All right, please take a seat.
Welcome to Shoe Foundation Baptist Church.
Turn your songbook to song number 372.
Let the lower lights be burning song 372.
On the first, brightly beams our Father's mercy
From His lighthouse evermore
But to us He gives the keeping
Of the light along the shore
Let the lower lights be burning
Send the gleam
across the waves some force fainting struggling semen you may rescue you may
save dark the night of sin has settled loud the angry billows roar eager eyes
are watching longing for the lights along the shore
Send a gleam across the waves Some poor fainting, struggling seamen
You may rescue, you may save Trame your feeble lamb-pipe brother
Some poor sailor tempest toss Trying now to make the harbor
Send a gleam across the wave
Some poor fainting, struggling semen
You may rescue, you may save
Good singing, by the way, could you open us with a prayer?
Amen now let's turn to song 413 stand up stand up for Jesus. This is one of my favorite songs
That's a joke
If you know you know
On the first stand up stand up for Jesus
He soldiers of the cross
Lift high he's roll
suffer loss. From victory on to victory, his army shall he lead. To every foe is vanquished
and Christ is Lord indeed. Stand up, stand up for Jesus.
This is
will fail you, ye dare not trust your home. Put on the gospel o'er and watching unto prayer.
Where duty calls for danger, be never wanting dare.
If you need a bulletin, please raise your hand and Usher will bring one to you.
Everyone gets their bulletin. Let's look at the verse the week Proverbs chapter 26 verse 17
The Bible says he that passes by and meddle us with stride belonging not to him
It's like one that take a dog by the ears again
If you know you know if you know about the controversy is going on
I think the best way is to just to meddle not you know
Let the pastors fight and we'll just take a backseat and see
What's been going on so
Also, this morning I put a sermon on immigration.
I mean a biblical perspective concerning concerning the immigration so feel free to listen to that if you haven't
Downsoul if you look on the inside page. We're on YouTube Facebook grumble and
Egg so please give us a follow. We have service times on a morning at 11 Sunday afternoon service at 4 p.m
And once my Bible study at 7 p.m
We'll be preaching through the last chapter in the book of Ecclesiastes just coming Wednesday
So any suggestion on the next book, please let me know
and then we have local soul winning Saturday morning at 10.30 and Sunday afternoon soul
winning at 1.30 p.m. This afternoon we have 11 soul winners and five, four salivations,
four salivations. Praise the Lord for that. Of course yesterday...
11 of us went to the Notre Dame tailgate so many we had seven salvations on the
campus so praise the Lord for that yeah let's look at the upcoming events so we
have a pie and pray service doing the Sunday afternoon service on November
23rd please bring a pie to share and then our Christmas service will take
place on Sunday December 21st it will be a special morning service and then a
potluck right after the morning service and then we'll have a regular Sunday
afternoon service as well
Christmas Eve service will be on Christmas Eve, Wednesday, December 24th.
So many marathon dates, it's below for you to see. We have the Notre Dame taking place.
this coming Saturday, as well as next Saturday,
and then Gary's Soaring Marathon
is planned for the last Saturday of every month.
We'll still have our local Soaring,
but these are the Soaring Marathons,
those big Soaring events.
So, and then we'll finish the year up
with the Winter Wonderland Soaring Marathon.
And please help us with the cleaning
right after the Sunday afternoon service.
That will be hugely appreciated.
If you want to know how to be saved,
or needs to be baptized,
please see an usher or myself after service.
So, looking on the backside, we have birthdays coming up, no birthdays this week, so we'll
just skip that.
So with that being said, let's sing one more song and then we'll take up the offering.
Go to song 324, song 324, join me near, song 324.
on the first I am thine oh lord I have heard thy voice and it told thy love to me
but I long to rise in the arms of faith and be closer join to thee
draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed law, to thy precious pleading sign.
Consecrate me now to thy service, Lord, by the power of grace divine.
Let my soul look up with a staff fast hope, and my will be lost in.
blessed Lord to the cross where thou hast died, join me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord to thy precious fleeting sign. O the pure delight of a single out
with thee, my God, I commune as friend with friend.
Join me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to the cross where thou hast died.
Join me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to thy precious bleeding side.
I cannot know till I cross the narrow sea. There are heights of joy that they may not
reach till I rest in peace with thee. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, to the cross
blessed it low to thy precious bleeding side.
All right, you're saying us just please come forward.
We'll take up the offering.
But Stephen, could you pray for the offering?
Gonna be in Proverbs chapter 23 tonight Proverbs chapter 23 if you don't have a Bible, please
Raise your hand and I shall hand you a Bible Proverbs chapter 23
Proverbs chapter 23 verse 1 says, when thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee, and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite, be not desirous of his dainties, for they are deceitful meat.
they fly away as an eagle toward heaven, eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye,
neither desire thou his dainty meats, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, sayeth he.
to thee, but his heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten shall
thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words. Speak not in the ears of a fool, for he will despise
the wisdom of thy words. Move not the old landmark, and enter not into the fields of
the fatherless. For their redeemer is mighty, he shall plead their cause with thee. Apply thine heart
unto instruction and thine ears to the words of knowledge.
Withhold not correction from the child,
for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
Thou shalt beat him with the rod
and shall deliver his soul from hell.
My son, if thine heart be wise,
my heart shall rejoice, even mine.
Yay, my reign shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.
Let not thine heart envy sinners.
but be thou in the fear the Lord all the day long, for surely there is an end, and thine
expectation shall not be cut off. Here thou, my Son, and be wise, and guide thine heart
in the way."
Be not among wine-bibbers among riotous eaters of flesh, for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall close a man with rags.
Harken unto thy father that beget thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.
Buy the truth and sell it not. Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.
joy of him the father thy father and thy mother shall be glad and shall and she
that bear thee shall rejoice my son give me thine heart and let thine eyes
observe my ways for a whore is a deep ditch and a strange woman is a narrow
pit she also lieth and wait as for a pray and increase of the transgressors
among men who have whoa who have sorrow who have
Contensions who have babbling who have wounds without cause who have redness of eyes they that Terry long at the wine
They that seek
They that go to seek mixed wine
Look not thou upon the wine when is red when it gives his color in the cup when it moves itself aright
At the last it bighteth like a serpent and stingseth like an adder.
Than I shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter, perverse things.
Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieeth down the midst of the sea,
or as he that lieeth upon the top of a mass.
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick.
They have beaten me, and I felt it not.
When shall I awake, I will seek it yet again.
Brother Christian, could you please pray for us?
And your carnal mind will not leave you in all spirit and truth to follow the Lord Jesus Christ
To be currently minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace
Our thoughts need to be guarded. We need to keep our thoughts on Jesus Christ because your mind is like a garden
It can be intelligently cultivated or it can be let run wild and whatever you so
That's what you're going to reap and you're gonna reap more than you so
The law of sowing and reaping cannot be undone. Everything brings forth after its own kind
And when you think evil thoughts, when you think worldly thoughts,
eventually you will yield your members as instruments to unrighteousness.
And the Bible says that whoever you yield your members to, you're the servant thereof.
Whether that be the servant of sin or be the servant of Jesus Christ.
You need to guard your mind daily and rebuke evil thoughts that you have in your own mind and reject those thoughts.
You need to declare in your own mind that you reject the evil thinking that you're thinking.
If you hate your brother or if you're thinking lustful thoughts or sinful thoughts,
you need to reject those thoughts in your mind.
The Bible says in Proverbs 4.23,
Keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life.
The issues of life, the circumstances of your life will be
a sum of the thoughts that occur in your mind, which is your character.
Eventually you act on the things that you think in your mind,
and that is your character,
the actions that you take based off of those thoughts.
Whether you have a good life or whether you have a life that's full of turmoil and adversity,
and you're able to overcome that,
is dependent on your thoughts and how you perceive your situation.
Because if you're constantly thinking bad thoughts, garbage in, garbage out,
it's going to manifest itself in your life.
You cannot control the circumstances of what happens in your life,
but you can control how you deal with the circumstances in your life.
But also, the things that you think will lead you into
circumstances that you otherwise would have not had a problem to begin with.
You know we think of road rage for example if somebody cuts you off and you get mad and you go after them
Like you're just being as bad as they are
And so you're gonna run into circumstances where you have problems because of the evil thoughts going on in your mind
And you need to reject those thoughts you need to reject anger you need to reject malice and you know if it's not righteous anger
Obviously, but most of time when somebody cuts you off on road. I didn't write you saying here is it so
You need to you need to reject those evil thoughts and bring every thought into the captivity of Jesus Christ
Turn to Psalm chapter 119
And you know the human brain does not really stop developing until you're 25 years old
So people think they become adults at 18
But you're really training your mind to think the way that you're probably going to think the rest of your life
As a young person, it says in Psalm 119 verse 9,
wherewithal shall young man cleanse his way
by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
With my whole heart I have sought thee.
O let me not wonder from thy commandments,
thy word have I hidden in my heart
that I might not sin against thee.
We need to hide God's word in our heart and remind ourselves
of God's word throughout the day to renew the spiritual man,
to renew our walk with God.
And people are so anxious today to improve their circumstances,
but people aren't anxious to improve themselves.
And we need to keep God's word in our heart
because the things that are harder is what's going to come out.
That's what's going to come out of your mouth.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
And the law of sowing and reaping cannot be undone.
Turn to Galatians chapter 6.
Just like in the Garden of Eden,
God made trees that brought forth,
they yielded the fruit that the tree was.
If it was an apple tree, it yielded apples.
If it was a banana tree,
if there were banana trees,
it yielded bananas.
Everything yields forth after its own kind.
Eventually, evil thoughts yield
forth wrong actions and
right thoughts will yield forth good actions.
Galatians 6-7, be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever man soweth that shall he also reap, for he that soweth to his flesh shall reap of the flesh, reap corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.
Let us not be weary and well-doing, for in due season we shall reap and faint not.
So right there it says that we need to not be weary and well-doing we need to keep
Continually trying to do well and do good thoughts and not be weary and not get upset and do wrong
Because you either have to make the tree good and it's fruit good or the tree corrupt and it's fruit corrupt
That's what he told the Pharisees.
If you have a wrong belief from the Bible,
eventually it'll manifest itself in your life
and you'll preach of the abundance of the heart,
now speak it. Peter said,
we can't help but speak those things which we've seen and heard.
Eventually whatever you believe in your heart will come out.
When I was in Idaho,
I met this young teenager and I preached him the gospel.
He was a Muslim and so he came outside and I gave him the whole gospel.
At the end, he said, yeah, I believe that.
I said, you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, you believe that it's eternal
life, you believe that without Jesus Christ you would go to hell and that it's eternal
life and you can't lose it and say, okay, well let's pray and ask Jesus Christ to save
you.
And he said, well, no, I don't want to do that because I'm Muslim.
So that just tells you right there he didn't really believe anything that I had shown him
from the Bible because he confessed out of his own mouth, he didn't believe it because
he was Muslim.
But you know there's certain preacher down in Kentucky that just would pronounce him safe because well hey he said he believed right?
He doesn't have to pray he believes
No wrong because the things that came out of his mouth confessed what he believed
Truly in his heart people will say they believe things they'll say well
I believe that too like they'll believe in Muhammad, but they'll also believe in Jesus and you can't believe in both
That's a lie
and people will lie to you and tell you that they believe something that they
don't believe because they don't want to do it. Well when you when you ask them
to go to the Lord in prayer that's when the rubber's on the road and they have
to do something and they have to confess that belief and that's when they're not
willing to do it. And so you do have to go to the Lord in prayer.
To be saved you have to call upon the name of the Lord. You know, you're basically your prayers going to him
It's not just hitting the roof and just not going anywhere
The whole point is that you are you're admitting to God that you need him and
People aren't willing to do that
People will say well, yeah, I believe that but then not they don't they don't really believe it in their heart
Their heart is far from him like that person we read about in Proverbs 23
So, turn to Jeremiah chapter 5-8, you know, Jesus knew the thoughts of the Pharisees that
they appeared righteous and they put their best foot forward, and Jesus called them a
generation of vipers, and he also called them a wicked and adulterous generation.
And, yeah, we live in a generation where people are just becoming outwardly wicked.
There's just a elicit everything you can think of out there in the world.
People are just doing stuff in your face, just doing drugs, just doing, you know, the
most vile things that you can think of right in your face.
And Jeremiah 5a, it says, they were as fed horses in the morning,
everyone nade after his neighbor's wife.
Shall I not visit for these things, say it the Lord?
And shall not my soul be avenged of such a nation as this?
You know, it's a sin to cover your neighbor's wife, but these people are like naying after
their neighbor's wife.
Like at the job, somebody's coworker, they'll just like constantly go after somebody else's
wife to have an adulterous relationship.
And it's wicked.
And, you know, that's why it should be men in the workplace, because that would solve it.
It wouldn't happen if, you know, where there's no swamp, there's no mosquitoes.
So you can't have wrong thoughts, or you're not going to have as many wrong thoughts
if you have the right atmosphere.
And so.
You know, but this is in general my it's describing basically unrestrained lust for somebody's wife
You know somebody else's wife. They're not even trying to hide that they're committing adultery
And you know if you may after your neighbor's wife
You'll end up with a nag if you actually snag one of them is what'll happen because
Any relationship that's you know anything that's against the thoughts of the Lord are not it's not wisdom
And what's gonna happen is you're gonna end up in a worse relationship than you were in with to begin with and
God will probably as a safe person
He will he will work against you in that relationship to make it worse than the one that you had before if you would have stayed in a
Biblical relationship with your wife
Or with your husband
And so in Genesis chapter 6, God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that the every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And that was why God had to destroy the earth because the thoughts of man were on evil continually and the world was filled with violence.
When people hate their brother, when people hate their neighbors, the world just becomes filled with violence.
We see a lot of violence in our world today where people did not love their neighbor,
did not love the stranger that sojourns in their land,
they did not love their own parents.
People are disobedient to their own parents today.
People commit murder and all kinds of wickedness because of envy and
strife in their own mind that manifests into wrong actions in their life.
is that it will make you an on edge person
where you're either an angry person
or you may even become a violent person
if that's the kind of thing that you think about every day.
And so, you know, if you think of the unsaved hating God
and wishing violence on God's people,
it can make them a vile person
to where God turns them over to the heart of a beast.
It can be too late for an unsaved person
that hates God and hates his creation and rejects him.
That's what we see in our day and age,
is that people are rejecting the Bible,
and they're given over to the heart of the beast,
and they do things that you wouldn't even think of doing.
The thoughts of the unsafe can leave them down
a dark path where they can never be saved.
And you know, in Titus 1, 15, it says,
under the pure are all things pure,
but under them which are defiled and unbelieving
is nothing pure, but their mind and conscience is defiled.
People's consciences are defiled today
with the filth that's out there,
with their evil thoughts that they think of continuously,
with the unrighteous programs that they watch on TV
and the ungodly music that they listen to.
People are filling their hearts with evil today and the evil is manifesting in their lives.
And that's why we have a culture that is defiled today.
You know, it used to be that people were virgins when they got married,
and it's becoming more and more the case that that's not the case.
That's the exception and not the rule today.
Well, this I have only have I found that God has made man upright, but they have sought
out many inventions.
And so God made us to walk upright.
God made us in a way that we are actually designed in the image of God, so that we will walk
after his ways.
But it's man that has sought out many wicked inventions.
You know, man is not a creature of artifice where God created us in his image and we're
just perfectly in his image.
You're a creature of habit, where the habits that you develop, the things you choose are the creature that you manifest into.
Your flesh is not perfect, obviously. The flesh is not saved.
And so, even though we are made in God's image, it is possible not to walk in that image.
But God made you to walk in that image, and he brought Jesus Christ to this earth, who is tempted in all like manners as we were, without sin.
And he's the pattern that we're supposed to walk after so we're not fulfill the lusts of the flesh
Turn to Psalm chapter 73
And you know sometimes we see all the wickedness that's out there and we see the world and we see the prosperity of the wicked and it's
Sometimes it's easy to envy the wicked in our own carnal mind, but we need to reject those thoughts
That's that's why one of the dangers of living in a covetous society like we live in where you can see everything that the
That the wicked have you see their billion-dollar house and their mansion and all their cool gadgets and stuff that they have
You know, it's just constant commercials just seeing what's online that you need to have you know that you need to buy
We have this consumer-based culture where everybody covets everybody else's things and
Don't covet people's goods and don't covet their their rich and lavish lifestyle
Especially if they're a wicked person because that's all set in slippery places. The Bible says
Psalm 73
When I thought to know this it was too painful for me until I went into the sanctuary of God and then I I
understood I there and
Surely that is set them in slippery places that was cast them down in a destruction
How are they brought into desolation as in a moment?
They are utterly consumed with terrors.
You know that because of this truth the biggest factor in your life ought to be how you perceive the word of God and
how you how you behave yourself in the house of God when you come into the house of God
You ought to have a right spirit where you want to learn the Bible and where you're you're thinking about God's word in your heart
And don't be thinking about something that's just going to anger you before the service.
You know, don't try and don't bring up conversations that's just going to, you know, rile you up
before the service.
And so we need to have our minds on worshiping God during the Psalms, and we need to have
our mind on having a ready and a teachable spirit when we come to church to learn, you
know, to be brought into remembrance of things from the Bible.
Because obviously we read all this stuff on our own, but the reason you come to church
is that your appetite to provoke you under good works and remind you of the things that
you're supposed to have already read on your own if you're an adult.
If you're a child, you should be working on reading through the whole Bible, if you haven't.
But if we come to church and it's just gossip, railings, bitter-enviying, and strife, people
are going to devour one another.
The whole reason that we are here is to have unity in the body of Christ and to have unity
with this book and with Christ.
Not to have bitter-enviying and strife.
want to read the parable of the seed. Luke chapter 8 verse 11. Now the parable is
this, the seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside, they that hear, then come
at the devil and take it them away, the word out of their hearts, lest they
should believe and be saved.
So these people the devil comes and takes the word away before they can be saved and they and you know
I always urge people when I give them the gospel that when they say well, I'll do it later
I'll say well the devil can just take this from you and you won't even remember this later
You won't even remember that somebody gave you the gospel later if the devil takes it away from you
because you're not going to be thinking on these things later probably and now it's a day of salvation if you believe it now you need to pray now and ask Jesus Christ to save you.
It's not later, it's not a few weeks from now, you may not even remember any of this and you may become to a point where it's too late and you're in darkness and when you do go to seek the Lord you won't find Him.
They on the rock are they which when he received the word with joy, and these have no root,
which for a while believe and in time of temptation fall away.
So these are the people that become offended. They don't have any root in themselves.
Anytime temptation comes along or adversity comes along,
they just fold like a flan in a cupboard.
They can't stand up to anything.
It's like a reed in the wind.
They're just shaken back and forth.
Eventually, they come unrooted and they're not fruitful.
They don't do anything for Christ and they end up not even coming to church, a lot of them.
Then the third person,
It says, and they which fell among thorns are they which they have heard and go forth and are choked with the cares and riches and
pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection.
So there's a third person
that they have problems in their life and they just can never overcome their own problems because of the thoughts that they have in their own mind.
And, you know, they did a study on rats and they stuck them in a glass, kind of, if you
love animals, you might have made plug ears, but, you know, they just took rats and they
just stuck them in a glass and just waited for them to drown, basically.
And most of the rats that they did, they drowned in 15 minutes.
because they just give up and they sink to the bottom.
But what they found out was that if you take a rat
and you bring it up out of the glass and save it before it drowns,
and then you put it back in that glass,
it'll swim for hours.
Some of these rats swam for 81 hours,
which is way longer than 15 minutes.
That's like over 300 times longer.
I know it's horrible experiment,
but this teaches you something about the nature of a rat.
So even a rat, if it knows that there's some hope that it'll be saved, it'll continue to swim.
But without that knowledge, it just gives up and drowns.
And people just give up and drown today. People don't see that there's hope in Christ.
They don't see hope in their situation. They're not walking in the spiritual man.
They just give up and they just drown.
And we need to keep in our mind that when we go through a trial, that God is able to deliver us out of our trial.
And we need to keep, like that rat, we need to keep swimming and keep your head above water.
Because there's more people other than you in your life that you need to keep swimming for.
And so people see you give up, they're going to be discouraged and want to give up too.
And you know, that's why we don't sorrow is them that have no hope, because there's always hope
that even if our life goes completely wrong, the worst thing that's going to happen is we're going to die and go to heaven.
You know once I die all my problems are over, but I'm gonna fight till the bitter end
I'm gonna I'm gonna keep fighting and war a good warfare for the Lord Jesus Christ and endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ
and
So the fourth person it says but they that on the good ground are they?
Which in an honest and good heart having heard the word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience
You know, if you let the weeds grow and you let the thorns grow, this life is just going to choke you out.
And you need to pluck that stuff out of your mind, and you need to bring every thought under the captivity of Christ.
And it says in James, turn to James chapter 1.
Because if you hear the word of God and keep it with patience, you will bear fruit abundantly.
And we need to be steadfast in our minds and keep going forward for the Lord Jesus Christ and not waver.
Because if you waver you're not going to receive anything. If you're just back and forth, well I'm serving God today and not serving God.
No, it's too hard.
I want to go to church now, I'm not going to go to church today, I'll go next week,
I'll go next month, and eventually you're out of church, you're out of your walk, you're
not reading your Bible, you're not praying to God, and you're just walking in the carnal
mind and you're double-minded.
You know it's right, but you won't do it because you won't submit, you yield your members
as instruments of righteousness to God.
says in James chapter 1 verse 5,
if any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God that give it to all men liberally
and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith,
nothing wavering, for he that wavereth
is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed,
for let not that man think he shall receive anything of Christ.
A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
And so this is why you need to have a central purpose in your life that you're not even not just to have good thoughts
But you need to act upon those good thoughts the Bible says that
To commit thy works under the Lord and I thoughts will be established the Bible says
So if you go out and do good works, eventually you'll say hey
This is worth it because sometimes you go out soul and you don't really feel like going out soul in it
And then you'll get that first person saved. You're like, I'm glad I went out soul in it today
And sometimes it's easier to go, keep going and get two or three other people saved after that, you know, if it's a long marathon, you know, if it's a long day out soul winning, it's easier to keep going once you've got that first person for the day.
You know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't like to just give up. I got one. I'm gonna give up, you know, I like to keep going once I've got one. But, you know, some days when you get nobody, it's just kind of like it's it's a slog sometimes and you just got to bear it with patience and get through it.
And I like what a pastor said.
He said, so when I'm getting all the bad doors,
I just tell myself I'm the bad door absorber.
And somebody else is probably getting good doors.
So, you know, you just got to keep going
and knock all them bad doors so somebody else
can get the good door and get somebody saved.
And so, because he that water earth
and he that sell it are the same.
They're the same people.
And so they're both going to be rewarded.
You're rewarded for your work,
not necessarily the outcome of whether or not
people get saved.
You know, Noah only saved his family.
And so even though he preached and he did
what God told him to do,
he did not see a big result from what he had done.
But had he not been that one righteous person,
God could have just destroyed the whole earth
if he wanted to.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord because he preached and he did the work that
God told him to do.
And will you be that man where you're doing what you're supposed to be doing even if nobody
else is doing it?
Have a central purpose in your life.
Worries, fears, and troubles, and self-pitying, and all of that indicates weakness in your
spirit.
Letting your circumstances move you leads to failure.
You need to let God move you.
Don't let your circumstances move you.
Don't be a reed shaking in the wind where just whatever happens to you,
you're just going back and forth and not doing what the Bible says.
And, you know, sinning willfully and doubting God in your mind are two different roots that both just lead to failure.
Because you could go out and commit open sin and you're going to fail in your life because you're going to be, you're going to be beset by the sin which weighs you down.
But if you doubt, you know, you're just going to be going back and forth and you're not going to get anywhere.
You're going to be like that man that wavereth and be double-minded and you're not going to receive anything of the Lord.
And so a man remains ignorant because he loves ignorance and chooses ignorance,
but a man becomes wise because he loves wisdom and chooses wisdom of the Lord.
a man having separated himself,
seeketh and intermedaleth with all wisdom,
the book of Proverbs says.
You have to have that desire to seek wisdom
and to want to act upon the wisdom
that you receive from God.
Because if you don't act on it,
and he tells you to do something and you don't do it,
he's not going to keep giving you more and more stuff like,
oh well, just more and more knowledge
when you don't apply any of it to your life.
You're gonna be like that man that beholds his natural face in a glass and goes and forgets what man or man
He was if you're for you'll be a forgetful forgetful hearer
Turn to Hosea chapter 10 if you would
Because God commands you in your life to sow good seed and to keep the ground fertile
And then God will bring the rain and bring forth the increase
Hosea chapter 10
Look at verse 12.
So do yourselves in righteousness, reap and mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord.
Till He come and reign righteousness upon you, you have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity,
you have eaten the fruit of lies,
because thou didst trust in thy way, and in the multitude of thy mighty men.
you're limited in your mind by the thoughts you have whether you're
trusting in your own way or whether you're trusting in the Lord and His might
and you will either you'll either eat of the fruit of lies or or you will
trust or you will trust in the way of the Lord and not trust in the way a
And so when you realize that you are made or unmade by yourself, that you can only destroy yourself and your thoughts and your wrong actions,
you give God the rightful ownership, says here.
You give God the rightful ownership over your life where He rules your spirit. Your spirit is not ruled by your bad temper.
And you know, somebody that is slow to anger, the Bible says, is better than the mighty.
because curbing your anger and and not sinning and not acting out based off of
your carnal thoughts saves you not only a lot of heartache but it also allows
God to bless you and forgive you of the trespasses that you've done to other
people because you know I've seen people recently that I was upset with in
times past and I don't even remember why I was upset with them and they're good
people
You know, they're Christians too.
And you need to let those things go.
You need to let people live stuff down.
And not just, and the stupid, and I felt stupid
because it's like, I don't even remember what they did wrong.
You know, and it's been years since I seen them.
And I just, I was like, well, you know.
Hopefully they're not still thinking about it is what I'm thinking to myself, you know
But it's kind of like in pro wrestling where every now and then somebody that you really like as a wrestler
And I watched wrestling when I was a kid probably 30 years ago
But somebody that you really like becomes the heel does anybody know what the heel is like the heel is the person
That's basically a jerk and they become the bad person in the story in the drama
And sometimes we're the healer in our life.
Sometimes we're the bad guy that makes everybody angry.
And then we think everybody's mad at us,
but it's because of the way that we've behaved,
not necessarily because everyone's out just to get us.
And you need to think to yourself and consider yourself
before you lash out on other people.
And you need to learn to let things go.
Because God lets things go every day. He's long-suffering and patient and he forgives you and his mercies are new every morning
and so
Turned up for 2nd Timothy chapter 2
Now it's Proverbs 16 32 I read earlier it said he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that ruled this city spirit
Then he that take at the city
And you know the opposite of that is the man that does not rule his own spirit
It's like a bro like a city with broken down walls
Just anybody can come in and just take anything they want they can then get your goat anytime they want if you want me walls in that city
Second Timothy chapter 2 verse 1
Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things
which thou had heard among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall
be able to teach others also.
Thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, no man that wareth
entangleeth himself in the affairs of this life that he may please him who hath chosen
him to be a soldier.
Yet, is he not crowned except he strived lawfully?
The husbandmen that laboreth must first be partaker of the fruits.
Consider what I say, and the Lord give thee understanding in all these things.
Discipline and self-control take strength.
And a pure thought life is the mastery of that strength.
And that patient proves the endurance of the power that you have in that strength.
If you want to strive for masteries, you have to strive lawfully.
And so you're going to have to have self-discipline in your life.
You know, that is a measure of true strength.
If you get up, you know, the same time every day
to go to work, that is a measure of discipline in your life.
Whether that's good or bad, obviously it's a good thing
to have structure in your life and give yourself rules
above what you necessarily have to do.
Because obviously you have to be to work on time.
And if you know you're almost always late and something happens one day and you're gonna be late
You need to just get up a little earlier so that you're never late
Because I had a job where I drove an hour and I was either always two minutes early or 30 minutes early
And so I just decided I'm gonna be 30 minutes early because I'm never gonna be late because I was almost late several times in the beginning
And so and this was this was like 12 years ago or so and so I said I'm just never gonna be late because I don't want to play the points game
That's just something on a sheet that looks bad on your character that you're somebody
that doesn't hold your commitments and doesn't show up on time.
And so disciplining yourself and having self-control when nobody else is looking over your shoulder
and making you do it is going to take strength.
And people sometimes have an outward appearance of structure, but inward they just kind of
fill their mind with all the garbage and eventually sometimes it slips out.
You know, you'll have somebody that seems like a really like, like, like straight laced,
you know, good person and then they'll say something that just totally ruins their testimony.
Something really perverted or something really evil, they'll say.
And so that's just a, that's just a manifestation of the things that they dwell on in their
heart and their heart comes out eventually.
And so we need to guard our heart and have mastery over our own spirit so that we can walk in in this of life every day
You have to you have to put away that the old man every day
Turn to Proverbs chapter 24
Proverbs 24 verse 9 and 10 the thought of foolishness is sin and the scorner is an abomination to men
If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.
Just even the thought of foolishness is sin.
Just even doubting God in your own mind and just doubting the promises of God
and thinking that God's not going to deliver you from...
If you have a problem and you've prayed and asked God to deliver you from that problem,
then you should be at ease in your mind about that problem.
You should not just be constantly stressed out and feeling like God's not going to deliver.
Because if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
But it starts in your mind where you don't have mastery over your spirit and you faint in the day of adversity because you don't have that self-discipline.
You won't discipline yourself in your own mind.
For this is thankworthy if a man if a man for consciousness or conscience toward God endure grief
Suffering wrongfully for what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults?
You shall take it patiently
So that there says that when you endure grief and suffer longfully that's thankworthy to God God God
Thanks you for your service basically. He sees that it. He sees that as you're gonna get a reward for doing that when you endure grief
But when you just when you're just buffeted because of things that you do and you bear patiently, you know
Like like if you if you kick somebody or stick a sign on their back or whatever
Prankham or whatever and then they do something wrong to you
You don't just you don't get a reward for just burying it patiently when they when they lash out back against you
You know and so the Bible says there that when you suffer it says when you suffer you take it patiently
This is acceptable with God
For even here too you were he called because Christ also suffered leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps
Who did no sin neither got was guile found in his mouth
Who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered he threatened not but committed himself
To him that judges righteously
Who is own self bear our sin in his own body while he was on the tree that we being dead in sin should live under the righteousness
By whose stripes year healed
You know and you're as a man
You become a man when you stop blaming other people for the for the bad things that happen in your life for the conditions that you suffer
For when you commit yourself to him that judges righteously when you say well God is the one that's going to judge
How I've dealt with myself in this situation
And when you're not angry at the person that's wronged you,
when you're not angry at God for putting you through this circumstance,
and you submit yourself to Him that judges righteously.
And obviously there's people that God hates, that we should also hate.
And so I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about when somebody wrongs you personally in your own life,
you need to let it go and you need to deliver it unto God that judges righteously.
stop blaming other people for the condition of your life. And so a man
should build himself up with strong and noble thoughts because that's why a man
that rule his own spirit is better than the mighty. You need to have those
thoughts in your mind. You need to think about that you're a child of God. You need
to act like a child of God. Not just, you know, oh I'm a child of God. I can't
You need to act like a child of God.
Not just when somebody's bad,
you step out and come out to defend yourself.
Let the Lord defend you.
It says, let us lay aside every weight in the sin
which so easily beset us and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
You need to look unto Jesus and set aside that sin
which so easily beset us.
And the love of time it besets you in your own mind before it ever takes place in your actions.
You can't stop a bird from flying overhead, but you can stop it from nesting in your hair.
You know, you can't control every little thing that happens to you,
but you can control on whether or not you dwell on it and how it affects your life.
2 Corinthians 9 verse 6.
He which so is sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he which so with bountifully shall also reap bountifully.
If you only sacrifice a little bit in this life, that's all you're going to achieve. You're just going to achieve a little bit.
But, you know, sometimes God puts you through what seems like hard times or hard circumstances
because God knows that He's given you the strength to endure those circumstances.
And that if you sacrifice a lot for the Lord and you push through with patience and serve
Him, He's going to reward you with lots, whether it be here or whether it be in heaven.
And we need to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith and not just blame our circumstances and just be bitter about our circumstances in this world.
Because God is a righteous judge and God is able to judge the entire world and think about everybody in the entire world at the same time.
And you as a human being are not able to do that and able to think about Lord about this person, what about that person?
It's just that you're going to ruin your life thinking about what other people should be doing if you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing.
You know you think about when they said when they said to Jesus well, what will this man do to John?
You know Peter said and he said well
What is it that they invite if he said if I say he dare until I come you know
What if I just tell him to sit here until I come and then they went around and told everybody that John was not gonna
Die until Jesus come back, which is not what he said, but that's how they took it
They just took it literally what he said, but you know, what is it to you if some other Christian doesn't do anything?
What is it if he just sits until Jesus comes back?
What is that to you?
He told Peter, go and feed my lambs.
That's what we're to do.
We're to go and work for the Lord.
That starts in your mind where you need to take accountability for yourself,
and you need to have a self-help plan for your own life,
where you're going to act on the good things that the Lord has shown you from the Bible.
Turn to Galatians chapter six
For a man think of Galatians chapter six verse three for a man think himself to be something when he is nothing
He deceived it himself but let every man prove his work and then shall he have rejoicing in himself and not in another
For every man shall bear his own burden
So that there says that if you think yourself to be something that you're nothing
You know if I just thought that I'm like I can speak Korean and I'm really good
I don't know I don't know look at Korean, but if I just thought that in my own mind
I'm never gonna learn it right because I'm just gonna think oh, I'm so good
And you know I could fake it a little bit here, you know
And so I've studied like Japanese and Chinese, but I'm real rusty because I haven't I haven't studied Japanese since college in like
2008 or so
You know, almost 17 years ago, so I remember some of it, but not hardly any of it all.
But if I just told myself, yeah, I'm great at Japanese because I, you know, I was a lot better back then.
But if you just tell yourself you're good at it and you'll never study, you lose it.
And it's the same with the Word of God. If you just read your Bible through one time and think, oh, I know the Word of God.
I know what the Bible says. And I'm just, I'm just on the coast on what I already know.
God will take away from you what you already have if you don't use it.
And you're not obedient to the things that He tells you to do.
And so if a man think of himself to be something he's nothing and eventually you'll become nothing because you won't do anything
You won't act upon those upon the good things that you know
And that's why he says, let every man prove his own work and rejoicing himself alone.
Don't just brag to your buddies about how much you know.
You know, I go, I'm so good at Bible trivia or whatever.
Don't bring out Bible trivia when someone shows here, because we don't want to be embarrassed.
You know, I've never played Bible trivia, but I've heard people play it.
Don't expect others to recognize your hard work either because your average person will have no knowledge of the sacrifices
You've made in your own life and sometimes when somebody's like a really good piano player
They just say wow, you're just a really gifted piano player
They don't see all the hard work that it takes to learn an instrument because they don't know they've never learned an instrument
They're ignorant to the process and so the effort put forth and the faith exercise then the Christian life
Your average unsaved or your average worldly person
doesn't doesn't know what it takes to achieve those kind of things and
So turn to Psalm chapter 19
Your average person is just gonna look and when you succeed and say oh well, you're so lucky or you know you
God God's just there at every turn for you. Isn't he like he just does everything for you
And so God does deliver you out of your circumstances but sometimes you're going to have to walk
through that valley and have trust in Jesus Christ and people aren't going to see that.
And you know, I don't believe in coming up here and making the devil's announcements
either and talking about how bad things are in my life and talking about, you know, if
they were like my life's great, but I'm just saying if they, I'm not going to come up here
and try to discourage other people from serving the Lord.
And so sometimes there are things going on behind the scenes and you need to you need to keep going and looking
On to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith
Psalm 19
Verse 10 it says more to be desired or they than gold yay than much fine gold
Sweeter also than honey in the honeycomb moreover by them as I serve and warned and the keeping of them
There is great reward who can understand his heirs
Cleanse thou me from secret faults
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins and let not them have dominion over me
Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. Oh Lord my strength my root and my redeemer
So that right there, it says, even just keeping God's Word in your heart and praying that God will keep you from secret sins.
Things in your mind that take away from the knowledge of Christ.
Memorizing every Pokemon in the Pokedex is taking away from the knowledge of Christ.
You know remembering all the quotes from your favorite movies and all your favorite entertainment and all that stuff
it all exalts itself against the knowledge of Jesus Christ and
It's good to have some forms of entertainment, but today we have no concept of moderation
It seems and the amount of entertainment that is out there because when I was a kid video games were so bad
You could only play them for like an hour, and then you wanted to go outside
But now, it's like everything has an experience bar.
Everything is like, you have to get to a certain level.
And it's like the progression of the video game
is so much more advanced now,
where it can consume all of your thoughts
just to figure out how to be the best at a video game.
And that stuff's not helping you in your life.
Now in moderation, yeah.
If you just want to blow off some steam and play a video game, go ahead.
But, we need to not let that consume our thoughts.
It says, let not them have dominion over me,
I shall be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
The great transgression starts with
little steps towards the great transgression in the wrong direction.
The fall into sin comes long before the fall out of sin.
You know, you're gonna have wrong thoughts
and those thoughts are gonna conceive
and bring forth sin and sin when it is finished
bring forth death.
If David would have went to war and not,
look, he would not have been walking around his house
at night and looking out his window and saw Bathsheba.
And that was the one thing that the Bible said
that David did that was really wrong.
That his heart was not perfect with the Lord.
because he was a man after God's own heart, but he sinned in that thing with Uriah and killing Uriah
because he wanted to cover up his sin. And how stupid is it to try to cover up sin? Because if we
cover it up, eventually our sins are going to be found out, aren't they? And you know, if you think
that you sin and you just get away with it, eventually God levels the playing field and he
And so we need to pray and beg God and ask for mercy and turn from our evil ways Christians
Says in Philippians chapter 4 if you'll turn there
Since we're talking about thoughts, this is probably the quintessential thought verse of that everybody knows is a Christian
And I knew a Christian businessman. His name was Tom Rafer. He sold RVs
And he said, even if you're not a Christian, he said, this is our company policy, this is our company motto.
He said, you know, he said, if you're not a Christian, I'm not forcing you to believe the Bible is your employer,
but I am asking you to act upon this principle as our company motto.
This was his company motto, was Philippians 4-8-9,
finally my brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are good report,
if there be any virtue and there be any praise,
think on these things,
those things which you both learned and received in her and seeing me,
and the God of peace shall be with you.
So we need to we need to think upon things that are good and true and honest and
The Bible says pure and lovely and good report if there be any virtue or praise think on these things and
That goes for your brother in Christ that goes for your parents that goes for your
Relationships at work try to think on the good things that people have done in your life
Even if your boss is a wicked person, have respect for his position and don't have evil
thoughts continually about people in your life because they'll manifest themselves in
your life.
And you'll have strife because of those evil thoughts.
But it says here, it says, if you've learned both what then received and heard and seen
in me, that the God of peace shall be with you, God will be with you when you think on
You know, a physically weak man can make his flesh strong by practicing, by exercising,
by physically, by patiently training his own body, he can make himself strong, and a mentally
weak man can make himself strong thinking of those things in Philippians chapter 4-8.
Thinking on those things will help you build mental strength and make you a better person.
And the Bible says, be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put you put you on the new man which God has created in righteousness and true holiness.
The way that you're going to have righteousness and holiness in your life is by thinking on those good things in the Bible and by acting upon those good things and doing good things and being a servant for other people.
You will either lead people in your life by your service or you will lead people by spectacle.
and people that lead by spectacle,
eventually the circus ends and people are done with you.
But if you lead by service,
if you lead by right actions and you're a noble person,
people in your life are going to follow you and people are going to
respect you and you're going to respect yourself.
So it all starts just with those thoughts in your mind and
whether you let it run wild or whether you cultivate it,
and you do what's right according to what the Bible says.
You know, sometimes we look at the world with
the perspective of how we are in our own mind,
because people that are wicked and defiled,
nothing is pure to them.
I hate to even bring it up,
but there's anybody who denies
So, he has this somewhat conservative, you know, topics most of the time.
But I saw where a British journalist was interviewing him and he had said that he did not think
that if somebody had looked, and this was dealing with, you know, lewd images of people
And he said, I did not think that just looking on it and thinking about it as a sin is what he said.
He said, sin is what you do. It's not something you think.
And that's a totally wrong philosophy in our world today because sin starts as a thought.
This was the nastiest self-report I've ever seen anybody do because he said that animated child
Do you know what was not a sin?
because that stopped the
Pito from going and seeking after an actual victim
And I'll tell you that that is wrong. That'll always be wrong
That is the nastiest filthiest self-report. I've ever heard a normal person does not desire that
Those people should be put to death if that's what they desire.
That's the only cure for pedophilia is to kill those people,
by the government putting them to death.
A normal person does not think those thoughts,
and reprobates that have the mind of a beast,
they're always projecting their worldview on
everyone else and thinks that everyone is like them.
And that's why you'll see people that they think that everybody struggles with, that's why they'll accuse you of being them when you call them out because they think you struggle with that same lust and you don't because you're a normal person.
Well, sometimes like in that instance like obviously that's not going to make you one of them
But it will wound your spirit thinking about the evil things that they do
You know some people in the FBI and stuff they commit suicide because they have to deal with these horrible child predators
And they just deal with them constantly and they're thinking about it and it pollutes their mind and they give up on their life
Because they think life is so horrible and that's why it's good not to dwell on people like that
And it's good to be simple concerning evil
But we need to be simple, we need to be simple concerning evil, but not only that we need to be well versed in good works
And we need to put forth good works and let our thoughts be established by the Lord
So that we're not overtaken by the filth that's in this world
And so I want to end there and pray dear Lord
Thank you for this day that you've given us Lord and I pray that you regard everyone's mind here Lord and help us to walk in the new man
and help us to live in true righteousness and holiness
through obedience of your word, Lord,
and through bringing every thought
into the captivity of Christ.
We love you, and in Jesus' name.
All right, thank you, Brother Andrew,
for this good practical sermon,
and we all need to have a good thought life as Christians.
So let's turn your hymnals to...
Psalm number 261, Psalm 261, turn your eyes upon Jesus.
On the first.
Oh, so are you weary and troubled.
No lie in the darkness you see.
There's a life for a look on the Savior and life more abundant and free.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look for in His wonders.
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
Through deathing to life ever lasting
He passes
dominion and more than conquer we are. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful
Stray
upon Jesus look full in his wonderful faith and the savings of earth will grow
strangely thin in the light of his glory and grace all right great sing for
Amen. Thank you for coming. You are dismissed.