get us to stop doing it or whatever, but that would be a place where you would resist, you know, where you would say, you know what, and again, I'm not saying that we're supposed to jump on their police cars and, you know, burn them with fire and things like that, like other people might do, but what I'm saying is that, you know, obviously we can protest, but I mean, some hills are not worth dying on. You know, if the cop just says to leave, you know, we just want this, you know, stuff to stop, then you should just, you know, you could protest and you could tell them, you know, you could even, you know what, I wouldn't even be mad if you just said, you know what, I'm not leaving. I'm going to keep doing this. God told us to do this. I wouldn't be mad at you about it, but, you know, you could also live the fight another day. You know, the disciples, when they were beaten and told not to preach in the name of Jesus anymore, what did they do? They said we ought to obey God rather than men. So there is a higher power than the government. I know that our current government administration doesn't believe that so, but we do have a higher power than government. You know, I know that people that are secular and all this stuff, they say, well, God has no place in politics. Well, why don't you read the Old Testament? You know, there is a place for God in politics, and, you know, we got to understand that we don't live in Old Testament Israel, though it's, you know, that we're not living under the commandments of God. We're living under the authority of a humanistic government for the most part. Now, obviously, we're allowed to, you know, to act within these governments to a certain extent. If you look at all the world powers, you know, Joseph was able to get, you know, to get by in Egypt and, of course, rose up high into the government of Egypt. You had Daniel in Babylon who was able to rise up to great authority there. And then, of course, even in Rome, there was people that were parts of their government that got saved and were not always against what people in the Bible were doing. In fact, Constantine, you know, even though he instituted, like, what is known as the Catholic Church, basically changed their, quote, he changed their religion to Christianity, but, you know, the Catholic Church is definitely not Christian. It's just maybe that in name only somewhat. So, anyway, the rulers are not supposed to be bearers unto people that are doing good, all right? That's what the Bible says. So, God is the one that made government in the first place. God is the one that made the family and the home in the first place. And God is the one that instituted the local church. These are three different spheres of authority in our lives. And, you know, they really, you know, they coexist in a good way with God being the one that ordained them. But, you know, sometimes they shouldn't, they infringe on each other where they shouldn't. And sometimes we'll take what we believe and try to impose that on some senator or representative or whatever. And it doesn't necessarily always work that way. You know, like I said, we Christians or believers in the past have done well in different, you know, even Esther was promoted to be the queen of the Persian Empire and basically turned the heart of the king against Haman and all of his wicked sons. And then anybody that was trying to overthrow or to murder the Jews, they were trying to murder all the Jews in one day basically. And that got flipped around. So, I mean, all I'm saying is that we can exist within the governments that we're a part of. Now, obviously, if you're in North Korea or China, you're going to have major restrictions. But I'm sure that there's people that are saved in North Korea. I'm sure there's people that are saved in China. I'm sure there's people saved in, you know, Russia and some of these places. There's a remnant, a righteous remnant in probably every country in this world. But, you know, God didn't institute government so that they could just totally oppress Christians. But sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. And we've got to have the wisdom of when to, you know, fight a battle and when to, you know, walk away. You know, when you're getting the speeding ticket, you know, that's not the time to fight the government. Alright, just take your ticket. Beg for mercy. See if they'll just like, you know, let you get out of it. I found that, you know, you catch a lot more flies with honey than whatever, you know, vinegar or whatever. I don't know if that's a wrong, what's the real saying? Huh? Is it right? Okay. It didn't sound right. Maybe it's, yeah, anyway. Alright, it's Shekinah, right? Shekinah. So, anyway, the Bible says, Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. Now, again, that isn't always the case. But if you're just living a godly Christian life, you don't really have anything to necessarily worry about, except for persecution by some of these ungodly people. But, you know, God has a way of turning things around on people because Haman was like the second in command. Just, I mean, thinking about the book of Esther, I just was reading in it, so it's really fresh in my mind. But Esther, you know, everybody was about to get killed and then, you know, it got turned around. Mordecai, God used Mordecai to basically make the king think about what he had done to protect the king in an earlier time. He's like, what's been done for him? And even though Haman's like plotting and he hates Mordecai and he's like, you know, as long as Mordecai the Jew is standing in the gate and he refused to bow to me and he's just all upset about it, and, you know, he even had to like eat crow in front of the whole kingdom as Mordecai was paraded around in all the king's clothing and put on, you know, his animal and everybody was giving him all this glory and honor, and Haman was like, who else would get this honor besides me? You know, he's just so full of himself. He's, you know, pictures the Antichrist also. But anyway, he ended up having to eat crow and then the next day, you know, he gets a bag put over his head and he gets hung on the gallows that he made, you know, to persecute God's people. So, even though we might get persecuted in the government we're in, that doesn't mean that we're supposed to fight against the government. And I know there's bozos out there that think that we're supposed to, you know, fight the government tooth and nail, but that's not what God called us to do, is it? God called us to preach the gospel. Show me in here where it says we're supposed to fight against the government. We're not supposed to fight against the government and obviously we might not always be able to change minds and we live in a really wicked government in a really wicked time right now where basically the rule of law is not being followed in our country. And it's very sad to see there are some, you know, silver linings going on here and there, but for the most part, you know, we live under a very tyrannical government right now. So, I mean, even going as far as to raid a former president's home and try to trump up some charges against him. Excuse the pun there. But, you know, they just don't want him to run. But, you know, that's probably all just a big smoke and dog and pony show anyway. It's something to get our folks, you know, let's get the Christians focused on Trump and then we'll do all this other stuff behind the scenes. So, you know, politics is, you know, we're not called to necessarily get all political either. Now, if you want to be political about, you know, local stuff, you can be political if you want. Actually, you know, it's a free country. You know, you're free to do whatever you want, but, you know, if you get too focused on Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and, you know, Rush Limbaugh's dead, but whoever else, you know, the talking head of the week is, you know, you can just take your eyes off of Jesus. You know, we sang that song, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, a little while ago. We need to turn our eyes upon Jesus and, you know, let the things of this world grow strangely dim, right? So, anyway, let's look at verse number four. It says, He is a minister to God to thee for good, but if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. You know, I mean, Romans 13 is telling us we have, you know, we're supposed to be subject to these higher powers. We're supposed to be subject to principalities and powers in Titus 3.1, but it's also telling us to not be the bad guy because in reality, who's going to get nailed for doing something wrong against the government? It's going to be the Christian. They're going to come after you first for doing something. You know, it says he beareth not the sword in vain. He's the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. So, if you're doing evil, he's going to use those governmental forces to come at you and so you don't want that to happen. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also, for they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Obviously, there's a bunch of dues and taxes and stuff that we have to pay all the time and we don't really get a choice in the matter. God's just saying, just pay it. What did he tell Peter? He said, even though you're free, lest we should offend them, pay your taxes. So, he has Peter go and catch his fish. It's got a coin in its mouth and Peter uses that to pay the taxes for both of them. Even though he's kind of like, hey dumb dumb, you shouldn't have told them that I pay taxes because it seems to me like Jesus wasn't paying taxes until something got said about it. But anyway, that's another subject for another time. But anyway, so, but it says fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Look, you shouldn't just, you know, if a police officer, I know I keep bringing this up, but if a police officer pulls you over, you know, you should have respect. You know, they're not always, not every cop is bad. Not every cop is bad, but there's a lot of them that are. A lot of them are corrupt. But, you know, if you're getting pulled over for a ticket, the last thing that you want to do is just start throwing a fit and all this stuff. I mean, the likelihood of you even getting pulled over right now is very slim, unless you're driving on the state, you know, Alex is behind you in the state police or something. But, he's like, pull them over, I'm a revenger to get them for their, anyway. So, but let's turn over to 1 Peter 2 verse 13, 1 Peter 2 verse 13. You know, if you go before a judge, you're going to ask to call the judge your honor. And so, when it's saying honor to whom honor, you know, there's people that are, you know, the Bible is saying that we should be subject to these people. So, and they're not always going to give the right judgment. As a matter of fact, we know there's a lot of corrupt judges out there. You know, especially, I mean, just seeing all the stuff that happened to Steadfast, I mean, that's just a travesty of justice. It's just super wicked. There's no excuse for it. I mean, even all the evidence that he has that these bozos committed felonies against them, took it to the police, they did nothing. I mean, just a bunch of garbage. If that was any other business, they would be in jail for major felony crimes. Okay. And the judges that just overturned that because they're afraid of upsetting, you know, the sodomites that are just raging over everything that he says, then, you know, that's kind of what happened. I mean, it's a kangaroo court. You ever heard that term kangaroo court? That's basically, it's just a bunch of bozos, you know, railroading people that can't do anything to stop them. So, 1 Peter 2.13 says, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well. See how it's saying, you know, the government's basically set up, you know, for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well. I mean, and you don't really see a lot of that happening today. That's what God designed it to be. But man corrupts everything with their sinful, wicked hearts. And that's so, you know, God put them in place for a reason to do these things and protect us from enemies and things like that, but it's gone well beyond that. And one day Jesus Christ is going to be that rock that rolls down and destroys the image, which is the world system of governments, and then forever is going to be ruled by Christ. And guess what? By everybody in this room. Everybody that's saved in this room is going to rule and reign with Christ for a thousand years and, you know, really will rule and reign forever with him. So look at verse 15, it says, And so is the will of God that you, with well-doing, you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. Now we don't have a king in this country. The king was overthrown many, many years ago, which also I believe was wicked. That's just my personal opinion about that. But because the Bible says to honor the king, not to overthrow the king, okay? In the Old Testament, even as wicked as the kings of Israel were, God didn't just allow anybody to just overthrow those kings. In fact, sometimes he helped them even though they weren't godly people. Just helping them help the nation, basically. Or giving them a second chance to redeem themselves in some way, shape, or form. You know, it's like Ahab finally gets killed for what he did to Naboth and his vineyard, stealing his vineyard, bringing the false witnesses forward and things like that. But then he got judged by God, and everybody in his family got judged by God in that next generation, everyone that pisseth against the wall. And then also the king of Judah was also killed by Jehu. So he killed all of Ahab's sons, 70 of his sons, and then he goes and kills 42 of the sons of the king of Judah. And God cleans house how he does it, but it's not really our job to overthrow things, is what I'm saying. So now obviously, it's, you know, Elisha and Elijah preached against, you know, these kings, and there's nothing wrong with preaching against them. You know, Ahab was even like, you know, this one hates me, and he always just prophesies evil against me. And then he even tried to hold back a little bit, and then he's like, nah, you know, if you come back peaceably, then the Lord didn't speak by me. You know, so men of God are allowed to preach against these wicked rulers. John the Baptist lost his head over preaching against the wickedness of their king. And so, but you know, if you preach against, sometimes you preach and you're gonna get messed up for it. Like, you know, Jeremiah, thrown in prison multiple times, you know, threatened with death, smacked in the face for just preaching what the word of God said. You know, there's lots of times when the prophets or the priests would resist kings because they're out of their sphere of authority. One thing that comes to mind is Uzziah, who tried to offer, you know, burnt sacrifices and offerings or whatever, and then the priest, all the priests came in and withstood him, and basically, you know, walked him out of there, and he became leprous until the day of his death. You know, he just got into a realm that was not his. The religious duties was to the priests and the Levites. It wasn't to the king. The king was, that was not his job to offer burnt sacrifices. Same thing with Saul. Why did King Saul get taken away from being a king? Well, because he offered sacrifices and that was Samuel's job. And he said, wait for me to come. And even though he was late, you know, he was on island time or something, but he was late and, you know, God was not mad at Samuel for being late. He was mad at Saul for sacrificing something he wasn't supposed to sacrifice. So, again, you know, when you're messing around with realms that are not your job, God has a way of weeding those people out. Okay? So, it's not necessarily our job. It's definitely not our job to overthrow the government. So, and it's saying we're supposed to honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. And, you know, it says the king. It's like, well, what king? Well, I would say if you have a king, then you honor that person as their position is. If they're not asking you or not decreeing wicked things, then those things are not things that you should resist. But if it's telling you you can only have one child, you know, you see Moses resist, or Moses' parents resisted that ordinance. The ladies that, what is it called, the birthing ladies, midwives, yeah. The midwives, they resisted Pharaoh and said, no, we're not going to do that. They didn't say that to him, but, you know, they said it to themselves. And so, they would still just allow the boys to be born, and God blessed them for resisting that commandment. So, that is a, you know, that is a point where, you know, if it's coming to, you know, infanticide or, you know, all kinds of wicked stuff, that we can resist those things, and you know what, God's going to bless us for resisting those things, and He's going to take those other people down. So, anyway, so ever since Israel was subjugated, there's not been a government that's been run completely by God from that day to this day. Our kingdom is in all kingdoms of the world. We are the children of Israel by faith, and so there's children of Israel in every place in the world. God has scattered us abroad to preach the gospel and to start churches and teach the Bible. So, we have a spiritual nation now. Israel is just a small nation, the smallest of the nations. And you know what? Our religion, even though people would say, well, Christianity is huge, the amount of actually saved people is probably a lot more small. Even amongst Baptists. There's 6,000 Baptist churches in this country, and I'm sure a lot of the people in some of these churches are not saved. I'm sure that there's a lot that are, but as far as like red-hot, on-fire, soul-wanting Baptists that believe, you know, it's only faith that saves, that's a very rare commodity. So, anyway, so let's move on here to point number two. Be ready. We need to be ready to do and maintain good works. So, it's another thing that Paul is telling him to preach, is to do and maintain good work, so we're kind of just jumping to a completely different subject. But, you know, God doesn't want us to be a bunch of rabble-rousers and a bunch of troublemakers and a bunch of anarchists in the world that we live in. He wants us to stay focused on the mission. What's the mission? Getting people saved. Starting churches. You know, sending out missionaries, all this stuff. But he also wants us to be ready to do the work ourselves, because a lot of churches, and a lot of churches I've gone to in the past that have tons of missionaries, they have missionary walls, to all these different missionaries they support. And, you know, half of them probably, I would say probably more than half of them are just, you know, not really doing the job. Let's just be honest. Grab me the prayer letters and show them to me, and I'll show you people that aren't getting people saved. So I'll stick with Brother Stuckey. He was getting thousands of people saved. One missionary. He had more saved than all the missionaries on their walls. Anyway, so let's look back at Titus 3, verse 1 again. It says, in the second part of the verse, it says, to be ready to every good work. So we're supposed to be ready. What did the Apostle Paul say in Romans chapter 1? He says, I'm ready to preach the gospel. And so would you say preaching the gospel is a good work? Absolutely it's a good work. We're supposed to be ready to every good work. So what does ready mean? Well, you know, sometimes I just, I'll start defining words because sometimes it's nice to magnify what these words actually mean. So we'll say, get ready for, you know, I gotta get ready for work. What does that mean? Well, you're getting prepared to go to work. So you're fully prepared is what it means. Ready. In a suitable state for an activity, action, or situation. Fully prepared. That's a good definition of ready. Fully prepared. So what's Paul saying to Titus? He's saying to be ready, to put it in mind to preach to them, to be ready to every good work. Soul winning's not the only good work that we do. But it is the main good work that our church promotes and our church is fixated on because that's what Jesus came to do, to seek and save that which was lost. So good works. So what would be the definition of good works? Any activity, you know, mental, or actually let me read the definition for work. The definition for work is activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. So it's an activity. You know, Pharaoh said, hey, if you have any men of activity, you know, it's talking about people that are willing and ready to work. So work is something that's physical or mental work in order to achieve a purpose or result. Good works are any activity mental, which could be prayer, of course, or physical effort done for good in order to achieve a purpose or result for God. Brothers and sisters in Christ or just our fellow man. Because not everybody that we go to reach or do good works for is even saved. You know, we're trying to get that person saved. We're trying to plant the seed in their heart. But, you know, I'm sure that you might do good works for other people that aren't saved anyway. Maybe buy somebody lunch every once in a while or whatever it is. You know, we should still be ready to do good works. And that's just doing something, some kind of effort that's involved with you, whether it's mental. Praying for someone is a good work. Now, you'll say, well, you know, well, you're contradicting yourself, Pastor Almskin, because you say calling upon the name of the Lord is not a work. And I would say it's an act of faith. But if you're praying for someone, they're betterment. You know, this is a different thing that you're doing. You're asking God to bless somebody or help somebody or heal somebody or to have somebody get saved or whatever. You're asking God to do that so you're interceding on their behalf in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, to God the Father. And I would say that's a good work. Right? So even though it is an act of faith, nobody's ever seen God before, so you have to believe that God is. And He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Okay? So, good works. You know, we're supposed to be ready. That means fully prepared to do these good works. Some examples is like prayer, soul winning, alms, helping people that are basically kind of, you know, they're poor. But I'm not talking about lazy. I'm talking about poor. Or physical labor. You know, we have ladies that clean the church and we have men that help move stuff around here. We've got guys that do things with the video and the audio and camera work and just, you know, just moving stuff around, helping, you know, usher, all kinds of things. And those things are good works. You're doing something good for God's kingdom. It's got a purpose for good. And so all the things that we do that are an effort to, you know, promote God or to help in the house of the Lord to do these things. I mean, they had Levites that were paid to do these things in the Old Testament. Obviously, they didn't have YouTube back then. And I'm sure they were okay with that. But they didn't have Facebook and Facebook updates. But we just live in a different time now. You know, everybody can get involved in doing something for the Lord. Anybody in this church can do something for God. And God expects us to. Paul said to preach that, to be ready to every good work. Turn to Titus chapter 2 verse 14. Titus chapter 2 verse number 14. Titus chapter 2 verse 14 says, Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. So this is from Titus chapter 2. And I didn't get to this verse, so I figured I'd include it into this point because, you know, Titus seems to have that there's a theme about doing good works in this book. And so God wants Titus to focus on these things and to preach these things. Because you'll go to a lot of churches and 10% of the people do 100% of the work. And, you know, that just shouldn't be. But even if that is the dynamic, which it's not the dynamic here, I'm pretty sure everybody in this church goes soul winning, for the most part. And that is a good work. So, you know, everybody's doing something in this church for the Lord. Now zealous is being filled with or showing strong and energetic desire to get something done or see something succeed. And sometimes it takes zeal to get stuff done. It takes a person that gets on fire for God and has some zeal to try to get the work done. Whatever it is. You know, you just want to be a servant of God and just say, hey, here am I, Lord, send me. Send me to do the work. Pick me to do the work. I'll clean up. I'll throw the garbage away. I'll, you know, vacuum the floors or I'll set up the chairs or I'll set up the tables. Just I'll go soul winning. I'll lead a soul winning group. I'll lead the music. I'll play the piano. I'll play the instruments. It takes zeal to get this stuff done. And, you know, we should have a zeal for all the things that we do for God. And, you know, obviously we don't always, if it's 100 degrees outside, it's the hottest part of the day and you're going soul winning, that's not really fun. Okay, I get that. But your zeal and your duty is what gets you out there. Your zeal and your duty to do things for the Lord. Look at Titus 3.8. Titus 3.8. The Bible says in Titus 3.8, this is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. Well, why is maintaining good works good and profitable unto men? Because, you know, any man knows, you know, that works here or even the ladies, you got to maintain stuff. My wife has always maintained the vacuum cleaners in our house and, you know, she's the one that changes the belts and puts the new bags in and all that kind of stuff. I'm just kind of, you know, a Riri about stuff like that. And she's good at it. You know, she's good at just, there's certain things that she's good at. But if you don't maintain any tool, any item, you know, it's going to go to corruption. You can't just not put oil in your car and expect it to run forever. You can ride it till the wheels fall off and the wheels will fall off at some point. I remember me and my wife are at this gas station and the tire was low. We pulled in, I start pumping up the tire and the tire exploded in my face. You remember that? That's the first and only time that's ever happened to me, but it really made me have PTSD about filling up tires after that. But not only that, there was some drive-by shooter, some car that got shot up in a drive-by shooting pulled right up behind us right as I was changing it to the donut. I'm sitting there just trying to get all the lug nuts on. I was like, honey, we got to go. You know, that's a whole other side story. We were protected though. But, you know, maybe it's my lack of maintaining things that got it to that point. And that will happen with anything. Your yard will go out of control if you don't maintain it. My ideal situation for maintaining my yard is I, you know, when it starts raining and the grass is growing, I mow it every week or sometimes twice a week to keep it maintained. And then I just never water it for the rest of the summer and it dies. And then I just mow over the weeds and then I'm good until the fall comes again and it starts growing again. But we have to maintain things. I mean, just a car, I know, you know, this might go over a lot of people's heads, guys included in here. But you have to have your tires balanced and switched over sometimes. You got to take it to the Schwabis or do it yourself. And, you know, you can't just have one tire with 30% air and the rest was 75. It just does, your car's not going to run right. If you never check your oil and it runs out, your engine's going to blow up. You know, I mean, if you don't put gas in it, when it's empty, it's going to run out of gas. You know, these things are just things that you have to do with your vehicle. You have to take them in for the 60,000 mile, you know, whatever they do then. And then, you know, you're supposed to maintain your car so that it runs to the maximum that it can. So that's just an example of maintenance, you know, and even like the systems in this city. If you just let potholes go forever and not fix them or you never repave the roads, the roads are going to be annihilated. If you don't maintain the signs, if you don't maintain the trees, the trees will just grow into the road. There's just, you know, people don't realize how much stuff it takes to have like a modern civilization. It takes people to work and get that stuff done. You have to maintain the systems that are already in place. Now, when it comes to works, it says that those that have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. So what does that mean? Well, you know, every week you should be out there soul winning. Okay, that's maintaining your good works. You don't say, well, I'm going soul winning for the one and only time. It's like your, you know, Easter or Christmas for some people that come to church. But, you know, you go to church or you go soul winning one time for 59 minutes and 59 seconds. That's not maintaining good works. You know, if you're not just regularly in the habit of doing good works, then your spiritual life is going to be out of balance and your spiritual life is going to fail. And you're going to fail as a Christian because you have to have all these wheels and balance. I've often talked about, you know, church attendance, you know, Bible reading, prayer, and soul winning is like the four main things that you want to do to keep your spiritual life in balance. And if one of those things is out of balance, then, you know, your tire starts sounding weird. You know, it starts making some noise. You're like, oh, just ignore that. But if you ignore these things, these spiritual things that God wants you to do, then it's going to make the rest of your spiritual life go out of balance. And then, you know, before you know it, you're backslidden. You know, you're coming to church once a week on Sunday only, if Sunday only. You know, I got something to do. I got milk in the fridge. I just couldn't come. You know, we should regularly be in church as many times as the doors open in a week. You know, and we should make that a habit, a practice that we get into. So, that's maintaining good works. Look over, skip down to verse 14. It was mentioned again later on down in the chapter. It says, and let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses that they be not unfruitful. So, for necessary uses, see, there's some good works that aren't really necessary. It's a good work, but I mean, we want to promote the best good works to do. You know, and so obviously that's why soul wanting is the number one thing. Because saving someone's soul from hell is the most important thing you can do on this earth, okay? You know, that person was headed for hell. You went to a soul wanting time. You were maintaining your good works and went out soul wanting that time during that week. And then, you know, someone gets saved. You're like, well, yeah, but they don't always get saved. Well, sometimes they do though, don't they? And if you're making it a regular time or a regular opportunity to go soul wanting and do these things, you're going to get people saved. The Bible says they will doubtless come again, bringing their sheaves with them. You know, and you've got to sow, and sometimes it's in tears. Sometimes, you know, the raindrops are falling on your face like tears. You know, you've got to get out there and do it, you know, weather. Because if we said we're not going to do it when it's hot, too hot, we're not going to do it when it's raining, we would never go soul wanting here. I mean, because there really isn't that many different, you know, there might be a little bit of a fall and a little bit of a spring, but spring is rain too, okay? Winter is really bad rain, and then fall is just really nice. But for the most part, unless it rains, because that happens too. But we need to also understand that not all of these works are for, it says for necessary uses that they be not fruitful. So we've got to learn to maintain the good ones and get rid of the stuff that doesn't work. Like what? Like just tracks only. The rain comfort method. Let's make them as cute and cheeky as possible without anybody trying to get offended. But don't hand a homeless person one of his million dollar bill things because they get really mad. Garden ministries. Now I see how that could be fruitful, but isn't it more fruitful to actually go out and get the fruit off the tree, the low hanging fruit, or the hard to get fruit that's out in the highways and the hedges, than to actually grow literal fruit and expect people to get saved because you gave them a watermelon. I mean, I know of a church, a Baptist church, that that was their ministry. They don't have door to door soul winning, but they have the garden ministry. That's not, I mean, if one person gets saved out of a thousand corn on the cobs, you know, I don't know if that's as fruitful as going door to door and actually preaching the gospel. Feeding the homeless. Here's another one, and this is what all churches do. They all want to feed the homeless. You ever notice that the biggest dumpster fires and things like that are next to these, you know, I've just been looking around at the city lately, and it's like every time I see some big garbage pit of food that's been left there, and then they just move on, let somebody else come up and clean their mess up again, that it's next to some repentier sins or, you know, I believe I could lose my salvation church that just thinks that they're getting to heaven because they're a good person. And they're a good person because they gave this crackhead a bunch of donuts or something. I mean, that's unfruitful. We don't want to be unfruitful. We want to be fruitful. Lifestyle evangelism. Now, I just preached about a little bit of lifestyle evangelism last Sunday, and I think that it has its place, but it's not to be put in the place of actual soul winning. You know, people being able to see your life and that your life matches up to what you say you believe. That's good, but if that's all you do, if that's your main way of showing people Jesus Christ, then you're not following what the Bible says. Paul said that I may open my mouth boldly to preach the gospel. You know, we're supposed to boldly go out and preach the gospel, not be afraid, not be scared. And there's people that are introverts that can go up and get people saved. You can do it too. So, you know, it's not as scary as people make it out to be, but, you know, there's people even at our church that just don't want to talk at the doors and stuff like that. You've been coming here for six years now. You know, fly from the nest, little birdie, and start talking at the doors. So, number three tonight, put it into their minds to remember where they came from. This is important, and we have to understand this truth here. Look at Titus chapter 3 verse 2. It says, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared. So, what is it saying here? Remember when you used to be what you despise and those other people? We have to understand that we should be gentle and show meekness and kindness to people that are unsaved because we used to be just like them. And sometimes as Christians, people, and it happens probably to everybody, you're like, I can't believe that person. It's like, you used to be like that? You used to be foolish? You used to be disobedient to God's commandments? People go, well that was before I saved you. But you still knew some of the commandments. You knew it was wrong to commit fornication. You knew it was wrong to commit adultery. You knew it was wrong to get wasted and drive your car around drunk. You knew all these things. You knew that, you know, don't say you didn't know. Because someone's had a little bit of God introduced in their life in most occasions. Okay, there's that rare bird that's never heard of Jesus, but in the United States that's very rare. Okay, so, and basically what it's saying is put this in their minds to remember where they came from. Because we came from disobedience. We came from being deceived. You know, disobedient deceived. We were deceived. The devil deceives the whole world. And so we're trying to unplug them from that world and show them the Bible, the thing that can actually make them free. Jesus Christ who sets the captives free. You know, he came to preach to the captive. It's not talking about Abraham's bosom, folks. It's talking about the people that the devil has captive at his will. And that's everybody around us. So when they don't understand our doctrine, they don't understand why we believe the things that we do, don't get so bent out of shape about it. You know, obviously we still have to rip on sin and rip on ungodliness. But to the person, the individual, the person at work, the people whose doors we knock on, those people, we have to remember that we were just like them at one point in our lives. Maybe worse, you know. They were deceived. They were serving, or we were deceived. We were serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. You know, people say, well we shouldn't trust, you know, racism is like one of the worst things on the planet to some people right now. And I agree, it's bad, it's stupid, and we shouldn't be racist. But some people act, it's been so ingrained into our society that, I mean, society would deem them evil reprobates. But just because someone's racist doesn't mean that they can't be saved. Because what is being racist is being hateful to someone because of the color of their skin. A real dumb thing, right? But it says, hateful and hating one another, but after that the kindness and love of God our savior toward man appeared. See, when it appeared to us, then, you know, we received that. And what is it? The kindness of God. So we're supposed to be and follow our savior and to love God and to be like him, try to mold our lives after him. So if that's being kind, that's an attribute of God. Kindness. Love. You know, he went to the woman at the well and was kind to her. You know, all the disciples left, it was just him and her. And he loved that woman even though she had five husbands before. Even though she was deceived into believing what the right way to worship God was. Remember, she was a Samaritan. And they're like, we worship God in this mountain. And, you know, they had this like conflict with the Jews, these Samaritans, because they're like the mixed multitude basically now. And Jesus just lovingly, you know, but firmly told her what the truth was. And she ended up getting saved and a bunch of the people in her town or village or whatever. So we have to remember that kindness is what we're going out to do. When we go to people's doors, remember that, you know, we need to be loving to them. We need to be kind. We need to be merciful. And we need to be long suffering. God's long suffering, right? So, but obviously if someone's yelling and screaming at you, it's kind of hard to be nice at that point. You just walk away, you know. You don't need to cause a big scene where they're following you around the apartments. Sometimes that's our own doing. Obviously sometimes, you know, the demoniac follows us around or whatever, pulling all the invites off the doors. But if, you know, someone's wearing a pride is everyday shirt when they open up the door and you go, you faggot, you know, and then walk off, they're going to get mad. And then they're going to come after you. It's like, well, did you really have to do that? They didn't really have to do that. You could just say, okay, bye. You know what I mean? So we got to be reminded and I want to put it in your minds to remember where you came from because we all come from a sinful background. Number four, put it in their minds that we are saved through God's grace and mercy not works. And, you know, you're like, pastor, we already know this. Well, why is Paul telling him to put this in people's minds? Because it's a really bad false doctrine that can creep into churches and we don't want it creeping into our church. And so we're going to preach stuff like this a lot. So look at verse number five in Titus chapter three. It says, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. So, I mean, there's a good one to put in your soul winning presentation. Maybe you're kind of, you know, you want to mix it up a little bit. Well, isn't that pretty clear? Not of works of righteousness which we have done. It's another way, you know, Ephesians 2 8 and 9, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We're saved unto good works, but we're not saved by our good works. Here's another great companion verse to that. And so it's not what we've done, it's according to His mercy. And people say, Well, I gave my life to Christ. No, He gave His life to you so you could be saved. It's His mercy that saved us. It's not our own mercy upon ourselves that saved us. We just did what God said to do, which is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, Thou shalt be saved. It's His mercy He saved us by, by the washing of regeneration. He regenerates us. That's why He told the woman at the well that it's going to be, you know, if you drink this water, you'll thirst again. But if you drink the water that I give you, you know, you shall never thirst again. And He's talking about that Holy Spirit that just is a well springing up onto everlasting life. So let's look at verse six. It says, Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. So that's the way you're saved, folks. There's another good companion verse to go with it. And then here's another one. Verse seven, that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Justified by His grace. Grace is what we don't, we don't deserve to be saved, excuse me, we don't deserve to be saved, but He does it anyway. That's grace. And it says we're justified by that. You know, we're justified by the blood of Christ. We're justified by His, His perfect life that He lived. We're justified by all these things, the gospel, right? But it says justified, so justified means, you know, if you think of it this way, just as if I'd never sinned. That's what it makes you. And so if you're justified, that means you're saved, okay? And it's eternal life. And, you know, He's not stuttering here. You know, it's so amazing to me, people that don't believe in eternal security. How do you not believe in eternal security when it says everlasting life, eternal life, a life that never ends? You know, a well springing up to eternal life. It's like, it says over and over again, but it's like people just, you know, it's like a, you guys might not know what this is, some of you do. But a record. Anybody ever heard of a record? When I was a young man, when I was a young boy, records were still like the main thing that we used. And we'd, you know, we'd get the little 45s and, you know, we used to have a record player. Who's had a record player in here? Raise your hand. The oldies. Yeah, the old folks. How many know what a record player is, though? Okay. But that was, so then came tapes after that. But in a record, if you get a scratch in the record, it will skip. And go duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh. And it's like when you tell people that it's eternal life and you just show them the just common sense about it. Like if a life never ends, that means it's eternal. But if you lose it for any reason, then you never had it. And they're just like duh-duh, duh-duh. They're like, it's skipping in their mind. They just don't get it. It's like a CD. Who's had CDs? I still have CDs. I know that these are foreign objects now, too, but there was tape, or there was records, 8-tracks, tapes, CDs. And then MP3s, and then now it's like the cloud or something. I still like CDs. But what I don't like about CDs is they skip, too. So, you know, it's important that we help people understand that they have eternal life. And if they don't get that part about the gospel, then don't pray with them. Okay? If they don't understand it's freely by grace, that it's through belief in Christ, and that you're justified by grace and all that, then don't pray with them. That's a seed that you planted. It's a seed that maybe you watered. And maybe next year when we hit that house again or whatever, or maybe two years from now, that person will be ready to receive the gospel. Because the Bible says that some plant, some water, and some have the increase, right? So sometimes we reap the increase of something that somebody else planted. Because usually something has to be planted. Sometimes you plant water and get the increase. It's the fastest growing plant. Those are what we call the low-hanging fruits, right? So, but sometimes we're just reaping off of something that somebody else already, you know, they already put the work in. Someone else has been praying for them. Someone else has reached them. And they're just waiting. It's gestated into them. It's sprouted out. It's kind of a little bit of faith, and we just need to come by and increase their faith and help them. Number six tonight is the last point. And it is put in their minds to avoid foolish things. So here's the negative part of the sermon, alright? So verse number nine says, but avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law for they are unprofitable and vain. So he's saying, you know, he told us all the good stuff that we should do, all the good works we should maintain, how we need to make sure everything's clear to people, how we need to remember, you know, where we came from when we're dealing with someone, have some love in your heart, have some mercy, have some long suffering in your heart for people. But then he says, you know, don't fall into, you know, and obviously don't get involved in trying to overthrow governments and, you know, get into, you know, stuff that just is a realm that we don't need to get into. You don't need to get into realms of angels either. People like to just study angels and stuff. There's not a lot about the angels in the Bible. We know that they're there. We know some things, but we shouldn't intrude into things that we can't even see. And if you focus on that and you just, God, just please, I just need you to show me an angel, you might not like what you see because most of the times people fell down on their face like they were dead and didn't want to get back up. They were too afraid. So anyway, we need to avoid foolish things. What's number one? Well, number one is foolish questions. What is foolish? It means stupid. Okay? I know people, that's a cuss word in some people's houses, but that's what it means. You know, it's a stupid, there's no such thing as stupid questions. I read that in a, you know, in some quotation book or something. There is such thing as stupid questions. You know, if you're at work and you ask your boss, are we going to work today? That's a stupid question. So there are such things as stupid questions, okay? And sometimes people can ask stupid questions and you're like, okay, that's enough. Question time's over. The older I get, the more annoyed I get by people asking me a whole bunch of questions in a row. So my grandma has passed away. She could rattle off 20 questions like just really quick. And I would, you know, I love my grandma so I'd be long suffering, but if you have two women in the house that are asking 20 questions at the same time, that's rapid fire that I can't deal with. That's like, I'm done. But we need to learn to avoid foolish questions. So the foolish questions like, you know, things that we can't really know in the Bible or maybe they're very, there's a lot of differing opinions about them. But it's mainly talking about, you know, the things that you would ask to get into the strife and, you know, trying to be proud and show people how much of the Bible you know and things like that. People love to come and ask pastors questions, you know, that they've been thinking about and they've been studying for weeks. And it's like, you know, you catch the pastor at the end of the service and it's like he's preached about some completely different thing and then they come up and they're like, well, what do you think it means when, you know, it says the women are supposed to have long hair because of the, you know, because of the angels? What do you mean by that? Or what do you think that means? It's like, I don't know. I don't know. So there's something, guess what, there's things I don't know. But, you know, to go up and do that to someone because you think you have the answer, that's kind of a foolish question. It's kind of a foolish thing to do. It's prideful. Only by pride comes contention, cometh contentions. So when you're fighting about the law, because it says genealogies, you know, people can fight about genealogies, but the Bible says to avoid genealogies, obviously if we're studying to find out who Christ's ancestors were or, you know, you're doing a Bible study about it, but it doesn't matter, you know, in the New Testament, the end of the genealogy that really matters is that Jesus Christ was born of the seed of David. And that's the end of the, that's what really matters. And you can use them to study the Bible and find out who different people were and all this other stuff, and that's fine. But the Jews love to study genealogies and bring that kind of stuff up. Because they still, none of them really know if they're a Levite or not. So it says, so avoid foolish questions, avoid, you know, and genealogies and contentions. What is contentions? It's fighting, arguing over stuff. And striving's about the law. So it's talking about the Bible. If you're just trying to come up with contentions and fights about the Bible, it says, for they're unprofitable and vain. So there's no point to doing it and just getting, you know, obviously we've got to have sound doctrine. I understand that. But, you know, I think that it's mainly talking about things that really aren't that big of a deal, and if it's so much that you have to be, obviously if it's the Trinity, we're going to fight about it. Obviously if it's about salvation, we're going to fight about that. Don't ask me questions, is the world flat? Don't ask me that question. Because that's just stupidity. Okay? It's foolish. It's stupid. It's vain. It's meaningless. That's what vain means. It's just meaningless. It means nothing. So we need to, you know, I'm trying to put this in your mind, to avoid foolish things. Look at verse number 10. A man that is in heretic after the first and second admonition, reject. Reject. You know, eject is what you do if you don't want your CD and the CD player. Okay, I'm on some kind of CD cake or whatever. Or the tape player, eject. This says reject. Get it away from you. And obviously sometimes we're soul wanting and we run into the heretic that doesn't believe that Jesus Christ was God and you can't convince them. They just, what's the Bible say we're supposed to do? They're heretic. And, you know, we're supposed to reject that person. And it doesn't mean to tell them off necessarily, but if someone's like a wicked false prophet, you know, sometimes, you know, a little parting gift of reproof might be in order, it just says reject them. Not to continue to argue with them. And that's what a lot of times we'll do because that comes from only by pride comes contention. Okay, so it's our pride in the fact that we know the Bible. It's in our, you know, they're stupid and I want to show them just how stupid they really are. You know, you whip your Bible open and you want to show them every verse where they're wrong. But what's happening is you're wasting your time with that idiot when there's someone right next door that's going to get saved or maybe three houses down that's going to get saved. And you're generally only going out for an hour or two soul winning. And so wasting your whole hour with some bozo that believes the earth is flat or that you could go to hell for a thousand years or that God is, you know, Jesus isn't God or that there is no Trinity. Those people are heretics, reject them and just move on. Everybody in here has got in a fight with someone like that though. But look, I'm just telling you, this is what the Bible says. This is what we're supposed to do. We don't always do what we're supposed to do though, do we? I'm not like giving you permission or anything. I'm just saying that sometimes it does happen. But, you know, and then you always feel dumb for doing it, right? You're like, why did I waste my time? And then you're wondering why Satan set that stumbling block up in front of you and the person you need to get saved was further down the road and you didn't get to them. So we need to redeem the time because the days are evil. So a heretic is a person believing or practicing religious heresy, a person holding an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted. So, now obviously if the Catholic Church is, you know, it's generally accepted in the Catholic Church that baptizing babies saves them, okay, let me just caveat this a little bit. It's what is generally accepted in the Bible. Because if the Bible says it, that's what I believe and the Bible does not teach infant baptism anywhere. It does not teach purgatory. It doesn't teach to pray through the mediatrix Mary, and she's not a mediatrix. So she was the mother of Jesus, okay? He was a great woman, you know, she was chosen by God, but she is not someone that we pray through or pray to. Of course, you all know that. So, anyway, it says in verse 11, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself. So, why do we reject them? Well, we know that if they're in that state, they're subverted, right? And, you know, it's kind of like being undermined. When you're digging trenches or if you've ever seen someone do excavation, sometimes, you know, it can get, this can happen in a dig where it's undermined and you don't want to step or drive over the pavement because there's nothing underneath it. And basically, that's kind of what it means, you're subverted, and you're subverted and you're, you know, they're ready to cave in, basically. And so, they're sinful, they're being condemned of themselves because aren't they just saying, aren't they just saying, let's focus here, folks, aren't they just saying that, you know, they've condemned themselves. You know, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. They're going to speak the things that come out of their heart and it's heresy, you just move on. Now, let's get into the final instructions here in the end of this chapter. Verse 12 says, When I shall send Artemis unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis, for I have determined there to winter. Bring Zenas the lawyer, it's the only, I mean, I don't know if this is the only time where it says to actually bring a lawyer anywhere. You know, most lawyers aren't good. So, anyway, bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently that nothing be wanting unto them. Now, skip verse 14 because I already covered that. Now, go to verse 15, the last verse here. It says, All that are with me salute thee. So, what's Paul doing? He's on a missionary journey, isn't he? He's writing a letter to Titus. He's planting churches and he says, All those that are with me salute thee. They're saying, Hey, what's up, Titus? How's it going? We love you. It says, Greet them that love us in the faith. So, people that love Paul and them, you know, we shouldn't be like jealous or I guess envious of other preachers or people that God's people love. That's just weird. It seems to be a lot of that going on these days, too. But it says, Grace be with you all. Amen. And I wanted to just take this time just for a second here to say that we should remember our missionaries as they toil in faraway lands. Because he's saying, Hey, those that are with me salute thee. They're thinking about the other people and the churches that they care about and that they love. I mean, just taking Brother Stuckey, for instance, he hasn't been back home in a long time. They have this furlough program in a lot of old IFB churches where they bring those missionaries home for a little while. And that's usually to gather funds. That's not what Brother Stuckey cares about doing necessarily. But I'm sure he'd like to come. I think he's come home once, actually, and visited his family and stuff like that and Verity Baptist. But we love Brother Stuckey. We love the churches that have been started over there. And I think that they're talking about starting one in Poland, which is great. And I already shared with you what Brother Ian did over there, just helping prepare the way. See, we're one big team, folks. I mean, yeah, we're a local church and things like that. My sphere of authority only goes to what our church, our local church here and the church that we planted. But I still love Brother Stuckey. He didn't get sent out from our church, but I still care about him. I still pray for him. We should put them in our regular prayers. If you don't already have them in your prayers, start praying for them. And also, here's some other ones to pray for. Pastor Paul Waringa in Nigeria. How about OPB Pastor Oscar Peter Bogart? I'm down with OPB. So, he's in South Africa getting ill-treated. So is Pastor Waringa. Brother Tavener, Brother Ian Tavener in England are basically like our missionaries, our evangelists, right? He's planted a church there. Brother Wynn Fisher, you know, he's holding it down in Canada. And their church is growing. They had 31 in attendance on Sunday and it was all packed up. They had a great month's soul winning, I think maybe a record amount of people saved last month. And, you know, Brother Jason Graber is holding it down in Spokane for us. And, you know, he's basically a home mission. But, you know, let's remember those, you know, they think about us. Let's think about them. Let's pray for them. Let's help them in any way we can. So, basically to sum all this stuff up, another verse I missed in Titus chapter 2 says this in verse 15, the last verse of the chapter says, These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no man despise thee. What is Paul doing? He's saying, hey, I've given you all authority. He's the apostle, right? And so pastors beget pastors. Ordained men beget ordained men. Churches beget churches. That's what I believe. That's what I hold to. And I believe that this authority that's given to him is also given to me. It's given to every pastor that is, you know, doing the work of God and following the Bible, starting churches, you know, doing what God wants. Says let no man despise thee, you know. And what's Paul saying? He's saying don't worry about what everybody else thinks about you. You just get up and speak the things that I told you to speak. You preach about the things I told you to preach. You exhort the people that I told you to exhort. He lays a bunch of things out for us to preach about. So if he wanted Titus to preach about those things, don't you think he wants me to preach about those things? Don't you think he wants, you know, brother Ian and, you know, just all the guys I've mentioned to preach those things? Absolutely. You know, but it also says rebuke with all authority. You know, sometimes people get this idea that, you know, it says the pastor's supposed to be gentle. And look, I want to be gentle. I mean, I got accused of yelling at everybody because they don't clean up their stuff. When have I ever yelled at you guys about anything? I mean, I yell when I'm preaching sometimes, but where's the Bible say that that's even wrong? Isn't rebuking like sharply telling someone, you know, to stop doing whatever they're doing? But I don't even, I mean, that's just ridiculous. I've never yelled at, you know, it's like while your kids are making all the mess, you know, you're yelling at everybody else. That's not true. I yell at my kids. I will yell at my kids and they're adults. So I just, you know, sometimes you got to say things that are uncomfortable. And, you know, the apostle Paul said to do this with all authority, let no man despise you. So someone's despising me for saying stuff like that. Well, you know, why don't you come clean up someone's mess that they left and didn't have a care in the world about picking up? Over and over and over and over again. Should I never say anything about that? I mean, I know this is not how I wanted to end the Bible study, but it's just like a real weird thing that people get in their heads that the pastor's never supposed to raise his voice or pound the pulpit. Yeah, maybe not at your lame church. Maybe not at your fake missionary church where they're not really doing missions. Maybe not at your garden, you know, church where you're, you know, bringing people watermelons or whatever. But, you know, at this church we're going to preach the Bible and you know what, I'm not going to let anybody despise me over that. So if you don't like it, there's plenty of other churches in the area that you can go to. I'm not saying anybody is doing this. I'm just saying that people have choices. Because people walk in this door all the time and then walk right back out. Like a revolving door. And a lot of people have come into this building and walked right back out and never came back or came for a few weeks and then left again or came for years and left. Look, you got a choice. You can stay here or don't stay here. It's up to you. I don't force anybody to be here. I mean, I don't want to see people go unless they're bad. But everybody else, I like and I want them to stay here because I do care about you. You know, I've been around you guys and gals for a long time. So, some less than others. But, you know, I wouldn't do this. There's no really big giant benefit for me besides the fact that, you know, God needs someone to stand in the gap and that's what I'm trying to do. So, I'm not trying to lift myself up either because I know there's better pastors than me. There's more caring pastors than me. There's more praying pastors than me. There's better preachers than me. And I don't really care. I just want to be the pastor for this church and the preacher for this church. So, anyway, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. That's the book of Titus, right? Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for this great book and this great few chapters in the Bible, Lord, and all the things that we could glean from it, Lord. We pray that you would just help these things to sink down in our ears and sink down in our hearts, Lord, that we would maintain good works, Lord. We would not despise governments or principalities, Lord, that we would just keep all these things in mind that were preached in this chapter and the previous chapters, Lord. We pray that you would help us, Lord, to just care about our community, reach our community, and try to do our best to bring them in, get them baptized, and teach them the Bible. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, our last song will be song number 443, Go Ye Into All the World. Song number 443 in your blue hymn books, Go Ye Into All the World. Song 43, let's sing it out together on the first. Far, far away in heathen darkness dwelling Millions of souls forever may be lost Who will go? Salvation, storytelling Looking to Jesus, minding not the cost All power is given unto me All power is given unto me Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel And lo, I am with you always See o'er the world wide open doors inviting Soldiers of Christ, arise and enter in Christians await your forces all uniting Send forth the gospel, break the chains of sin All power is given unto me All power is given unto me Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel And lo, I am with you always Why will ye die? The voice of God is calling Why will ye die? Re-echo in his name Jesus have died to save from death appalling Life and salvation therefore go proclaim All power is given unto me All power is given unto me Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel And lo, I am with you always God speed the day with those of every nation Glory to God, triumph and least shall see The rants of the evening, rejoicing in salvation Shout hallelujah for the Lord is King All power is given unto me All power is given unto me Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel And lo, I am with you always